Section 1 - Creating a Playable Version

You might be interested in creating a playable version of your “level” thus far to see what your work looks like “in-game”. If you aren’t ready yet, you can skip this section and continue building and check it out later when you have more going on. A detailed description of the process below can be found in the section Creating Your Own Projects, but this is enough to get you up an running.

Placing Lara in her World

In order to make a playable version, you need to place Lara in your model. But first you will need to remove her from the demo model…sorry, only one Lara per level!

1. Under “Objects” in the DROP DOWN MENU choose “Find Object”. When the menu box appears, select “Lara”.

2. If you are in 2DMAP mode, the room where she is placed will appear red. Click off the 2DMAP button so you can see Lara…she should be highlighted in red. Click on your keyboard “delete” key to remove her.

3. Now go to the room you modeled, “First Room X”. Check the OBJECT PANEL to confirm that Lara is ready for placement…if she isn’t visible in the OBJECT PANEL WINDOW, click on the text box above the window and choose her from the menu. With FACE EDIT off, click the PLACE OBJECT button, then go to the raised platform and click on a square. (If FACE EDIT is left on, when you place your object, it will rotate or place a different texture on the square you touch.) Lara (actually, the dummy model of Lara) will appear on the square you clicked. If you right click on her, she will rotate around in 45 degree increments.

Outputting a WAD

A WAD file automatically loaded with your project when you opened the tut1.PRJ file. This file contains the compressed information about the characters and objects you are using in your level. Another program is required to edit these WAD files, so you will not be able to make any changes to them. However, you have access to numerous different WAD files so that later on, when you start your own project, you can select the one that best suits your needs.

When you output a WAD file, it combines all the compressed information about the characters and objects with the “environment” you have constructed, the triggers you have set, etc. This new “WAD” of information then gets compressed into the playable TR level file.

To output the WAD:

1. Under “Project” in the DROP DOWN MENU choose “Output Wad” (ALT W).

2. A window will appear that should default to your WADS file folder. Choose tut1.TOM and hit “okay”. DO NOT rename this file! To rename it involves changing the name of all the files within the WAD - this needs to be done before you output the WAD. Directions for renaming the WAD can be found in Creating Your Own Project.

3. You’ll see a message “creating rooms – please wait” then a small box will appear that says “room wad output” and you can click the button that says “okay.”

4. Save your project then exit the Room Editor to make the playable TR4 file.

Using the Level Converter (Tom2pc.exe)

Your Tomb4 root directory contains a Tom2pc.exe called the Level Converter. This program combines the WAD file with everything you have constructed in your level (the modeled rooms, lights, textures, sounds, cameras, triggers, etc.) and converts the information into a playable TR4 file (These files appear in your data folder with a tr4 file extension.)

1. Open the level converter and in the Edit Script box click the ADD button.

2. From your WADs directory (\Tomb Raider Level Editor\graphics\wads) select the tut1.TOM file, then click “Open”.

3. Click on the BUILD ALL button. Text will be displayed in the output window and a blue progress bar will appear below the window.

4. You will know the process has been completed when the bar disappears and “Build all complete” appears as the last line of text.

5. Exit the Level Converter.

“Playing” your Level!

1. When you used the Level Converter, it automatically saved over the tut1.tr4 file in your data directory. (If you want to play the Demo Level again, simply retrieve the tut1.tr4 file from the disc and copy the file back into your data folder or make a “safe” folder and move the original tut1.tr4 into it before using the Level Converter.)

2. Now click on the tomb4.exe icon, select “new game”, then “Playable Tutorial Level”. Once loaded, you should be standing in the middle of the first room you created. (If not, check the time on your tut1.tr4 file to make sure it is the new file created by the Level Converter.)

Back to the model…