The Left Mouse Button
The Left Mouse Button
is going to quickly become your best friend. It is an extremely useful tool in 3D mode. You will actually need to use it to create many effects. Imagine this, you're building a sewer that the player can jump down into:
You want to move that sewer sector's floor down so far that the player can't even see it. So you try pressing PGDN
on it a few times, and you quickly realize that you can't see it
anymore and have no way to lower it any further... what do you do? Use
the Left Mouse Button
of course. If you point the mouse cursor at an object, and then hold the Left Mouse Button
,
that object will stay selected even when you're no longer pointing at
it. This means you can move it as high or low as you want, without even
being able to see it. This works on everything: floors, ceilings,
walls, and sprites. Also, if you want to look up or down while you're
in Build, use Ctrl + A
and Ctrl + Z
.
Getting Squishy
Let's say you've just constructed a door. You've managed to lower the ceiling right down to the floor using the Left Mouse Button
.
You have everything nicely textured, but crap... you forgot to texture
the frame of the door. Now you realize you don't know how to get the
door raised again because the ceiling is literally pressed against the
floor.
To get that door raised again, walk right into the door in 3D
mode. The graphics will seemingly go nuts, displaying anything from
blue to gray to black. What you've just done is squished yourself
between the ceiling and floor of the door sector. If you aim your mouse
cursor down, you're aiming at the floor of the door sector. If you aim
your mouse cursor up, you're aiming at the ceiling. Since your door is
lowered to the floor, aim up at the ceiling. Press PGUP
. Success! You can see and breathe again! Now you can texture the door frame.
Using Grid Locking
Allright, here's another little handy tip. This only works with
2D mode. It's especially helpful when you're learning how to make
swinging doors. If you ever need to move two sectors close together
without actually connecting them, you're going to have to turn grid
locking off. Turning grid locking off will free vertices and sprites,
meaning that you can move them around and they won't automatically
latch onto the nearest grid point. To move the vertices off of the grid
and to any location you want, first press L
. After pressing L
,
your mouse cursor will turn white. This signifies that grid locking is
now off. Insert new vertices if you want, or just grab the ones that
already exist, and move them around. You'll notice the difference
immediately. With grid locking off, you can move sectors extremely
close together. Be careful, though. It is still possible to move
vertices so close together that they will actually connect. Remember to
press L
to reinstate grid locking when you're done. Your mouse cursor will be red with grid locking on.
Think Thin
So you've just made a tight corridor that you don't want the player to be able to fit through. You want it to be small enough to see through, but you're not allowing the player to get to the other side. Well, you're just mean, but that's beside the point. You need to be able to get into that paper thin hole to do some editing, right? Here's a good example of this scenario:
To get in there, switch to 2D mode and use the Right Mouse Button
to drag yourself into that tiny sector. Make sure the center of the
arrow is inside the sector. Switch to 3D mode, and you're now inside
the thin sector. You'll be making use of this trick a lot once you have
to start tagging and placing sprites in hard-to-reach areas.
Well, that covers everything I can think of for the time being. If I come across anything else, I'll add it. But it's time for you to learn how to Play your new levels.