What Do I Need To Complete My Map?

[Titch2349]

Checklist to completing your first map start to finish

Introduction: The following is a checklist of steps to create a map from start to finish. It does not explain the entire process, but does list the process in order and links to some excellent threads on each subject.

Note: A basic user guide to the editor can be found at "...\Battlefield 2\bf2editor\Help\Workshop\LevelWorkshop.doc"

1) Create the Terrain. There are a number of different options available to you, but the easiest and most recommended for your first go at a map is by following the tutorial "Creating the Basic Terrain", which can be found in the a wiki here. Once you know the basics, you may find it easier to create the layout of the terrain first in photoshop by editing heightmaps, a tutorial for which can be downloaded here. Once you want to get much more advanced with terrain creation and heightmaps, you may want to try out Terragen.

2) Texture the Terrain. Refer to the tutorial "Creating the Basic Terrain", which can be found in the wiki here This tutorial should be read to grasp the basic concepts of color and detail textures, but you may find the actual texturing of your map much easier with TPaint, or BF2Ecomap.

3) Place your objects, CP's*, spawnpoints*, object spawners*, configure level settings, using the official tutorial, "Creating the Basic Level", which can be found here downloaded here.

*Note: If you intent to create your map with 16, 32, and 64 Player Sizes, you should only place these control points, spawn points etc to enable you to load, spawn into, and to check your map [Testing Purposes]- I recommend creating two flags, each with a spawnpoint, and maybe a vehicle to get around your map in. Creating the proper 16, 32, and 64 Player Sizes are done in stage 8

4) Overgrowth

5) Undergrowth

6) General Roads. Roads on a slope/ creating stonewall slopes

7) Water- Extract the the water.con file from the server.zip in another map, and copy it into your map folder....

8 ) Layers- 16, 32, 64 player map sizes

- Control Points

- Spawn points (in level editor, right click, add spawn point.)

- Object Spawners (in level editor, right click, add object spawner, choose object, press okay)

- Area around flag where it can be capped

- Combat Area

- Commander assets

9) Loading screen

- Background

- Music

- Map image thingy

- Intro of map

10) Ambient Sounds

11) Ambient Effects (birds etc)

12) Sky Settings (Basically- extract the 'server' zip file of a bf2 map, then find the sky.con file, and copy it into your map folder....)

13) Environmental Maps

14) Lightmaps. Lightmaps for Beginners

15) Ticket Ratio

16) Minimap

17) Do all the Singleplayer stuff (if you want...) [see top of page 3 for those who don't have 3ds.]

18 ) Pack Map- Mod Manager, Pack Map, then go into the Map folder, and delete everything apart from the server.zip, client.zip, & 'info'

Note: When using this method, Editor does not package ambient effects [and probably some other things as well], so check your files against another map to make sure you have everything you need.

19) Add Vehicle Drop - Note: Has to be done last, as editor overwrites the vehicle drop code when you save.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Titch2349

[Flubber]

its like a check list, ty

[Titch2349]

its like a check list, ty

humm.... just to make it look at bit clearer

[Titch2349]

]SinglePlayer support should be made  

when everything else is fine, so place it just before your 16

added

thanks..

[Rhino]

mini map should be done after lightmaps and env maps

[Texvindictive]

Titch, this might be a pain in the a$$ thing to ask, butt how about a link under each subject. That's a very good checklist you posted, but links could take it one step farther. Thanks for the checklist, I plan to use it.

Vinny

[Titch2349]

Hi guys...

as requested i am slowly adding the links to the tutorials.... but some tutorials i cant find...

If you know any links to tutorials that havent got links, or are planning or writing one... can you post the link to help me?

thanks in advance....

Titch

[Titch2349]

/ small update... all the links have now been added.... i had to make few tutorials myself to complete the list... but i hope it helps some of you....

[debconf]

nice work m8

guess you missed the shadowmaps in step 15 or 16, but as theres hardly any documentation on it perhaps u wanna investigate ?

http://bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=5478

[EmmaevaZ]

1) Create the map :?- Download the tutorial from EA

no more link at EA.. can you help ?

[Harry]

No need to bump it up THAT often. Give it atleast a day, not everyone is online for 24h/7d

check this out:

http://bfeditor.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Mapping

its a copy put into the wiki

[EmmaevaZ]

Thanks.

