Level Design Editor Tips and Tricks

[slavek]

Due to needs of a particular map I'm making, I have ended up looking for solutions and seldom used/documented features of the editor. Just thought I would make a list to gather them all in one place.

Commands are in Green, Descriptions are in Orange.

KF SDK/ UnrealEd Commands
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StaticMesh Smoothing Editor Commands: StaticMesh Smooth & StaticMesh UnSmooth - Smooths/Unsmooths selected staticmesh in editor's 3D viewport. Makes it so lighting on staticmesh blends together smoothly instead of being jagged.

Source: http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=34073

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KF SDK/UnrealEd Textures/Theory

Real-Time Procedural Textures

An example of these effects is the animated water in Unreal1/UT99. They are seldom used in later engine builds but are still supported with some limitations.

• All textures in this category have a limit of 256x256 and must be in P8(.PCX format when initially importing into UnrealEd)
• When making a new texture, Real-Time Procedural Texture must be selected, not Raw Material.
• Once the texture is made and a source texture assigned, the user can "Paint" effects onto the new texture by opening, texture properties, clicking the checkerboard button and clicking on the texture preview. Effects can be combined as desired.

Ice Texture: Consists of a source texture combined with another "Glass" texture to display distortions and other effects.

• Possible Use of Ice Textures for advanced lighting/"Pseudo-Bumpmapping" Link

FireTexture: Various fire and flare effects.

WetTexture: Water effects such as water ripples and waves.

More Documentation: 1 2

If anyone else has anything they would like to add feel free to.
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