Now
that you know about zones, its time to put the trick to some use.
Basically, I decided to show you all about zoning and what it does, instead of simply
telling you how to add water. So you understand how zones work, and not just how to
add water. So, its water you want? Water you shall get.
Putting water in your maps
As explained in the previous section, you will
be wanting to split a zone with a zone portal. But first, create the place where you
want the water to be. If there is anything you want to stick through the water, like
rocks and such, add them first - before adding the water sheet. Because adding stuff
in the middle of a sheet can make whacky things happen.
After building the space that
the water is to reside in, build a sheet the correct size to "seal off" the top
of the water, and place it likewise
With your water area created, build a sheet the
correct size to completely "seal" off the zone of what will be underwater.
Hit the special brush button, choose the correct properties, and add it.
Before adding the brush tho, choose a good water texture. Unreal has some cool
animated water textures in Liquids.utx, so load that up in the texture browser and select
a good texture for your water...
Choose a good water texture,
then hit the Add Special Brush button
The predefined water should
work in this case
Add the sheet and you're almost
done
In the Special Brush properties, there are a few
predefined settings for you, but you don't need to stick to them. For water, you
just need to make sure its a zone portal, so check that box, and you want it to be a
non-solid, most likely you want it to be 2-sided, and transparency is only an option...
Transparency, sides, masking, and solidity can all be changed in the editor.
When you add your water sheet, it might not
appear in the 3D editor. Just hit F8 and rebuild your level, and it should appear.
Compiling your map can solve lots of problems that aren't really problems at all.
Compiling is nice and fast when your level is small, it can get to be a pain if you
have a large map though...
Now, with your water sheet in place, all you
need to do is give your underwater zone the correct properties. Open up the Classes
browser, go under Info, and under ZoneInfo, there are many different zone property presets
you can use. SkyZone, WaterZone, LavaZone, etc. Its quite simple, if you want
a zone to be swimmable, stick a waterzone in it. If you want it to act like lava,
stick a lavazone in it. So, select WaterZone in the browser, then go to your level,
and place it within the proper zone.
Select WaterZone
Place the WaterZone within the
boundaries of that particular zone
And by sticking that WaterZone there, Unreal now
knows that zone is swimmable. Add a playerstart if you haven't already, compile your
level, then play it to test out your pool of water.
Splashing in the water - In
Game
Now that you know how to add water, making lava
and slime should be simple. Add lava and slime the exact same way as you would
water, only a few differances. You would want to use different textures of course,
there are some good slime textures in GenFluid.utx, and there are some cool animated lava
textures in LavaFX.utx. Also, you might not want to make lava transparent - But you
can do anything you want to of course. Then, instead of adding a waterzone, add a
lavazone in lava, a slimezone in slime.
Zone tutorial level - download
it at the end of this tutorial
So now you know how to do stuff like water and
lava. Another use of zones in Unreal is for the backdrop. Learning how to make
a skybox is another very important thing in Unreal editing. Read on. |
