Super Powio's Starter Pack Tutorial

1.) Locate ZED.exe in your Tribes Tools directory and start the program. If you get an error message about not being able to find a particular .dll file, find the batch of .dlls in the main Tribes Tools directory and move them to your C:\Windows\ folder.

Create a new ZED. You will be asked to give your ZED a name, and to supply a Pallet File, Material List, Pallet Volume File, and a Texture Volume File.

For the Pallet File, browse and locate Mars.d.ppl included with the Starter Pack. It's default directory is in the Material Lists folder. Next, browse for the Material List, which is also included in the Material Lists folder. Leave the other two spaces blank for now.

NOTE: Mars.d.ppl is a terrain pallet (ie Mars, Titan, Temperate). Because the object and FX pallets are included in every terrain, you only need to use one. However, if you plan to add terrain tile textures to your ZED, you will need to use the pallet that those particular tiles belong to.

3.31 Familiarizing Yourself with the Interface

2.) You should now see the main ZED.exe GUI.

Notice how dark the grid is. First thing's first, let's adjust the colors for each editing window. Select 'Tools' from the menubar, then select 'Set Colors' from the list of commands. You will now see the current pallet in use.

You may select a property to adjust its color from the pull-down menu on the right. To select a new color, use the arrow keys. When finished, click OK.

As a personal preference for mars.d.ppl, I like to use these colors (based on a 1-16 x 1-16 grid starting from the top-left corner):

Background color: 13 x 5
Grid Origin: 16 x 16
Additive Brush: 1 x 13
Subtractive Brush: 4 x 14
Selected Brush: 14 x 15
Default Brush: 14 x 8
Line Grid: 1 x 4
Dot Grid: 1 x 4
Bounding Box: 8 x 2
Volume Brush: 12 x 4

3.) Now that we have colored our editor windows, it's time to properly configure ZED.exe to work with Starsiege. Toward the left side of the screen is a window named 'Shape Viewer'. Right click an empty space in this area and select 'Properties'. Select the 'Build' tab in the new window.

Set the Geometry Scale to 0.25. This specifies how many Starsiege meters will be in one ZED unit. This all that needs to be done here for now.

4.) Another important setting is the configuration of the grid. Select 'Tools' from the menubar, then select 'Grid Settings' from the pull-down menu. This is where you will configure the grid and rotation snapping settings.

Because our Geometry Scale is set to 0.25, each unit the ZED editor will be 4 times smaller in-game. For now, set the Grid Size to 16, which is 4 meters in game. Set the Rotation Snap Degrees to 30 with Rotation Snapping on. If you want, you may change the Grid Type as well. I prefer to use the Dot Grid.

5.) Now that our editor is properly configured, it's time to become familiar with the 2D and 3D GUIs. In the lower-right corner of the editor are four windows, each having a different setting displayed in the upper-left corner. All but the lower right window are 2D GUIs.

The property of each window is displayed in the top-left corner of each. You can change it to another type of display by clicking on it and selecting one from the drop-menu. Side View is a 2D representation of the ZED from its side. Front View is a 2D representation of the ZED from its front. Top View is a 2D representation of the ZED from its top. 3D Wireframe is a 3D window that renders the ZED in the form of a wireframe. Solid Render renders the ZED in the form of non-textured, randomly colored faces. Texture View renders the ZED in its entirety, textures and all.

In the 2D windows:

Select a brush (shape) by left-clicking on it. Moving Additive and Subrtactive brushes will affect the interior's overall shape. Select multiple brushes by left-clicking and dragging. Add or subtract brushes to the selection by holding the Shift key and left-clicking a brush.

Right-click anywhere and drag to move the 2D camera. Hold Shift, right-click and drag to zoom in and out. You may also use the Page Up and Page Down keys to zoom in or out, respectively. If your mouse has a wheel, you may also use that to zoom in and out.

In the 3D windows:

Left-click and drag foward to move the camera foward and back. Left-click or right-click and drag left and right to rotate the camera horizontally. Right-click and drag foward and back to rotate the camera vertically. Hold both mouse buttons and drag to pan the camera to its left, right, up, or down.

