GtkRadiant Editor Manual: Page 10.1

# GtkRadiant Editor Manual

# Tools 7: Miscellaneous Commands

## Feedback & Read-outs

The bottom border of the map window holds four clusters of feedback information.

Cursor Coordinates
These three coordinates, found to the left of center, report the xyz position of the cursor in the 2D map window.

Brush & Entity Counter
This readout is located at roughly center position. It reports the number of brushes (including brushes forming brush entities) and the number of non-brush entities (items, spawn spots, lights, etc.)

Pushing the Limits This is a good place (as any) to talk about limits. Quake III Arena has an upper limit of 2048 entities (including entity lights!!) and while it's not an upper limit, staying under 8000 brushes is a pretty good idea.

Selection
This readout temporarily replaces the Brush & Entity counter when a map component is selected. The numbers represent the dimensions of the selection.

Origin
This readout temporarily replaces the Brush & Entity counter when a select map component is moved. The numbers represent the origin point of the selection (and track it as it moves).

Cursor Travel Distance
These three coordinates, found to the right of the brush and entity counter, report the distance that cursor has traveled from the point where the user has clicked on the 2D map window.

Control Settings
In the lower right corner of the editor window, you will see a string of letters and numbers that might look something like this:

Each of these letter/number combinations represents the setting for one of the commonly used tools.

G | Grid. Here, it's set to 8 units.
T | Texture Tweak. This the increment in pixels that a texture will shift. Here, it's set to 16 pixels.
R | Rotation. This is the amount of increment, in degrees that a texture or brush will rotate.
C | Far-Clip plane. When enabled, this is how far, in terms of 64 unit blocks that you can see into the map. Here, the setting of 10 would allow you to see 640 units into the map.
L | Texture Lock. Either ON or OFF.

## Viewing, Seeing, Not seeing, and Hiding

This group of commands all relates to what you see in the map and how you see it. Some are designed to reduce map clutter. Others are designed to improve editor performance.

Toggle…

Camera View
Toggles (hides or shows) the Camera View (CAM) window.

Console View

Toggles (hides or shows) the Console window.

Entity View

Toggles (hides or shows) the Entity window.

XY (Top)

Toggles (hides or shows) the XY map window.

YZ (Side)

Toggles (hides or shows) the YZ map window.

XZ (Front)

Toggles (hides or shows) the XZ map window.

Camera

Center

Centers the pitch (up and down) angle of the user view.

Up Floor

This is a shortcut for moving up between "floors" in map. It changes the user's Z height in the camera and map views. The view moves to a point where it appears that the user is "standing" on a "floor" (a brush with "air" space directly above it) directly above the user's current position in the map.

Down Floor

This is a shortcut for moving down between "floors" in map. It changes the user's Z height in the camera and map views. The view changes to a point where it appears the user is "standing" on a "floor" (a brush with "air" space directly above it) directly below the user's current position in the map.

Far Clip Plane In

This requires that the Far Clip Plane function be toggled on. It decreases the Depth of Field (distance in which map components are seen) in the Camera window. Less map components are seen at one time. Decreasing the distance seen in the Camera window can significantly improve editor performance when viewing large numbers of map components.

Far Clip Plane Out

This requires that the Far Clip Plane function be toggled on. It Increases the Depth of Field (distance in which map components are seen) in the Camera Window. Increasing the distance seen in the Camera window can significantly slow down speed at which your point of view moves in the camera window. Increase the zoom to maximum distance only if you have a relatively powerful editing system.

Orthographic

Next (XY, YZ, XZ)

Cycles the content of the XY map window with the other views (side and front).

XY (Top)

This returns the main map view to XY Top view.

YZ

Changes main (XY) map view to YZ Side view

XZ

Changes main (XY) map view to XZ Side view

XY 100%
Changes zoom on main map view to full size.

XY Zoom In

Zooms closer to main map. Working in smaller grid scale becomes easier.

XY Zoom Out

Zooms out away from the main map. Working in larger grid scale becomes easier.

Show
This is a pop-up menu with checked toggle functions for each of the features on the list. If a feature is checked, all map components of that type will show in both the Camera window and the Map windows. If the feature is not checked, all map components of that type will be hidden.

