Before You Start
Before
you continue on to use Worldcraft, there are a few things you
should keep in mind?:
Worldcraft 3.x makes use of OpenGL for its 3D rendering. As such,
driver compatability issues may exist, so be sure you are running
the latest version of your OpenGL video drivers. Below are some
links to the major driver pages.
NVIDIA
driver page
3DFX driver page
ATI
driver page
Matrox
driver page
Worldcraft
3.x only allows for the creation of Half-Life (and Half-Life mod)
levels. It is not meant as an upgrade or replacement for Worldcraft
1.6, as it does not support Quake or Quake2.
Worldcraft
3.x takes over the registry settings of Worldcraft 2.x.
It
is best if you've installed Worldcraft (and Half-Life for that
matter) in a directory with no spaces in it's path, for example
"C:\Worldcraft".
In
order for Worldcraft 3.x's 3D sprite preview to work, you must
unpack the Sprites folder from your PAK file. For more information,
see the Unpacking Your PAK tutorial. It is also recommended that
you unpack your sounds and models folders from the PAK file.
Setup
The
first thing you should do after installing Worldcraft 3.x is configure
it's settings. The options settings can be reached by selecting
Options from the Tools menu. There are six different tabs in the
Option's dialog:
Game
Configurations
Build
Programs
General
2D
Views
3D
Views
Textures
If you are going to use Worldcraft to compile your maps, you also
need to setup Worldcraft's compile modes.
Compile
Setup
Game
Configurations
The
Game Configuration options allow you to setup Worldcraft to edit
Half-Life and it's mods. A separate configuration is needed for
each game or mod.
Configuration
If
this is a new installation of Worldcraft, there won't be any game
configurations yet. Click Edit, then Add, and enter Half-Life
(or whatever Half-Life mod you're setting up Worldcraft for).
If you've installed Worldcraft 3.x over Worldcraft 2.x, you'll
need to go through each old game configuration to make sure all
the old settings are correct and also to fill in new settings.
For
new users, note that you can add more than one game configuration.
This is handy if you plan on working on Half-Life levels and Half-Life
mod levels.
Game
Data Files
The
game data file contains all of the entity information that will
be used to create your maps. Worldcraft's game data files have
the file extension .FGD. It must be present in order for you to
create levels.
Click
on the Add button.
An
Open dialog will appear. If it doesn't show the contents of your
Worldcraft 3.x folder, browse to it.
Select
halflife.fgd and press the Open button.
You
will be taken back to the Options dialog. You will see that C:\Worldcraft\halflife.fgd
(or wherever you've stored the FGD) has been added to the Game
Data File list.
Note:
There is a new version of the Half-Life game data file available
here. You can unzip it into your Worldcraft 3.x directory and
use the same steps as above to add it as your Half-Life game data
file. Be sure to remove the previous version of the game data
file first.
Texture
Format and Map Type
The
Worldcraft 3.x beta is only capable of creating Half-Life maps.
As such, these two options are locked on WAD3 (Half-Life) for
the texture format, and Half-Life for the map format.
Default
PointEntity and SolidEntity class
Select
a default point and solid entity here. This controls which entity
will appear selected when you go to place an entity. It is only
a time-saving device. I recommend using info_player_start as the
default point entity and func_door as the default solid entity.
Game
Executable Directory
The
value here should be the directory where your Half-Life executable
is stored. The value should not include hl.exe. For example, C:\Half-Life
is correct, but C:\Half-Life\hl.exe is not.
Mod
Directory
If
you are setting up Worldcraft for a mod, the game directory of
the mod should go here. For example, if Half-Life is in C:\Half-Life,
and you're setting Worldcraft up for Team Fortress Classic, the
Mod Directory value would be C:\Half-Life\tfc. For a normal Half-Life
game configuration, the Mod Directory should be set to C:\Half-Life\valve.
Game
Directory
This
value should be the base game directory for Half-Life. Keeping
with the above examples, this would be C:\Half-Life\valve.
Note:
The above two settings are required for the search paths for displaying
sprites in the 3D view. They allow you to use custom development
directories rather than locking you into using the standard Half-Life
directories. For the most part, it is likely that you will be
using the standard directories.
RMF
Directory
The
value here is the directory where Worldcraft will store your maps.
I recommend creating a Maps folder in your Worldcraft2 folder.
For example, if you've used the example settings from above, open
your C:\Worldcraft2 folder and create a Maps folder, then use
C:\Worldcraft2\Maps as a value for your RMF directory.
Note:
As a point of trivia, RMF stands for Rich Map Format. It is Worldcraft's
proprietary map format. Before a map can be compiled, it must
be converted from an RMF file to a .MAP file. Worldcraft handles
this conversion automatically, but you can also do it manually
by selecting Export to MAP from the Files menu.
Build
Programs
The
settings in the Build Programs dialog affect how Worldcraft handles
things when you compile your map. If you don't plan on using Worldcraft
to compile your maps, then this section is irrelevant and does
not need to be filled out.
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