How To Ask For Help

[IrritAnt]

How To Ask For Help

You've probably come to this forum looking for help with your editing. To help us to help you, here are some guidelines about asking for assistance that will greatly increase the chances of someone being able to help you.

Do Some UnrealEd Tutorials
There are literally thousands of web sites featuring online tutorials on the basics of editing in Unreal. It will benefit you greatly to work through some of them before you start asking for help. Members are less likely to answer a basic question about UnrealEd that has been addressed in a tutorial than a Killing Floor-specific question.

Do A Search
There's a good chance that someone has already had the problem you're having, and has solved it.

Make sure you read the first couple of pages of posts to see if your issue has been addressed. You can also do a Google search of the forums by adding "site:forums.tripwireinteractive.com" (without the quotes) to the end of a search query.

Other members are far less likely to respond to a question that has already been answered.

Use An Informative Title
A member will decide whether or not to read your post based on its title, so you need your title to be as informative and specific as possible. It also saves other members having to read posts for problems for which they have no knowledge or expertise.

Good post title: "Help: Editor crashes whenever I select more than three static meshes at once."
Bad post title: "N00b question plz help."

Be Specific and Complete
Outline your problem as specifically as possible - it allows other members to try and diagnose your problem.

Include as much information as you can. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to diagnose the problem. For example;

• If the editor crashed, list EXACTLY what you did just before it died.
• Are you able to replicate the problem? E.g. does it happen more than once? Every time? Only sometimes?
• Include any solutions you've tried.
• Your computer specs (it's a good idea to add this to your signature)

Try To Use Standardised Terms
Learning and using standardised terms helps to speed up the process by making sure everyone is talking about the same thing.

If you're a newcomer, this may be more difficult because you'll still be learning the lingo. As a general rule, try to use terms that are commonly used in the editor.

Include Screenshots
A picture is worth a thousand words. Experienced members can tell a lot from a screenshot. Try and frame your screenshots so that the part of your level you're having trouble with is centred and not obscured. Consider including screenshots from more than one angle.

Be Patient
It may take some time for someone to come back with a solution.

Try Any Suggested Solutions
If someone suggests a solution to your problem, try it out! Then update your post with the solution you tried and the result. If the solution worked, update your post with that fact!

By following these guidelines you're more likely to get help from other forum members. Help us to help you!

Say Thanks!
If someone helps you out, don't forget to say thanks! t makes them more likely to help out in the future. Also consider increasing their Reputation on the forums by clicking the little set of scales at the top of their post.

[Murphy]

Specs in the sig are boring, imo. Just post them whenever they are needed. Other than that, this is a wonderful post and should be stickied!

[Basic_Infantry]

I agree very good and it should be stickied

[thrash242]

When I start up UnrealEd, I just get a white screen! Help!



See, that's a good example of what not to do. My first tutorial I did answered that on the first page, plus a simple Google search will answer it, since it seems to be the most common error with UnrealEd.

[Murphy]

I seriously do not know why there are so many threads floating around with exactly this issue. If something is wrong with how I view UnrealEd, I click View, the only thing that makes sense to pursue in there is Viewports, because those are what seem broken. Now, what to click. Configure, I guess, if something is wrong with them. Looks Ok to me in here. Maybe look somewhere else. Oh,... nice. Everything back to normal again.

Now, I have asked my share of stupid questions, so no offense to anyone in particular who asked the white-viewport question on a forum somewhere! It's just the number that is astonishing to me.

A pictured tutorial detailing how to fix this is total overkill but its mere existence is hilarious in its own way.

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Very nice guidelines, and worthy of a sticky

[Basic_Infantry]

Originally Posted by Murphy

I seriously do not know why there are so many threads floating around with exactly this issue. If something is wrong with how I view UnrealEd, I click View, the only thing that makes sense to pursue in there is Viewports, because those are what seem broken. Now, what to click. Configure, I guess, if something is wrong with them. Looks Ok to me in here. Maybe look somewhere else. Oh,... nice. Everything back to normal again.

Now, I have asked my share of stupid questions, so no offense to anyone in particular who asked the white-viewport question on a forum somewhere! It's just the number that is astonishing to me.

A pictured tutorial detailing how to fix this is total overkill but its mere existence is hilarious in its own way.

Ahhh so that's how I fix that LOL

[IrritAnt]

Bump in the hopes that an admin will sticky this thread. It's getting kind of boring reading the same questions again and again :P

[Basic_Infantry]

Originally Posted by IrritAnt

Bump in the hopes that an admin will sticky this thread. It's getting kind of boring reading the same questions again and again :P

STICKY ME PLEASE!
There I did my part, LOL

[Boxxxed]

Too bad the search function is horrible. Sometimes I KNOW there is a thread out there with the information I want and I can't find it because of this lame search function which takes forever making you wait a minute in between searches. So I'd rather just make a new post.

[Basic_Infantry]

I've read through all the posts and then when I need the info again I remember I saw it but can't find it So after a long look I finally give in and post, but I give it an honest look over

THANK YOU!!!! Im tired of answering noob questions even though it gets my posts up.

There are numerous place for tutorials that answer almost all the questions on KF.

http://www.moddb.com/games/killing-f...-mapping-guide

http://www.architectonic.planetunrea...vel_part1.html

http://www.angelmapper.com/gamedev/t.../tutorials.htm

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...E44FF88A6409C1

http://planetunreal.gamespy.com/View...&id=3573#Files (this is a downloadable file)

YouTube - Killing floor sdk tutorial making cubemap with custom textures

http://www.killing-floor.webs.com/

And so on.....

These tutorials should cover most your questions, so i just hope people actually search for this instead of being lazy and just posting NOOB QUESTIONS!!! Lol sry that is a little rager of mine

Youtube has alot of KF tutorials if people would take the time to watch them instead of being lazy and wanting to have someone tell them how to do it.

Ps, sry about the you tube vid on the site, i dont know why it popped up like that, but watch neways its very helpful for custom textures.

[acidchalk]

Yeah, this forum is very helpful. I try to only ask for help after spending a good ammount of time trying to figure out my problem by myself. The ammount of people that are willing to help out is actually pretty good in here.

[chewmyheadoff]

I just wanted to add that the wiki helps a lot.

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Home_Page

It explains almost every feature of unreal ed.