Names
Shows names of entities.

Blocks

Shows an additional grid over the Map window with subdivisions every 1024 units.

Coordinates

Shows the Map window coordinates along the left and top edges of the Map window.

Entities

Shows entities, including brush entities, lights, and models.

Paths

Shows the linkage connections between entities. This includes triggers targeted at entities and path lines.

Lights

Shows Light entities.

Water

Currently non-functional. Look for future fix. Shows brushes with water, lava, or slime content.

Clip Brush

This shows brushes with the common/clip content, including common/clip and common/weapon_clip. The entire brush is affected, not just clip brush texture sides.

Hint Brush

Shows brushes made with the hint texture.

World

Shows all non-entity brushes.

Detail

Shows all brushes marked with a Detail setting.

Curves

Shows all curve patches.

Caulk

Shows brush sides containing the common/caulk texture (does not affect entire brush).

Design Tip: When you optimize detail brushes by caulking unseen brush faces, isolate the detail brushes in a region then turn off Caulk. Brush faces that need caulking will show up clearly as you move around the brushes.

Angles

Shows facing angle of player start spots by way of a white arrow.

Hide/Show
This is an immensely powerful and useful tool. It lets the user temporarily hide map components that may be in the way of working on other brushes. Hidden components are not affected by CSG actions.

Hide Selected
Selected map components are hidden from view (and CSG cutting operations) until the Show Hidden command is executed.

Show Hidden

Previously hidden map components are returned to view.

Tip: As it currently is implemented, this lighting can be useful when working with irregular surfaces all covered with the same texture.

Show Brush/Patch Dimensions
When you select a brush, the hi-lighted image in the map window shows its dimensions, in game units. If multiple patches or brushes are selected, the size will be the dimensions of the grouping. If any kind of non-brush model entity is included in the grouping, the dimensions are not shown.

## File Management Commands

New Map
This creates a new map file. If the current map file contains any unsaved changes, the editor will offer the option to cancel.

Open…
This opens up the Maps folder as defined in the preferences. It will show all valid map files in that directory. User may browse to other directories from here. Double clicking on a map file icon or hi-lighting that map and selecting Open will open the map. The user may also type in a map file name. Be sure to add the ".map" or ".reg" extensions or the editor will not find the file.

Save…
Saves a new map file to the default Maps directory. A reopened map file will be saved to its source directory. Note, that it is usually a good idea to save the map into the directory used by the compiler as the source of its map data. Remember to give the file a name. The compiler doesn't like to work with files called Unnamed Map.

Save As…
Opens the default directory for maps and prompts the user to give the map a filename.

Save Selected…
The selected brushes are saved as a map file.

Save Region
If the user has "regioned off" a subset of the map, this command will save it as a separate file. It is grayed out unless the user has created a regioned area. The editor prompts the user to enter a file name before saving.

Recent Maps
(ALT+1 to 6 when File menu is held open)
OK, There isn't actually a command called this. When you open the File Menu, you will see (after you've done some work on maps), the path/file names for the last six maps that you worked on. They are listed here for easy opening access).

## Project

Project Settings…
Change pathnames and add, remove or modify commands.

## Miscellaneous Commands

Map info…
This gives a readout of brushes (including curve patches) and entities in the map, including the total number of brushes that are not part of entities. There is also a breakdown, by type, showing the number of entities in the map.

Entity List…
This is a tree-view of all objects in the map, sorted alphabetically by name. It can be used to select objects that are otherwise difficult to find.

Preferences
This opens the window for setting or modifying the parameters, paths and features of the editor. Preferences are discussed in the Installation & Set Up section earlier in this document.

## Opening Menus from the Keyboard

These are the keyboard shortcuts that open up the menus. If you continue to hold down the ALT key, many of the commands in that menu may be activated with an ALT+ keystroke command.

File | (ALT + F)
Edit | (ALT + E)
View | (ALT + V)
Modify | (ALT + M)
Build | (ALT + B)
Grid | (ALT + G)
Textures | (ALT + T)
Misc | (ALT + I)
Brush | (ALT + R)
Curve | (ALT + C)
Plugins | (ALT + P)
Help | (ALT + H)

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