Overview
This guide is a basic guide to basic mapmaking. There are a lot of other guides to making maps but none on Steam. I have spent about 100 hours in mapmaking so far and like to believe I understand the basics and I hope that this will help some people interested in mapmaking.
Getting Started
In order to make a map, you obviously need to have somewhere to build.
Start off by opening to Reflex Developer Console, default tilde ( ~ ), and typing in “map empty”
This will open up a basic map with a single rectangle and player spawn. Mine is a little different because I had to recreate mine.
This is the ultimate basic map to start in the creation of the map.
Now, open the console again and type in “savemap [mapname]” this will save a copy of the empty map and name it what you want it as. I use NinjaTurtlez as my mapname. Then load into the map using “map [mapname]” or by going to the Create Server tab in the Play tab on the main menu and searching for your map.
If you followed the basic instructions, you should now have an open space to work with.
Creating and Editing your First Platform
Now that you have an open area to work with, you will want to start adding crap to it. Yeaaah!
Make sure you are in edit mode ( default 0 ) and if you are, in the top left corner it will save ReflexDev with a string of map making UI at the top.
Going right from the ReflexDev icon is:
-Save, which you want to hit all the time to save your map
-Properties which will be discussed later
-And a 3rd button that will most likely say WorldSpawn
Click on the third button and a menu will open up, this is your brush menu which is the basis for creating your entire map.
Make sure you have the WorldSpawn brush selected and find a nice open spot in the area, and hold down left click and drag to make a WorldSpawn, or platform.
You have now created your ( most likely ) first WorldSpawn! Ayyyyyyyy!
Now, hopefully, you will want to edit your WorldSpawn.
Holding down shift and dragging on an edge will increase the size of the WorldSpawn.
Holding down alt and dragging up or down on the WorldSpawn will increase it’s elevation.
Pressing V will select the vertices and you can edit them ( NOTE: This is kind of difficult and I suggest getting a grasp on everything else before trying this).
Numpad – and + which will rotate the WorldSpawn.
With these 4 simple tools, you can go crazy on your map making rooms, hallways, and the like.
This is some basic WorldSpawns I added together to make a basic section. On the left you see the original platform in the map Empty with it’s world spawns.
On the right you a 16 units tall and 192 x 384 units wide platform with a 224 units tall and a 16 x 384 units wide platform on the edge.
On the top part of the second WorldSpawn is a vertices edited WorldSpawn which I made a 112 units tall and 48 x 384 units wide platform, went into vertex editing mode, held alt, and moved the front 2 vertices up 80 units.
Materials
The next button to the right of the brush selction menu is the materials content browser menu. This is a box with a bunch of type inside of it, and a spawn icon to the right of it which might look like a cyan cube for you. Click it.
This opened up the entire content browser with the materials selected. There are a wide range of materials, most of which are solid and you can stand on like p_metal2 and stone.
There is also glass and energy which you can stand on but also see through.
There is lava and slime which you can fall through and take damage. When you place any of these down, have a solid WorldSpawn underneath so people don’t fall through. Same goes with water but you do not take damage other than drowning in water.
Once you have selected the material you want, select the WorldSpawn you want to edit and hit ( default ) M. This will turn the selected WorldSpawn into the material.
There are a lot of different materials that you can choose from, try them out and see how they look in your map.
Next to the material button is a colour button which let’s you change the colour of the materials. Select the little dot to the left of the word colour and it will fill up with red. You can then edit the material colour using an RGB colour spectrum. ( Red Green Blue for anyone who hasn’t taken a basic art class ). When you unselect the dot, it will bring the material back to the basic colour.
Effects
Effects are the primary way to “decorate” your map. Go to your brush selection menu and select the second button, Effect.
Now like a world spawn, click and drag in a space to create an effect. This will make a red exclamation mark.
Select that exclamation mark and on the left side of the screen will pop up a UI ( explained later ).
The 4th word should say effectName with a big box to the right of it. Select that box.
This will bring up the content browser again, but instead of materials it will bring up effects.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different effects you can choose from, from Gothic to Industrial to Japan. And lot’s more to be added in the future.
Select the effect you want, I went with an ancient_japan/gong/gong, which is a gong. When you select it, it will automatically be put into the map in place of the exclamation mark.
You can not edit an effect with V or Shift but you can with numpad + and – and alt.
You can do this over and over, and decorate your map beautifully! I suggest checking out other peoples maps to see what works well together, but don’t copy them though!
Fullclip and Clip
Fullclip and Clip are both materials that can be turned into from a WorldSpawn.
Fullcip is an invisible block that does not let people through and does not let projectiles, like rockets. through.
Clip is an invisible block that does not let people through but does let projectiles, like rockets, through.
Fullclip and Clip are most commonly used to overlap an effect. Say you have a crate, you want to make a Fullclip world spawn the size of that crate so people can jump on that crate and not go through.
