It would probably be best if you printed this page for reference while doing this activity. It's a lot easier than switching between Windows and DOS. It's not good for you or your computer to have to switch back and forth repeatedly.
Your First Level
There's no better way to learn than by using the hands-on technique, so let's get you started on your first level! Go into DOS and type cd C:\Duke3d
(The cd part means "change directory"). Now the prompt should look like this C:\Duke3d
. Right now you are in the Duke3d directory. Type Build
. A paragraph about BUILD will come on the screen. Press Y
. You are now in the BUILD program.
Sectors
First you're going to learn about sectors. Don't worry, I will be using images to make this easy for you.
This is what the 2D grid looks like on your screen. That little white arrow is the current player position.
Point the mouse cursor on a grid point. Press the space bar
. A green box called a vertex will appear on the grid point you pressed the space bar
on. Continue making vertices until you have a square. This collection of lines and vertices is called a sector.
Hold the right mouse button
and move the white arrow inside your sector. Press the Keypad Enter
. This will take you into 3D mode. This mode resembles the game and is much more entertaining than 2D mode. You are standing inside your very first room! Take a walk around. You're right, it is a bit cramped in there isn't it?
You might want to make your ceiling a little bit higher. This is a very simple process. Point the mouse cursor at the ceiling and press PGUP
until you feel comfortable with it. You can also press PGDN
to lower it. The same can be done with the floor. Now your room looks a little more comfortable doesn't it? It's still pretty ugly though!
Let's get rid of that ugly brown tiling and replace it with something nicer. How about some nice red carpet flooring? Point your mouse cursor at the floor and press V
. Now there will be a black screen with nothing on it but that ugly brown tiling. This screen is an image list of all the tiles currently being used in your map. Press V
again to get a full list of all of the tiles available. From here, press G
. Then type 899
, and press Enter
. The list will go straight to a red carpet tile. Press Enter
to select it. There, now your floor looks a lot nicer!
Next we're going to fix up your crappy walls a bit. Point your mouse cursor at a wall and press V
twice. Now press G
and type 243
. Press Enter
twice.
Rather than redo this procedure over and over, you can just copy and paste your wall textures to get the job done faster. Aim the mouse cursor at the nicely textured wall and press Tab
. Then aim your mouse cursor at each individual wall and press Enter
on each one. This will copy the nice new texture to all of the walls quickly.
Now the final step in texturing your sector, the ceiling. The ceiling is done the same way that all of the other walls and the floor were done. Aim at it, press V
twice, press G
(and we'll use tile 303 for this one), press Enter
twice and you're done! Now you have completed your first good looking room!
Sectors: Parallaxing
Parallaxing is a big word. You might like to just call it "Sky effect". To do it, give the ceiling a sky texture, then simply point at the ceiling and press P
. This is what your result will look like:
Although it can be done to the floor, It's not recommended to do so in an area where the player can freely roam around. It could look a bit fake...
Sectors: Shading
To shade a wall, ceiling, or floor of a sector, aim your mouse cursor at it and press Keypad +
to brighten it, or Keypad -
to make it darker.
Now you can just aim at the wall and press Tab
to copy it, then aim at all of the other walls and press Enter
on each one to paste the texture (shading and all). You're going to have to shade the floor seperately though. If you don't, the carpet texture will be replaced with the copied wall texture.
(Note: That little number at the top left corner of all the 3D mode pictures is the framerate. The higher the number, the faster and smoother the game will play. Try to keep an eye on that number while you're building levels. If it drops too low, your level will run really slow.)
Sprites
Sprites are the objects in the game which are more interactive. Things like posters, fountains, enemies, weapons, and Duke are all sprites. Let's add some sprites to your level. Press S
on the ground and then on the wall. Select a poster texture for your wall sprite. Select an enemy texture for your ground sprite, list item #2000 will work.
You can also shade sprites. Sometimes a sprite will appear grossly oversized. To fix this, aim at the sprite, hold apostrophe ( '
), and press /
. To change a sprites relative alignment, aim at it and press R
. It will cycle through three different alignments: 3D (always faces the player), 2D (flat), and floor alignment. Most sprites will look glitchy if used with floor alignment.
How do I test my levels?
Go to DOS and type cd C:\Duke3d
to get into your Duke3d directory. Type SETUP
. This menu will be displayed:
Pick "Select User Level" and then pick your level:
Pick "Save and Launch Duke Nuk'em 3d". The game will start and your level will run.
Extracting the original levels
Enter DOS and type the following at the C:\Duke3d
prompt:
This will extract all of the original levels from the game and place them into your duke3d directory. The map's name format is as follows: E#L#
, where E#
is the episode number and L#
is the level number. For example, Episode 1 Level 1 would have a filename of E1L1.map
.
This concludes the basic knowledge you need to use BUILD. Have some fun with it! Create and test your levels!