Getting Started


First you need to acquire the following components:

• Radiant
• Q3Map


The above is essentially all you need for mapping. Wolfenstein is installed in a simple manner of it has everything in the folder called "main". Here we will see "maps" where you should save your maps and keep your compiled maps. We have "scripts", to keep your shaders in and there is a "models" folder, which will contain map models once you have installed everything. You can also make a "textures" folder and place in custom textures. Shaders by the way are scripts for some textures to give them properties like what sound is made when you walk over the texture, or how much light they could reflect etc.

Installation

Firstly you should already have rtcw installed, I recommend using Gtkradiant and not the official editor as it is in-fact a down-sized / older version of Gtkradiant. In other words Gtkradiant has been updated and has less bugs and more features than the official editor.

Radiant Install

Firstly make sure you have downloaded the most up to date version, at the current time 27th of Feb 2002, the latest version is "gtkradiant 1.2.4 nightly". You need to first download the wolf version of gtkradiant and then get that nightly edition update. Installing radiant is much like anything else, you might however notice in the update it asks for a quake 3 folder, just click ok and when you get to the part to choose what to install, untick the quake 3 boxes, it wont affect anything.

I installed everything to the default directories, if you havent you just need to change the paths like any normal installation, if your having problems with installation I suggest you ask on the Forum. Radiant will be installed into the "main" folder in rtcw and it has its own folder in "program files". The executable to the actual program is contained within the "program files/radiant" folder.

Q3MAP

Q3Map is a compile tool, as its names suggests its made for Quake 3, but its just the same for rtcw so everyone uses it. Its often being updated so download the latest version when you can. You will already see its in the "radiant" folder within your rtcw "main" folder, its simply one DOS program named "q3map" anytime you update it you should back the old one up, call it say "oldq3map" and then rename the updated version "q3map" and place it in that folder.

Its not really an issue installing q3map, using it means you either need to use batch files or get a front end gui program, at the moment most of the gui programs are for quake 3 and dont work, so stay away from them unless they say they work for wolf. There is one rtcw gui at the moment made by pointy called wolfcompile which is just as good as using batch files but uses slightly more ram etc. Compiling maps is another thing you need to learn or if you are already a mapper you will know about.


After Install

First Impressions You should now have gtkradiant installed and q3map should be in there too. Radiant nicely contains all the shader lists, map objects and the project file you need. Basically you should now see this screen to the right (Fig 1.0). Project files have all your settings for mapping in, such as where the game is installed etc. You will notice the windows and if you have never done any mapping before wonder what the hell is going on, if you have mapped before you will probably get the jist of it. Personally I dont use the default set-out, there are a variety of ways to have the windows its up to you which you feel comfortable with.

Fig 1.0 - Start-up Screen Click to enlarge

if you press "p" or go to edit > Preferences you can choose the style you want (See Fig 1.1), its most likely you will need to use the "top down view" a lot as well as some view that deals with the height. Top view symbol: Its up to you what you choose. Since I previously used a 4 window screen method to map before I use that, its probably not the best way to do it. Anyway, to choose what to use, click on "layout" underneath the "interface" part. See Fig 1.2 to the right, as you can see I clicked the 3rd box along, try out the windows to see what you might want, or stick with the default layout. There are many other items you could play with in the preferences, you can leave them all set to default and everything functions normally.

Fig 1.1 - Preferences box Fig 1.2 - Layout