There are also a few tricks that you can use with the mouse to manipulate textures in 3D mode: Hold Shift and left-click on a face to paste the current texture selected in the Texture Viewer. Hold shift, right-click and drag to shift the texture along the face. To change the size of the windows, click on the large bar dividing them and drag it.

6.) Let's manipulate the default brush a little (cyan box). Select the box displayed in any of the 2D windows and move it around. Try resizing it by clicking on the small, black dots on the perimeter of the shape.

Pressing the Tab key while the brush is selected will change it to Rotation mode. Note that there are only 5 dots around the shape now. The center dot is the point at which the brush will be rotated, and can be moved around. Click any of the outer dots and move your cursor around this point to rotate the selected brush.

Pressing the Tab key again while the brush is in Rotation mode will set it to Stretch/Skewing mode. There will not be four dots to manipulate. Clicking and dragging a dot along its axis will stretch the brush respectively. NOTE: This should be the last action you take while manipulating the brush. This function may be irreverable if used improperly.

When done manipulating the brush, you may change it back to its original shape by clicking the 'Reset Brush' button in the lower toolbar at the top of the screen.

NOTE: Resetting the brush WILL affect any shapes you have made and have selected. Be careful when using this function and always half just the default brush selected when using it.

3.32 Adding Additive Brushes (Solid Shapes)

7.) It's time to begin making our first shape! At the top of the screen are two tool bars with many different icons. In the lower bar, in red, is a selection of primitive shapes to use for the brush. From left to right is the Triangle shape, Cube, Sphere, Cylinder, and Staircase. You will probably never, ever have to use the Staircase primitive while making shapes for Starsiege.

Select the Cube primitive which will bring up a new dialog box to set the brush's dimensions.

Our ZED is going to be a small building with 4 meter walls, ceiling and floor. The interior will be one terrain tile (32 meters) in length, width, and height. That brings all top, bottom, and height dimensions to 40 meters. However, because of our Geometry scale, in order to get the correct dimensions in-game we must multiply our ZED dimensions by 4. That makes our dimensions 160 units each.

Note the 'Hollow' option. Use this only if you absolutely know what you are doing! I've had problems carving out Additive Brushes when the subrative brush overlapped with the built-in hollow space.

Once you have entered in the appropriate values, click OK.

8.) Notice how the default brush has changed its shape. In either the Side or Front 2D windows, move the bottom of the brush to the horizonal axis. Consider this as the surface of the terrain. Our brush is positioned correctly, so it's now time to add the actual shape. Look for two yellow buttons in the lower tool bar with a plus and minus sign in them. The left one makes an Additive Brush on the default cursor, and the right makes a Subtractive Brush. Additive Brushes make new solid shapes, while Subractive Brushes ones carve out Additive Brushes ones in a particular area.

Make an Additive Brush and look at the 3D screen in the lower right corner (make sure this window is set to Solid Render). You should now see a solid cube in front of the camera. If you don't see it, try panning, zooming, and rotating the camera around until you do, or select the 'Center Camera' button from the upper toolbar.

As you can see in the above picture, the green box is where the Additive Brush has been placed, and the cyan brush is the cursor. You may move the green box at any time to reposition the shape. If you do reposition it, make sure you redraw the ZED by clicking on the 'Quick BSP' button to see your changes.

3.33 Carving out Additive Brushes with Subtractive Brushes

9.) Deselect any brushes you have made to control the cursor again. Create a new cube. Because the dimensions of the interior area inside the ZED are one terrain tile (32 meters) in length, width, and height, our default brush should be made to resemble that area. However, add 8 more meters to the Z-axis so that it can make an opening in the wall. Don't forget to multiply by 4!

Position the new box so that it connects to the outside in the Side and Top view, but is enclosed in the Front view.

Click the 'Subtract Brush' button and then the 'Quick BSP' button. Tada!

Like the Additive Brush, a Subtractive Brush can be moved to a different position. Subractive Brushes appear in blue in this picture.

3.34 Grouping Shapes

10.) Grouping Shapes is an important process when exporting shapes for use in-game, otherwise they won't be rendered. They're also useful for organizing when making multiple Detail Levels, or have several complex floors.

