[Micky C]

Obviously it's always nice to get some new mappers into the community, and it's likely that every so often someone new gives it it a go and eventually gets put off for various reasons. One of these reasons would be the incredible amount of time it takes for a beginner to make one (usually very noobish) map compared to the relatively short periods that veteran mappers build high quality work in. And it's not just due to experience; a big factor is that there are a lot of features in mapster that beginners either wouldn't know about, or severely underestimate in terms of how much they can improve their mapping speed.


It's my hope that if any beginners realize how many short cuts there are to help them map quickly, then they might try to persevere more through the teething process of learning to map for the first time. As a worst case scenario, a beginner might not know how to copy and paste. Even the Informational Suite last I checked doesn't say you can now paste into other sectors, or talks about the smart tagging system.

So I wrote up a 1500 word document explaining some of the lesser known, or underestimated features. If anyone thinks there's something I've missed, you can add it then re-upload it. I'll see about putting this in a more public place if people think it's a good idea.

Edit: Google Docs version available here: https://docs.google....S4ieZWWWTw/edit

[Jimmy]

Cool idea, because I've used Build and Mapster for years and I'm still finding new features all the time.

[blizzart]

Yeah, great idea, Micky.
There´s some stuff I wasn´t aware of. Thank you

I saved the .docx file as .pdf for people who don´t use MS Office.

 Micky C speed mapping guide.pdf (48.62K)
Number of downloads: 255

[Micky C]

I've made some small additions to the guide, it's not worth re-uploading, but I also made mention of changing pals with (' + p), as well as the special functions menu in 2D mode; (' + f). I keep forgetting about that menu, but it has some useful features and is worth checking out if you haven't done so already.

[Hank]

Good idea.
Why not use something like Google Docs? It's like Word on-line. One link, and everyone has your latest version.
http://docs.google.com
all the best

[Paveway]

Hey I have poked around on your guide, but I am having a big problem. I can't get the smart tagging stuff to work. I simply can not type any letters when editing a hitag of a sector effector. How do I enable smart tagging???

[Micky C]

My guess is that you don't have the latest version of eduke32. As of this posting, the latest version can be found here: http://dukeworld.duk.../20111117-2116/

Edit: And since I'm posting, I might as well inform everyone that I've replaced the download with a link to the google docs version I've created, which is more up to date with new features.

[Paveway]

Micky C, on 18 November 2011 - 12:23 AM, said:

My guess is that you don't have the latest version of eduke32. As of this posting, the latest version can be found here: http://dukeworld.duk.../20111117-2116/

Edit: And since I'm posting, I might as well inform everyone that I've replaced the download with a link to the google docs version I've created, which is more up to date with new features.

Alright, I made sure I'm running the latest version, but still no luck.

What I'm doing is highlight a sprite in 2d mode and pushing Alt-H to edit the hitag. But I cannot enter any letters here. How exactly does one do smart tagging?

The wiki nor your guide seems to explain step by step how to smart tag something such as "door1". Thanks in advance.

[Micky C]

I didn't include any step by step guide because it's supposed to be automatic. When you tried typing a word for the hitag of a sector effector, it should have worked. Assuming you're using the version I linked you, and not the official latest version there's nothing more I can do to help you. Although I will say that you don't need to highlight the sprite, not that it will help your situation.

You're the first person I'm aware of who can't get the smart tagging system to work. Perhaps make a post about it in this thread: http://forums.duke4....s/page__st__540. And hopefully an eduke32 developer will come along and figure out what's going wrong.

[Paveway]

Micky C, on 18 November 2011 - 02:13 PM, said:

I didn't include any step by step guide because it's supposed to be automatic. When you tried typing a word for the hitag of a sector effector, it should have worked. Assuming you're using the version I linked you, and not the official latest version there's nothing more I can do to help you. Although I will say that you don't need to highlight the sprite, not that it will help your situation.

You're the first person I'm aware of who can't get the smart tagging system to work. Perhaps make a post about it in this thread: http://forums.duke4....s/page__st__540. And hopefully an eduke32 developer will come along and figure out what's going wrong.

