If you are one of those people who happen to own the remaster of Rise of the Triad by Apogee, New Blood, and Nightdive Studios, and want to make your own levels for the game, then you are at the right place! This guide will tell you how to use the game's level editor.
1. The Hotkeys
Here is the list of known hotkeys
for the editor.
Plane Types :
1 - Walls
2 - Objects
3 - Info
Brush Types :
Q - Pixel
W - Outline Rectangle
E - Fill Rectangle
R - Flood Fill (Bucket)
T - Yank
Functions :
F1 - Help Screen
F5 - Test Level
Ctrl+F5 - Test Level (without Verification)
Ctrl+S - Save Mapset
Ctrl+N - New Mapset
Ctrl-O - Open Mapset
F10 - Exit Editor
1.1 Understanding the map formats
If you are making a Singleplayer mapset, I recommend saving your work as a .RTLX file. However if you are making a COMM-BAT (Multiplayer) mapset, I also recommend saving your work as a .RTCX file. This to prevent confusion when releasing your mapset, as there are some COMM-BAT maps lazily created and saved as .RTL in the past, making it hard to tell if it's actually a singleplayer mapset when organizing your collection of mapsets.
I also recommend checking the COMM-BAT Mapset inside the Campaign Setting menu so further ensure that your mapset is actually meant for COMM-BAT. Which brings me to the next section.
1.2 Campaign Settings
Before you start making maps, you need to come up with a name for your mapset/campaign. You could figure out a proper name later, but it should be straight-forward. You add a title, a description about your mapset, a hint text and the author name. I also recommend adding 'Various' if your mapset contains levels made by other mappers.
As stated above, if you are making a mapset for COMM-BAT (Multiplayer), proceed to check 'COMM-BAT Mapset'. Oh! and you have the ability to add your own episodes for your mapset.
1.2 Campaign Settings
Each map contains it's own settings. Due to limitations of the game engine, you can only use one floor and ceiling texture as shown in the screenshot above. You could set a sky texture for the ceiling if you wanted, given that you wanted to make an outdoor level.
The height of the entire level can be adjusted to suit your needs but keep in mind that GADs (Gravitational Anomaly Disks) will need to be readjusted to suit the level's height. You can even make a typical Wolfenstein 3D level just by using Level Height 1, but if you want to go crazy and make some 'Vomitorium' level, you can set your height all the way up to Level Height 16.
When you fly or go up in height through bounce pads on a level that has a sky texture applied, you could see the sky shifting up and down. That's because you can specify the Sky Height, just for this purpose.
You can make your level brighter or darker just be changing the Brightness Level while Light Fadeout should be a bit self-explanatory. It can determine how far the player can see.
A music track from the game can also be specified while allowing the user to preview the track to determine what suits the theme of the level. Level Types should be self-explanatory as well, you can make a level a normal singleplayer level or a COMM-BAT level. However if you are making a secret level then select 'Secret Level' but if you plan to use a Boss enemy then I would suggest the level to be a 'Boss Level'.
For 'Chase Level', it is used for the near end-game where you chase El Oscuro's head.
Other things to note are the checkboxes. Lightning will make the level play thunderstorm sounds in the background. However for lighting, the light icons are useful for Light objects, which is useful for rendering lights in certain areas. 'Don't count Lights' is meant to make sure the lights don't ramp up and down upon activation/destruction. You can also make your level foggy but enabling the Fog checkbox, but make sure to avoid enabling both Light Icon and Fog as it will crash the editor/game.
1.3 Level Blockout and Planes
Making a layout of your map should be pretty simple. You can use either the
pixel brush or the 'Outline Rect.' brush. The outline rectangle brush is useful
for quickly making square rooms. It is worth noting that each part of level have
their own separate area tile. Placing tiles is about as easy as left clicking to
place and right clicking to delete.
Another noteworthy thing about making levels for Rise of the Triad is that each set of tiles are separated in three planes. The first plane is for placing walls and area tiles, the second plane is for placing objects like player starts, enemies, weapons, and GADs. The third plane is where information of a tile is stored, allowing heights to be specified, which actor faces in what direction and all that. In Ludicrous Edition however, you can easily add alternative textures for more texture variety.
Door tiles can also be placed as well but to make 'normal' doors, you need to make use of the wall tiles from below:
1.4 Object Placement
Before you start playtesting your level, make sure to place a player start somewhere in the map. To do so, you go to the object's plane and there should be a 'Players' Section. Each player start tells you what direction the player should face. Not only that, but you can place COMM-BAT specific player starts as well.
When placing enemies, there are two types. one that can be alerted by gunfire, while 'Deaf' enemies can only be alert when they spot your presence. You need to keep this in mind otherwise almost every enemy (outside of locked doors) would go after the player.
2. Locking your doors
One thing that helps extend level progression is to have the player look for a key to unlock doors to certain areas. In order to lock your doors, you go to the Objects plane and place a key object inside a door tile. You can use either Gold, Silver, Iron or Oscuro Key. The Oscuro key is primarily used for boss levels.
Not only you can lock your doors through keys but also through the use of touchplates. Simply place a touchplate object anywhere that the player can reach and go to the Info plane. Right there there should be a Links tab, click on 'Pick Tile' and click on the touchplate you placed. After that, you can proceed to play the Info tiles inside the door tiles. There you can playtest the level for good measure to ensure the touchplate works.
