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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

To be honest, I haven't been asked any of these questions, especially not frequently. This title is a big, fat lie. So.. ermm.. sorry?


  • "I'm using Windows and I can't play Duke3d!"

    Get the latest snapshot of EDuke32. It's native to Windows so it should solve all your problems.

  • "My wall/sprite is only visible from one side!"

    Point the mouse cursor at it and press 1.

  • "I can't resize a wall with the Keypad 2/4/6/8 keys!"

    This usually happens when the top and bottom halves of a wall are set as separately editable (using the 2 key). The bottom half of the wall won't respond to anything until you've pressed 2 on the top half to make both halves share attributes. If this isn't the case, try enabling/disabling the keypad with NumLock.

  • "How do I use new .VOC or .MID files?"

    Rename them to match the name of the .VOC or .MID file you are replacing, then just copy them straight into your C:\DUKE3D directory. When the game boots, it will search for any replacement sound/music files in the main directory and it will use those instead. It is also possible to add completely new sounds and music files, but you would have to edit the .CON files.

  • "The game ends with 'MAP E1L9.MAP not found'!"

    When Duke3D plays a user map, it loads it as E1L8.MAP. When the level is finished, the game will search for E1L9.MAP and quit if it doesn't find it.

  • "Can I change the subway's speed?"

    You cannot control the Two-Way Train's speed, but you can control the Subway Vehicle's speeds.

  • "How do I place active tripmines?"

    Place tile #2566 on a wall and resize it. Tile #27 is just tripbomb ammo.

  • "My parallaxed sky looks messed up!"

    If the parallaxed sky is screwed up in Build, try playing the map. Many times the sky will fix itself at game time. If it doesn't, the reason it looks mingled is because you're using a "parallaxed texture set" in your map. For example, if you parallax BIGORBIT1 in one part of your level, and then parallax anything different in another part, your sky will tear itself apart, displaying seemingly random images from the art files. This is because parallaxed texture sets display more than one image at a time. There are only two texture sets in the art files: MOONSKY1 (#80) which combines a sequence of four images, and BIGORBIT1 (#84) which combines a sequence of five images. If a texture set is used, it will upset any other parallaxed textures in the level, causing them to also display a sequence of four or five textures. Unfortunately, the sequence of textures displayed usually have nothing to do with each other, which is the reason the sky looks so "messed up". Put simply, if you are using a parallaxed texture set, you can't use any other parallaxed textures. It is, however, perfectly fine to use single parallaxed textures of all varieties in your level (even a "named" one, provided it's not part of a set). For example, you could parallax CLOUDYSKIES (#79) and texture #97 (stars) in different parts of the level and it won't cause any problems.

  • "I've parallaxed the sky and now Duke dies when he enters the sector!"

    That's because you've parallaxed a space texture. You can fix this problem by giving the ceiling a palette other than 0 (3 works great).

  • "How do I set the par times?"

    You don't set the par times in Build. You would have to edit the USER.CON file.

  • "I can't select a line!"

    If a line is too long, it will no longer become highlighted when the mouse cursor is moved near it. Which means you can't insert any new points onto it. Just don't make lines too long.

  • "I can't select a sprite!"

    If several sprites are overlapping each other, you won't see the sprite flickering (but it is).

  • "I'm having problems deleting and copying sectors."

    There are some bugs related to deleting or copying sectors. Save your work before you attempt to delete or copy a sector. If you are deleting a sector, you should delete everything in it first (including Hi and Lo Tags). Then press Right Ctrl + Delete to make all of its walls turn white. Now just overlap its vertices one by one to collapse and delete the sector. If you are copying a sector, remember that the copy will have white walls when you paste it. If you want the copy to have red walls, first create a shell for the copied sector to fit into. Then place the copy inside the shell and the walls will turn red. Copying sectors between levels is done by first highlighting the sectors and pressing Insert, then loading the level which you want to copy them into. Keep in mind that there is a limit to how much you can copy. Unless a level is quite small, you wouldn't be able to take the entire thing and copy it to a different map file.

  • "My subway shoots rockets at me!"

    If a subway's floor is parallaxed, it will shoot rockets at the player. To change this, give the floor of the subway car a palette value other than 0 (3 works great). Have a look at the circling ship that shoots rockets at you in E2L1.MAP for a better idea how this works. It is a common misconception that the ceiling of the subway determines whether or not it will fire rockets.

  • "What's the difference between pink and blue sprites?"

