Modding...where to start, what to do?

[Unreal_User]

I have always loved what the mod community has done for games like UT, and have a love and respect for good map design in general. I always wanted to give mapping a go, but it hasn’t been until recently where I’ve seen just how powerful a tool the UE3 is at giving artists an easy (relatively) method of expressing their creativity and passion of art and design through the means of gaming.

So having said that, I have finally decided to start giving up my spare time and begin mapping. It would be great if you could give me some pointers on where to start (some informative websites, perhaps?), what I need, and just how tech-savvy I need to be to produce something good (I’m not that well informed when it comes to the tech side of things).

My creative and artistic side is great however, and I did really well back in school **artist of the year*cough*three years running*cough** and I have been playing games since I was a little boy enjoying my Sega Megadrive. Along with my long love of FPS’s I have come to understand what makes and breaks a good map and what makes them enjoyable. So after seeing what the UE3 can do, I figured this:

Artistic skills + knowledge of maps + love of games + UE3 = Awesomeness.

Anyway, tips and pointers people!

[EntropicLqd]

Well, I always start with the Unreal Wiki (link in sig); but as a mapper your mileage may vary. It's also quite overwhelming to start with (soo much information)

3D Buzz produced some very good video tutorials (sorry don't have a link handy), and there were a bunch shipped with the special edition of either 2K3 or 2K4 (forget which).

[Geist]

Go here, read the tutes, and buy the book!

http://www.hourences.com/

[cleepa]

The Unreal Wiki is very good, but it has so much information that it can be a little overwhelming at first. The Hourance book is also good, but focuses on level design in general, not the unreal editor specifically.

Here is the first tutorial that I did when I was learning to use the editor. Hope that helps.

[Unreal_User]

Thanks guys, lots of good information. It’s going to take a while (a lot more than a while) to learn it all. What programs would benefit me in mapping? 3D Studio Max is pretty much required, any others? Also, are good system specs beneficial to map making?

[hal]

Check out 3D Buzz, too, for lots of good tutorials. http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php

You'll want to have a powerful PC for content creation. It's generally more system intensive than the game itself.

[samifira]

I think the best route is to start small, applying what you learned from various tutorials to your maps, and then increase in complexity. When you feel that what you made is good enough, join a mapping forum and get some feedback.

[tidu]

The thing about a powerful PC is, it might run well on your comp but terribly on mid-low range system. This is definately optional, but if you have a low-range PC laying around, it's best to put UT on it and try out your maps there to see how they run, because everyone doesn't have 8800gt's.

And a mid range comp isn't prohibited from mapmaking, I've got a pretty outdated system (2ghz athlon xp, 1GB, radeon 9600 ) and mapmaking is pretty tolerable. 2-3 minutes to rebuild a full, completed map (add a few more for pathing) So don't think you have to upgrade in order to map/mod.

Unless you're doing it for UT3, that's a different story

[Unreal_User]

Unless you're doing it for UT3, that's a different story

Bummer... Guess it's a different story then!

Okay, I’m not going to get into the whole system specs speculation frame of mind, but will not having a powerful PC prohibit good map making in any way? Or will it just make life harder? I mean, I will at some point upgrade my PC to play more demanding games but that probably won’t be for a while yet. And I want to start mapping as soon as I get my copy of UT3 – so will or won’t it be a problem?

On another note, I own both UT 1999 and 2004. Should I give mapping a go on their respective editors in order to get a head start on the Unreal 3 editor? Or will the Unreal 3 one likely be largely different than the others and not really benefit me in any serious way?

[cleepa]

I would definitely start mapping with UT2004. The concepts will largely be the same in UE3, so you would have a good headstart if you start learning now. Like samifira said, start small and slowly work your way up. You don't need 3Dmax when you're just beginning, and your first maps will likely be small, so a top-of-the-line computer wouldn't be necessary either.

[musilowski]

Go here, read the tutes, and buy the book!

http://www.hourences.com/

Seconded. From ordinary (step-by-step) tutorials, you can learn the workflow of the editor, but with tutorials like these from Hourences, you'll learn a bit deeper about mapping.

Be sure to check out DavidM's tutorials too. There's more stuff on what to do and what not to do on lighting and mapflow.

[Unreal_User]

Excellent information and advice guys! This is great; I’m going to get right to work on mapping with UT4004 . BTW, the Hourences website is terrific. That guys got some serious talent.

[MonsOlympus]

Well a good idea would be to learn a few things, once you are confident I would set out a plan of attack.

Design/Plan
Concepts/Design
Make stuff

Good thing about that is you can work on idea's as you are doing tutorials or learning techniques.

[Unreal_User]

Hahaha. I’ve been dreaming up concepts, art and designs for what seems like forever. I have spent the last three nights lying in bed completing my dream map (in my head, of course) . The only reason I haven’t started earlier is because I have been put off by the complexity of the editors. But yeah, I will start off small until I get the hang of things.

[MonsOlympus]

Yeah thats a good idea hey, what you can do though is test out tutorials but replacing certain steps with your own content as that works sometimes so you can build pieces of your maps.

Being a mapper these days can require more then just knowing how to make maps though as well especially if you want to make something truly unique with all custom content. Being able to make textures and model can be useful if you are working alone, you dont need to be a master modeller or texture artist but some knowledge on those can go along way.

Having concepts though can be a big part of having the battle won, alot of people go into making maps but after a while dont know what (yeah Im guilty hehe ) to do because they had some idea's on what they wanted it to look like but couldnt finish finer details which can come through in concepts. It can be quicker to mock something up on paper then it is on PC depending on your skill levels in area's.

There are plenty of tutorials around though for any topic you need. I know where alot are for 3dsmax because thats the program I use most often myself beside a text editor so yeah if you want anything specific I guess you can ask in this thread but it might be better to the specific area's on the forums here or at beyondunreal