First, click and drag a box around your brushes to select them, or hold the Control key and press the A key to instantly select them all. In the lower toolbox, to the right of the primitive shapes, are the grouping functions. From left to right are 'Add to Group', 'Subtract from Group', 'Create Group', and 'Group Attributes'. Select 'Create Group'. The next screen is self-explanatory. Leave the group visible, then click OK when done. You can switch between groups by using the pull-down menu over the Shape Viewer explorer at the left of the screen.

3.35 Applying Textures to Brushes

11.) Now that we have a good solid shape, it's time to add some texture to it. First, select 'View' from the menubar, and select 'Texture Viewer'. A window will dock itself near the middle of the screen with every texture loaded to it. This will be used as your reference to textures.

12.) Once you have found the texture you want to use, note its number. Select the brush you want to add the texture to (other than the default cursor), then click the 'Brush Attributes' button which is to the left of the 'Reset Brush' button. Here you will be able to select the texture for your brush.

Type in the number of the texture you want to use, then click apply. You do not need to change the Brush State. Make sure you have a 3D window open in Texture View, then press the 'Quick BSP' button to see your changes.

13.) Well we have a texture now, but there may or may not be something that doesn't look too healthy to the shape. The texture may not be aligned right, or it may look too big or small. In case this happens, you'll have to manipulate the polygons on the surface manually.

In a 3D view, hold the Control key and left-click on the face(s) that have texture problems. This will bring up a dialog box to manipulate the properties of the face you selected.

Scale and shift the texture until it properly aligns with the edge of the brush. Smaller scales will make the texture bigger and use less polygons while larger scales make the texture smaller and use more polygons.

Applying ambient color to the surface only applies when using universal lighting. Click OK apply when done.

Notice how only the exterior has only been textured. This is because it is part of the Additive Brush, while the interior is part of the Subtractive Brush. To add texture to the inside, select the Subtractive Brush and repeat the proceedure for adding a uniform texture.

NOTE: Com. Sentinal [MIB] pointed out that if you have the Texture Viewer open and have selected a texture, you can hold Shift and click on a face to instantly paste the selected texture to that side.

3.36 Adding Ramps

14.) We now have a structure that a vehicle in-game can actually stand inside of. However, there is a problem. Take a look at the picture below.

Notice the bump between the bottom of structure, and the floor of the interior. Even though Hercs are bipedal war-machines, they still cannot walk over a wall of ANY height. To solve this problem, we'll need a ramp. Select the Triangle primary shape.

The options for the triangle shape are executed in the same way as the cube shape. For both Z-vectors, make this 32 meters wide. For the X-vector, make this 16 meters long. Finally for the Y-vector, make this 4 meters tall. Once again, don't forget to multiply.

First of all, our new triangle shape is facing the wrong way. Switch to Rotation mode (TAB kay) and rotate the triangle in Top view until its width is perpendicular with the entrance. Position it in the Side or Front view so that one of the bottom edges is touching one of the bottom edges of the shape on its exterior. Remember, the part that is clipped from the Additive Brush is the cyan area, so rotate the triangle in the Side view until it is now upside-down. Finally, we'll need to skew the triangle until it looks like a ramp. Switch to Stretch/Skewing mode and stretch the pointed end toward the outside of the shape until an exact right triangle is formed. Make the Subtractive Brush, hit the 'Quick BSP' button and you have now made your ramp!

The ramp may produce a clipping error if it is made incorrectly. If it does, delete the ramp brush and try again. You will also have to set a new texture to it. It will also make a new part of the wall, which you will have to edit the texture on each face.

Congratulations! Your ZED is now technically complete! Keep reading for instructions on how to set Detail Levels, make lights, and more.

3.37 Applying Textures Withing Specific Areas of a Brush

15.) What if you wanted to have a logo or a light, but didn't want it to take up the entire face? It's a very simple task to apply a smaller texture within a texture. First, return to the default cursor and select a cube primitive shape. Make it 64 ZED units in width and length, but 16 ZED units in height.

Position the new shape inside the middle of the ZED. Raise it until the top edge of the square is touching the ceiling of the interior. Do NOT put the cusor inside the ceiling. Apply a Subtractive Brush.

