EasyGen

(SuperC) #1

ok, it would be nice if somebody made a complete and easly understandable EASYgen tut, cause all the ones i’ve read are for advanced,and i dont understand the least bit, it would be nice to have an easy and understandable tut. cause now i’M like :angry: :banghead: :???: :disgust: :bash: :banghead: :angry: :frowning:

(Ragnar_40k) #2

Try the wolfensteinx tutorial pages or the Tramdesign Resources page. There are also tutorials for EasyGen.

(Gecko) #3

In this link ther are 2 videos where shows how to use easygen, they are in german, but it can be a great help just looking at them.

http://www.level-designer.de/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=listarticles&secid=11

Are you going to do that BoB map? :clap:

(rgoer) #4

This is a tutorial for EasyGen I wrote back when I was mapping for JK2, but the basic principles still apply. Feel free to some time to familiarize yourself with the EasyGen 3D view controls before going any further with this tutorial; they are pretty much like Radiant, but a few subtle differences will present themselves–if you play around with it for two minutes, you’ll figure it out.

Some EasyGen setup guidelines:[ul]• When it asks you for the “Work mod” path, enter the path to your “etmain” directory (for default install of ET: “c:\program files\wolfenstein - enemy territory\etmain”)
• Ignore the “Bitmaps” “Export folders” path
• Put the path to “etmain” in again for the “Bitmaps” “Import folder” (for default install of ET: “c:\program files\wolfenstein - enemy territory\etmain”)
• Set the “Player size” to “38 38 72”
• Make sure the “Texture load filter” is set to “jpg;tga”[/ul]1. Create your heightmap in the bitmap-creation software of your choosing. I’m partial to Photoshop, but if that particular app is beyond your means, I’m sure any number of cheaper alternatives will give you decent results (maybe). Here are the particulars:[ul]• The heightmap needs to be 33x33 pixels (yes, that small–each pixel of this heightmap corresponds to a terrain vertex in EasyGen)
• The heightmap must be an 8-bit, greyscale .bmp Bitmap file.
• 50% grey is “sea level,” zero elevation. Darker pixels are lower elevation, and brighter pixels are higher. Who would have guessed?
• Save your heightmap somewhere memorable, like the etmain directory[/ul]So anyway, here’s how my heightmap turned out for this little test map I started this thread for:[ul][/ul]Just a little unimpressive, yeah? Well, brace yourself: the sparks, now waking from their long winter naps, are preparing to fly.

  1. Fire up EasyGen and pick, from the “File” menu, “Import -> Heightmap (.bmp)”

In the next little window that pops up, hit the “Browse…” button and navigate to wherever you saved the .bmp heightmap you created in step one. After you’ve chosen your heightmap, notice the “Terrain height” field: it defaults to “256,” which is pretty low. Set this to “1024” and hit “Ok.” You should see something like this:

  1. Now it’s time to add textures; from the “Textures” menu in EasyGen, choose the “Add folder…” option (it’s the first one):

Now browse to the textures directory of your choosing; for this example map, I used the “Yavin” texture set editor note: you’ll be using ET textures, not ones from JK2. Loading the textures in EasyGen takes even longer than in Radiant, so be prepared to wait. You’ll know it’s ready when you can hit the “Alphamap” tab and things look like this:

  1. Click the first black square in that color palette area and choose a non-black color. Then scroll down the texture browser (on the left) and choose what texture you want that color to represent. Now, choose “Texture” from the “View” menu and things will start looking like this:

  1. Click the next black square in the palette, pick a new color and a new texture. Now we’re ready to start painting. Make sure your newest color/texture is selected in the palette, then you can use ctrl+shift+leftMouse to paint that texture onto your terrain:

  1. Click the next black square in the palette, pick a new color and a new texture. Paint as many different textures onto your terrain as you like, but be warned: quake will alpha-blend at most two textures on any given triangle. If you try and blend more than two textures on one triangle, it will show up as black in EasyGen, so it’s easy to see the areas you need to go back and fix:

When you get this, you’ll need to re-paint your textures until you’ve only got two blends happening on any given triangle.

  1. Once you’ve got your textures set up how you want them, it would be a good time to Save your project in EasyGen. Just in case the power goes out, you can load up your .egn file and not have lost all this work.

  2. Now is the time to export the whole shebang:

Then, in the next window, set your options like this (everywhere I wrote “tutorial,” put whatever your project is called):

Save the .pcx file into the “etmain” directory, and save the metashader into the “etmain/scripts/” directory. Set the remaining options up like I’ve got them (I assume you’re using q3map2 to compile), and you’re good to go. Hit “Continue” and away we go–just save it as whatever.map in the “etmain/maps/” folder, and we’re done with this part. Important: from the EasyGen website, you can now download an EasyGen shader template for ET. DOWNLOAD THIS, install it and choose “wolfet” from the shader template pulldown during “Terrain Entity” export.

  1. Open up the .map file you created in step eight in Radiant. Select the terrain entity (it’s just a func_group, so do whatever you need to do to select all the brushes–in GtkRadiant it’s ctrl+alt+click) and open the entity inspector by hitting the “n” key. Make sure you’ve got your terrain entity set up like this: just make sure the name of the .pcx file in the entity inspector matches the name of the .pcx file you created with EasyGen, and make sure that the “shader” line matches the name of your shader file (it should be yourmap/terrain).

  2. With the terrain entity selected, choose “Save selection as Prefab…” from the Edit menu. You are only doing this because EasyGen puts some garbage into the worldspawn entities of .map files it creates… you need to get the terrain entity into a new .map file with an all new worldspawn; you can just copy and paste it if you want, but this way works just fine as well.

In any case, good luck, and I hope this is helpful.

(Danyboy) #5

Nice tutorial you made there :wink:

([FuBaR]Martanian) #6

Yeh thats a good tutorial but again u start by saying that u need to make a height map n to sum people that puts them off straight away…i found this tutorial that allows u how to use radient without the need of any other program. Its quite easy once u get used to it aswell…cos im only a noob at map making yet but have nearly finished my first ever map i did things the wrong way around and made all my buildings first whereas i think most people prefer to do the terrain first. Anyways here it is…
http://www.planetquake.com/6thfloor/tutorials/ezgen/MBtutorial2.html

Oh yeh just sum pointers to anyone using ONLY easygen to create thier terrain like i did:
1)You must move the original straight plain to the lowest point to which u want your map to go(eg.bottom of a lake like in mine) then rasie all ur heights up from there.
2)Most important as i found was to put all your Hill-Modifier’s in 1st because radient raises alot of land around it aswell as that little hill.
3)After your hills are put in then use the Level-Modifiers…to do this u will have to LOWER the land first to its deepest FLAT level, then without moveing your modifier raise the land back up again to the level at which u want.(This last one may sound strange and difficult to understand but is crucial and u will realise this when you are making the map-It basically avoids nasty spike in the ground where u dont want them)

(The5thHorsemen) #7

not to complecate things, but I have used it a few time’s and found
you can delet the meta shader path’s from the worldsapwn entity key using the entities diolague box.

or open the .map file in a word editor and search for %METASHADER an delte the entry.
it should be the first thing you see and really should not have to search for it.

without deleting that from the worldsapwn you will get only one vertex lite terrian texture.

the insert into exsiting map command works great you can also add model’s and player starts through the shortcut key’s in easy-gen as well.

and you can clip the terrian pretty much as much as you want,
just stay within the brush divison’s and you should be fine.

AFAIK.