Editor 2.0 Toolbar Buttons

 By: Brad 'BadDog' Streng  

 [email protected]

 Description excerpts from: 

 Tomasz ‘Millennium’ Jachimczak 

 [email protected]  

 unrealed.exe

 and 'astro' 

 [email protected]    

  UED Resource Lab                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

Functions / Modes:

Move Camera. This is the normal view button. It is normally toggled to "on". It lets you move in the views. My advise is to leave it set to what it is...


Vertex Editing. Vertex Editing is used to manipulate the points, or Vertices of a Brush. After selecting the Vertex Editing button, you will notice the pointer icon has changed. Click on the Brush you wish to work with. The vertices are now gray. Hold down Ctrl+Alt and drag a selection box around the points you wish to move. Once you have selected the points they will turn white. Hold down Ctrl then left click to move the points to a new position. If you are using the red builder brush, perform a Transform Permanently BEFORE you add or subtract the brush. If it is an existing brush, right click on it and perform a Transform Permanently then build. You can not edit a Brush that has been Transformed Permanently. If the Brush is going to be in an area where a player wont touch it you can make the Brush semisolid. This in some cases can cut down on BSP holes/cuts and speed up the game. 

Scale brush. All Brushes can be scaled. Scaling can increase or decrease the size of a Brush on the fly. One disadvantage of scaling is you do not have control over exact measurements. Click the Brush Scaling button and again the pointer icon will change. Left click a point on the desired Brush to activate that vertex. Ctrl + either right or left click will scale to Brush in a different direction. The active side that is being scaled depends on the vertex you choose to start with. When finished, perform a Transform Permanently.

Rotate brush. This button is used to rotate the brush that you have currently got selected. It is used by holding CTRL and with a combination of mouse buttons (Left rotates X axis, right rotates Y axis and both rotate Z axis) allows the brush to be rotated to any angle.


Pan textures. This will move the texture that is selected. It is used mainly for aligning the texture to match up with other textures. If you have more then one brush with a texture, and you want them to line up - then this is the tool for you. With this button activated, you can pan a texture using Ctrl + left click and Ctrl + right click.


Rotate textures. This button will allow you to rotate a texture so that it matches the direction of other textures - or simply faces the direction that you want it to face. Highlight the texture in the 3D viewport you wish to rotate. Now you can left OR right click while holding down Ctrl and the texture will rotate.


Brush Clipping. The Brush Clipping feature of the editor is used to "clip" a section off of a predetermined Brush.  This is done by placing clip points on or around your brush that define the clipping point. To lay a clip point, hightlight the brush by clicking on it then left click on the nearest vertex point. Next highlight the clip point and CTRL + left click it to drag it into position. You need at least two clip points to clip a Brush. When you lay clip points, they are numbered according to the order they were placed. Clip points look like thumb tacks. Once the clip points are in place use the Clip Selected Brush or the Split Selected Brush button to perform clipping actions. Remember that BEFORE you  execute clipping operations, perform a Transform Permanently! That pertains the the red builder brush as well as any added or subtracted Brushes.


Clip Selected Brush. Let us use a cube as an example. Create a cube in a room. Line up the cube in all the viewports. Select one of the 2D viewports you want to work with. Click the Brush Clipping button. Next activate the cube brush by clicking on it. In the top viewport hold down Ctrl + Alt and right click on the are where you want to place the clip point (it looks like a thumb tack). Click on the vertex in the opposite corner to place the second clip marker. A line will now be drawn though the middle of the cube connected by the clip markers. The connecting line will have a small line in the middle pointing towards the area to be clipped off. This can be changed to the opposite direction by clicking the Flip Clipping Normal button. Finally click the Clip Selected Brush and now the Brush will be clipped. A 3D clip plane can be achieved by adding clip point in the side and front viewports.


Split Selected Brush. Follow the same steps as you would when using the Clip Selected Brush feature. In this case you will be splitting the clipped brush into two different pieces.


Flip Clipping Normal. This function will move the direction of the clip you are going to perform based on the direction of the small red line that is pictured below. That small red line will point towards the area to be clipped off.




Delete Clip Markers. Used to delete all clip markers.

 

 Brushes:

Build a cube. This will create a cube brush for you. If you right click on it, it will give you an option to go to cube properties. This will allow you to change the height, depth etc of the cube brush you will create.


Build a Sphere. This is the same as the cube, but it will create a round ball shaped (well a sphere really) brush. Once again right click on it to alter the properties of the brush.


Build a cylinder. This will create a cylinder for you, that you can use like any other brush.


Build a cone. This will create a cone (rounded pyramid) that you can use like any other brush.


Build a stair. This will create a straight flight of stairs. These stairs will not turn or curve as they go up.


Build a spiral stair. This will create a rounded set of stairs that can be set to form a very tight spiral staircase.


Build a curved stair. This will simply create a rounded set of stairs that are similar to the first set, but they curve around to a side when they have been built.


Build a sheet. This creates a 2 dimensional sheet. It can be used for a VERY LARGE number of applications. One of the most common is to create a water plane. This tool does however require more practice then the other brushes, as it is not a 3D brush and can easily "wreck" a level. It should NOT (I can't stress this enough) be used to create walls and other solid shapes. (Well at least until you are quite familiar with the editor).


Operations:

Add brush to world. This button is used to "add" a brush to the world. Any brush can be added to the world, but make sure that you don't try to add something to a piece of the world that is already solid, as this can turn out quite nasty when playing the game or rebuilding...


Subtract brush from world. This button will "carve" out the brush from your level. Do not try to subtract a brush from an area that has already been subtracted - as this won't work and can have adverse (bad) effects on your level.


Brush intersection. This is the "intersect" button. It is used to change your brush. Say you have a "cube" brush, but only want to cut out half a cube from a solid wall. You could go through the cube properties and change the shape of your brush, or you could simply move the cube to where you want it to go and then press this button. This will make a new brush for you - but it will only be where the solid wall was before. It is also good for making complex objects into a single brush. Say you want to make a fireplace, and you want to use it in a few places - create it (bit by bit) and then place a cube brush over the top (so the cube {or whatever} encompasses the fireplace totally) and when you press this button, your new brush will be EXACTLY the same as what you created using many little bits.


Brush deintersection. This does the opposite of what the intersect button does. It will select the parts of the brush that are in an area that is not solid - and create them into a new brush for you.


Add Special Brush. This allows you to create "special" brushes to your map. These can be a wide range of things, such as windows, water levels, portals and the like. It is normally used in combination with the "sheet" brush.


Add movable brush. This button will create a mover for you. It will use whatever brush you have currently selected. When using this brush however, make sure that the brush you have selected has NOT been stretched in any way, as it won't work properly...



Viewing Modes:

Show Selected Actors Only. This button will hide all Actors that are not selected. Good for isolating a few Brushes or Actors that are located in an area with many other objects.


Hide Selected Actors. This button will hide any actor that is selected.


Show All Actors. This button will make all actors visible in all of the viewports. Any hidden Actors will now be visible.


Invert Selection. Clicking this button will invert the selection of current actors. Will select the exact opposite of what was selected before clicking this button.



Change Camera Speed. Is the camera moving to slow for you? Click this button to scroll quicker through your level. The camera speed can also be decreased. Excellent for large maps.