OK, You now want to do more advanced stuff, right? In this lesson we will make two adjoining rooms with a cool looking doorway separating them. This is a shorter tutorial than the others right now as it is meant to be a stop-gap between versions of QOOLE. The next version with more advanced features should be around within a couple of weeks.

First step, create a new map. I'm asuming you can do this without help :) If not, go back a couple of tutorials. This tutorial will involve several specific steps: Creating two rooms; creating a block which will form a surround around the doorway; cutting the doorway through the block.

The first step has already been covered by the previous tutorials. Creat two cubes, resize them so they are big enough to use as rooms, and move them so that then are touching at the edge. You can see from the next pic what I'm talking about. You can make the two rooms the same size, or as I did, you can make them different sizes. I have created a small scene with a kind of L shaped intersection of the rooms.

After you have created the two rooms you need to make a block which will act as the border around the door. This is no way "necessary" but un-bordered door tends to look unplanned, I'll leave it up to you, you can have your own opinions. :) I have made this cube and moved it into position as you can see from the pic. I have made it so that there is a one square overlap from the walls. I have also made it so that the border will be bigger than the actual hole. Hint: You might want to include the player start entity at this stage so you can get a feel for the size of the player, assume that the player needs quite a bit of space around himself, then you will leave enough room.

The next, and most important, step is to "carve" a hole through both of the walls, and through the border. In Quake level editing this is know as Constructed Solid Geometry subtraction. I prefer carving! :) The way this works is such: You make a cube large enough to fit through both sides of the place you want to carve, use all of the views to ensure that it looks even within the setting. In the pic to the right you can see than I have left one square of border on the left and right sides, and a 2 square border on the top of the door. And you select object/subtract, or hit alt-s. This will then carve through the walls, similar to a cookie cutter. This will have punched a hole through the walls, so the final step is to simply delete (press DELETE) the carving block. Note: If you wish to do multiple carves with the same cube, you can simply move the cube to the next position and carve again.

Finally Insert the player start (if you have not already done it) and insert a couple of lights. Here is another tip: If you simply want to copy an entity or brush to another position select the object, then hold down CTRL and drag with the left mouse button. This technique can significantly speed up level creation. I have put in two lights, both in the larger room. This creates a cool dark entrance to this level, I love cool shadows :)

Get this far? Download the completed file, with a .QLE file, a .MAP file and a completed and compiled .BSP for looking at in Quake.

[ Previous | Home | Next ]