Introduction

A Word from Klaus Breuer
Intended Audience
About this FAQ
Other Sources of Information
Acknowledgements

A Word from Klaus Breuer

All right! Here's the second (and still very basic and incomplete) version of The Unofficial Unreal Editing FAQ from me. Lots of things are still missing, many questions remain unanswered, many links are not implemented, but this release is just meant as a Call For Comments.
It shows you what the FAQ will look like, what will be covered (and what won't), and - most importantly - how you can help make it better.

You see, while I'm perfectly willing to spend a lot of time and effort writing this thing, I very much need your input. Found something interesting? Discovered a mistake in the FAQ (yes, even speeling mistakes)? Researched some info to help fill in some blank spots?
All places where I need help are marked thus: ##. Especially the reference lists are still somewhat empty, as I was unsure of some definitions, and have simply left them out for now.

I'd be especially interested to hear from the guys who have written all these tutorials - it would be great if you could send me a copy whenever you finish a new one!

Please let me hear from you! All contributions will, of course, be fully credited.

Flames

It's funny, you know. No matter what somebody does on The Net, somebody will flame him for it. Thus let me take this moment to explain that I absolutely refuse to even respond to such emails. I will also not involve myself in long 'Quake2 vs Unreal' discussions, holy OS wars, mud throwing matches, and whatever else.
Of course, I will attempt to answer every single serious email I receive (I get a lot of email, please be patient).

Intended Audience

Since Epic Megagames was kind enough to bundle their editor with the game itself, lots of people have dreamed of creating their own levels - their own worlds.
UnrealEd Beta was written by hackers for hackers; documentation is scant. This will, hopefully, change when the commercial version of the editor hits the shelves in a month or so.

Thus this paper should help everybody who intends to design his own levels. However, you should be willing to read all the info in here and experiment as well. If you have a problem, study this text, look at the original maps and experiment. Don't ask The Net about it right away - try to find out for yourself.

Creating a map is real easy. Creating a good map is very hard, requiring not only perseverance and patience but time and -yes- even a bit of brains ;-)

About this FAQ

Welcome to the release v0.11 of the Unofficial Unreal Editing FAQ.

What does that mean? Version 0.11 is the second release of the FAQ, "Unofficial" means absolutely nothing, Unreal is the name of the game, Editing is what the FAQ is all about and FAQs are Frequently Asked Questions (with answers, of course :-).

v0.11 is on the web site mainly to attract suggestions and feedback. It is being continually updated; as soon as I stop updating, it'll be turned into v0.2.

Here's how revision classification works. If a new version of the FAQ only has a small amount of information changed or added, the version number is increased by 0.1. This is called a "minor revision."
If a new version of the FAQ has a substantial amount of new information changed or added, the version number is increased by 0.5. This is called a "standard revision."
If a new version of the FAQ has a huge amount of added or changed information, major parts of the FAQ are rearranged, or major parts of the FAQ are rewritten, then the version number is increased by 1.0. This is called a "major revision."

All chapters containing changes from the last versions have their chapter headings enclosed in **'s, making it easy for you to find new information without reading The Whole Damn Thing again.

Also, ##'s are at times found in the text - these denote questions I urgently need help on, and any feedback is especially appreciated.

Where to find this FAQ

The latest version of this FAQ can always be found on Planet Unreal.

The FAQ is also available in ZIP format for offline reading. The file name of the file will be "uuefaqt??.zip" where "??" is the version number of the FAQ (the t stands for 'Text Only Version').

Attention: All BBSes, Compuserve, America Online, GEnie, and all other information services. Please conform to the naming standard of the Unofficial Unreal Editing FAQ when placing this file on your system. Thanks.

**The Format of this FAQ

This FAQ is currently only available as an HTML document. I've decided on HTML as opposed to ASCII because I want to include plenty of images, especially in the reference section. I'm using HTML v2, thus you can read this with any browser, up to and including Lynx.

The images are in 256-color GIF format - that way they take up very little disk space (JPEG isn't worth it on such small images) while still looking good.
I've just switched my resolution down to 800x600, and now the creature photos seem much too large - comments? It wouldn't be too much trouble to downscale them, say to about half.

If I receive enough feedback, I might make an ASCII version of this available, with the images packed into an additional (and optional) ZIP file.

I currently have no plans of turning this FAQ into a .HLP file, but if anybody out there feels like doing it...

This FAQ can also be downloaded as a complete ZIP file for offline perusal. In fact, I strongly encourage this, as there are lots of images found in here and you'll just sit there waiting for them to load...

Translating the FAQ into other languages

I often get questions about german/spanish/italian/whatever versions of this FAQ.
I personally have no plans to translate the FAQ, but perhaps somebody Out There might be interested? ##

Printing the FAQ

You are very welcome to print this FAQ out for personal use. As it is rather long, however (and growing all the time), may I suggest using the FinePrint program. It will allow you to print up to eight pages on a single sheet of paper, vastly cutting down on your paper consumption.
No, I'm not affiliated, just a satisfied user.

Adding to the FAQ

If you want something added to the FAQ, please send E-mail to me, explaining what your addition is.

It will be reviewed, and if accepted, added to the next FAQ version. In the E-mail, please supply your name and E-mail address.
Please note that all submissions to the FAQ become the property of the author (Klaus Breuer) and that they may or may not be acknowledged.
By submitting to the FAQ, you grant permission for use of your submission in any future publications of the FAQ in any media. The author reserves the right to omit information from a submission or delete the submission entirely.

Note that I get a lot of email very day, so don't be surprised if I don't find time to answer your submission :)

Please do not send me file attaches without asking me about it first. I'm accessing The Net via modem in Germany - a very expensive process...

**Things to do still

Here's a short (but growing) list of things I plan to add to this FAQ, once all the links are operational:

Other Sources of Information

Unreal editing is both fun and at times difficult, and thus lots of information abounds in the net.

Mailing Lists

There are several rather good mailing lists around.
Have a look at Planet Unreal's mailing lists.

WWW Sites

There are lots of WWW sites around. Here are just some pointers which should get you started:

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank Epic Megagames for bringing out such a lovely piece of software. Yes, we finally have a game that can stand its own against Quake :-)

Contributors

In alphabetical Order:

Name Contribution
Planet Unreal For giving this FAQ a home :)
Brian Kidby (thekid@ornews.intel.com) DOOM DeathMatch Level Design Guidelines.

Thank you! If, for some reason, I did miss you, please send me email!

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who reads this FAQ, you are what the FAQ is for!


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