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Digital Architect - Misc - UnrealEditor FAQ - UnrealEditor 2

UnrealEditor FAQ - UnrealEditor 2

This FAQ is divided into three parts. One is for Unreal Editor 3, another is for Game Related and the last one is the one you're currently viewing.


UnrealED 2 doesn't start ...

There might be several things causing this. The best way to get UnrealED 2 up & running is this procedure:

  • Install Unreal Tournament (full install, if you have the space).

  • Check which version of the game you have. Some Unreal Tournament packs you buy in a shop may already contain the latest patch. Currently the latest patch is 436.

  • If you don't have the latest version, you should download it and install it. (You can download it Here). Installing the latest patch will not only update your Unreal Tournament, but also UnrealED.

  • Try running UnrealED now.

DO NOT download any UnrealED fixes. I know there are some of em, but they are all meant to be used on the old UnrealED. Installing these fixes on the new UnrealED will only screw things up.


UnrealED starts, but the viewports are all white or gone ...

This occurs in some cases. It seems that UnrealED sometimes resets things, causing the viewports to disappear. It should be fixed by doing this:

  • Start UnrealED.

  • Goto the 'View' menu.

  • There, goto 'Viewports' submenu and hit 'Configure...'.

  • Choose the lay-out you want for your viewports and hit 'OK'.

Normally you should have your viewports back now.


UnrealED crashes when I try to configure the viewports ...

It can happen that UnrealED crashes when you try to configure your viewports, which you have to do to solve the above problem. If this is the case delete the file called "UnrealEd.ini" in your UT\System folder. Don't worry, this file will be recreated when you start UnrealED again, though you might loose some settings.


UnrealED 2.0 works, but the actor browser is empty.

This was a known problem with one of the previous patches. UnrealED was compiled on a PC running a certain version of the necessary Runtime DLL's. The version running on that PC was one of the latest ones, so anyone installing the patch and wanting to run UnrealED would need at least those version of the Runtime DLL's. This was fixed in a later patch by compiling the Editor on a PC running a lowest version possible.

In some cases it has been known that, even with the latest patch, the 'Actor Classes' browser still doesn't show any actors. I've been told this can be solved by installing Internet Explorer 5.5 or Update your Windows. This will install a correct version of the Common Controls DLL (Windows\System\Comctl32.dll).


Adding a preview screenshot to your level

Open your level and take a screenshot (hit F9) of the place you want as your preview screenshot. Now open your graphics program and open that screenshot. You have to resize it to a square image and then shrink it to a dimension of 256 x 256 pixels. You'll also need to convert the color palette to a 256 color palette. Once that's done, save your manipulated screenshot as PCX or BMP.

Now open UnrealED and load your level. Once it's loaded, goto the "Texture browser" and hit "Import". Select your manipulated screenshot and hit "OK". The "Import Texture"-dialog will pop up. In the "Name:" field enter "screenshot" and in the "Package:" field enter "MyLevel". Uncheck the "Generate MipMaps" option and then click the "OK" Button. Now UnrealED will work for a moment and afterwards you should see the "MyLevel" package displayed in the browser with your preview screenshot shown in the "Texture Browser". Go to "Level Properties" (it's in one of the menu's) and there's a field called "Screenshot" (or something like that); you need to click on your newly created textured screenshot in the "Texture Browser" and press the little "Use"-button next to the "Screenshot" property. Rebuild and save your map.


Autosave

While in UnrealED, goto the "View"-menu and select "Advanced Options". You should get a new window containing several sections. Open the "Editor"-section and in there open the "Advanced"-subsection. Now set the "AutoSave"-properties to true and adjust the "AutoSaveTimeMinutes" to whatever you think is best. Now UnrealED should autosave your current map every x minutes. I know a lot of people you have lost a lot of work because of an editor-crash and they didn't save their map.


Change the pivot point of a brush

Right-clicking a vetex of a selected brush will put the pivot point of that brush to that vertex. Or you can select the brush right-click where you want the pivot point to go and goto the 'Pivot' menu. There you can choose between 'Place pivot snapped here' and 'Place pivot here'. The first will first snap the pivot point to the grid and place it there while the second will put it exactly where you pointed it, without snapping it to the grid.

Changing the pivot point of a brush will change the point around which the brush will be rotated.


Rotating brushes makes them change shape instead of rotating

When you're trying to rotate a brush and it doesn't want to, it just changes shape as you try to rotate it, this is what to do. Select the brush, right-click on it and select the "Transform"-submenu. Once there click on "Transform Permanently". That should do it.

Also use "Transform Permanently" on brushes which you've scaled, etc.


Selecting multiple Actors

Selecting multiple actors is easy. There are several ways to accomplish this. One is using the CTRL-key. Press and hold down the CTRL-key and click on each actor you want to select. An actor can be a brush, lightsource, weapon,... Another way is using CTRL-ALT. Press and hold down the CTRL-key and the ALT-key and drag a box around the actors you want to select. And yet another way is to simply right-click each actor. So right-click the first actor (a menu will appear, but don't bother with that), then right-click the second and so on.


