Renegade Map Tutorial

[note: 8-29-02 | version 0.3 | Over time we may release a improved tutorial for your benefit ]

X-------- Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

X-------- How to make a Renegade Map ---------------------------------------------------------------------------X

Make sure you read the Official Renegade Map tutorial to know how to set up the the Directory to work in and the basics of what are described herein.

[Note from Tolken]: As the editor and designer of this tutorial I have added and subtracted the necessary components to make this tutorial as easy and simple as possible for you to get a better understanding of how these maps are made and how you may create your own, although you must practice and get the hang of all these programs before you are on your way to making a successful map. Also realize that you may make dozens of maps before you are able to make a map worth playing.

X-------- Setting up -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

• First, install Renegade and make sure you have played it at least once, with no errors.
• Download and install Gmax.
• Register Gmax, and familiarize yourself with it, play around and see what you can do.
• Download and install the Renegade Public Tools .

X-------- Lets Get Started ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

  [suggestion]: Before you go any further, at least try to figure out how to manipulate shapes and planes on your own, this will help to understand how you can manipulate terrain.  In the beginning of this tutorial I provide tips on how to make and manipulate a box.]

Figure 1

I used the GDI Single Player Construction Yard on this map -- Download the Buildings.zip file from Westwood Here Grab the Renegade textures pack while your at it. Use the file > merge command in gMax to merge the file "mgcon_ext.gmax" into the gMax scene. Proceed onward. -Making a plane is simple, look at the main toolbar to
the left and look for "Plane", then click and drag to create it. -- . I use the structure as a reference to how large the ground is. Make sure you have the length and width segments set to about 14. You get 14 polygons by 14 polygons on the plane. A polygon is a square on the plane you see. Now, click the button with the circle and three arrows coming out of it. That is the Arc Rotate function. Use that and drag your view to above the Construction Yard. Hit F-3 and select the plane. You are now in wireframe mode and you can see through the Construction Yard and the plane you created. Right click on the plane and click "Convert To > Editable Mesh". You will see a new function appear, called Editable Mesh. Refer to Figure 2 now.

Figure 2

You should see the Polygon button. Using the Polygon button, you can select individual polygons and manipulate them into whatever shape you desire. Now select the polygons immediately surrounding the Construction Yard. Delete them by pressing the delete button on your keyboard. You should see what is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

As you can see, the polygons have been deleted that surround the Construction Yard. You must delete the polygons for the interior to work on the CY. If you do not, the interior of the CY will be merged with the ground and you will not be able to go underground.

Click on the Construction Yard and click on the Group menu. Ungroup it as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

Now, using your mouse wheel or the Z button (Click with the magnifying glass cursor and zoom in by moving the mouse forward and zoom out by moving it backward, or use the mouse wheel to zoom in roughly.), zoom in on the side of the Construction Yard as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

You will need to select the Edge button which is near the Polygon button. Click on the bottom edge of the Construction Yard and note its coordinates using Notepad or the gMax notepad. Refer to Figure 6 if you are confused. It is best to use Wireframe Mode to select edges, as you can see them clearly.

Figure 6

Now, you can see the coordinates at the bottom right. The coordinates are what you really need right now. Leave them down in that bottom corner and unselect your edge of the CY by clicking again on the Edge button. Click on the plane you made earlier and click on the edge button. Refer to Figure 7.

Figure 7

You can see that the plane's edge and the Construction Yard's lower edge are matched up properly. You eliminate clipping errors this way. Clipping errors are those annoying holes in terrain that do not belong there. For each side of the Construction Yard, do the same until you have finished the terrain matching to the CY. It shouldn't be difficult, although it is a bit time consuming.

Now that you've finished that part, lets move on to the main part of the terrain itself.     

  Click your plane, and press M. The Renegade Material Editor will appear. Enter a name for your material. Lets call it Grassy1. Click the material type and select Grass. Hit the Assign Material to Selection button at the bottom right. Your plane will turn bright white, if it already wasn't when you created it. (Before doing this, make sure you've downloaded the Textures.zip from ftp.westwood.com/pub/renegade/tools/ or you won't be able to see the textures you're attempting to apply.) Now select the tab Pass 1. Click on the Textures button and select a texture from the proper directory. The proper texture to use for this map would be L05_grass.tga. Hit the Display button. You should see either of three things: The same white you saw, a green color, or the texture all stretched out. Now click on the Modifier menu and select the UVW Map modifier. You will need to give it a certain attribute, and Figure 8 will explain that.

