Jackhammer) Is a Brand New Level Editor for Games with a Quake-Style BSP Architecture
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J.A.C.K. Reference Manual Version 1.1 April 1, 2018 Copyright © Crystice Softworks 2013 — 2018 VDK Reference Manual Revision 6 (Apr 2018) Page 2/87 Introduction J.A.C.K. (Just Another Creation Kit; previously known as Jackhammer) is a brand new level editor for games with a quake-style BSP architecture. The aim is to develop a convenient cross- platform tool capable of incorporating the best features of existing editors, such as Valve Hammer Editor, Q3Radiant and others. Despite Quake and Half-Life having been released a long time ago, the large communities have arisen around, still developing modifications and games on their bases. However the existing editors suffer from fundamental disadvantages their users are well familiar with. J.A.C.K. does aspire to be the universal level design tool for classic games. But not only the classics! The editor shall become a key development tool for the Volatile engine, so that is why its second name is Volatile Development Kit. J.A.C.K. is being developed since August 2013. Despite not all the ideas being implemented and not all the functions being completely error-free, you are already able to download fully functional version of the editor, install and evaluate J.A.C.K. in action. Please don't forget that any complicated software may contain some issues. We are interested in a vast testing of the editor and grateful in advance for your comments and suggestions! We are pleased to see you amongst the J.A.C.K. users! J.A.C.K. Steam Store page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/496450 Online information about J.A.C.K. is available from: http://jack.hlfx.ru Def2fgd tool: https://bitbucket.org/FreeSlave/def2fgd Copyright Notice: some parts of the manual were taken from the official Worldcraft 3.x CHM manual; copyright © 1996- 2000 Valve LLC, all rights reserved. The appropriate modifications were introduced in some places, to handle the differences between Worldcraft/VHE and J.A.C.K. 2 VDK Reference Manual Revision 6 (Apr 2018) Page 3/87 Important Notice Concerning the situation with copyright issues for Half-Life map compiling tools (ZHLT/VHLT), we are not able to distribute the tools with the Steam version of J.A.C.K. This also applies to Half-Life modifications. Therefore, before you can proceed with level design for Half-Life, you have to download and install map compiling tools manually. We did our best to facilitate this process as much as possible, so here is a step-by-step guide: 1) Download a proper version of the tools for your operating system. If you don’t know exactly whether your Windows is 32-bit or 64-bit, you can download 32-bit version of the tools; they can run on 64-bit Windows, but not vice versa. Windows, 32-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_win32_x86.zip Windows, 64-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_win32_x64.zip Linux/SteamOS, 32-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_linux_x86.zip Linux/SteamOS, 64-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_linux_x64.zip MacOS, 32-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_macos_x86.zip MacOS, 64-bit: http://jack.hlfx.ru/pub/vhlt_macos_x64.zip Or, visit the official VHLT page: http://forums.svencoop.com/forumdisplay.php/217-Vluzacn-s-Map-Compile-Tools 2) After you downloaded the tools, unpack the archive to the Half-Life directory (where hl.exe is located); the new "tools" subdirectory containing the executables and other necessary files will be created. Finally, the following executables must exist (the path to "SteamApps" is just an example; please assume your own Steam path instead): C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/half-life/tools/hlcsg.exe C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/half-life/tools/hlbsp.exe C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/half-life/tools/hlvis.exe C:/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/half-life/tools/hlrad.exe 3) Run the Automatic Configuration Tool in J.A.C.K. (Ctrl+F2); make sure the path to Half-Life has been automatically detected (if not, this probably means you don’t own a legal copy of the game) and is the same you’ve just unpacked the tools into. Press OK to create a game configuration for Half- Life. Now everything should be fine. 4) If you still get the error "File not found" when compiling a map, please examine the paths again; you have probably unpacked the tools to a wrong directory. You can also manually correct the paths in the Configure dialog (F2). 3 VDK Reference Manual Revision 6 (Apr 2018) Page 4/87 Contents 1. BASIC INFORMATION ....................................................................................................................................................7 1.1. KEY FEATURES ...............................................................................................................................................................7 1.2. HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS................................................................................................................11 1.3. CONTACTING THE AUTHORS..........................................................................................................................................11 2. SETUP GUIDE ..................................................................................................................................................................12 2.1. GENERAL SETTINGS ......................................................................................................................................................12 2.2. GAME CONFIGURATIONS ..............................................................................................................................................12 Automatic Setup .............................................................................................................................................................12 Manual Setup .................................................................................................................................................................12 3. LEVEL DESIGN BASICS ................................................................................................................................................17 3.1. INTRODUCTION TO EDITING ..........................................................................................................................................17 Solids: the Foundation of 3D Design.............................................................................................................................17 Entities ...........................................................................................................................................................................17 Entity Types....................................................................................................................................................................17 Putting it All Together....................................................................................................................................................17 3.2. THE 3D AND 2D VIEWS.................................................................................................................................................18 Using Cameras...............................................................................................................................................................18 Camera Placement.........................................................................................................................................................18 Keyboard Shortcuts........................................................................................................................................................19 3.3. CREATING SOLIDS.........................................................................................................................................................19 Creating Solids from Scratch .........................................................................................................................................19 Creating Solids by Cloning ............................................................................................................................................20 3.4. TEXTURING SOLIDS.......................................................................................................................................................20 Texture Browser.............................................................................................................................................................21 Texture Application Mode..............................................................................................................................................22 3.5. RESHAPING SOLIDS.......................................................................................................................................................23 Vertex Manipulation.......................................................................................................................................................23 Vertices and Edges.........................................................................................................................................................24 Face Splitting .................................................................................................................................................................25 Vertex Welding...............................................................................................................................................................25