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So, you want to add
rain to your level? You should already be familiar with how to add
entities to your level, and create a background. If you're here to learn
about creating lightning, or other weather effects, turn back now! This
tutorial will only be covering the following items:
- Extracting items from .gro files
- Adding the effect of rain into your world
- Adding sounds to your world
The first step you have to take is to make sure you have
your skybox setup correctly. Once you're sure that your skybox will
work, drag a world settings controller entity from your basic entities menu
into your skybox (We will be placing all of our entities in the skybox for
this exercise, simply because it's easier to keep track of what's happening
where). Now, this is where it gets tricky. If you haven't already
done this, pay close attention:
All of the game resources are kept in .gro files, which are
just .zip files in disguise. Find your 1_00.gro file in your Serious Sam
directory. Copy it, and then paste it in the same folder. Rename
it to 1_00.zip. We're doing this instead of renaming the original file,
because I discovered some errors with the serious Editor while attempting to
do this. Now, open up your newly renamed file with winzip, and make sure
that winzip classic is running. Browse through the list of items until
you find RainMap.tex (the actual rain) and rain.wav (the sound of the rain we
will implement later). Extract the two files into your Serious Sam
folder. Each item will be automatically placed in its own directory, so
if you have a few new folders, don't worry. You can now use your
1_00.zip file to extract any materials you will need in the future.
Now, go back into Serious Editor, select your world
settings controller entity and in the properties pulldown select "Height
Map (R)". Press the "..." button to bring up a
browser. Locate RainMap.tex (it will be in textures/levels/Hatshepsut)
and hit OK. Now to make the skybox recognize that it's supposed to be
raining, simply select your background viewer, and in the properties pulldown
select World Settings Controller. Choose your world settings controller,
and deselect your entity.
Your skybox knows the rain is there, but now it has to
wait until we tell it to rain. In your additional entities directory,
pull out a storm controller. Place it somewhere in your skybox, and
leave it there. The storm controller controls some advanced stuff like
lightning, but it just has to exist, and be triggered for our rain to
work. To trigger the storm, bring out a trigger entity from your basic
entities list, and place it once again, in your skybox. Now, you can
have many things trigger your rain, but for now, lets just stick with an auto
start. Select auto start from the trigger pulldown and check it.
For "Event Type Target 01 (G)" select "Start Event", and
for "Target 01 (T)" select your storm controller.
Now your map will have rain when you start your level,
but we all know that rain makes a sound, so lets give it one. Remember
when you extracted rain.wav from your resource file? Well now it's time
to use it. Pull out a sound holder entity, and in the properties box,
select sound. Browse for rain.wav, which will be under the sounds folder
somewhere, and double click it. Select Volume, and set it from 1-4, 1
being very quiet, and 4 being pretty noticeable. You won't be able to
hear your sound if you aren't in range, so pull down "Fall Off", and
set it to a high enough number that it will engulf the entire area where it's
raining. The final step is to set your sound on looping, so pull down
"looping" from the properties box, and check it.
Now everything should be set, so it's time to test out
your map. Hit 6 on your number pad so that full rendering is enabled,
and test out your map. Voila! It's raining! If everything
worked out, your level should be looking a bit like this:
NOTE: The fog and haze effects were not covered in this tutorial, but
they do add a nice touch. For an effect like this, look up a fog or haze
tutorial.
-Hoard
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