Okay thanks, for the life of me I just couldn't figure out if I was doing something wrong or what.

[Micky C]

The guide has been updated with a section on Speed Sloping (creating hills and valleys). I've basically posted the new section below but here's the link to the guide anyway: https://docs.google....S4ieZWWWTw/edit

I just discovered a way to easily make some great looking pits, valleys, and mounds. I'm not 100% sure if anybody else does this, but it's really neat so I thought I'd tell people about it. I think it's slightly faster than Helixhorned's mapster script, because you don't have to draw as many walls (also saving walls). This is because it does away with triangles! This technique gets you slopes which match up perfectly with their surrounding sectors without the use of those annoying triangles. Also unlike his mapster script,this can be done several times in the same valley/hill so the slope can ease off gently towards the bottom and top.

It looks like a lots of steps but it really isn't, I just stated all the obvious steps for clarity. The catch, if you can call it a catch, is that each set of isolines is the same shape as the outline of the original sector, so if you want to have more varying isolines then by all means stick with triangles, but this technique should suit most valleys, dips and hills people are trying to make.

1. Make the outline of the valley/hill.
2. Highlight the sector with right-alt.
3. Make a copy with the insert button, keep the copy highlighted.
3. Bring up the special functions menu with ' and F
4. Select the option "resize selection", give the value of the percentage you wish to change the size of the sector (e.g 50 for half the size, 200 for twice the size).
5. Drag the smaller copy into roughly the middle of the big sector (although it doesn't really matter where, as long as it's within the big one). And paste it.
6. Connect the corresponding verticies (I hope people know what I mean by that. Two sides of each sector should be parallel, the walls of the bigger and smaller sector.)
7. Make the inside of what was originally the big sector the first walls for all the sectors.
8. Adjust the height of the smaller sector to the bottom of the valley/top of the hill.
9. Auto-adjust the slopes one by one to match the height of the smaller sector.

A small warning though: When you resize the sector, it's going to change it's position on the grid. If you make it smaller, it moves towards the centre, and if you make it bigger, it moves away from the centre, possibly even outside the grid, so be careful. This effect can be minimised by positioning the sector in the middle of the grid before resizing. It also adjusts the height of the floor and ceiling in a similar manner, but both of these should only take a second to fix.

This is an example map I made. It took 6 minutes for 2 iterations, halving the inner sector each time. This system works a bit better for more rounded shapes, but I went with a jellybean shape, and it turned out ok.



Edit: the starting position isn't in valid player space so don't start it up in eduke; use mapster. You also don't need to half the sector each time. You'll get better results if you use smaller increments, eg 75%.

Attached File(s)

•  slopes.zip (3.75K)
  Number of downloads: 179

[rasmus thorup]

Helix script is made so that you don't have to slope sectors yourself. Sloping is what takes the most time, unless i misunderstood what you meant with auto-adjusting. Can you tell what you mean with that? The reason why triangles are useful is because it is always possible to make the sloped sectors match. I have made a con coding actor which does the almost exact same as helix' script, but it is less buggy because i found one bug with helix' script some time ago which i don't exactly remember now. 6 minutes also sound like a lot of time to make one pit. You should see one of my maps that literally consists of only sloped sectors. But that would be impossible to make with either your way or helix' way or my way. So i had to slope them manually. The result was pretty good.
Either way if this is a better way you have found or the slower way, it still sounds like an interesting way you have found
Is are some examples of the way i slope and the results ingame.






And i forgot to remove grid -.-

[Micky C]

By auto-allign I meant by using alt-[ or ]. 6 minutes isn't so bad considering two iterations where the slope of the pit smooths out towards the bottom. Triangles may be better in some ways, but this still saves walls, and also guarantees that the slopes match. If a script can be made to supplement this technique, automatically setting the first walls and slopes for each iteration like it does for Helix's script, this would indeed be a pretty darn fast way to do some slopes.