trying to get into mapping, HAALP

Hello all! New to the forums and new to mapping. I've been reading/watching some tutorials and did create my first room in NetRadiant. Two things came up: 
first is I had trouble finding how to put textures on the wall, for some reason I couldn't use the ones at my Xonotic game's directory path so had to use the ones netradiant comes with which are quite limited (can't find the ones from Xonotic maps there)
second is I can't play my room :/ I did add two deathmatch player spawners and a weapon in the middle but the map was originally in .map form that Xonotic wouldn't play. I tried simply renaming it in .pk3 and .bsp and it still couldnt load.
Any ideas about those probs?

The .map file is the project file you open with Netradiant, its only purpose is that. To get a playable map out of it you need to:

- Build a .bsp from the "build menu". Select the option that says "Single: -bsp"
- Then a lightmap, which processes lights and shadows to your map. If you're at a testing phase use "Single: -light medium" and when you're ready to release final version then use "Final: (Xonotic default)".

We have a few pages in our wiki that explain mapping:
https://gitlab.com/xonotic/xonotic/wikis/Creating-Maps

Aah, I didn't do the build last time.. thank you Smilecythe   Here we are! First room functional!

Freddy I am reading that guide, going to make some doorways now, thank you 
So far so good, as for the textures..do they have to be in a pk3 file type to be read?

If you use Xonotic textures you should not include them as every client has them already. If you use custom textures you need to include them via a "textures" folder inside the pk3.

Weird, I woke up to come back to my room, (now with doors and lightning )  and found it untextured and netradiant no longer being able to find the textures. I've changed the path in prefferences and then changed it back to what it was originally


Hmm Mirio I am not sure what you mean.. I've put the path netradiant looks at at the netradiant parent folder.. inside there is a folder called data which has two .pk3 files, one called xonotic-20170401-maps-mapping.pk3 which was there originally and one called textures.pk3 which I downloaded of the internet. Netradiant should read them right?

You need to put the mapping.pk3 in the xonotic user dir folder: Step 4+5 https://gitlab.com/xonotic/xonotic/wikis/mapping-Setup
Also the path needs to point to the Xonotic game folder.

What the hell is textures.pk3?

If you package your map you do not include textures you used from the mapping.pk3, because they are already in the game.
If you use textures outside that pk3 (e.g. from Quake or selfmade) you need to ship them with your map in a folder called "textures".
You can check this as an example: https://xonotic.devfull.de/packages/cts/Mirio-kebap.pk3

I bet he is using netradiant-1.5.0-20120301 from the xonotic-0.8.2-mappingsupport.zip file.


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Hello again.. Julius, I am indeed using exactly that, does it make any difference?

Mirio, I followed that guide's steps, copied the mapping.pk3 file in the user data directory and changed the path to the xonotic install folder but still nothing shows up when I start netradiant and search for textures :/

UPDATE! : now it finds the texture folders but not the textures themselves, including a screenshot: 
   

Ok I've tried it myself. You need to the put the mapping.pk3 inside the game files folder: ~\Xonotic\data

Yaay   Loaded now, thank you Mirio

Okay time to get started on the first map! I am thinking it's going to be hard to make something original from scratch for the first one so I was thinking of remaking a map from another game.. but afterwards I started to think about the copyrights on this.. so my question is: Are map layouts copyrighted? Can I make a remake of one from a proprietary game and post it in a free software game or is this illegal?

try to make something easy first to get more used to it. You will get fast results and its a motivating.

Yes. You can remake maps from propriertary games. The question is which map do you want to remake? Hopefully not deck16.

Do not hesitate to ask here: QuakeNet: #xonotic


It is more dynamic -and faster- than a board like this one


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gotcha Julius, no Cortez not deck16, that was a nexuiz map right?

gotcha Julius, no Cortez not deck16, that was a nexuiz map right?

Unreal Tournament actually and it's been ported over a couple times already, we might not appreciate another one

Meeh. I've been working on the first part of my first map and wanted to give it a try so far to see if its functional. I isolated all the loose ends and went to convert it to a bsp and keep getting this message:      Any ideas? Also I think it gets an error even when I try and make the light map

Update!: Problems with netradiant solved for now, they were probably related to the way it cooperates with Windows, in the Linux partition it runs good.


       So... I tried making my very first map, but it didn't turn out very good. My self criticism is that I designed it having a general fps shooter and not specificaly Xonotic in mind so it wouldn't be fun with it's narrow spaces, prohibiting laserjumping and the general jump-heavy gameplay of Xonotic.. I am thinking of keeping this map as it is and either completely rework it or port it in a less jumpy game.


       On to the second one now, I will try to make this playable and release it at some point. I am to the point that I am learning about patch meshes, square cylinders and things like that for terrain building and I do have a question for you guys: The map is a combination of outdoors and indoors areas. Putting the map limits for indoor areas has been easy so far - just put walls with locked doors at the end. BUT I need your opinions on what to do for limiting the outdoor areas. As a player myself I did not like invisible walls so I am trying to avoid that. The only other think I've thinked is either making really tall cliffs encircling the map or making the map kill you if you wander off the main area, giving a message like ''stay in the battlefield or suffer the consequences!'' How do you find this? They do it in Call of Duty I think. What other ideas are there?

I suggest that you regulary test the size of your map. You can run the "Test ..." compile options as they're very fast.
Also I guess some cliffs, void or a lava sea are the only options for the outdoor area. Or some big gate/wall that is locked down.

My self criticism is that I designed it having a general fps shooter and not specificaly Xonotic in mind so it wouldn't be fun with it's narrow spaces, prohibiting laserjumping and the general jump-heavy gameplay of Xonotic.. I am thinking of keeping this map as it is and either completely rework it or port it in a less jumpy game.

Well, it depends. You can use maps from other games as a base. Some are easier to rebuild and others are harder. For example maps from Arena shooter like Quake, UT, reflex etc. can be rebuild without any major adjustments. Maps from games like CounterStrike can be rebuild, but you need to make more adjustments. (Take a look at the dusty map).
My suggestion play many maps. There are parts or aspects you will like. When you have like 3 parts or aspects build a map with using these parts. Nothing big, just a small ffa map for like 4-6 players.
http://dl.xonotic.co/dm_lastmanstanding.pk3
Take this map for example. It was my first map. There are two major aspects. Its figure of eight racetrack look and the king of the hill (with Nex placements).

Starting basic and small is a good exercise to learn and get a feeling.

As a player myself I did not like invisible walls so I am trying to avoid that. The only other think I've thinked is either making really tall cliffs encircling the map or making the map kill you if you wander off the main area, giving a message like ''stay in the battlefield or suffer the consequences!'' How do you find this? They do it in Call of Duty I think. What other ideas are there?

The options Mirio mentioned. If you want to do it like Battlefield and Call of Duty, you can use a tigger_damage (and increase the damage with distance) so you will die sooner or later.

Firstly, for terrain purposes, the trisoup method works very well, but it is not an easy task and vertical walls are a nightmare.

Secondly, using patch meshes for terrain is not a bad idea (I'm doing this just now) but it is easy to end up having millions of tris (triangles) if you are not careful.


Thirly, you can create the terrain with a mix of brushes (ground trisoup) and patches (horiz rocky walls), but as I have said this is not easy when you are starting to make maps and writting your own shaders.

And last, you can try some big triggers in the limits of your map that instantly kills the player or that teleports him to some place of the indoor part of your map.


P.D: I'm a disaster when trying to translate to english what is inside my brain, so I'm sorry if I look a bit rude and/or  short in words.



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Oh, dm_lastmanstanding, one of my favorite maps