Call of Duty 2 Radiant Editor Manual

Call Of Duty II - Radiant Editor Manual

by Barry Stephen Nieuport

Copyright 2007

Version 1.03 - 02/11/2007

Updated as of 21 June 2007

II. Editor Fundamentals - The Functions, Commands and Procedures(cont.)

D. Creating and Inserting Objects in the Editor. (cont).

9. PROJECT FIVE: Adding A House.

a. The Setting, Terrain Around The House.

Background. We need to put the house onto something. I start my map with a caulk as the ground in order to be a place setter, a holding spot for the terrain to be placed later. As I build each section, I delete the terrain caulk and then proceed with the local area. I created the caulk using the Asset Manager. I saw someone using something like this but they did not say what it was or where to get it. I could not find it in the tools section of the texture, so I made one.

Figure 236 - Base To Build On.

If you wish to create a real simple non-drawing brush as I have, it is this simple. First, using a paint program, I used the Windows Paint program, change the attributes, the size of the drawing to 256 by 256. The other settings do not really matter, I left the defaults. Fill in the entire box with a color. I chose to use orange, as I could not see many textures using this color. And it really did not matter anyway. I used the text feature of the paint program to add text. I saved it as a jpeg file. I exited the paint program. Easy so far?

I downloaded a stand alone DDS File Converter from the Internet. It is in the filefront web site. The link to this download is:
http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/;29412#Download
This is what I use to convert to dds file format. I also have since downloaded a plugin for Photoshop that I am told will work with Paint Shop Pro, but I have yet to try it. If your graphics program saves in dds file format, then use that. The asset manager program with COD2Tools uses that format. Afer creating the file I copied the dds file into the Call of Duty 2 images folder. On my computer that folder is: C:\Program Files\Activision\Call of Duty 2\main\images and is the directory that the Asset Manager will look in.

Update: Paint Shop Pro plugin, it does not work with my current version. Dissappointing.

Double click on your icon for the Asset Manager, or find it in the Programs folder off of your start menu. This manual is NOT a windows user manual. I have an icon in a folder named “Game Development”, novel idea ay?

Figure 237 - DDS Converter Program Main Window.

You can find it also in the menu system, on my computer it is at:
[Start]->[All Programs]->[Games]->[Activision]->[Call of Duty(R) 2 Mod Tools]->[Call of Duty(R) 2 Asset Manager]
If you can’t find it from this, I can’t help you more than I have. Sorry. I have no clue where you installed it. It can be different for every computer and user.

Start The Asset Manager. The screen will look like it is in Figure 238

Figure 238 - Asset Manager.

We need to have a Game Data file. You can open the one you might have or select new and create one. As you can see from Figure 239, I already have one and you can see the open file dialog to open it, and the directory it is in is the image folder in the Call of Duty 2 main folder.

Figure 239 - Open File Dialog, To Open Game Data File.

Press New in the menu and type the name of the Game Data file you want to use if you do not have one. The file extension is “GDT”. This is where all the textures and stuff you create in the Asset Manager is stored.

After creating the file we need to bring in that file we just created. It is a new material, so select “material” in the window to the left in the main screen. Then click on the “New Entry” button, enter in a name for the texture you are making, press the OK button and then the screen appears that is shown in the Figure 240.

Figure 240 - Asset Manager Entry Screen.

Now enter the following items in their respective boxes, starting at the top near the middle.
Material Type = “tools”, Sort = default”, Surface Type = “none”, Usage = “tools”, Locales = pick one if you want to.
In the color map box, press the three little dots at the right and choose the file you just copied into the images folder. Save your game data file. Make sure that the new name in the list on the left is highlighted, in the main menu at the top press PC Convert and Current Asset Only. A screen will open, a DOS screen again. Press any key to continue and exit. You are done. Close Asset Manager. You will now find a copy of your own tool texture in the texture window. Make sure that you have not got the editor running when you do this. The editor only reads in the textures when you start the program.

