Editor Overview - How it works

Blocks, squares and clicks. Get used to these terms because you’ll be hearing them frequently. The Tomb Editor is designed to work with a basic “building block” proportioned to Lara and her movements. Texture “tiles”, equal in scale to these basic “building blocks”, are applied to the modeled rooms comprising each level. Lights, objects, enemies and sounds are placed within the model to create the worlds for Lara’s adventures!

Building Rooms Levels are built by connecting a series of rooms comprised of walls and “building blocks.” The floors and ceilings of these rooms are sectioned into squares. The “building blocks” are created when you raise a square up from the floor or lower one down from the ceiling. Four mouse clicks up or down equals the width of these square sections and creates a perfect cube. (Remember all those “blocks” Lara pushed and pulled around?!) Building blocks can range in height from one click all the way up (or down) to however far you are willing to push the limits! But bear in mind Lara is only 3 clicks tall and certain texture limitations must be considered in order to create a believable world.

The building blocks are not limited to cubes or columns with flat tops. Corners of the surfaces can be pulled up or down to create angled slopes and “organic” surfaces - great for creating rocky caves or sand dunes.

Applying Textures Textures are applied to the surfaces of the blocks to further define the block shapes and ultimately define Lara’s environments. Each level has a specific texture file that must be loaded in order to apply the textures. A texture file is comprised of many 64x64 pixel “texture tiles”.

Ideally, textures are placed on square block surfaces since textures will stretch or compress to fit the space defined by the size of the building blocks. Overly stretched or compressed textures don’t look their best so to allow for this, all the vertical surfaces can be broken into smaller segments.
 

Applying Lighting Effects Every room has an RGB ambient light capability ranging from zero to 100% white light, with every color in between. Lights, spotlights, effect lights, sunlight and shadows add drama and help to create a real world ambience.

Placing Objects What would Lara’s world be without objects to pick up or enemies to fight? Each project has a specific file, or WAD (object set), that must be loaded before the placement of objects or baddies is possible. WAD files include the specific objects, from ammo to animated water fountains, and at least three or four baddies per level. Animations take up a lot of memory, so forget about that room with 1000 scorpions! This is the time to employ your design skills and discover new meaning to the term “game balance”!

Placing Audio Tracks Audio tracks play an important role in setting the various moods within a level and are as easy as objects to trigger. After you have listened to the audio tracks, try to imagine how and where they will add to the overall ambience, the “drama” and game play of your level.

Launching the Tutorial (tut1.prj)

When you installed the editor software, all your folders were set up properly for you on your C drive. However, if you weren’t able to install to the default directory on your C Drive, you will get an error message when loading up the tutorial project, or any of the example projects. If this is the case, please refer to the Level Editor Messages section in the Trouble Shooting guide at the end of the manual. It will tell you what to do. Also, before going any farther, check this FILE FLOW CHART to gain a better concept of how everything works together and where to find files when you need them.

Make sure your desktop resolution is set to 1024x768 and your color depth at 16-bit. Room Editor WILL NOT RUN if you are in 24-bit color. Using the start menu on your tool bar, go to Core Design\Tomb Raider Level Editor\Tools\Room Editor to open the program. (You may want a shortcut on your desk top for quick access!) In order to view the bottom row of buttons on the interface, press ALT + ENTER to get rid of the Windows Bar at the top. This will fit the entire interface to your screen.

Using the Drop Down Menu at the top of the editor interface, look under “Project” and load the file tut1.prj located in the TUT1 folder in the maps directory. A 3D representation of the first room in the tutorial, or demo model, will appear in the EDITOR WINDOW. (If your EDITOR WINDOW or any portion of it appears black, minimize the window, then maximize it. You’ll have to hit ALT + ENTER again to regain your Windows bar.)

Quick Tour / Getting Familiar with the Interface

This is a good time to check out the demo model so you can see what it is you are about to learn. You also need to get familiar with some “key” buttons on the interface in order to find your away around the model and the rooms that you will soon build.

Viewing Rooms in 2D

Click on the 2D MAP button – the top left button directly below the EDITOR WINDOW. (Buttons change from gray to black in the “on” position.)

You now have a top down view of the entire demo model. Notice that the first room is red while the others are blue and gray. The colors represent different elevations:

RED: The room in which you are working.

LIGHT BLUE: Rooms at the same elevation as the room in which
you are working.

