Created by -[*ATL*]- ÐeAdMaN
Table Of Contents:
I: Introduction
II: Exploring The Editor
A: The Viewports
B: Browsers
C: Primitives
D: CSG Operations
III: Building Your First Room
IV: Static Meshing
V: Lighting
VI: First Room Finishing Touches
VII: Adding A New Room
VIII: Adding Doors
IX: Stack/Clear Points & Path Nodes
X: Checking & Fixing Map Errors
XI: Adding Suspects & Hostages
XII: Adding Start Points
XIII: Other Cool Additions
A: Dynamic Lighting
B: Setting Up Destructible Items
C: Interactive Bugs
XIV: Closing
Deadman’s Idiots Guide To Mapping: A SWAT 4 Tutorial is © Copyrighted by -[*ATL*] ÐeAdMaN, http://www.hot-swat-mods.com and http://www.dpi-swat3.cjb.net. It may not be redistributed, modified, retransmitted, or hosted on any website other than the two listed above without the written permission of -[*ATL*] ÐeAdMaN and http://www.hot-swat-mods.com. The above mentioned person and websites takes no responsibility to any damages you may incur to your computer, software or hardware in following this tutorial. You can contact DeadMan with any questions about this tutorial at deadman@abovethelaw.us Hot SWAT Mods can be contacted at the following email addresses webmaster@hot-swat-mods.com, kaz@hot-swat-mods.com, dragon@hot-swat-mods.com.
I: Introduction
Have you opened up the editor and say Holy shit, this looks confusing. I know I did when I opened it. But now I have to say mapping swat 4 is quite easy. So I decided to share with you guys How to map swat 4. THE IDIOTS GUIDE. No developers talk here. Just one gamer to another. Well I will try and explain how to start mapping swat 4 today. This tutorial will cover the basics and hopefully some not so basics. I will take you step by step on how to make a room, fill it up to look nice and add suspects, and so forth. This tutorial is property of the above two websites and shall not be modified, distributed or hosted on any site but the two mentioned at the top. Any questions or concerns about this tutorial please contact me at deadman@abovethelaw.us.
****This guide is for training purposes only. I am going over step by step what I did to create my map called DeAdMaNs Arcade. If you follow this tutorial that is fine. But keep in mind that if you do this map has already been made and you cannot distribute it out if you do follow along with me. I figured for a more accurate step by step guide I would create a map while making this tutorial. So please once you learn how make your own map. Do not edit mine if you did follow this step by step.*****
II: Exploring The Editor
Ok here comes the easy part first of all lets open up your editor. The editor is found in your Swat4/Contents/System folder. If you'll notice upon starting you have 4 view ports. A top viewport, Two Textured View Ports and a Dynamic Light Viewport. I do most of my work in the Top and Dynamic view ports. First of all let's explore everything that the Swat4Ed has to offer. First off for me to make things easier I set my grid to 1. It's a lot easier for me anyways to drag stuff exactly where I want them. A lot of people use 16. But for this one and everyone I do my grid is set to 1. To do this go down to the very Bottom and use the drop down box to change it to whatever you choose.
A: The Viewports
This is what your top view port looks like of course. Now when you open the map this view port is defaulted to Top view. From here you will be able to view your map from a lets say birds eye view. You can change that though by Clicking F or S. If you click F you will be viewing the map from the front. And if you click S you will be viewing the map from the Side. These three different views will help you set things exactly where you want them that way when you start adding meshes they won't be inches off the ground. You can also change this view from a wire mesh like view to a textured one by clicking the cubes next to your Top, Front, and Side options. There you will have * Different views. A perspective, Texture Usage, BSP Cuts, Textured, Lighting only, Dynamic Light, Zone/Portal, and Depth Complexity. These views I don't use very much except the Dynamic Lighting which is already set to the viewport below this one. For this Viewport I only use The Top, Front, and Side views. This viewport and the dynamic Lighting viewports are the ones we will be working with the most.
B: Browsers
Time to discuss some of the browsers in the editor that will allow you to create and place Non geometry objects. Starting with the Pawn like icon here are what they are. Class, Group, Music, Sound, Textures, Mesh, Prefabs, Static Meshes, and Animation. The ones we will be concentrating on the most will be the Class (actors) Sound, Textures, and Static meshes browsers. You can also get to your browsers by clicking View at the top.
We will go over a little on what each browser is and what you can find in that browser when mapping. First let's look at the first browser which will look like this
.
This is your Class Browser. This browser will allow you to set up Actors in your game. This is where you will go to create a door, a spawn point, Triggers, Path Nodes, etc.
Clicking on this will bring up a window that has an object tree in it. Here is where you'll be able to pick and place your Actors into the game. More on this later.Now Lets look at the texture Browser. It looks like this
. This time when you click on this it will bring up a new window that will show a few textures from the Arms_Tex folder. To view more textures just go to the top of the window and click File and Open. This will bring up a new window where you will be browsing through what should be a texture folder. Here you will find all of the files you need to start searching for textures.
Now let's look at the Static Mesh Browser. It looks like this
. This is where you will go to find and place objects in your map like Beds, Tables, TV's etc. Click on it and it will open a new window that show a Mesh from the Arms_Sm folder which is a bath sink. Highlight arms_bathsink (which it should already be since it's the only object) and you will be able to view what it looks like in the viewport on the right like below. Use your right and Left mouse button holding them down to zoom in and out and around. Hold down both mouse buttons to move up and down. If you want to view more of the meshes just like you did with the textures click on File open and open one of the files and view the textures that you can use for your map.
C: Primitives Primitives are what you will use as a base in your level. Rooms, Stairs etc. To start adding meshes and textures to your level you'll need to build a place to put them and there's where your primitives come in handy. These will be used quite often in your map because this is what you will use to make Rooms, Stairs, etc.
Here are your primitives.
Your list of primitives are Cube, Curved Stairs, Spiral, Linear, BSP based Terrain, Sheet, Cylinder, Cone, Volumetric, and Tetrahedron(sphere) The Ones we will use the most are Cube And the Linear Stairs. These primitives will allow you to create objects for you to add or subtract to your level. Now of course you can define the perimeters of the object you're going to create by right clicking lets say on the Cube. It should bring up a menu like below.
Here you will be able to set the height, Width, Breadth Thickness of the walls, Group name Hollow and tessellated perimeters of your object that you want to create. As it shows above we will be setting our Red Building brush to make a room that's 256X256X256. However clicking build will not let you have a room to play in. This only makes your red builder brush make a 3d square of that size. I'll explain more later when we start the map. If you were to click Build your red building brush looks like this.
Nothing but a 3d wire cube. Don't worry we will learn more later in the tutorial.
D: CSG Operations
These buttons will allow you to actually create the object one you set the perimeters like explained above. Once you have your red brush builder set the way you want it you will use these buttons to create it. These buttons are Add, Subtract, Intersect, Deintersect, Add Special, Add Static Mesh, Add Mover, Add Anti-Portal, and Volume. The ones we you will need to learn are Add and Subtract. We will mostly use the subtract button since in order to create the geometry you need to subtract it from the world. Just don't think about it and you'll understand. These buttons are shown below.
Now that we have finally familiarized ourselves with the tools we will be working with lets start making DeAdMaNs Arcade and Bar together shall we?