Figure 8

The texture should show up properly now. Give it the property of Plane and a length and width of 7.0. The texture should look nice and tiled. That is how proper ground should look. Moving on now... You will notice in Figure 8 that there are black lines and areas on the texture. That is called Vertex Paint and that is what creates the texture blending. I will explain how to do that now, as it is required for any map that you want to look good. Take your plane, click on it, and hit M again. Select the Change button by the Pass Count area and select 2. You will have two tabs on the top. Select Pass 1. Change the texture to L10_sandruff.tga. Select Pass 2. Select the texture L05_grass.tga. Select its Shader tab and change the shader to Alpha Blend. Now, look at the plane, and click on the Modifier tab again. Refer to Figure 9 for this one.

Figure 9

Now, click on the Vertex Paint selection. You will see a group called Vertex Color Paint. Click the black color and click the paintbrush. Paint over the areas that you want to have the sand texture show through. Now, click the Hammer tab on the far right of the toolbar. Select W3D Tools. Make absolutely certain that you have Physical, Projectile, Camera, and VAlpha selected. VAlpha tells the game that the mesh is an alpha mesh and that it has special areas on it that have extra textures using alpha channels which do special effects.

Figure 10

Now, you're almost done. Create anything else you want for the map and make sure to have followed what I have shown you for creation in RenX.

If you are planning on making a C&C Mode map, you will need Buildings_setup.gmax which has both side's structures. I advise that you use that to work with initially. You can place the structures where you want them on your map and they will show up in-game with the interiors already set in place. Now, lets move on. The map I showed you was just an example. I've included the old River Raid gmax scene which you can learn from. It's been simplified greatly so you may learn better from it.

Now, lets open up the real modification tools so we can start finishing the map. Open LevelEdit and create a new mod package called River Raid. After LevelEdit starts, close it down. Open RenX again and open the River Raid map I gave you. Export it with the File menu and export it to the levels folder of your mod package, which should be something like C:\Program Files\RenegadePublicTools\LevelEdit\River Raid\Levels. Start up Level Edit again and we'll work from there.

Click the Terrain tab. Open it and hit "Add". Call it Terrain and make it point to the w3d file you put in the Levels folder. Refer to Figure 11 below.

Before you move on, remember a few things:

|| Always remember to check off the correct collision settings for your meshes by clicking the hammer tool button. To make invisible walls that block vehicles (Such as an aircraft ceiling), check the mesh off with Hide and Vehicle set only. You can do many things with just those settings.

|| Never forget to put a VAlpha checkmark if you are doing a blended mesh. Using the Tessellate command in the Mesh Editing menu will give you more polygons to work with and helps blend textures more smoothly. Always use it at a Tension of zero so it doesn't create clipping errors.

|| The general rule of UVW Mapping is this: Large rocks, mountain faces, and other assorted items of that kind: UVW of Box; length, width, and height of 50. Scale down if needed. Water: UVW of Plane; length and width of 15. Regular ground: UVW of Plane; length and width of 10.

Figure 11

Click the Make tab as shown with the Terrain selection selected. You will see the editor buzz away while it is creating the terrain. Once it is done, it will appear in the window at left. It should take no longer than two through five minutes. You should be looking at the river in River Raid from the top now. Refer to Figure 12.

Figure 12

Now press the Number Lock button on your keyboard and use it to move around. 9 and 3 move your view up and down. 8 moves you forward. 2 moves you backwards. 4 moves you left and 6 moves you right. 5 centers your view. 7 and 1 move you up and down. Look around in the map. You should see the bases.

X------- Setting up tiberium feilds and harvesting-----------------------------------------------------------------X

Figure 13

Now, first things first. You should have a Tiberium field on your map. (Figure 13) You will see it in the River Raid scene I gave you. Now open the Objects tab and go to Script Zone > CnC > Tiberium_Field. Choose the proper one for whatever side you're on and click Make. You should see this - see Figure 14:

Figure 14

After you've followed the instructions on the Tiberium, you need to set up the building controllers. Building controllers are what dictate the actions of a structure, its health and\or amour, and any special properties it may have. Open the preset Buildings > Refinery > mp_Nod_Refinery. Click make near the Nod Refinery. Now follow the instructions in Figure 15.

Figure 15

Now, look at Figure 16 below.You need to make a waypath exactly like I have it set up here. Beginning in the front of the Refinery, allowing room for the Tiberium Harvester to turn around, and leading out to the Tiberium script zone. Make sure the waypath lies in the Tiberium zone itself. Then double click on a waypath node and change its properties to Innate Pathfind, Ground Vehicle, and Two-way. The process is identical for the GDI side, with the exception that GDI uses the GDI Tiberium Field script zone instead of the Nod script zone.