LIGHT GRAY: Rooms above the room in which you are working.

DARK GRAY: Rooms below the room in which you are working.

Find the PLAN VIEW grid in the upper left corner of the interface. The PLAN VIEW grid displays a top down view of the selected room in light blue squares. The surrounding gray squares represent the walls of the room, and are not counted as part of the actual room dimensions. The black squares represent doors or “portals” into adjoining rooms.

NOTE: One grid square = one “building block”

Viewing rooms in 3D

Click off the 2D MAP button to view a 3D representation of the selected room in the EDITOR WINDOW.

1. Use arrow keys to rotate the model

2. Use “page up” and “page down” to zoom in and out

Face Edit Button: Click on the FACE EDIT button to view the rooms with textures. (If you accidentally change a texture during your exploration, you can press “Control U” to change it back again.)

Draw Doors Button: Click the DRAW DOORS button to view the rooms that are attached to the selected rooms. As you rotate the model, notice how the edges and “walls” disappear to allow you a better working view.

Lighting Button: If you want to view the rooms with lighting effects, click the LIGHTING button in the LIGHTING PANEL located in the lower left corner of the interface screen.

Selecting Rooms

Click on the 2DMAP button. Find the text window directly below the PLAN VIEW grid. Click on SELECT ROOM button and choose “Cropped Room” from the pop-up window, then click “Okay”. Notice that the name of the room appears in the ROOM TEXT WINDOW and the new room you selected appears on the PLAN VIEW grid - it is now the “red” or the “selected” room in the EDITOR WINDOW.

Now click on other rooms in the EDITOR WINDOW and watch as they appear successively on the PLAN VIEW grid and in the ROOM TEXT WINDOW below the grid.

Also, as you click on different rooms notice that sometimes the other rooms change color as a new room becomes selected. If the room you selected rests at a different elevation than the previously selected room, the editor will adjust all the colors so that you can see which rooms are now at the same elevation (blue) as the selected room and which rooms are above (light gray) or below (dark gray).

TIP: Here is a trick to help illustrate these elevation differences. Select the “One Square” room using the SELECT ROOM button. Press the ROOM + or - buttons (from the ROOM EDIT BUTTONS) and watch as the elevation read-out changes in the INFO BOX below the EDITOR WINDOW. After several clicks, notice how the other rooms change color as the small room moves above and/or below them.

Navigating through the Model

The Flip Palette Button - At first glance you may have thought this button had to do with the color palette below it, but it does not. Sometimes you can’t select a room using the mouse because it is hidden by the rooms on top…the FLIP PALETTE button will help you find these “hidden” rooms. Select a room then hit the FLIP PALETTE button. All of the rooms above your selected room will disappear from view - only the rooms on the same elevation (blue) as your selected room and below it (dark gray) will remain. If you click again, it will replace the rooms above. This is a highly useful button for aiding in vertical navigation and selecting hidden rooms and will be important once you begin building multilayered models.

ALT + Z CRITICAL TO LEARN! “Alt Z” brings up the “place target” cursor. You can move from one room to another by clicking on adjoining rooms while in the 3D view (with the DRAW DOORS button clicked on).

You can also click on the PLAN VIEW grid with the “place target” cursor to move within that room. “Alt Z” allows you to change the rotational axis of the room – the square you click with the “place target” cursor becomes the new rotational axis of the room. Get back to the default view and axis by using the ROOM drop-down menu and clicking CENTRE (English spelling).

NOTE: If you use the CENTRE feature bear in mind that it places your eye level in the middle of the room. This can really tweak your sense of proportion in larger rooms. If the room is 20 clicks tall (the editor default), your eye level is 19 feet 2 inches above the floor!

Preview Mode

Click the PREVIEW button to view your model as it will appear (well, almost) in the game. To explore around the model you:

1. Move the mouse to the left or right to look sideways
2. Left click to zoom in/move forward
3. Right click to zoom out/move backward
4. Press “ESC” or hit the SPACEBAR to exit

This is a low resolution view that allows you to quickly fly through and check your design and is very useful because the editor always ends up in whatever room you fly to. The controls feel a little clumsy at first, but you’ll get used to them with a little practice.

Take some time to fly through all the rooms. Stop in different locations, exit the preview mode to observe the room on the PLAN VIEW grid and the EDITOR WINDOW. Practice using the ALT Z command to navigate in both 2D and 3D views.

Time to get your hands dirty…