The UN - Offical Guide to Apogee's
BUILD Editor
Release 2
May 29, 1996
Matt Bollier
DESCRIPTION:
This is an idiot's guide to making levels w/ BUILD. No, I'm not calling you
an idiot, it's just that the documentation that came on the DUKE CD was a
little, well, misleading. This document does not teach you all the
fundamentals of making a level (adding new rooms, changing textures, etc.)
I am assuming that you already know this stuff. What it does do is tell you
how to make the cool effects that may have been absent from your levels
so far. For example, earthquakes, smashing glass, even exits and doors.
Hopefully, this will help those of you out there make cooler levels.
DISCLAIMER:
This file was not written by Apogee or 3dRealms or in association with them.
Hence the "UN-OFFICAL GUIDE". Apogee will not provide support for levels you
create! They also cannot provide any support for this document, only contact
me with questions about this file. I will not be held responsible for any
damages caused in whole or in part by this file, be it hard drive failure,
memory loss, loss of appetite, your dog dying, or your house burning down.
MAKING STUFF:
The following information tells you how to make all the cool effects
that you're trying to figure out. They are somewhat grouped by categories
but if you want to find stuff quicker, just do a search w/ your text editor.
Either use a keyword or in some cases, SE # (where # is the number of
the sector effector you're looking for).
DOORS AND LIFTS:
Here's where you'll find how to make SOME doors and lifts (some are just
too damn complicated to figure out right now):
1) CEILING RAISE DOOR:
This is a tough one, all ya need is a sector effector (only if you
want the door to auto-close) and a musicandsfx sprite. First make
a sector that you want to be a door. You should lower the ceiling of
the sector all the way to the floor, unless you're making some strange
door. Next place a sector effector and a musicandsfx sprite on the floor
inside the sector that is the door. Give the musicandsfx sprite a high
and low tag of whatever sounds you want played, and give the sector
effector a lo tag of 10 and a hi tag of the time delay you want on
the door before it auto-closes (I usually use 256). Next, give the
sector itself a lo-tag of 20 and you're all done! By pressing O on the
walls that are on the inside of the door you can toggle between them
moving when the door raises or not.
2) SWING DOOR SE 11:
This one's a little complicated, but if ya can understand it, you'll be
able to make 'em by the millions. You need to make a sector that only
touches one neighboring wall w/ one vertex. This vertex will be the pivot
point of the sector. It should look something like this
I I
I I
I I--------------------*I <-- pivot point (*) and sector effector
I I MSFX DOOR / I
I I------------------/ I
I I
Note that only the pivot point (where you will also place the sector effector)
is the only place to touch the walls around the door. Next, place a
musicandsfx sprite in the sector, giving it the hi and lo tags of your
choice for sounds. Place a sector effector as close as possible to the
pivot point as you can while still keeping it within the door sector.
Next, give it a lo-tag of 11, and a hi-tag of your choice. The angle
of the sector effector determines which way the door will rotate around it.
If it is angled up it will rotate clockwise, and if it is angled down rotate
counter-clockwise. Give the door sector a lo-tag of 23, and a hi-tag that
matches with the sector effector's hi-tag. You can link doors together
with the hi-tags, so that if you open one door, another will open right
next to it (creating a French door-like effect). This is important, you
must leave enough room in the sector that the door is surrounded by
for the door to swing open! Make sure you have enough clearance that
when the door swings open, it does not go into any other sectors, otherwise
you will notice that the door "dissappears" when it goes into another
sector.
EXPLOSIONS:
Here's the stuff that blows up real nice:
1) THE EARTHQUAKE SE 2
This is a very very simple effect that for some reason (either people don't
understand it or just don't want to use it) has been pretty much absent from
most levels (except Ground Zero and Fistful of Steel <g>). All it involves
is a touchplate, a sector effector, and a masterswitch. First, make
sure you place all three of these sprites within the sector you wish to have
the earthquake in (some can be in a diff. sector, but hey, you're learning
here, keep 'em in the same sector).
Give the sector effector a lo-tag of 2 and set the angle (using the < > keys
to the direction that you want the floor to move during the quake)
NOTE: this can seriously alter the structure of your map, make sure to leave
enough space for the sector to move into and make sure you don't have anything
that has to be carefully aligned or have any sprites that might be hit by a
moving sector
Next give the touchplate a lo-tag of any number (as long as you haven't used
it yet) and give it a hi-tag of the number of times that you want the
effect to happen (right now use 1, but you can use any number. 0 makes it
happen everytime you walk in the sector).
Give the masterswitch a lo-tag the same as the touchplate's lo-tag. Then
give it a hi-tag of the amount of delay you want before the effect occurs.