Selecting Brushes in textured-view

Hold down SHIFT+CTRL and left-click on the brush you want to select.


Mathematical Expressions in builder properties

When customizing your red builder-brush you'll sometimes want to do things like this: add an extra 128 to the width, divide the height by 2,... This is easy to do because you can use mathematical expressions in the builder properties. For example: let assume we have a standard 256*256*256 cube for our builder-brush. Let's say I would want to quadruple the height. What I do is go to the builder properties and type and = before the current value and a *4 at the end. So the value should look like this: =256.000000*4. Now by pressing enter UnrealED will evaluate this expression and change the value to 1024. I found this feature to be very useful.


Vertex Editing Mode - Quick Reference

The Vertex Editing Mode is really easy to use, yet quite useful. You can edit vertices with the usual cursor in UnrealED, but using that way limits your abilities. You can only edit 1 vertex at a time. To enter Vertex Editing Mode, just click the button found on the left toolbar. Once in that mode your cursor will change so you can see that you're in Vertex Editing Mode. To select multiple vertices press and hold down the CTRL-key and the ALT-key and drag a box around the vertices you want to edit. Please notice that vertices which are 'under' a vertex in the dragged box will also be selected. Once you've selected the vertices which you want to move, press and hold CTRL and move them around.


Quick Texturing

There are some handy tricks when dealing with textures. While in the Textured 3D viewport, you can make a texture the current texture by holding down the ALT-key and right-clicking on that texture. Now that texture will be the current one. To assign the current texture to a surface, hold down the ALT-key and left-click on that surface.


Light Scaling (Thanks to 'Unreal_Builder')

To scale lights first select the lights you want to scale. Then goto 'Tools'->'Scale Lights', check 'Percentage' and type in a value to your liking.


Quick Brush select (Thanks to 'Unreal_Builder')

When you hold down the SHIFT-key and click on a surface, UED will select the brush to which that surface belongs to. This is very useful when you want to know to which brush a certain surface belongs to.


Solid Glass (Using Sheets) (Thanks to 'Everyone')

Sheets, like the one I assume you used for the glass, don't have ANY depth whatsoever.... they're completely 2D. Since they have no depth at all, they can't block anything.

The trick is to use an ICH (Invisible Collision Hull).

Put in the window just how you want it, using a sheet. Then in the cube builder, make a cube whos heigth and width are 1 unit LESS than the heigth and width of the cube. Make it's length 1 unit.

Now move the builder cube directly behind the sheet that you already added. You want it to be one unit behind the glass sheet (as close as you can get it) and you want it right in the center. This way you'll have a 1/2 unit gap between the edges of your cube and the frame of the window. You DON'T WANT YOUR CUBE TO TOUCH ANYTHING AT ALL. (this will create problems... potentially bad ones)

Now click on 'add special brush' and under the menu, pick Invisible Collision Hull, and click Add.

Now you have a solid brush behind the window that blocks anything from going through, and it's invisible.


Solid Glass (Using Regular Brushes) (Thanks to 'OldGrandad')

Reduce the thickness of the "glass" down to 0.1 and make it a semi-solid. Keep the "glass" from touching the boundary of the window to stop those "see-through" effects it has.


Textures won't import

First you need to check that the texture is conform with the rules of the engine. For more information on textures click here. If it still doesn't import then you need to check how deep the texture-file is located in your directory structure. Basically when you import a texture in UED, the pathname + filename will be stored in a string of some kind with a FIXED length. So if your directory is too long, the whole thing won't be able to fit in the string and UED can't find the texture. The solution is simple; move the texture(s) you want to import to c:\ for example ;)


My reachspecs keep increasing at each rebuild

Reachspecs keep increasing at each rebuild even when you didn't change the pathnode-network. To clean things up you do the following:

  • Select a Pathnode.

  • Right-Click it and click 'Select All Pathnodes'.

  • Right-Click again and goto 'Order' and click 'Last'.

  • Rebuild.

Now the reachspecs should be reset.


I can't see coronas in UED. They only show up ingame. What can I do? (Thanks to 'Unrealportal')

There are two possible solutions to this problem.

The first is to set the 3D-view in Direct3D-mode instead of Software-mode. This is done by right-clicking the title of that view and selecting Direct3D instead of Software. However, the Direct3D support inside UED is not so good. There are a few problems with it. Selected surfaces don't get hilighted, you can't use zone portal view,... The Direct3D support just ain't implemented right. On the other side, the performance of this rendering mode is way higher then in Software-rendering.

The other solution is to get coronas to show up in Software-mode. To do this go to View -> Advanced Options -> Rendering -> Software Rendering. There you need to set "Coronas" to True.

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