Now let’s get to the real work. Using the Clipper function I cut a hole in the temporary ground that I made. I will add terrain patches here and put in some grass.

Figure 241 - Prepare For Some Terrain.
Figure 242 - Area Now Ready For Terrain.

Now let’s put some grass for around the house. We need to have the ground there to walk on after all.

STEP ONE: Draw a Rectangle 64 by 64. Press <Escape> to make sure that all brushes are deselected. In the 2D View Window / Top View, press {Left Click Hold} in the area where you will put the ground. At this point it does not matter where, you will understand in a moment. Be patient I cannot type any faster. Drag the Mouse down and to the right until you have a rectangle that is 64 units by 64 units and release the Mouse Button. The height is not important, mine is 8.

Figure 243 - Draw A 64 by 64 Rectangle.

I at first chose a density of 15 for both values in the Patch Density box. However, I have noticed that the size was changed when I converted to a patch. So, looking at the 2D View I realized 1.) snap to grid is on and 2.) 15 just does not fit 64 units wide at any grid setting. There are actually 17 vertexes at a Grid Value of 4, which is not available. So, I changed the settings this way. Press <4> to change Grid Value to 8 units. Now count the squares in each side, you can see 8? Good. Now, the number of vertices is always one more than that, this equals nine. So, the density of our patch will be nine on each side. This will match the grid.

STEP TWO: Convert To A Terrain Patch. In the Main Menu press [Patch]->[Simple Terrain Patch...] Choose the value of 9 for each side in the Patch Density box drop down lists and press the (OK) Button.

Figure 244 - Now It's A Terrain Patch, Density = 9.

The Patch Density Box was shown in Figure 133 , in the section for adding a bunker to your map, II-D-8. The drop down lists are activated, (dropped down) by pressing the small triangle, or arrow pointing down just to the right of the number displayed. You then click on the number to choose the value.

STEP THREE: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it up and to the left side of the hole we just cut and release the Mouse Button. Line it up with the right edge of the caulk textured brush, if you have one. If you did not have a hole, place it at the upper left of the area we are going to place the house. Make sure it is at ground level. For my map this is a value of 0 for the Z Axis, or height. Press <Control> + <Tab> to cycle through the different views for the 2D View Window and make sure of its position. Switch back to the Top View using the <Control> + <Tab> keys.

STEP FOUR: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch.

STEP FIVE: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it to the right of the first patch, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button.

STEP SIX: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch.

STEP SEVEN: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it below the first patch, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button.

STEP EIGHT: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch.

STEP NINE: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it to the right of the third patch, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button. Now we have a larger square of four patches.

STEP TEN: Zoom View Out. In the 2D View Window / Top View, move the Mouse Wheel back towards you to zoom outward, making the square smaller looking.

STEP ELEVEN: Select All Four Patches. In the 3D View Window, press <Shift> + {Left Click} on the three patches that are not currently selected one at a time. Now all four should be red, to show they are selected.

Figure 245 - 64 by 64 Boxes Combined to One 128 by 128.

STEP TWELVE: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch, or more accurately, to copy all four patches..

STEP THIRTEEN: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it to the right of the first set of four patches, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button.

STEP FOURTEEN: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch.

STEP FIFTEEN: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it below the first set of four patches, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button.

STEP SIXTEEN: Copy Patch. Press <Spacebar> to copy the Patch.

STEP SEVENTEEN: Move Patch. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame of the patch and drag it to the right of the third set of patches, touching the edge and still lined up with the grid and release the Mouse Button. Now we have an even larger square of sixteen patches.

STEP EIGHTEEN: Continue Copying, Moving and Copy and Moving. Continue to copy and move patches until you have filled the area for your house. I plan to build a house that is 256 units wide and 512 units long. I have placed the terrain patches over an area of 640 units wide and 832 units long. This will give plenty of space around the outside of the house to later put trees, shrubs, fences and the like to decorate the front and back yards.

