Bila Vrana/BILA_VRANA.iso/017A/THRED09B.ZIP/TUTORIAL.TXT

Text File | 1996-11-19 | 32KB | 738 lines

                             Thred v0.9b Tutorial
                       Jim Lowell - [e-mail]
                              November 18, 1996


INDEX
-----

1  Introduction
   1.1 Acknowledgments

2  Requirements

3  Thred conventions
   3.1 Basic views
   3.2 Buttons
   3.3 Menus
   3.4 The default brush
   3.5 Keyboard Shortcuts   ** NEW **

4  Building your first map
   4.1 Setting up
   4.2 Walls
   4.3 Structures
   4.4 Lights
   4.5 Water
   4.6 Wads

5  GROUPING
   5.1 Defining groups
   5.2 Visible groups
   5.3 Exporting partial maps
   5.4 Group Editing        ** NEW **

6  Advanced operations
   6.1 Brush Subtraction
   6.2 Associating brushes
   6.3 Doors
   6.4 Platforms
   6.5 Teleporters
   6.6 Buttons & Triggers
   6.7 Walking monsters
   6.8 Trains

7  Texture alignment

8  Don't do this

9  Other sources of information

1.0 INTRODUCTION
----------------

Welcome to Thred! Thred is a 3D editor that has been designed to create
Quake maps. Thred supports many advanced features to make your editing
as easy as possible.

Thred is written and owned by Jonathan Mavor ([e-mail]).
The Thred webpage can be found at http://www.visi.com/~jlowell/thred
and is maintained by Jim Lowell ([e-mail]).

This tutorial is intended for people who are getting started with Thred.
It is not the Thred manual and does not cover all aspects of editing
Quake with Thred. When you are done you will have built a simple level
and loaded it into Quake.

It is assumed that you know something about Quake (you've played it a
lot, right?). It also helps to know something about brushes and how they
work together, but it is not necessary to use Thred.

You should unzip the Thred zip file into one directory (I use
Quake\Thred) and save all your files to this directory as well.

1.1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Marc Fontaine and Jasper van der Neut for their excellent
artwork on the Thred buttonbars.


2.0 REQUIREMENTS
----------------
This entire document applies to Thred v0.9b only.

The version of QBSP that is included with Thred has been modified to
support a larger number of brush faces. Because Thred generates brushes
with many faces it is highly recommended that you use the QBSP.EXE that
comes with Thred.

Maps generated with QBSP will run in registered Quake only.

You must run Thred in Windows 95 or Windows NT and you must have a mouse.
(note that Quake doesn't run under Windows NT, so it is really only
practical to run Thred under Windows 95 at this time).


3.0 THRED CONVENTIONS
---------------------

3.1 Basic Views

Most of the editing in Thred takes place right in a window. Moving,
scaling, rotating, and shearing can all be done in a Thred window.
There are a lot more things that you can do in the Thred windows,
so it is important to understand how they work.

There are 6 different views of your map in Thred. Texturemapped
preview, Solid Gons (or Solid Render), Wireframe, front, side, and
top. Thred is a MDI application, so you can have as many windows open
as you like with any combination of these views in any of the windows.

In the texturemapped, solid render and wireframe views, the mouse can
be used to move and pan around much the same way you would move in
Quake. To walk around, hold the left mouse button and move the mouse.
To look around (same as mlook in Quake) hold the right mouse button
and move the mouse. To strafe up, down, left, and right hold both
buttons down and move the mouse. The middle button switches you between
your current tool and camera mode, then back again (very handy if you
have a 3-button mouse). You must be in camera mode for these to work.

There is one other view that you can have in a windows: The texture
map. This is done by selecting "Texture Browser" from the view menu.
This shows all of the textures in the current wad (use of wads is
explained later in the document).

3.2 Buttons

There are two button bars along the top of Thred. The top bar has 22
buttons, the bottom one has 19 buttons. All of the buttons have hints
on them that you can read when you pass the mouse over them. Their
function should be obvious from that hint help.

There is a webpage that explains most of the buttons in detail.
It is at http://www.visi.com/~jlowell/thred/buttons.html

3.3 Menus

All of the actions that can be done with the button bar can also be
done with the menus. Of particular importance is the Tools menu which
holds the BSP Manager option. The BSP manager will be used a lot to
redraw your map from time to time. With the "Quick BSP" button, this
menu shouldn't get used very much, but it is still important to know
where it is. The BSP manager gives you all of the options for rebuilding
the BSP preview in the solid render and wireframe windows.

Another important menu is the Map Settings option under the file menu.
From here you can select wad and palette files to use with Thred.

3.4 The default brush

Of all the brushes in your maps, one will always be the 'default'
brush. It will be displayed as a blue wireframe brush with red nodes.
This is the brush that is modified when you move, skew, rotate, etc.

The default brush may or may not be a brush that is part of the
'world' ("the world" is a term that means "everything in the Quake map").
Until you add a brush to the world, it doesn't really exist and won't be
visible in Quake when you build the map.

If you move or change a brush that is part of the world, the changes
won't be visible in the wireframe or solid render windows until you do a
BSP rebuild. This is easily done by clicking the button with a red B on it
(top bar, 7th from the left).

3.5 Keyboard Shortcuts

Spacebar switches between camera and brush movement. Z,X, and Y toggle
locks on their respective axis's. G toggles between group operations and
single brush operations.


4.0 BUILDING YOUR FIRST MAP
---------------------------

4.1 Setting up

Start Thred from scratch. You should have a view of the default brush and
nothing else. Maximize Thred and select "4 views" from the view menu. You
should now have four windows with a solid render window in the top left.

Make sure that camera mode is selected. This is the 1st button in the
bottom buttonbar (just to the right of the group dropdown list) and has a
hint of "Camera" and looks like an eye.

4.2 Walls

Let's create a quick room. To do this, we need 6 walls. The easiest way to
get that is to click the cube button and change some settings in the dialog
that comes up. The cube button is 8th from the right in the bottom
buttonbar and has a hint of "Cube". The dialog that comes up has many
options, but we'll just adjust a few. Set the top X size and Z size to 512
each. Set the bottom X size and Z size to 1024. Now set the height to 256.
The wall thickness should be 16. Click the "hollow" radio button and click
ok.

You should now have a default brush that looks like a tapered square. The
view in the solid render window may be too big for the window, so you can
back up by holding the left mouse button and dragging down in that window
(make sure you're still in camera mode or you may move or change the brush).
Now is a good time to play around with the views in the other 3 windows and
see how they work too.

We're sure that we want this brush as the walls of our room, so let's add
it to the world. To do this, click the add brush button. This button is
10th from the left and has a big yellow cube on it with a "+" on it.
The hint on the button is "Add Brush".

When you click it, you should see the default brush fill in. What really
happened is that you added the brush to the world (this made it shade
solid) and then Thred created a new default brush that is a duplicate of
the brush you were just using. This is very handy if you are adding
repetitive objects to areas (stairs or bars or something). You can move or
edit the default brush now without changing the brush that you just added.

Let's place an starting point in the room a