You should now have a small empty box in the middle of the ceiling. Apply a texture to it as you would with any other face, and there you have it.

3.38 Adding Lights

16.) Adding lights to a ZED takes some patience to learn, but once mastered it will seem like nothing. On the upper toolbar are the light functions. From left to right is 'Copy Light', 'Light Editor', 'Show Lights', 'Place Light', and 'Lock Lights'. Open up the Light Editor and place a new light. The new light will appear as a black 'X' in the 2D windows (under this pallet) and a black triangle in the 3D windows.

When positioning lights, it's best to put them just off the edges or corners of faces unless making ambient light, where as you would put them in the center of the room. Click on the light (also called an Emitter) in a 2D window and position it so that it is where you placed the individual texture inside the ZED.

17.) Open up the Light Group's properties by clicking on the '+' sign next to it in the Light Editor. Open up the State's properties as well. Right click on the Emitter icon and select 'Properties' from the drop-menu. You should now see this Emitter's properties.

Falloff is the area at which the shape is fully illuminated by the Emitter to the point of when it begins to dim before finally gaining no more light. No quadratic or spot lights were ever used during the making of Starsiege, but feel free to experiment after this lesson. Distance 1 is the distance between the light and the point where light value begins to dim. All surfaces within here are fully illuminated. Distance 2 is the point at which nothing is no longer lit. Light slowly loses brightness between here and Distance 1. You do not need to set the inner or outer angles.

Set Distance 1 to 136 ZED units (34m), and Distance 2 160 ZED units (40m). Click Apply when done.

18.) Return to the Light Editor. Right click on a State and edit its properties.

You should now see two things: duration, and color. When making animating lights, duration is the number of seconds it takes to fade from one State and their Emitters to the next State and their Emitters.

Color is the brightness and color of the Light, with 0 being the darkest and 1 being the lightest. Each value represents a different color: red, green, and blue, respecively. Different color combinations results in even more colors. You can also select a color by clicking on the color preview box to the right.

Make this a 100% illuminated white Light by setting each value to 1.

NOTE: Software mode users can only see Lights on the gray scale, meaning they won't see colored Lights, so if you wanted to make a disco hall you should know that these sort of players will only see white and gray light in place of the colors.

19.) Return to the Light Editor again and now edit the properties of the main Light Group.

Here you you will be able to edit the name and type of Light you wish to create. Make sure that the name is always different for multiple Lights, especially animating ones. As far as I know, duration does nothing, so leave this at 0.

If making an animating Light, it is important that Auto Start is checked. If you want, you may make this Light randomly flicker between States. Note that if you turn this option on, Lights will immediately change brightness and color after their State's duration has passed instead of fading to the the next.

You will never need to turn on Loop to End or Manage by mission editor, as far as I know. Leave everything alone and close this window.

Animating Lights

When making animating Lights, you'll need to make multiple States with Emitters in them.

NOTE: If you make new States or emitters from the menu instead of copying and pasting them, the newly generated Lights will be at the origin.

To make simple fading Lights, create two States in one Light source and position their Emitters in the same place. Set the duration of each State to 1 or a number of your choosing (total duration cannot be 0). Make one State a white Light and the other a darker one. Finally, set your Light Group's Properties with Auto Start checked on.

If you want to make a randomly flickering Light, add another State for the full effect and also set its duration to 1. Turn on Random Flicker in the Light Group's properties.

Here's an idea: to make a strobe Light, make two States of the same color, except the first State will have a duration of 1 and the second State will have a duration of 0. Repeat the process by making two more darker States. Making a State with a duration of 0 keeps the Light from fading from one State to the next, but having a state prior to the quick changing one of the same color and brightness holds out the duration of one that brightness level.

Experiment with your own lighting ideas!

3.39 Uniform Ambient Light

20.) Uniform Ambient Light brightens the entire ZED or just anything that can see the outside world. It's not widely used but here anyway for the sake of this tutorial.

To make uniform Ambient Light, open up the Properties dialog box from the Shape Viewer explorer and select the 'Light' tab. At the bottom you can set the color and brightness of the Ambient Light much like a normal Light. Checking Amibient Outside Polys will only light polygons that can see the outside world, unless Apply Ambient Color to Surface is checked off in the Texture Properties dialog of a brush's individual face.

