Section 6 - Creating the Outside World
When Lara’s adventure comes to an end, a
reward for surviving and completing her ordeal is due!
Creating a grand view of the outside world not only serves
as a "reward" but as a grand finale for the level (and the
tutorial as well!). To make this large outdoor space you
will combine six rooms into one.
Lower Desert Room
1. Begin by building the central lower room “Desert1”, the
room where Lara exits the pyramid. It is 10 x11 squares, and
9 clicks in height. Lower the entire room by using the ROOM
- button so the floor is at an elevation of -9. You will be
angling up the floor squares on the east (right) and west
(left) sides of the room. Refer to illustration ED11 for the
proper angle.
2. To build the passageway where Lara exits the tomb, select
the floor square that is on the east (right) row of “Desert
1” and 6 squares down from the top. Pointing the white arrow
to the east (right), lower the edge down 4 clicks to a flat
position. Illustration ED12 will show you exactly which
floor square to adjust.
Upper Desert Room
1. To build the upper half of the outside world, make a room
17 x 11 squares, and 20 clicks in height. Call it “Desert
Top1”. Make sure the floor elevation is at 0 (to match up
with the ceiling of “Desert 1” which is 0 elevation).
2. Select the five east (right) rows of “Desert Top1”.
Pointing the arrows to the right side of the selected floor
squares, raise the edges up 4 clicks. Now raise each row of
angled floor squares up to form a slope. Select the two west
(left) rows of floor tiles and raise the left edge of those
squares by 3 clicks. Raise the western most row up 3 clicks
to form another slope. Refer to illustration ED 13 to check
your slopes.
Combining the Rooms
Position “Desert Top1” which is 7 rows wider over “Desert1”
so the two left rows of “Desert Top1”overlap on the left
side of the lower room and the 5 right rows overlap on the
right side.
To connect the rooms, select (from the model) ONLY the flat
floor squares of “Desert Top1” (illustration ED14) Press the
DOOR button to create the portal between the rooms. Compare
your model to illustration ED 15
TIP: Using the X,Y coordinates to
line up stacked rooms. Sometimes when the room on top is
larger than the room below, it is difficult to get them
positioned correctly. Using the X,Y coordinates can make
life a lot simpler...Click on a square in the Plan View
Grid, look in the Text Info box below the Editor Window next
to “Selected Block” to see the X,Y coordinates of the
selected square. If you select the entire room, the X,Y
coordinates will default to the upper left square of the
selected room. Using the Plan View grid with “Desert Top1”
selected, figure out where the upper left corner of the
lower room needs to be positioned and click on that square
to get the X,Y coordinates. Now drag the lower room into
position by moving it until it has the correct X,Y
coordinates.
The Sand Dunes
The eastern sides of the rooms form the pyramid so you don’t
need to adjust these slopes, but all the other sloping floor
squares need to be randomized to form the sand dunes
opposite the pyramid.
1. In “Desert1” select the entire west (left) sloping floor
squares EXCEPT the top row next to the “portal.”
2. Randomize the selected floor squares by pressing F1 three
or four clicks to create a fairly rough surface. Hit F9 to
smooth things out a little.
3. In “DesertTop1”, do the same, making sure you don’t
select the row next to the portal…unless you want to adjust
all the tiles that don’t match the “portal” edge of your
lower room!
4. Now fix all the rough edges and holes, using what you
know about manipulating squares with the control key and the
white arrows! Notice that the row next to the “portal” in
“DesertTop1” was unaltered – when you used the random button
it didn’t lift any corners of the squares next to the
“portal”.
5. To give some shape to this flat row select random squares
and to each, point the arrow into the corner (use control
key) away from the “portal” side, then with FLOOR + (and
control key) raise up portions of the flat row and adjoining
squares. The edges next to the portal will remain flat.
Your two rooms should look something like illustration ED16,
but not exactly, given the random nature of these
procedures!
The End Rooms
This outside desert room needs to be large to create the
feeling of being outdoors! The easiest way to do this is to
copy the upper and lower desert rooms to use on both ends of
the center rooms. To get the slopes and random floors to
line up, flip the rooms using the “Flip Room” feature under
“Room” in the Drop Down Menu (or you can press ALT+Y).
Note: When you “flip” a room the
north (top) side of the room becomes the south (bottom).
When you “mirror” a room (Alt+X), the west (left) side
becomes the east (right) side. Don’t confuse “Flipping a
room” with a "Flip Map". Flip Maps are used to trigger a
change in a room during game-play. Flip Maps are covered in
the advanced section.
1. Now make a copy of the upper and lower desert rooms and
remove the exit passageway from the copy of the lower desert
room by selecting the floor square at the exit and sloping
it up again to match the surrounding floor squares.
2. Flip (ALT + Y) the copied lower room. Reduce it in size
by using the BOUND button to remove the four top rows. Move
it to the north (top) side of the central rooms, so that the
edges are flush. Flip the copied upper room, reduce it in
size by removing the two top rows and position it over the
copied lower room so that it lines up with the existing
rooms.
3. Combine the upper and lower end rooms using the DOOR
button. Refer to illustration ED16 to see which squares to
select.
4. Now create doors between the lower central and end rooms
and the upper central and end rooms. Work from the PLAN VIEW
grid, selecting the gray squares along the appropriate walls
before hitting the DOOR button.
5. After creating these connecting portals, you will want to
slope and randomize the floor squares along the north (top)
end of both rooms in order to wrap the dunes around the
horizon. This task will definitely put your modeling skills
to test. You will need to use the control and arrow keys
extensively.
6. Once you’ve accomplished that, copy the upper and lower
end rooms and flip them. Place the two newly copied and
flipped rooms south of the two central (original) rooms.
Join the rooms to the central rooms and there you have your
6 combined rooms.
Adding Transparency to the Upper Walls and Ceilings
In order to see beyond the wall and ceiling squares out to
the horizon and sky graphics, you must make them
transparent. First, turn FACE EDIT on. From the COLOR
PALETTE (located beneath the EDITOR WINDOW), select the
black color square in the upper left corner. Now click on
all of the walls and ceiling squares above the “Dune” line.
The transparent color will appear white in the EDITOR WINDOW
and you won’t see anything beyond the walls until you look
at your room “ingame.” (Not even in Preview Mode!)
Placing the Objects and Camera
By this time, you know what to do! Click on the objects in
the demo model to get their slot name and proceed as usual!
When investigating how triggers are set up, the Object to
Trigger and Trigger to Object buttons are extremely useful,
and remember to click on triggers in the PLAN VIEW grid to
cycle through each trigger on one square.
Lighting the Outside World
You have created an outside environment so you will want use
the SUN light. You will need to place one SUN in each room
because lights do not shine from one room into another, even
when they are joined. (Placing more than one sun per room
will cause an error message when you got to output the WAD.)
Play around with the settings until you are happy with the
direction your SUN is pointing or copy and paste from the
demo model. It is a good idea to try to place them in the
same location within each room, too. All connected outside
rooms should have the same Ambient setting.
After placing the jeep in “desert1” you can put a shadow
beneath it to help make it appear more “grounded”. This is
an instance where the blue “ON” button (its default
position) should be clicked OFF so that the shadow will not
darken the jeep, but only the “sand” textures beneath it. To
turn the button off, you need to have the shadow selected
and the LIGHTING button ON.
