THE BASICS OF MAPPING

Kingpin is based on the Quake2 engine, which means it is very easy for you or I to change aspects of the game, or to make new maps.  The map editor provided with the game is a special version of QERadiant that Xatrix used when making Kingpin...  The chances are if you saw something you liked in a map in Kingpin made by Xatrix you too with a little practice can do the same thing yourself.  

A lot of people think that QERadient is hard to use compared to other editors, which it probably is.  But don't let this put you off.   Once you understand the basics and have had a fiddle with the editor you'll be amazed what you can achieve.  Its just a matter of understanding the basic principles.

DONT PANIC!
When you start the editor the chances are the first thing you will probably do is panic!  This is something you certainly don't have to do!  QERadiant like even the simplest editors can be very intimidating to the total beginner, but with a little explaination you can look at all the strange words and tools in a different light.

When you start the editor you should see something like this.

What I want you to do is forget about all those buttons, forget about all the menus, forget about all the different views and most importantly forget about any pre conceived ideas of how to make a map!

All the maps you will ever make will be made out of two main components.  These are called brushes and entities.   If you're thinking 'Huh?' right now its really very simple.  A brush has nothing to do with painting anything.  Quite simply every inanimate part of your map is a brush!  Every wall, every floor, every road, every chunk of rock.  An entity is also very simple to explain!  An entity is a part of the map that does something!  An entity can be anything from a door to an invisible object on your map which tells the game to do something.  For instance the most important entity you will ever use is called info_player_start.  Forget about the name for now, but that entity marks the spot on your map where the player will start!  Another important use for entities is lighting your map!  You can place an invisible light entity in a room to light it.

Now that you know what the two most important things are you can begin your first map! 

Start up QERadiant and then draw a box in the main view of the editor by clicking the left mouse button and dragging it out so it is 256x256 in size.  Don't worry too much about getting it a precise size right now.  You have now made your first brush!  A flat cube about 256x256.

The next thing to do in this first map is to give the brush some height so it can become a room.  To do this make sure you have your brush selected (If it isn't selected hold down shift+left mouse button to select it).  In the tall thin view on the left of the screen you can see the height (z) axis of your brush.  With the cursor just above the top of your brush in this view drag up so that the brush is about 128 units heigh.

Now you will need to select a texture to make your room look good.  Using the [Texture] menu load the texture set entitled [Bricks] by clicking on Bricks.  Now in the texture viewing window in the bottom right corner scroll down untill you find a nice texture to use for your room.  Click on the texture while your brush is selected.

Now the next thing to do in making a room is to hollow out the brush.  This is much simpler than it sounds.  Select your brush by holding down shift and left clicking on it if it isn't already selected.  What you have to do now is go into the [selection] menu and go down to where is says [CSG]   When the CSG menu expands you should see an option [Make Hollow].  Thats the one you want!  Click it and your one single cubic brush will be hollowed and the sides will form brushes to keep the room enclosed. 

You now have your first room.  The next thing to do is to make it so that you can see whats going on inside your room when you load it into Kingpin.  First de-select your room by pressing Escape.  This is where those entities come in handy.Right click the mouse in the middle of your room in the main xy view and click on [Light]  This will place a light entity where you clicked.   Use the Z view to position the light in the centre of your room. 

Now you can adjust the light.  With the light selected press the N key.  Now where it says [Key] type in light.  Press enter to get into the value field.  In this field enter a value of 300.  Your light now has a brightness of 300 which should be plenty to light your room.

If you select your light and press K you can set what colour the light will be.

The final thing you need before you can test out your room in Kingpin is that all important info_player_start.  Right click to bring up the entities menu and place in info_player_start in a corner of your room.   Info_player_start can be found in the info menu when you right click. 

Using the different views make sure the entity isn't in any walls or outside of your room.

Your map should now look something like this.

Now before you can test your map you have to compile it.  To do this go to [BSP] menu and select bsp_fullvis (qrad -extra) which will fully compile your map to a .bsp file in your maps directory. 

Now when you start Kingpin go to the colsole and type map yourmapname.  You will now be in your room! 

Try experimenting with different values for the light entity and different colours of lighting to see how they effect your map.  Try selecting the brushes that make up different parts of your room and applying different textures to them.

Coming in part 2 of the tutorial I will explain how to join rooms together and how to make doors and the use of other entities you will need.

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