(Give it a delay of 0 for earthquakes, you don't really need it to be
delayed)
2) FIRE EXTINGUISHER EXPLOSIONS (AND OTHERS LIKE IT) SE 13
Here's another easy one. On the map, make the structures that you want
to show up after the explosion has taken place. Next, place a Sector
Effector in the sector that is going to be blown up and give it a lo tag
of 13 and a hi tag of your choice. Next, place the extinguisher or
other object that is going to blow up in the desired location. Give it
a hi tag that matches with the sector effectors hi tag. That's it! To
make it more complicated you can do a few different things:
A) Floor or ceiling explosions only:
You can have the floor drop out or ceiling explode instead of
walls blowing up. All you have to do is set the sector effector
to where you want the ceiling or floor to raise or lower to
before the explosion. You should probably set it to the same
height as the neighboring sectors. Then, set the sector effectors
angle down, which causes the nearest piece (either floor or
ceiling) to come to it. If the angle is up, both the floor and
ceiling meet there. Now, it's ready to blow up.
B) Timed explosions:
You can have explosions occur after the initial explosion as
well. Put seenine sprites where you want explosions to occur,
giving them a hi tag the same as the sector effector and a lo
tag of the time delay you want. A time delay of about 60
occurs about a second after the initial explosion. You also
have to "shrink" the seenine sprite along the x-axis so that it
does not show up as a can (the explosion will be normal size).
Use the 4 and 6 keys on the keypad to change the x-axis size.
You can link timed explosions to earthquakes by putting another
touchplate in the earthquake sector that has the same hi tag
as the sector effector in the sector that is going to explode.
Everything above applies the same.
MISCELLANEOUS:
1) WATER SE 7
This is the easiest of all effects. All you need to do is make two sectors
exactly the same size (start w/ a square room for now). Give the
sector that you want to be above water a lo-tag of 1, and the underwater
sector a lo-tag of 2. Next put a sector effector in each sector, in the
same spot relative to walls, and give each a lo-tag of 7 (make sure both
are on the ground). Then give them any hi-tag you want (they both have
to be the same) and make sure you haven't used that hi-tag yet.
2) SMASHING GLASS
This is quite a simple effect, once you understand it. Make a spot where
you want to have the glass (NOTE: you can only use glass in certain areas)
preferably a windowsill. In 3d mode, press M on the bottom or top of
windowsill (the lower or upper wall, not the inside wall or floor or ceiling)
Then you should see a "ugly brown texture" in front of you. Press V and
change it to glass. Next press B while the cursor is over the glass, then
press H. When you return to 2D mode you should see a pink line that is very
thick (almost like 2 lines in one). Now, you have some glass that you
can smash.
3) MAKING RED AND BLUE SECTORS
By simply changing the palette of the walls and floors and ceilings of
sectors, you can make those cool red and blue rooms like in the real game.
Simply press alt-p while highlighting the desired object's palette you
wish to change while in 3d mode. Then put in a number (1 or 2 for the
colored rooms). You can also do this on objects (but they are auto palette
converted if they are in a colored room). By setting weapons to a palette
of 1, they are placed in multiplayer mode only. You can also change the
colors of the enemies using numbers around 12 and in the teens. Instead
of a blue trooper, you can have a green or red one, but the skin color
doesn't change. When you use certain palette swaps, you'll notice that
the whole object changes color. You'll probably want to avoid this unless
you're trying to make some groovy 70's kind of pyschadelic level (did I spell
that right?)
4) CAMERAS
This is almost a necessity for DukeMatch levels, and it's one of the
easier effects. All you need is a Viewscreen and Cameras to play the
video. First, create a spot for the viewscreen. Next, put a viewscreen
sprite on the wall by first hitting S to create it, get it to the appropriate
height, and press R if you need to so that it is flat. Now, give it
a hi-tag of anything you want that will refer it to the cameras it will
view. Put the cameras wherever you want them along the map, setting the
angle of the sprite to the angle of the view, and use the shading keys
to set the angle of it looking up and down (haven't figured out yet if
darker means lower or higher). Give the cameras a hi-tag of the rotation
you want them to have (stick with increments of 128) and give it a lo-tag
that is the same as the viewscreen's hi-tag. Don't forget to press control -
page up to put the camera on the ceiling, otherwise it will look bad.
5) TELEPORTERS SE 7 :
This works almost the same as water, but not quite. Put a sector effector
in each sector that is involved in the teleporting (total of 2). Both
sectors should be the same size (I think) and the SE should be in the
same spot relative to the walls. Give each SE a lo tag of 7, and give them
matching hi tags of any number. Put both SE's on the floor, and set their
angles to the angle the player will face when he teleports into the sector.
That's all there is to it!
6) EXITS
Don't strain yourself on this one. You need a NUKEBUTTON sprite that
is flat (press R) on the wall. Give it a lo-tag of 32767 to end the level,
or a lo tag of 1 through 11 to end the level and go to a bonus level.
If you're going to a bonus level, give the sprite a palette of 14, otherwise
leave it at 0.
Here's a better way to play your .MAP's:
- You can play the maps you create by going through setup -OR- use the
better method, type :
duke3d map xxxx
where xxxx is your map name (.map is not required)
Questions, comments? Send me anything you have to report (or suggest) about
this file. Did I give the wrong sector effector number? This stuff is
important, tell me! You can e-mail me at 103220.3302@compuserve.com.
You may distribute this text file in any format provided it is not altered
in any way (this is a subtle hint to those of you making those big CD
collections to put this file and my .MAP's on your CD).