Welcome to the first in our series of Genesis3D map making tutorials, Creating a simple map. In this tutorial you will learn:

Basic Editor Functions.
How to create brushes.
How to apply textures to both faces, and brushes.
How to add entities to your maps.
How to compile and test your maps.

This tutorial assumes that you have read the help file included with the Genesis World Editor(referred to as GWE hereafter) regarding basic functions.

In this tutorial we are going to create the simplest possible level, a square cube with no doors, and no lighting. This tutorial is designed for users with no prior level editing experience.

When the GWE loads up you will be presented with the quad-window view. The top window is your textured window. This windows purpose it to present you with a preview of how your map will appear when run. The other three viewpoints are labelled top, side, and front. These are your editing windows. If you do not like the current position of the windows, and would like to rearrange their positions, you may do so. To change window viewpoints, highlight that window, and select either Top View, Side View, or Front View from the View menu.

There are three main modes to the GWE. These are:

Camera Mode
Selection Mode
Modify Mode

In order to add or subtract primitives into our world, we need to be in Modify Mode. Make sure you are in modify mode by selecting the

Modify Brush Mode Button

If you have never worked with a 3D editor before, a primitive is a primitive shape that is used to build the objects in our world. In this example we will be using a single primitive to create a square room. We use these primitive shapes to form brushes. Brushes form all the walls, and shapes on our levels. For example if you were to create a level of your house, the walls, ceiling, and floor of each room would be a distinct brush. We would create a brush for each room, and by connecting these brushes, we would form your house. Additional objects such as a table, would also be formed by brushes, which would be added into our rooms.

To create our room we need to select the Template Options Page in the Options Page menu(the tabs on the mid-right side of your screen). If you are in Modify Mode(as you should be if you followed directions) then you will be presented with a menu that looks like the picture below:

Click on the Create Box button(as shown below)

You will be presented with a menu that looks something like this:

The default options are fine for what we are creating. I want to give a brief description of a couple of the options however, for future reference. The size options and wall thickness should be pretty self-explanatory. The three options that we are going to review here are Solid, Hollow, and Cut Brush.

A primitive can either be solid or hollow. Hollow brushes are generally used for creating the walls, ceiling, and floor of our maps. A good description of a hollow brush is if you take a cube of clay. Take the cube of clay, and rip a perfect cube in the center of that clay(you would have to create this cube with your hand, then reinsert the sides of the clay. Now if you were standing in the middle of that clay, you would be in the Hollow portion of it. This gives a good idea of a hollow brush. When creating your maps, you will find that you will use hollow brushes most of the time.

Solid brushes are used to add objects into an already hollow room. For example if you wanted to add a box in the middle of your room to similate a crate, you would make that a solid brush(because we want to see the outside of the crate, rather than the inside, that we cannot enter into).

Cut brushes are used to create hallways, and to tear wholes into our existing brushes.

Click the Okay button, and you will see a template cube appear in our editing windows(if you had just created a new map, then you actually did not need to create the cube, the template for it was already present. We went through this process as an educational exercise).

If you wish to resize your cube, all you have to do is drag the edges in the editing windows(keep in mind that you have more than one dimension here, and each window is only modifying two dimensions).

If you wish to move your camera around, say to zoom out etc in your editing window, there are two ways to accomplish this. The first way is to select the Camera Mode Button(shown below)

You may then use the left mouse button to move your viewpoint, and the right mouse button to zoom in or zoom out. (For zooming operations you can also use the Keypads + and - keys to zoom in or out).

The second method, is the one that I recommend. This allows you to move your viewpoint while remaining in Selection or Modify Mode. To do this hold down the spacebar, then navigate as if you were in Camera Mode.

Once you have resized your box to the desired size, we must insert the brush into our world. You do this by hitting the Enter key while in one of the editing windows. After doing so, you will notice that the room appears in your Textured window. Congradulations you have created your first room.

Your probably thinking, great, we have a room where the walls, floor, and ceiling all look the same. Well, fear not that is easily remedied. To edit the texture of a brush(or face) we need to select the brush or face that we wish to modify. There are two ways to accomplish this.

The first method requires you to go into Selection Mode, by clicking the Selection Mode button(shown below)

You may then select a brush by clicking on any of its points or lines in any of your editing(or textured) windows.

The second method is a bit easier. You simply click on a brushes lines in the Textured Window, this will select the brush automatically.

Once a brush is selected, you may apply a new textures to all of its faces by using the Texture Options Page on the Options Menu(mid-right corner of screen). Select a texture from the listbox in the Texture Options Page, and hit the Apply button to apply that texture to the selected brush or face. All newly created brushes will use the selected texture upon creation.

To modify faces is just as simple. It only requires one additional step. To toggle between face and brush mode(a face is defined as each wall or side of a brush) hit the Page Down key, or select the menu option: Tools->Toggle Brush/Face Mode. Once you are in face mode you can select individual faces in the same way that you select individual brushes(by clicking on them). Let's place a new texture on both the ceiling and the floor. To select multiple brushes, hold down the CTRL key and click on each face that you wish to select(in this case the ceiling and floor). Now simply choose a texture that you would like to use for the ceiling and floor, and click the Apply button.

Now, we are almost ready to compile and test our level. The last thing we need to do is add our DeathMatchStart entity. Before we do that we need to define what an entity is. Entities are anything other that does not fall into the category of a brush. Entities include weapons, monsters, lights, player start positions, areas which trigger sound, etc. Every level must have at least one start position.

In order to add an entity we need to be in Modify Mode. Click the Modify Mode button, then select the Template Options Page in the Options Page Menu. Select DeathMatchStart from the drop-down entities list box. Then click the yellow lightbulb to create a DeathMatchStart entity template. You may move the entity template(it appears as a Blue X in your editing menus) to wherever you wish to start the level by dragging it in your one of your editing views. We add the entity to the level in the same way that we add a brush, by hitting the Enter key in one of the editing windows.

We are now ready to compile and test our map. We compile our map by using either the menu command Tools->Compile or by clicking the compile button(shown below)

Your map should compile without a hitch, and you will be prompted to view a preview of your level. If you select yes, then you will be launched into the game. One piece of advice, when the main menu appears(Single Player, Start Multiplayer, etc) hit the escape key, or else it will load the default map.