Do keep in mind that reproducing these steps backwards can crash the game.
2.1 Using GADs
Rise of the Triad's Level Design makes use of Gravitational Anomaly Disks, simply known as GADs for short. This was designed to overcome a limitation within a heavily-modified version of the Wolfenstein 3D game engine. There are a few type of GADs you can place. A Stationary GAD is a non-moving GAD while Raising GADs can be treated as an elevator platform. There are GADs that point to a direction, those are moving GADs used for transportation.
Each GADs can have a height specified in the Info tab, you may have to do trial and error to get the right height you want but what I try to do in the case of making stairs is add up each height but click the + button 4 times.
For moving GADs, a direction can be changed by placing pushwall objects between each other. This may require more trial and error (especially if you are planning to place Robot Guards and Ballistikraft in your levels) so keep that in mind.
2.2 Pushwalls!
Just like Wolfenstein 3D, one way to make secret areas is to place pushwalls from the 'Objects' plane. It's about as simple as, placing a pushwall of any direction you want inside a wall tile. You can make it pushable multiple times by placing pushwalls in a pattern of two tiles.
You can even make use of pushwalls that can only be activated the same way you do with doors, except that they cannot be activated multiple times when using the pattern of two tiles method as it automatically push the walls further on it's own.
2.2 Moving walls & floor blades!
This is normally used for hazards like lava walls and floor blades. This is where you start using a 'Movewall' object inside a wall of choice before using the pushwall objects to point which direction it should be going. Keep in mind that you can specify a fast move wall for faster effect. Make sure to use pushwalls pointed to each other otherwise the wall will go through the map.
This normally works for moving objects like floor blades.
2.3 Using Catwalks!
To further vary your heights, you
can use catwalks. This not only allows varying heights but objects can be placed
inside as well. Making it useful for placing weapons in higher areas or even
ambushing the player with enemies. It's a matter of going to the Info plane and
placing a catwalk of the following :
Top
Bottom
Bottom and Top
Top and middle
Middle
Bottom and middle
You could also combine this with a wall tile for more texture choices.
2.4 Alt. Upper Textures
To give your texture choices more variety, you can specify Alt. Upper Textures in the 'Info' tab. There you can select a texture of your choosing and place it on a existing wall.
2.5 Sky Tiles
This is only useful if your level has a sky texture as the ceiling. You can add sky tiles to give your level more 'outdoor' vibes. It's about as simple as placing a 'Sky Tile' in any tile *including wall tiles* but keep in mind that a player can get killed when going near the sky tile.
But did you know, you can make non-hazardous sky tiles? All you have to do is go to the Info tab and select 'Alt. Upper Texture' and make sure the ID is set to "0" then place it on a wall and then you have a sky tile that won't kill the player.
2.6 Switches
Switches are used for enabling/disabling certain things like pushwalls, fire cannons, etc. You place a switch tile that looks like this :
There are two types of switch tiles, one that is a wall tile and the other that is meant for upper heights meant for access through GADs, Bounce Pads, and Catwalks. To make the switch do anything, you must link it to the affected tiles. In the Info tab, click 'Pick Tile' and point it to the switch tile and then place the 'Info' tiles into the desired tiles.
2.7 Elevators
Some levels in the game have elevators that transport a player to a different area, but act as teleporters. If you look at the screenshot shown above, you can see what I mean. You need a elevator door that looks like this.
There are up to 8 elevator objects that can be placed twice per elevator. So be sure to keep that in mind. FUN FACT! You can make a one way elevator by not having a switch nor walls inside. This has alsoo been used in Extreme ROTT to some extent.
2.8 Jumpads/Bounce Pads
Rise of the Triad makes use of bounce pads to access varying heights. A normal bounce pad is about as simple as placing it in the Object plane. Do keep in mind that a bounce pad send a player to highest height of the level. There are a about two types of bounce pads, one that can be used once and the other than can bounce a player periodically. For that you go to the 'Info' plane and place either 'Place over jumppad for one time only jumping' or ''Place over jumppad to make it a periodic firing jumppad' inside the bounce pad.
2.9 Exit Trigger
This should be simple to explain, just simply place an exit object in any tile. but keep in mind that you need to tell these tiles what it should do next. Do you want it to simply end the game or go to a certain level? Well, now you can if you go to the Info tab and into the 'Exit to map' tab. The few settings inside should be self-explanatory.
3.0 Uploading to Steam Workshop
Once your mapset is completed and ready for testing or for other's to play. You go to File -> New Workshop Project.
There you can name your Workshop item and description. Keep in mind to give your submission a thumbnail for others to see your mapset. It can be a screenshot of a level or cover art of your project. (Thumbnail must be a .GIF/.JPEG/.JPG/.PNG image)
The important part that people tend to miss is the tags. Here are a list of tags you need to consider.
campaign - Singleplayer Campaign
Set
comm-bat - COMM-BAT Multiplayer Set
episode - Singleplayer Episode Set
level - Singleplayer Level
You can also save the workshop project and load them if needed. Just make sure to reload the game/level editor to prevent another new submission.
3.1 Closing Thoughts
There you have it! Now you can make your level for Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition! The editor itself should be bit easy to pickup but you need to consider learning what makes a good Rise of the Triad level. The game itself is powered on a heavily modified but also outdated game engine from 1992 so you are kind of limited on what you want your map to be. With limitations however, you can use your creativity more which can result in some clever map design choices and themes.