3.40 Detail Levels

21.) Detail Levels are important for viewing ZEDs at a long range. If you have an extremely complex object, it may be a better idea to reduce the poly count when being viewed from far away. You could care less about what's going on inside a base when you're over a 1000m away from it, right? Let's examine how Detail Levels work.

Detail Levels are measured in pixels on screen under the option minimum pixels. For example, for an extremely large object at the greatest Detail Level, the number of pixels drawn on screen for it would probably be greater than 1500 as the minimum number of pixels. This draws the greatest Detail Level of the ZED if it takes up a space of 1500 or more. For multiple Detail Levels, this number becomes progressively smaller for eace one. If the minimum number of pixels for a second detail level is 300 pixels, then that Detail Level will be drawn when the ZED takes between 300 - 1500 pixels of the screen to draw. Your final Detail Level should always have a minimum pixel value of 0.

In the Shape Viewer explorer, expand the properties of your shape by clicking on the '+' sign. You will see that it only has one Detail Level at the moment. Edit its properties as you would with any other explorer item.

Because we are only working with one Detail Level in this tutorial, set the minimum pixels to 0. If you wish to make more Detail Levels, copy the current, most detailed level of your ZED and paste it as a new one. This will create a brand new set of brushes identical to the copied level within the new Detail Level. You can switch from one Detail Level to the next by double-clicking its icon in the Shape Viewer explorer. Click the 'Quick BSP' for the current Detail Level and proceed to delete and faces you see as 'not required' from a longer range. You are basically just making a simpler shaped duplicate of your current shape. Set the minimum pixels according to the directions listed above, of course use your own number of minumum pixels for detail.

3.41 Exporting Your Shape for use in Starsiege

22.) Now that our shape is complete, we need to export it to .zvl format. But first, you must add all the brushes of each Detail Level to their own groups (3.34 - Grouping Shapes). Once you have created the groups for your ZED, it's time to export it. Select file from the menubar and select Export Optimal to ZVL. The file name will be the same as the file name of the ZED. For this example, we'll use MyZED.zvl.

Before converting the .zvl to a .div, it is advised that you have the following programs in the same directory as the new .zvl:

VMerge.exe
vt.exe
ZedBuild.exe
ZedLight.exe
ZedShape.exe
A shortcut to the MS-DOS Prompt

All programs are included with Tribes Tools except the shortcut to the DOS Prompt. A copy of the shortcut has been included with this tutorial.

23.) Open up the MS-DOS Prompt. If for some reason this does not work, create shortcuts of the other executables (.exe's) and edit their command lines in the properties dialog.

To convert your ZED to a .div file, type in at the command line:

ZedShape MyZED.zvl OR ZedShape MyZED.zvl -h

Adding the -h tag will make a more light-accurate .div file.

Now type into the command prompt:

VMerge myShapes.vol MyZED.div

This will create a .vol file with the proper ZED files that Starsiege uses. If the .vol file is already present in the directory, VMerge.exe will append to it if an existing shape of the same name isn't found within it. Move this .vol file to your main Starsiege directory.

24.) Finally, in order to add these textures to the game, we must edit registerObjects.cs. If registerObjects.cs is not present in the main Starsiege directory, then you will either need to get BuzzBum's map mod, or extract it from scripts.vol with VXTool. Links to both programs are provided in the 'Requirements' section of this tutorial.

Open registerObjects.cs using Notepad, and add the following line to the bottom of the file: ME::RegisterObject("My Shapes","MyZED", ME::CreateObject, ObjectName, StaticInterior, "MyZED.dis");.

If you haven't done this already, find Autoexec.cs in Starsiege's Scripts directory and open it using Notepad. Add the follow line near the top of the file:

newObject( myShapesVol, SimVolume, "myShapes.vol" );

NOTE: The file name for your .vol may be different. Please check your configuration.

Start Starsiege in mission editor mode (-me tag at command line) and the new interior will now be selecatble from the list under "My Shapes".

IMPORTANT: ZED's are client-sided and are needed by other clients in order to work with them.