Sorry for bumpin' but I'm in a hurry

[EmmaevaZ]

dumb question, do I have to do all the stuff there (17 points above) to test my map ingame ?

[Harry]

No, as soon as you have made a terrain and added atleast 2 controlpoints with a spawnpoint (for each team 1), itll work ok. But the more you do, the better itll play (especially with generating lowdetailmaps, failing to do so will crash your map on low gfx settings)

[EmmaevaZ]

Thanks, I think I've just created my map under a mod (21 Century Warfare) and I should have done it in BF2.

[Drumedor]

its like a check list, ty

[Brummett]

Think this is my first post, but I've spent hours reading through the great material here. and am stumped on 2.5 questions for ya...

1. without having a server setup hosting BF2. Whats the easiest way to play test a map that has been made as as MOD and not a single player BF2 map?

2. Are there any tutorials on what is required to complete a MOD (package then what?) and set it up server side for multi-player lan/wan games?

2.5 Can someone confirm that you can't use custom made objects from MAX Maya etc. (Non Vanilla objects) in the single player BF2 maps? e.g. I've imported a simple bunker made in MAX to a single player map for BF2 and it doesn't show up in game.

Thanks!

Edited February 27, 2008 by Brummett

[mschoeldgen[Xww2]]

1. Start your BF2, choose your offline account (if you don't have that, make one ) . Go to the community tab and load your mod. Press 'Create Local' and add your map to the maplist. Press the Launch Game button to load your map.

To ease launching BF2 into a mod its possibly to create a copy of the BF2 shortcut and add +modPath mods/MyMod to the arguments to it which would launch BF2 with the mod MyMod.

2. Its not possible to add new assets to BF2 in the vanilla game, as you mustn't tamper with the orginal archives - they are checksummed and any manipulation would forfeit the content check - kicked for modified content .

If your map needs to run in vanilla BF2 you need to include your new objects in the map instead. Read the tutorial by Croupier to learn this:

http://bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6769

Advanced stuff - not for rookies. Probably the best way for now is to maintain your own mod. As every mod can use the stuff from the parent game your mod only needs to carry the things you have changed or added.

[tompanhuhu]

I followed this tutorial and when i played on the map bf2 stopped working :s help anyone?

[mschoeldgen[Xww2]]

bf2 stopped working

Hmm, this is very vague - a zillion reasons can cause it

first you should run BF2 in windowed mode as the game is then able to issue error messages ( add +fullScreen 0 to the properties of your BF2 shortcut ) . Then we need to know at what point the map crashed ( while loading - pressing join - already ingame, etc. pp) .

[tompanhuhu]

Hmm, this is very vague - a zillion reasons can cause it

first you should run BF2 in windowed mode as the game is then able to issue error messages ( add +fullScreen 0 to the properties of your BF2 shortcut ) . Then we need to know at what point the map crashed ( while loading - pressing join - already ingame, etc. pp) .

It crashed when i'm pressing join game, and I have runned the map in window mode, bf2 just stopps working :s It happends to all map i made, even if there just is terrain & texture and 2 cps with some spawn points.

[mschoeldgen[Xww2]]

If this happens with all your maps you probably do the same mistake over and over again. Did you drag vehicles onto your map ? Are you using any of DICE's unfinished buildings ? How about your video settings ( are they on low ? ) . Did you generate LowDetailmaps ?

[tompanhuhu]

If this happens with all your maps you probably do the same mistake over and over again. Did you drag vehicles onto your map ? Are you using any of DICE's unfinished buildings ? How about your video settings ( are they on low ? ) . Did you generate LowDetailmaps ?

I play on the highest video settings & it dosen't matter it stops working even if there is none static objects on the map, yes i generate lowdetailmaps.

[mschoeldgen[Xww2]]

Refer to the threads where we explain on how to use the BF2 debugger build . You should run your map with it. It sounds to me as if you saved your map with the 'Save All' command but didn't configure stuff like undergrowth, overgrowth or similar. Always keep in mind that 'Save All' is the wrong command, only use 'Save...' ( <Ctrl>-S ) and let the editor decide on what was changed and worth to be saved.

E.g. you're in for a certain crash when saving all in your map without having configured overgrowth. I'm not saying that this is the problem in your map but the debugger will probably tell you.

[Mrslobodan]

Didn't you forget the part about packing the map ??