[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows)

by **vega** Wed Nov 20 2013, 10:00

This tutorial is for the most part the same for all operating systems, besides on how you get netradiant. I will look how to get it on linux later and add it here, sadly i dont have any apple pc near me and i have no idea how to get it there. Lets get started!

Step 1: Getting Netradiant
Getting Netradiant isn't hard at all on windows. Just go to your Nexuiz folder -> extra. There you should see a folder called "netradiant-1.5.0-svn389-win32". Open that and you found netradiant! (C:\Users\Vega\Documents\Nexuiz\extra -> this depends on where you put your nexuiz)

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Waarne11

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Waarne11

Step 2: Starting up and preferences
First thing that pops up when you start up Netradiant is something called "Global Preferences". The 2 checkboxes that you see are just something you can change for your own preference so i wont be getting to much on that since its different how people like it. The "select the game" option is ofcourse very important. Here you just select "Nexuiz" and press OK. (Its also possible that you have to select a path for where your nexuiz folder is located, i believe thats not to hard so i wont make a screenshot about it :p)

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Openne11

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Openne11

Now if you think that were all the preferences you can change, you are wrong! When Netradiant opened up, you have to press "P" on your keyboard to open up all of the preferences. When you did that it should look something like this:

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Netrad11

[School] Basic Mapping Tutorial (Windows) Netrad11

Now lets get into detail! :DThis is something very important so be sure to read through this all, there are screenshots for nearly every option (this took me ages -.-), just click it to make it bigger.

The first option you get is the "Global" option. Here you can just select the game you would like to create a game for, just as we did when starting up and the "global preferences" popped up.

The Second option is "Interface", this is again a personal preference. I like to use the left one but you should try a bit around with those to find out which one you like best. The 2 checkboxes you just check, in my opinion thats the best option to go with. The options for your mouse you just have to check what your mouse has. If you have a scroll wheel you have a 3 button mouse. If you have more than 3 just also check 3

With the "display" settings i didn't mess to much but you can try around with it if you would like to. Here is how they look for me:

Now we've finally come to the last preference/option there is: "Settings". These will change the most things that will effect your mapbuilding experience. The first one we have to get into is the "Undo" setting. Here i choose for 64, dont ask me why it might even be default.

The next option is "Brush", here you just have to see my settings on how i prefer it because about some settings i have no idea what they do xD But one that i do want to point out is the "always use caulk..." option. I check this because caulk is a bright, pink texture that will stand out and you will be able to see your build very good. In my netradiant thats broken sadly :p

About the "Grid" option i cant say much because as i said in the previous setting, i dont know to much about the settings myself :/ I have here the default i believe: 8.

The "Path" setting is just where your nexuiz folder is located. I wont show mine because i think it explains itself pretty good. If needed i will add one just reply here and i'll do so.

"Serface Inspector"... No idea what that is sorry but here's a screenshot

The "Camera" settings are again personal preferences. I think the options explain themself also, being how fast you can move with the camera etc. How to move with the camera i'll get into later.

"Orthographic"...? Yes! This thingy is very important, just take over my settings here unless you know for sure that something else is better for you. But this "Orthographic" option is a very handy tool we'll be using later on when creating our map. This ofcourse if you have chosen also my interface.

Now the next setting is about a tool that has to become your best friend when mapping, the "Clipper" tool. The setting is just f it should use caulk or not, which i do use because in my previous settings i checked the box to always use caulk when making new brushes.

The "Build" setting is pretty important. I will get in to detail more about "Build" itself later. But lets take a look at the settings. I pretty much check all boxes besides the "Run engine...". The reason for this is because it starts your nexuiz then when ever you compile. Well to be more specific, it starts up something that looks like nexuiz but its an older version and is bugged like hell. How to test your maps then? Well i'll tell you later in this tutorial! Also be sure to check the second box! This is very handy because leaks are a pain in the ass. And if you have to wait for the compiling to complete to fix your leak you sometimes can be sitting around for ages...

The next setting, "Texture Browser", is just how you can scroll trough your textures. It doesn't matter to much what you do here, its again a personal preference. I would suggest for beginners to use my settings but its not needed at all.

Now the last setting! The "Autosave" setting! This is something you need to enable, i dont care f you dont like it you have to! Some critical people might ask, but why? Well i'll tell you why! Netradiant sometimes crashes, i think people that used it allready know this. If you enable autosaving you dont loose all your work just because of a stupid crash. I autosave every 3 minuts, which is pretty frequent, but you can also set it around 5 or so. The snapshots aren't needed, but if you would like to make a stop motion film about your build sure check that.