ET Mapping Tutorial

Introduction

This tutorial has been set up to help would-be mappers looking for a step-by-step guide from the beginning. It assumes the reader has no idea how to use GtkRadiant and knows nothing about scripting and the like. These pages were originally created for members of the TibeT clan and regular players on the TibeT servers, but anyone finding this tutorial is welcome to use it :)

I don't claim to know everything about mapping but I've learnt enough from various sources to be able to make maps of reasonable complexity. I've had a number of people asking various mapping questions and I thought it was a better idea to explain it all once to anyone interested. The tutorial is incomplete but I continue to add pages as I get the time.

Be aware that the subject is very large so there's a lot to explain; and that to make a decent fair-sized map can easily take over 200 hours, so with this as a hobby you need a lot of patience and spare time, but at least the tools to do the job are free. The best maps out there might have taken their authors 18 months to create, depending on how much free time they had.

Disclaimer: I may be wrong in my understanding of any aspect of the subject, but hey, I'm doing my best :)

Introductory topics

To get from knowing nothing about mapping to being able to run around in your own first little map, follow these introductory topics in order from start to finish.

• Getting Started
• Making your first brush
• Making your first map

First set of intermediate topics

Create a building inside a landscape, with a destructible window and working door.

• Creating an environment
• Making a building outline in your environment
• Making a door
• Making a destructible window

Second set of intermediate topics

A break from brushes: a quick delve into some of the other mapping elements.

Creating the initial script
Creating the mission text to be shown as the map loads
Adding ambient sounds

Third set of intermediate topics

Back to Radiant again, for models, simple destructibles and constructibles. Starting to get more interesting now. Don't attempt these unless you've completed the previous topics.

• Planting a tree
• Making stuff you can shoot up
• Making barbed wire
• Making a ladder
• Making a constructible MG42

Fourth set of intermediate topics

A set of topics with some variety, helping you ease into some of the more complicated subjects..

• Secure doors
• Lighting
• Detail brushes vs structural brushes
• Health and ammo cabinets

Fifth set of intermediate topics

Some of the principal game features, the CP, bendy shapes and terrain.

• Command Posts
• Curved walls and arches
• Cylinders, cones and curved roads
• Making terrain using GtkGenSurf
• Fine tuning the terrain by dragging vertices
• Skyboxes

Sixth set of intermediate topics

Some topics that help to bring interest to your map.

• Bespoke graphics
• Making a constructible object like a ramp
• Making a destructible object like a gate
• Forward spawn flags
• Water
• Team speech

Final set of intermediate topics

This last set of intermediate topics cover the remaining components you'll want to make a distributable PK3 package.

• Limbo camera and objectives narrative
• Making the game end
• Generating a tracemap
• Making the command map
• Making the picture to be shown while the map loads
• Making a PK3 file

Advanced topics

This final set of topics covers some of the more complicated stuff that you may never want to use - but if you've made it this far with the tutorial, you probably will :)

• The Tank
• Scripting in detail
• Grabbing the gold or radar parts, etc
• Making constructible/destructible doors
• Bespoke sound
• Making something simple move
• Trucks
• Shaders
• Custom command map icons