Difference between revisions of "Category:Packaging"

Packaging your finished map is the final step in the map making process, it's important to get this stage right.

Check list

Before you begin to package your map check the following.

• You've added Surface sounds to your map,if not see Surface sounds
• You've prepared a levelshot and it's been resized to a value which is a power of 2, 32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048, etc. For more information see Creating a levelshot
• You've created a bot navigation file (.aas). For more information about adding bots see Adding bots to your map
• All images are resized correctly

The folders

Personally I always start with clean folder somewhere on my system. In this folder I create the following sub-folders.

env
      
levelshots
maps
models
      mapobjects
               mymapmodels
               anyothermodels
scripts
sound
      mysoundsfolder
textures
      mytexturesfolder
video

env

Generally sky textures go in this folder, if not used you may omit this folder.

levelshots

The image that is displayed while your map is loading. This should have been resized to be 1024x1024 and be in .tga or .jpg format.

For more information about creating a levelshot see Creating a levelshot

maps

The maps folder should contain the following objects

yourmap.bsp
yourmap.aas
yourmap.rad
yourmap.tga

Of these the .bsp and .arena files are the most important. The arena file describes your map to the menu system, declares which game modes your map supports and contains a short description of your map which is displayed in the ui.

bsp

Your compiled map file.

aas

The bot navigation file, for more information about making bot files see Adding bots to your map

rad

The rad file is generated when you've compiled your map with the -radbump switch

tga

The mini-map. You can include the standard generated mini-map or with a little effort create a small work of art. For more information about creating stylish levelshots see [[

models

The most common mistake when first packing your map is to forget to include the textures/shaders for the models you've added. If you've not used models in your map you can ignore this section.

Models, like those you may have downloaded from blackrayne generally go in the mapobjects sub-folder, you should confirm this by looking at your own mapping configuration. You should include all textures and any licence information, the model maker will sometimes ask you credit his work by including his README file.

Do not distribute the actual models : md3, qc, ase models can be removed before packing your map.

scripts

An example arena file might take the form.

{
  map "ut4_yourmapname"
  longname "The bestest map that ever lived"
  type "ut_ffa ut_team ut_survivor ut_follow ut_cah ut_ctf ut_bomb"
}

You should remove any game modes which your map doesn't support. Game types are

ut_ffa
ut_team
ut_survivor
ut_follow
ut_cah
ut_ctf
ut_bomb
ut_jump - please note : This is gametype 9 (jump mode) and not currently supported.

sound

Sound effects and music for your map should be placed in your maps folder inside the sound folder.

textures

Your map texture folder should be copied to the textures folder. Check and then recheck your image files.

• Remove any original artwork (photoshop and gimp files)
• Check the images sizes, power of 2 only sizes should be used, this includes levelshots
• Convert any non-transparent .tga (targa) files to .jpg - this can save an enormous amount of space

video

If your map includes video - place in this folder. Video files for q3 games use the .roq format. Videos can be used in shader stages in a similar way to images.