Mapping Tutorial - Index

Ready to map? You came to the right place!

This page is a directory of mapping info as well as a guide which will help walk you through getting started with mapping with Netradiant-custom in MBII/JKA.

This guide requires no prior knowledge of mapping, only bravery and patience. Mapping is very fun and it is highly rewarding to see your maps played in-game!

Often times community maps will make it into one of MBII's community map packs, so if you take the time to learn, who knows, it might make it into the mod itself!

There is a lot of 'tribal knowledge' passed down from mapper-to-mapper which I have tried my best to decompile and put into one area. There is still a lot to figure out after you get through the chapters in this guide. But if you follow this guide, you will be able to create your first map. The biggest reason for making this wiki was that I find Netradiant-custom to be incredibly helpful due to the new features, but there are hardly any guides on using it! Most of the guides are old and focused on either other games or older mapping softwares.

At the bottom of this page there are also important links to mapping resources / tutorials / etc, all which mainly use GTKRadiant, the original mapping program which has less features (and more bugs).

Good luck, soldier!

-Frenzy

Chapter 1 - Basics

Installation / Navigation

This intro chapter goes into the basics of setting up your map editor and learning how it operates.

Some quick advice

1. Practice and Learn: Map making takes practice. As you create more maps, you'll get better at understanding how to avoid issues or to be more efficient.
2. Don't start off by making a big map. Start simple.
3. Learn Hotkey power, I beg of you. Your speed will dramatically increase if you can remember what key leads to what tool.
4. Ask questions if you get stuck! We all did this. There is a lot of stuff to learn and not always a lot of good, proper documentation on how to do it.

Chapter 2 - Baby Steps

Creating your first map

This chapter walks through how to create and test run your first map. Side note, learning how to Create your first FA is also imperative for MBII map makers.

Chapter 3 - The meat and potatoes of mapping

• Brushwork / Important first habits
• Texturing
• Patches
• Models

This chapter breaks down the do's and do-nots of basic brushwork and texturing

Chapter 4 - Interactivity

• System Brushes
• Entities - learn the basics of entities
• Worldspawn Entity
• Function Entities
• Target Entities
• Trigger Entities
• Objectives

This chapter breaks down the basics of entity work and system shaders. The end goal is to learn how to create a map with an objective.

At this point in the guide, I also recommend looking through Rich Diesel's GTKRadiant tutorial series to learn more about certain entities or specific kinds of things you can create with brushwork or patches

The guide is old, but there still are a lot of useful chapters there to learn which compliment the knowledge in this wiki.

Chapter 5 - Polish

Lighting

Creating a Skybox

This chapter gives a brief overview on how to light.

Chapter 6 - Shaders = Magic

Shaders Basics - proper syntax, shader examples and breakdown of what shaders do. Don't skip this!

• Radiant Editor Directives
• General Directives
• Q3Map Directives (q3map_)
• Q3Map Surface Parameter Directives (surfaceparms)
• Stage Specific Shader Directives

Chapter 7 - Final Polish

Compiling - Lots of technical information here for how to get setup with a nice build for quick test compiles and also one for accurate and beautiful final compiles.

Chapter 8 - Last Steps

• Mapping Theory - includes Frenzy's advice on how to create a good map for MBII
• Creating your first FA - One of the final stages for a mapper is learning how to create an FA for your new map!
• Final Map Checklist

Also advised: Rich Diesel's Tutorial

Review everything you have learned so far and cross reference your knowledge with this tutorial series by Rich Diesel which used a much older mapping program GTKRadiant. You can learn some more JKA-specific skills, but you'll need to do a little bit of conversion to Netradiant-custom. This is also just a nice way to review what you have learned thus far

Gameplay Tips

• Saberists can saber through a brush if it is not thicker than 40 units. Try to avoid thin walls or platforms that can be sliced through!
• I'll edit this more with more specifics like with crouching / jump 2/3 etc. Anyone else can feel free to add their unit tips here as well!

Remember, the more you map, the more you'll learn and improve. Don't be discouraged by small issues; they're all part of the learning process. Just like solving a puzzle, mapping can be challenging but also really rewarding!

Editor's note:

I created this guide because I noticed there was no one place for up-to-date mapping knowledge in 2023 and a lot of 'tribal knowledge' passed down from mapper to mapper. Please feel free to contribute to this guide or edit typos/mistakes. I'm sure I missed something somewhere!

Further Resources

• This Trello - an excellent hub for all things Q3 Mapping related
• Movie Battles II SDK - Contains JKA's SDK as well as other assets and mapping tools needed to learn how to mod for MBII.

Miscellaneous

• Spog's Technical Note - A more in depth breakdown inside Q3 for compile related queries
• Understanding Vis and Hint Brushes
• Mapping manual/Hint brushes

Q3Map2 (map compiler)

• Shader Manual for Netradiant-custom
• 
• Shader Manual for GTK (keep in mind this is outdated for netradiant-custom)
• Q3Map2 Source Code
• Official homepage (Note: this is for the older version that NRC does not employ)
• Documentation
• Additional Documentation

Scripting

• Understanding BehavED (the tool used for compiling JKA scripts, packaged inside of JKA SDK)
• DehavEd - amazing tool for new scripters, this decompiles .ibi (script) files so you can load them back into BehavEd and figure out how the heck they did it!
• ICARUS Manual
• An intro to scripting using BehavED

Theory

• Excerpts from The Hows and Whys of Level Design — includes information on gameplay and lighting.

Tutorial Sites & Communities

• This OpenArena Wiki has a very thorough overview of mapping concepts. Obviously you have to do a bit of conversion when it comes to MBII vs. Open Arena, but it still has plenty of info.caulk
• JKHub forums has a lot of mapping tutorials for JKA
• JKCommunity and JKEmpire are Discord communities full passionate JKA modders
• Rich Diesel's JKA Mapping tutorial (old)
• Useful mapping links thread on Tremulous forums
• Netradiant mapping video tutorial series — Aimed at maping for AlienArena, but much of the information is the same.
• worldspawn tutorials
• Tremulous Mapping Guide by Ingar and Jex. Very complete.
  • Starting Tremulous Mapping

Software

• Official GtkRadiant Manual (may be out of date)