    Pink sprites (or walls) means that they are blocked. The player cannot pass through a blocked object.

  • "My door frame moves up and down with my door!"

    Press O on each side of the door frame. This will orientate the walls to the floor so they won't move up and down with the ceiling.

  • "How do I stop my elevator's walls from moving up and down with the elevator? I've already tried using the O key!"

    If you are making an elevator with the sector tag [0,18] or [0,19], the walls will always move up and down with the elevator. The O key aligns walls to either the floor or the ceiling, and since those types of elevators move both the floor and the ceiling, the walls will always move up and down with the elevator. The only workaround is to create your elevator sector inside of another sector so their walls almost touch. That way, the outer sector's walls will stay still, while your elevator sector (with no walls) moves up and down.

  • "My Star Trek door plays the opening sound twice!"

    This is a bug which cannot be fixed. In some cases, the volume can be balanced by assigning the sound number to both the Hi-Tag and Lo-Tag of the MusicandSFX sprite (don't ask me why). Otherwise, you could just make your Star Trek Doors silent.

  • "The game crashes when I run my level!"

    Did you place the player start position within valid player space? In 3D mode, move to the exact position and height you want to start at, then switch to 2D mode and hit Scroll Lock. A brown arrow will appear indicating the player start position (the arrow is green in Mapster32). If this isn't the problem, check the bottom of this page for a list of game runtime errors.

  • "My start position keeps changing!"

    Build has an annoying tendency to do this. When you load a level, the very first time you switch to 3D mode it will save the start position to that location. To solve this problem, always switch to 3D mode immediately after loading any level. This ensures that the start position will remain the same until you quit.

  • "It keeps saying 'Can't make a sector out there' when I use Alt + S!"

    If you try to surround a white-lined sector with another white-lined sector, then hit Alt + S on the innermost sector, this message will be displayed. Always create sectors from the outside to the inside. Also make sure that the mouse cursor is inside the sector, and that it is highlighting an inner wall before you press the keys (the wall should be flashing). That should fix the problem. If not, the white-lined sector may be too large. Try sizing it down and then press Alt + S. You can resize it afterwards.

  • "My switch(es) won't work with (effect)!"

    Some effects will only work with certain switch sprites. Try changing the switch sprite you're using. Make sure it has a palette of 0 (or 1 if you want it to appear only in DukeMatch). If it still doesn't work, then you must have made a mistake while creating the effect. It's a very common (and annoying) problem when an effect won't work, and you discover after hours of problems that you accidentally swapped tag values or made some other simple error.

  • "What the heck is HOM?"

    An acronym for Hall Of Mirrors. HOM is when a texture "sticks" to the screen and it is a really ugly graphic problem to have in a map. There are a few ways HOM can happen: (1) A tile that has been assigned to a wall/ceiling/floor in a level does not exist in any of the .ART files, (2) There is no sector behind the mirror or the mirror is not a one-sided wall. (3) Two mirrors can "see" each other.

  • "I die on the teleporter for no reason!"

    This could mean one of two things: (1) Your teleporter was somehow built incorrectly. (2) You have been telefragged. Telefragging occurs when someone teleports to a sector which you are currently standing on. So don't stand on a teleporter for long!

    Runtime Errors

    If you get these messages when you try to play your maps, here are the solutions:

  • Found lonely Sector Effector at (coordinates)

    This error means that there is a Sector Effector in your map which has no Tag values. Either delete it, or give it tag values.

  • Subway found no zero'd sectors with Locators

    This could mean a lot of things; the Sector Effector on the Subway vehicle or Two-Way Train may not be in the correct sector; the Locators might be tagged all wrong; the Subway Vehicle might not be in the correct sector; the track sector may have tag values when it shouldn't; the track sector might be split into multiple sectors; the subway car might not be tagged accordingly; etc. Check the Advanced FX tutorials and make sure you've done everything correctly.

  • Too many 'anim' walls (max. 512)

    This problem is caused by too many animated masked walls (such as the spinning fan texture). Maybe you should try using textures that aren't in constant motion (what are you trying to do, give the player a seizure?) This could also happen by accident. After using Build long enough, you'll start to notice little quirks. You may have masked one wall as a spinning fan texture, and then created some completely separate sectors which Build decided (without warning) should also have spinning fan textures. You might not even notice, because the walls aren't actually set as being masked, but the animated texture is still attributed to those walls. Try masking some random walls around your map and you may discover they have an animated texture instead of the default brown brick texture.




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