Blender Mapping for Intruder

Making maps is a blessing but also a curse at the same time. In this guide I will be showing you how to set up map making with blender, some cool skills and tricks and finalizing it with how to export and play your map in game.

This guide can work with any game like Ravenfield, VRChat, etc. You might just need to change some settings in engine.

For any more help join the Intruder discord server or mine!

• discord.gg/superbossgames - Intruder Server
  
• discord.gg/hCaZr37 - My cool epic server that you should join

I will try to update this guide as I learn more stuff so stay put!

Getting Started with Blender

In this chapter I will go through the process of setting up Blender for Map Making and Level Design.
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Downloading Blender

Blender is the modelling software I will be using in this guide, so make sure you have it downloaded and ready to use!

Website Blender[www.blender.org]▼
https://www.blender.org/download/

Steam Blender ▼
https://store.steampowered.com/app/365670/Blender/
I recommend getting the steam version of blender because it includes automatic updating and you can see how many hours of your life you had wasted in the software.
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Getting The Resources To Set Up Blender

Setting up Blender to use the environment art preset is easy to do but hard to change. So make sure you follow along. Download what you need from bellow but make sure to download the keybind presets.

Keyboard Presets ▼

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u3zhBcuO8gFkGa2qMtAXUb2q001Kv046/view?usp=sharing

Custom Theme I Use ▼

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wIHjcnT-kZRD7Cr3mzSUpEGzWTOt3GQS/view?usp=sharing

Start Up File I Use ▼

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xmyzt4AZm2QSRaEvPhRVGWUJSQPpMEGz/view?usp=sharing

Handy Addons / Plugins ▼

• Powersave: {LINK REMOVED}https://gumroad.com/l/powersave
  
• Modifier Tools: Comes with blender

Setting Up Blender

Now that we have got all the resources to set up blender lets get started!
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Openning The Settings Window

To start setting up the resources you have downloaded head over to the preferences window through Edit > Preferences


pressing that button should open a window that looks like this














In this window we will be changing a lot of stuff, but if you have downloaded the files from the chapter above this will take but a moment
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Setting Up The Custom Theme

Now that we are in the preferences window we can head over to the tab called themes and press the import button, which then you import the "jake_red.xml" file. This theme just makes blender a lot more darker and easier to use IMO (I made the theme too :P)















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Setting Up The Keybindings

To import the keybindings click on the tab that says keymap then hit the button that says "Import..." you want to import the file named "intruder_mapping.py", this will automaticlly change the keybindings to my preset, you might need to change some of them if you dont have a mouse that has mouse 4 and 5.This must be done correct as it is because I have set up the keymapping to be better for level design and map making + because I will be using these keymappings in this guide


I have changed a lot of the keymappings plus added some such as grid scale changing, wireframing viewing, FPS View, etc. In another chapter down the line I will be discussing these keymappings, why I changed them and how it improves your workflow



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Setting Up the Start Up File

Setting up the start up file is super easy you just open the "startup.blend" you have downloaded and click this button in File > Defaults > Save Start Up File, and away you go.














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Setting Up Addons

Only addon I recommend that comes with Blender is modifier tools, this addon makes it easier to work with modifiers which you will be using a lot of in the future. To activate the addon head over to the add-ons tab and search for "Modifier Tools" a little box thing should come up with that name, click the boolean box on the left to activate it.

Keybindings

This is a keyboard

Modifiers

UV Mapping

In this chapter I will be guiding you through several UV mapping techniques and why you should be just using the one I found which is basically all of them combined on steroids (Object oriented Box Projection UV Mapping).
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Object Oriented Box Projection UV Mapping

Yes the name might be a mouthful to get used to but it is very worth it. Object oriented box projection UV mapping uses objects from the scene to project UV map data on objects using the UV Projection modifier.

If the process becomes to difficult I will try and make a video

Here is what we are going to attempt to make, make sure you have a material with textures on the base object!

- note, the Jake coin textures i am using are just for testing

Setting this up is pretty annoying but you only have to do it once per project! and if you don't want to set it up at all you can add it to your Start Up file.

If you need any help with setting this up as it might be complicated to new comers of Blender make sure to join my discord server: discord.gg/hCaZr37

This UV mapping method doesn't work well on angled faces due to it only "Box" projecting UV's

How To Set Up The Rig

This is a massive pain in the butt to set up, so bare with me.

1: Make an empty cube object with a scale of 1m, this object will hold all the projection points and will be used to copy to other meshes / objects to use the uv mapping method on them. Create this x1 →

2: Now, You now want to make 6 empty single arrow objects, these 6 single arrow objects will be the projection points on the UV projection modifier.
← Create this x6

3: Now, name the new objects you made just like this, the empty box object being the cage name and the rest being the vector 3 cord which would be X+, X-, Y+, Y-, Z+, Z-. Naming your objects like this will help you do distinguish which is which. Now you want to set the parent to the cage by selecting the cage first then selecting the single arrows then pressing CTRL + P (to parent) then select object. This will make it so you can move the cage around and it will globally alter the projection points. Name your objects like this and set parent to cage →

4: Now, you want to set up the single arrows like so, I've made the viewport background white and show names on the arrows to make it easier for you to distinguish for setting up.
← Set up Gameobjects like this

Now for the fun! actually using this rig you made to do UV mapping

5: On the object you want to do the UV projection mapping on you want to add the modifier called UV Projection. This will use the single arrow objects we made on the rig as project points for the UV Map.

After this you should be done the set up process for making object oriented box projection UV mapping

Now give your mesh a material with a texture and try it out!!

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Box Projection

This UV mapping method is most common besides smart UV due to it being very simple and a one click result maker for cubic meshes.

- Here we have a cube that isnt UV'ed yet with our own cool uv's. To UV this box were going to use box projection which is very easy to do.



Press U to open the UV Unwrapping menu and then press Box Projection, its as simple as that.

If you would like to further edit some box projection you can go to the tab in the bottom left corner of your viewport which contains the parameters you can change, or alternatively you can press F9 to put that dropdown box to your mouse cursor.

This should be the final results when using the primitive cube. Make sure to play around with the values in the previous step to get the result you like and make sure to use the UV editing window to also get the result you like










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Follow Active Quads

// WIP WIP
This UV mapping method takes a while and is a bit confusing but is worth it if you want super correct square UV's, you will have to model in quads with super correct topology to make sure there are no distortions in the UV's.

[RavenWaffle]

this is amazing

[Wooshito]

<33

[rice and noodles]

kinda wanna do map making now :)

[rice and noodles]

ok

[Wooshito]

this is a wip guide, only published it to help out a friend :)