Figure 16

X-------- Setting up other buildings -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

Now, you need to set up the Power Plants and Infantry Barracks\Hand of Nod. Open the Power Plant tab and click on the Nod Power Plant tab. Make it. Position it on the Power Plant as such...see Figure 17

Figure 17

The same applies to the Infantry Barracks\Hand of Nod. Just make sure the building controller is sunk into the structure in question and it's placed properly.

Now, for the Nod Airstrip. Follow my directions to the letter here. Click on the Airstrip tab. Click on the mp_Nod_Airstrip tab. Make it and place it in the center of the arrow. Press ctrl+p to get the "carmaker" out. Position it backwards so it points the direction the arrow points. When finished, you should have this: (Includes additional instructions.) see Figure 18

Figure 18

This is what you should have now. Below is a figure (19) showing what to do with the zone. You will take the vehicle waypath innate waypaths and place three according to how that is describing. Set them to be "Innate Pathfind" and "Ground Vehicle."

Figure 19

The Weapons Factory is essentially the same, except you face the carmaker to the outside of the Weapons Factory bay. This diagram should show you what to do. Also, to hide any door (Especially the Weapons Factory door.), press ctrl+shift+T.  see Figure 20

Figure 20

X-------- Setting up base defenses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

To do the Obelisk, follow this diagram: (Feel free to add an Obelisk and Advanced Guard Tower to the map using the Merge option in the file menu. Merge GDI_AGT and Nod_Obelisk with the River Raid scene and place accordingly.)  See Figure 21

Figure 21

To do the AGT, follow this diagram. see Figure 22

Figure 22

X-------- Finishing up -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

Now, to finish things up. You need to place Purchase Terminal zones wherever PTs are skinned in structures. You can find them in Objects > Simple > CnC Objects > PCT_Zone_GDI and PCT_Zone_Nod. When you make one, click around for a bit until you find it. It's invisible. Once you find it, press ctrl+c to copy it. You can then paste them (Don't forget to use < and > to rotate objects, especially the PT zones.) and you'll see them instantly because a selection box surrounds them. Place them where they need to be and you're done with that part.

Now you need to make spawners. Go to Objects > Spawners > Startup Spawners> GDI_Spawner and Nod_Spawner. It's good to make them in groups of three and copy the group. Then paste the group and place them in front of PTs. Make extra groups around the PTs and make sure there aren't any red selection boxes around the spawners, because if you spawn there you'll get stuck; so make sure the boxes are white.

To make crates and weapon spawns, just hit Objects > Spawners > Object Spawners > CnC_Spawner_Crate for the crates and CnC_Spawner_Crate_Weapon for the weapon spawns. Make sure to press ctrl+p and place the spawns across the map. Only create them by pressing ctrl+p. They link together and make one large spawn.

Now, open Tile > DSAPO > DSAPO_CnC > dsp_CnC_Beacon_Zone

Make that and place it in the Barracks and Hand of Nod where it belongs. Now open Objects > Script Zone > CnC > Beacon.

Place the beacon zones on top of the pedestals.

The last thing you need to do is this: Go to Editor Objects > Pathfind Generator > Human. Make that and place it in the map. Now, save what you've done, because you're about to have something take a long time, possibly a day in some maps. Hit the Pathfinding menu at top and click Generate Sectors. It will chug away. Do not disturb it, just leave the computer alone and wait until it's finished. You'll know when it is. Be sure to save the map as C&C_River_Raid. Do not have any other save files in it.

Then export your map after this is complete. To do so, open your mod's folder, an example of which would be C:\Program Files\RenegadePublicTools\River Raid\.

Open it and select every folder except Scripts, Levels, and EditorCache. Delete the other folders. Click File > Export Mod Package. Now, paste this in exactly with the quotes.

"C&C_River_Raid.mix"

Export it and close LevelEdit. Open Renegade, select the map, and play it. Everything should work perfectly fine.

Play around with the map settings under the Edit menu and do other things, especially keep your eye on the Mod Forum that Westwood set up. You will see many helpful posts throughout it. Any questions, comments, or problems please contact me at AircraftKiller@cncrenegade.info  

Thank you for reading my tutorial and good luck.

-Aircraftkiller,

X-------- Credits ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------X

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All writings and images contained in this tutorial are property of the Den Games Network and the authors. All copyrights are acknowledged by the creators, no credit is taken for the creation of program/s listed here in, including CNCRenegade and the gMax program/s. Any problems or comments please refer to Tolk3n@yahoo.com