STEP NINETEEN: Select All of The Patches. In the 3D View Window, press <Shift> + {Left Click} on all of the patches to select the ones that are currently not selected. A quicker way to select them is to press <Shift> + {Left Click Hold} and drag the Mouse over the area of the patches and they will be selected. Do not worry about hitting patches that are currently selected, as it will not change or toggle the selection until you release the Mouse button and do it again on a patch that is selected. Like running a paint roller over a wall instead of the slower paint brush.

Figure 246 - All Of The Patches Created and Selected.

STEP TWENTY: Add A Texture. Now that they are all selected, choose a texture to add to them. I chose a nice green grass. To find the ground textures, in the main menu at the top of the screen, press [Textures]->[Usage]->[ground] and only the textures that are used for the ground will be displayed in the Texture Window. This makes it easier to find textures. If you have the option turned on for the texture tool bar, you can type in text into the search text box at the top of the Texture Window and the texture names that start with that letter or word will be displayed. Figure 246 shows the Text Box used to enter names of textures. It is the grey box partially covering the caulk texture.

The texture I chose was the texture named "duhoc_grass_green3". To add the texture to the selected brushes or wire frames, press {Left Click} on the graphic of the texture and it will be applied. To better see the results you can deselect all the brushes by pressing the <Escape> key. But, remember to select all the patches afterwards. This texture right now is BORRRRRRRING. It is flat and lifeless. Well, we are going to change that right now.

STEP TWENTY-ONE: Start The Advanced Patch Editor. Press <Y>. This is referred to as "AdvancedCurveEdit" function. The shortcut is the letter <Y>. To exit the terrain editor, press <Y> again. The "Advanced Patch Editing Options" Dialog Box will appear. In this box we can use the mouse cursor as a "real" brush and raise and lower terrain height to create hills and valleys, to give life and realism to our map. This is the real definition of a "brush", a variously shaped extension of your mouse cursor used to modify the images on the screen. Just as in a simple graphics program this brush is used to paint your terrain.

Figure 247 - Advanced Patch Editing Dialog Box.

The top three sliders control the following: The first two are the size of your brush, two circles, the inner one and the outer one. The numbers to the right are the sizes of the circles radius in units or inches. The next one is the Amplitude. The amount of change that will be applied to the terrain is controlled by this one. A lower number, like 0.5 or 0.25 will change the terrain more slowly, allowing you time to change the terrain and determine how much you will do. This more subtle change is what I prefer. Faster modification of the terrain can cause some patches to distort, or become far too sharp and jagged for real terrain. Real terrain does not often stick out like a pyramid with smooth flat sides. Also the patches can be pulled apart causing gaps in the terrain. So, go a bit slowly until you become better acquainted with this tool.

The next section is what the brush will actually do to the terrain. Paint Height is just that, alter the height of the patch. Pressing the <Alt> + {Left Click} in the 3D View Window on the selected patches will raise the terrain and <Alt> + {Right Click} will lower the terrain. It only works on the selected patches, unless you change that. Flatten does just that, it levels the patch to a specific level. Smooth, takes out some of the roughness of the patch, softening the ridges and bumps. Disabled is just that the editing features are turned off. This is useful if you are moving patches about and do not want to be distracted by the circle shaped mouse cursor. The only other part that I have determined so far is the check box for "Allow soft selection on unselected patches" and this is what I just mentioned about changing only selected patches. With this checked you can modify a patch that is directly below the selected one. In this way you can have a patch with grass on it and below this a patch with rocks on it. By raising the patch underneath you can create a protrusion of rocks or dirt exposed, or lower the grass terrain to create a crater from an artillery shell, or just a portion of rock that sticks out of the ground as sometimes does happen. Where I live in New England, this is very common. It is referred to as ledge rock and is just that, an underground ledge or rock that sticks out of the ground at some point. It is usually bedrock, solid and one very huge piece of rock. Sometimes it is just a large rock, like an iceberg, larger underground than what is exposed. Either way, you just are not going to move it, unless you have a large amount of dynamite. You can also lower the patch above to expose the patch below that may have mud or water or dirt on it. You can also use it to create a pile of dirt or manure used by a farmer. Yuck, smelly. Use your imagination. I am not looking for final version here.