But say you have a window, you may want to use Fullclip on the windowsill and around the window yet use clip in the middle to let projectiles through.
You may also want to use clip as a roof when you have an open roof to make sure no one can break out of the map.
Other Brushes
There are a lot of other brushes in the brush selection menu.
Pickup which let’s you put weapon, armour, health, flags, and other pickup spawns to be able to be used in battle.
Jump Pad which lets people jump to a target
Teleporter which lets people teleport to a target
Target which is where a Jump Pad or Teleporter leads to. If you set the target name to be 1 in the Jump Pad, then the target name to be 1 in the Target, that jump pad will lead to that target.
Also, if you set the target to be called end, that will take a screenshot which will be used as the map screenshot when you are creating a server.
PlayerSpawn which is where you can set team and individual player spawns for people to spawn at.
PointLight which creates an area of light pointing in one direction from that invisible source.
RaceFinish and RaceStart which is used to set the starting line and finish line in a race map.
WeaponRestrictor which restricts the use of certain weapons. Say you want to make a jump map that people can’t use rocket launchers or plasma guns on, put that down everywhere in the map and people won’t be able to use those weapons.
Snap Distance and Snap Angle
Really quick, Snap Distance is when you create a WorldSpawn and edit it, that’s how many units it will go. Default should be 16 units so when you create a WorldSpawn, it will be in increments of 16 units.
The same goes for Snap Angle but that is the distance you rotate in.
Note: I reccomend keeping a Snap Distance of 16 because that seems to be what a lot of effects are designed to be around and the grid of the default grey seems to be in units of 4, 8, 12, and 16.
Properties
Properties is the second button in the UI and is only selectable when you select an effect or WorldSpawn.
When you select an effect, it will allow you to change the position in the map of it, the angle of it, the effect itself, the scale ( how big it is ) and the materials / colours of the effect itself.
When you select a WorldSpawn, it will let you change what time of day the map is, the sky angle, what colour the teams are, the author string and longname which will appear in the selection menu when you create a server, the min and max ammount of players for the map, and the gamemode for the map.
Map Editor Binds
All of the binds I use in this guide are the default binds. You can edit binds to make it easier for you. Test around and see what works best for you.
Access the binds menu by hitting escape, going to the options tab, going to the Bindings Tab, and clicking on the menu that “Bind for Game” and hitting “Bind for Map Editor.”
Thoughts During Map Making
Keep in mind the enviroment you want for your map, say you are creating a Gothic map, add Gothic WorldSpawns types to your map to add onto it. You do not need to theme your map however, it’s just to make it look nice.
Keep in mind gameplay. How your map looks comes second to the map mechanics. Nobody will want to play your map if it has absolutely terrible mechanics. Maybe get a little bit use to the Reflex engine, jumps, and overall gameplay before making a map.
Save frequently! I have crashed once in my entire time of making maps and I forget to save sometimes. Saving can save time, thoughts, and motivation.
Remember Fullclip and Noclip, you may have an effect that people can go through and that would not be really good unless you designed it that way like with vines.
Keep in mind the ability to break out of your map. People can break out and easily dominate people if you are not careful. The most common way would be having an open roof. Add a Clip WorldSpawn!
Community Questions and Answers
As people ask questions, I will answer them in the comments and copy paste them here if they do not belong in any other section.
Q: I cant look around with my mouse or move down (only up) and its pretty hard to make a map without those two things.
A: Hold down right click on your mouse and move it around to look around.
Q: How do I add vertices?
A: Unless there is some weird console commands that only the developers know about, you can not add vertices. You can add more worldspawns and edit vertices with V, and put them together to create shapes you would make by adding and editing vertices to an original worldspawn.
Q: I made a map and when I go back to “map empty” it takes me back to the map I made, how do I get the original “map empty” back?
A: Validate the files through Steam.
Asked and answered by Dolphinflavoredicecream
Q: How do you publish a map?
A: Go into map making mode, in the top right corner is a ‘Publish’ button, hit it.
Hit ‘Create New’ and that creates a new item, then slect the item and hit ‘Publish’ in the bottom right corner of the box.
Q: How do you set a preview image on the workshop?
A: Put a target named as ‘end’ somewhere in the map pointing to what you want the preview to be, then save it and republish.
Q: How do I change the skybox/time of day?
A: Click on any WorldSpawn that you have placed in your map and there are a bunch of options for you to mess around with, including the time of day.
Conclusion
I hope this helped some people in getting started with map making! This is by far not the best guide but there is no other map making guides on Steam yet, so I went what the hell. This is all original writing and I do not copy from anyone else. Thank you to Deafsnivy for edtiing my spelling and grammar mistakes!
If you have any questions, post them in the comments! I will answer most of them!
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvDJVfR9gDREHiy3t9EaNJQ