Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Mission Editor
- Editing the Terrain
- Painting the Terrain
- Adding Objects
3. Torque Constructor
4. Textures
5. Skybox
6. Packaging
1. Introduction:
Welcome to Ostinyo's Mapping Tutorial. It is recommended that you read this tutorial all the way through if this is your first time learning to make maps. There are many other great tutorials out there, but this tutorial will try to cover just about everything I know. Granted, there are still some things out making maps I don't know *gasp*.
This tutorial will tell you how to make maps like a pro, and to do so you first need to know about the basics. If you do not know already, Torque is the game engine Blockland runs on and therefore all scripts and maps use it. This tutorial will not cover scripting, which uses Torque script, but if you wish to know how please view KINEX's Scripting Tutorial.
For making maps there are two main ingredients: Mission Editor and Torque Constructor. Another ingredient may be Terragen depending on whether or not you decide to use it for skyboxes.
2. Mission Editor
First of all, you need to have Mission Editor. If you do already, please skip down to the '*' below. Mission Editor is included with Blockland, and to make a shortcut to it you need to follow the steps below. If you are a Mac user, I am sorry but I do not have a tutorial for you as I own a PC.
Find your Blockland shortcut that you double-click to run the game
Right click on it, and click 'create shorcut'
Now you will have 2 shortcuts to Blockland
Change the name of the new shortcut to 'Mission Editor'
Now right-click the shortcut for 'Mission Editor' and go into 'Properties'
Find where it says 'Target' and add -mod editor to the end of the name in quotation marks
It should now look close to this: "C:\ProgramFiles\Blockland\Blockland.exe" -mod editor
Hit 'OK' or 'Apply'
*the target may be different based on where your Blockland folder is located.
*Now that you have the Mission Editor shortcut, double-click it. This will open up Blockland, and everything will look completely normal, just as if you hadn't even done anything... but you have! Start your own server at Flatlands (make it single-player because others will glitch out if you edit online). If you do not have Flatlands, get it here.
Once you spawn in Flatlands, hit F8 (Admin orb). Now that you are in your admin orb, hit F11.
WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
See? I told you that something was different! Now you are in Mission Editor, congratulations!
Before you do anything else, you will want to make your map its own folder. Go to Blockland>Add-ons> and create a folder named (Map_yourmapnamehere). When you are in Mission Editor, you can go to File>Save Mission As... Click on the Directory folder and change it to your map's folder. Then change the title of the mission to (yourmapnamehere.mis). Then hit save.
You officially now have your own map! But you haven't done anything yet, so we need to change some stuff up.
To edit the terrain, you need to first get into the Terrain Editor window. Just click Window>Terrain Editor (or F6) to open the Terrain Editor Window. Now there should be many little boxes around your cursor.
To change the terrain's shape, click on 'Action' and select how you would like to change it. Here is what each of the different actions do:
Add Dirt - adds dirt slowly creating hills
Excavate - takes away dirt slowly creating holes and ditches
Adjust Height - allows you to hold down the left-click button and drag the terrain upwards or downwards
Flatten - flattens the terrain in the certain area (on a slope it will use the medium point)
Smooth - makes the terrain smooth and evens it out
Set Height - sets the height back to where it was at first (flattened) *NEVER USE THIS!!!
To change the diameter of the brush (to make it apply to a larger amount of area at a time), click Brush>(size). The brush sizes also have shortcut keys (alt+#). Now let's try making a ma**ive canyon that crosses the entire map. Due to terrain repetition, the canyon will extend endlessly throughout the map, and there will be multiple canyons. I used a 15x15 soft brush (circle) and the excavate action, which lead me to this result:
Tips: A quicker way of making something even bigger like this (for instance a mountain range) would be to use Adjust Height with a 25x25 brush.
If you are editing a large area, click Camera>Fastest and you'll be zooming around the place like the wind!
You have made a canyon across the map... but there aren't any shadows? Do not fear! You need to relight the scene! Click Edit>Relight Scene or Alt+L and hooray for shadows!
Now you can mess around with the terrain and make a funky-looking landscape! Now on to....
PAINTING THE TERRAIN
First off, go to Window>Terrain Texture Painter. Flatlands comes with 5 textures, TTgra**01, TTdirt01rock, TTicefrosty1, TTgra**01snow, and detail1. You can click on a different texture, and then click over the terrain to apply that texture where your brush is. I used a 9x9 brush with TTdirt01rock and painted the bottom of the canyon to make it look like this:
(yes, you can use IRC while in Mission Editor)
Painting is as simple as this, and it can be done quickly. However you should learn to make your own textures. To make your own textures, follow these steps:
First go to CGTextures.com
Go to ground or rock and find a good *TILED texture
Download the texture preferably as a tiled 600x600 (or close to the same number on both sides of the scale)
Now go to Picresize.com and select your picture (from your desktop)
Resize your picture to a 512x512 PIXELS JPEG image, and set the quality at best
Now save the picture to your disc (desktop)
Drag the image into your map's folder (Blockland>Add-ons>Map_NewMap)
Go to your map in-game (you'll need to restart Mission Editor) and click 'Change' or 'Add' a texture in the Terrain Texture Painter window
Select your texture from your map's folder and now you can use it on your map!
ADDING OBJECTS
There are many objects you can add with Mission Editor, including add-ons. Indeed, if you need a chopper in your map, just use a Cobra Attack Helicopter and you're all set! To do this, go to Window>World Editor Creator, and then find the list of objects on the right side-bar. To make a pine tree, simply use Static Shapes>Base>Data>Shapes>Sharp Trees>Trees>Oaks>Sharp Oak02 (the only oak available). This may seem complex when written out, but really it is very strait forward in-game. You can do this with all other objects too, including light bulbs, a wrench, or any other default add-ons. Make sure that the object comes from *BASE* and not Add-Ons or else other people may not be able to see the object. (I actually am not sure about this yet.) You may also make your own objects if you know how to model, and save them as a .DTS file. Then just add it to your map's folder and go through Add-Ons>Map_Yourmapname>Yourobject. This is all pretty straight forward stuff.
You can also add interiors in this same fashion! Try going to Interiors>Add-Ons>Map_Bedroom>bedroom. It looks black! Well, you haven't relighted the scene yet! Go to Edit>Relight Scene and now you can see its textures! Once you have made your own interiors, you can add them just like this *from Map_yourmapnamehere*.
You can also meddle with your objects by resizing them. (you don't just want that dinky little tree or that 10x10 block of water do you?) Let's try making the Oak bigger. Go to Window>World Editor Inspector and click on the object. Then simply go to Transform>scale> and set it to 9 10 10.
Cool! Now you can make things gigantic. In the ("_" "_" "_") for the scale, the first number represents the x axis, the second the y axis, and the third the z axis. Therefore, by making it ("0.1" "0.1" "10") you are making an extremely thin and tall tree. Remember to always hit 'apply' to make your changes take effect!
The same can be done with the rotation of the object, but for the position it is easiest to use the x, y, and z axises to drag it around instead of messing with numbers. You should get the hang of making objects and editing them in scale, rotation, and position in no time!