Figure 248 - Grassy Knoll For House.

This is just a rough draft of where the house will be placed. The terrain can be later edited to give a better look. For now, this is good enough. We are also going to cut away and delete some of the patches where the house foundation will be placed. We do not need to draw grass under the house. Press <Y> to close the terrain editor box.

Now lets start with the foundation and work up. To add a basement can be done later very easily. It is not like real construction, we can start at any point and even do the roof first. Try that one in real life!

STEP TWENTY-TWO: Draw A Rectangle. Press <Escape> to make sure all the brushes and patches are not selected. Select the "caulk" texture (It is in the tools section) to start with. This texture is used to cover the entire brush and is not drawn by the compiler and therefore not visible to the player. It is used for faces of the wire frames that cannot be seen by the player, such as the underside part of a house that is in the ground. We will later add texture when we are sure what parts are visible and what ones are not. Press {Left Click Hold} somewhere in the middle of your terrain area and drag the mouse down and to the right to create a rectangle that is 256 units wide and 512 units long. Because of the terrain mesh, it is hard to see what you are drawing. What I did was to draw the rectangle to the left side and then move it over to the position I wanted it. Once I got the position to the right height on the grass and the right position I wanted in all the views I then went back and first cut out the patch where my house is. I then selected all the rest of the patches and pressed <H> to hide them while we work on the house. This way they will not be interfering with our building. So let's move it over the grass and position it first.

STEP TWENTY-THREE: Move and Position Rectangle. Press {Left Click Hold} inside the wire frame and move it around until it is positioned properly. Make sure that the foundation is not protruding out of the grass and exposing the underside of the wire frame we just made. Switch to the other two views (Front and Side) by pressing <Control> + <Tab> and make sure the position of the foundation is not hanging in mid air or buried underground. If you have terrain that is more "pronounced" than mine, you may have to add to the height of the foundation to create the part of the foundation that is lower on the side of a hill for example. I started with a height of 8, which is what the editor usually defaults to. You can change the height or thickness of the foundation by pressing {Left Click Hold} outside of the wire frame and dragging the mouse in or out to increase or decrease the height. You can also change the width and length if you wish. I am building my house to my dimensions, you can use any you want to use. Return to the Top View by pressing <Control> + <Tab>

Figure 249 - Foundation and Terrain Mesh.

Figure 250 - Foundation Positioned.

Figure 250 shows the first placement of my foundation. It also shows that some of the terrain is higher in elevation than the top of the foundation. I have several choices here. Choice #1, continue building the house by adding the walls next and leave the grass up against the side of the house as it is a real life situation to see part of the ground protruding higher along the side of a house. We are after all going to cut the patch in the exact space where the foundation is, so there will not be any grass in the livingroom whatsoever. Mom said no grass in the house! Oh, guess that was different grass. Anyway, the terrain under the foundation will be deleted. Choice #2, use the Advanced Editing Tool again and lower the terrain a little bit where the grass is too high and raise it where it is too low. Or, is it that you get too high from the grass? Okay, never mind. One should definitely never see the underside of a foundation, that is a no no. Soil erosion is a possibility, but this ground is not steep enough to have that here. Choice #3, add to the height of the foundation here by raising the upper surface of the foundation. You can also lower the underside of the foundation if it is sticking up in the air in different spots. Choice #4, raise or lower the foundation as a whole, move it side to side until you are happy with the placement of it. In my situation, I am going to build a basement. I actually prefer to have imperfections in the landscape around the house. As is often the case in real life, soil erosion, or piling of dirt against the house due to digging a hole to put in a tree and leaving some of it there and grass grew on it.... All kinds of situations can happen. Most of the houses in Europe are very old, so moving soil around during all those years is definitely possible. Maybe some ledge rock is under that grass and they could not dig through it in the 1700s or 1800s when the house was built. If this was snow on the other hand, there would be a lot of places where the snow would drift up against the house. Starting to get ideas? Good. Keep it up. I will be putting a basement in my house, so the lower parts are irrelevant and immaterial. The higher ones will be cut out, so they are also irrelevant and immaterial. So, I choose Choice #1, do nothing.

