Compiling and Testing

1. Before you compile your map, there's a few things we need to add. First you need a room, one completely sealed off with no 'leaks' (gaps). (See this tutorial if you don't know how to create a room.) Select any of your brushes, and press N to open the Entities dialog box. 'Worldspawn' should be already selected at the top.

2. In the Key field type 'mapcoordsmins'. Now this next part could be tricky if you don't know maths. You need to enter the co-ordinates of the top-left corner of your map (from Top view). You also need to add on at least 64, because you may get problems if your map reaches the very edge. So in the below example, the co-ordinates we could use are 64, 128. Remember, the co-ords are x then y (alphabetical order), and x means across while y means up and down (across = a cross, easy to remember). Enter the correct digits into the Value field of the Entities dialog box, but don't include the comma, then press Enter.

3. Now we do the same for the bottom-right corner of the map. In the Key field type 'mapcoordsmaxs', press Tab to jump to the Value field, and type in your co-ordinates for the bottom-right corner (plus at least 64). The important thing here is that your co-ordinates must add up to a perfect square. You can find a perfect square the easy way, by dragging a temporary large square brush out and using that as a guide, or you can work it out with simple maths (if minx - maxx = miny - maxy (ignoring positives or negatives in the final result) then you have a square). Type the digits in the Value field without a comma, then press Enter. Hopefully you've now set the correct maximum and minimum co-ordinates of your map, which is essential to stop Enemy Territory from crashing/freezing once you attempt to enter Limbo mode.

4. We're almost ready to compile. Press Escape to deselect everything, then right-click inside your map from any 2D view and select 'info/info_player_deathmatch'. This creates what's known as an 'entity'. In Radiant you can move it around just like a brush, but in game the entities function any number of ways (a light for example). This particular entity we've created is the spawn point of Spectator mode in game. You need this somewhere inside your map for it to start, so move it where you see fit and press Escape to deselect.

5. Now we do the same thing again, but this time choose 'team/team_CTF_bluespawn' from the menu to create a spawn point for one team. Move this inside your map, positioned about 32 away from the floor. Add our last entity in the same manner, choosing 'team/team_CTF_redspawn' for the opposite teams spawn point. Now, finally we can compile. The good news is, you only have to do all this once, providing you plan ahead and don't keep changing the size of your map.

6. Save your map with a name of your choosing in the directory 'etmain/maps/'. From the BSP menu along the top of Radiant, select 'Q3Map2: (single) BSP -meta'. This may be at the bottom of the menu the first time you use it. This is the fastest method of compiling, and although doesn't render any lights for example, it's enough to test our map with for now. (If you've used lighting you want to check, you can select 'Q3Map2: (test) BSP -meta, -vis, -light, -fast, -filter'. Be warned this takes a lot longer to compile.) Radiant will work away compiling your map, and you may proceed once the console reads 'Connection closed'. If you have any problems with your map, you'll probably find out about them now. For example, if it says you have a leak, look on the map for a red line indicating a gap you need to close.

7. You can now open Enemy Territory and test your map. Once ET has loaded, press ` to open the console. Type '/sv_pure 0' then press Enter, type '/g_gametype 2' and press Enter again, lastly type '/devmap yourmapname' (replace yourmapname with, er, your maps name) and press Enter.

That's it! Join a team as normal then spawn and run around in your map. Cool, huh? Now if you've followed the tutorials in order, at this point we have ugly black and blue squares instead of nice textures. To fix that, see the next tutorial on ~~Textures and Shaders~~.

Compiling and Testing

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