In this next step you have more choices to make. I am going to delete the terrain under the house. You can do this using two ways off the top of my head. There could be more. First, select the patches under the house and delete them. I drew the foundation in such a way as to have the sizes of the patches in consideration. The width of the foundation is 256 inches or units. The patches are 64 units. If you use the math you were taught at school (For some of us that was a long time ago, I use a calculator now) you can see that this is exactly the same as 4 patches. The length, 512 inches is exactly twice that or 8 patches. Starting to understand why I use powers of two all the time? Good. I will now select the patches and see where I am in the scheme of things and decide and then get back with you. No I am not going anywhere, I will just stop writing, decide, come back and write what I found. Be patient, it won't take long.

Okay, I am back. Did you miss me? No? Oh well. You can see from Figure 251 that the place where I positioned the foundation is not on the edges of the patches underneath. For two reasons I decided to leave it there. First, to show you how to cut the patch mesh, and second I like where I put it. So there!

Figure 251 - Patches and Foundation Not Lined Up.

STEP TWENTY-FOUR: Delete The Full Patches First. There are two ways of doing this. I will show you the best way that I like. Draw another rectangle around the foundation and patches, by pressing {Left Click Hold} above and to the left of the foundation. Drag the mouse down and to the right to cover the whole foundation and release the Mouse Button. Change to the Front View, press <Control> + <Tab> and resize this wire frame to surround the patches and the foundation. Press <Control> + <Tab> twice to return to the Top View. Now press the (Select Inside) Tool Bar Button at the top of the main screen. This will select all objects inside the wire frame we drew. Now press <Shift> + {Left Click} in the 3D View Window on all "selected" patches that are partially covered and partially exposed by the foundation, as shown in the ones selected in Figure 251. This will cause those patches to be deselected. Press <Shift> + {Left Click} on the foundation. This will cause the foundation to be deselected. Now that all the correct patches are selected, the ones in the middle of the foundation edges, press <Backspace> to delete them. Alternatively, you could move the foundation up out of the way, select the patches individually, delete them and then move the foundation back down. I prefer to leave it where I put it and do it this way. Your choice though.

Figure 252 - Only Middle Patches Selected.

Figure 253 - Border Patches Selected To Be Cut.

STEP TWENTY-FIVE: Select The Partial Patches and Cut. Press <Shift> + {Left Click} just outside the edge of the foundation to select the patches that only partly go under the foundation. (Figure 253) We will cut these patches. Press <V> to show the Vertices in the patches. Now select the vertices to be cut, press <Shift> + {Left Click} on a vertex (pink and green dots) and a row will be highlighted (in blue) on one of the patches. If you wish to change the row to the other direction, in other words instead of left and right, change it to up and down, then press it again on the same vertex. Highlight a row of vertices on the edge of the foundation. Press <Shift> + <Control> + <X> to split the patch on this line.

Alternate Method: In the main menu at the top of the screen press [Patch]->[Split] to cut the patch.

I found an interesting but incomplete feature. I pressed <Shift> + <Control> + {Left Click} on a row on the right side, X-Axis, of the foundation and then again on another patch below this and they all remained selected (blue color), but could not get it to work in the Y Axis. I was able to cut all the patches down both the left and right sides all at once. On the other two edges I had to select them one at a time and press <Shift> + <Control> + <X> to split the patch on this line. Continue to cut all the patches in this way.

STEP TWENTY-SIX: Select The Partial Patches and Delete. Press <Shift> + {Left Click} on just the patches outside the foundation to deselect the ones we will keep. The rest that are now selected are the cut pieces that are under the foundation. Press <Backspace> to delete these.

Figure 254 - Only The Patches Under The Foundation.

Now it is time to start to make the walls, since we have the setting, the terrain and the foundation.