Radiant/Glossary

A

Alpha Shadows

A technique for lighting in a map that results in controlled shadows in the finished map. Typically, it is used to project shadows through textures such as grates or glass that are partially or mostly transparent, simulating realistic shadowing on the recieving surface.

B

Brush

The basic building block of Radiant. See brush.

BSP

Name of playable map format, a technique of scene rendering and collision detection, first compile stage when .MAP (editing format) is actually transformed to .BSP. See BSP.

Brush entity

Entity which need to be paired with at least one brush to work. This entity type is populating the subgroups func_, trigger_ and _zone. To create a brush entity, first create a brush and select it, then right-click anywhere in the 2D grid to bring up the entity menu and select the entity. When map is compiled, brush entity become worldspawn or BModel.

C

Caulk

Special material designed to 'caulk' or seal a map. In-game, it is a transparent solid texture. It is best applied to all surfaces which a player will be unable to see while in-game.

Clipper

The Clipper Tool is used to clip (IE, cut away) parts of a brush in order to alter it's shape. This is generally used to turn a standard 6 sided brush into a brush with fewer or more sides, depending on what is required for it's placement. It has two versions: two-point clip cuts along a single plane and three-point clip can create a cut along all three dimensions, depending on point placement.

Common materials

A set of system materials in common/ folder used to make special things. All common material normally invisible in game.

CSG

Consecutive Solid Geometry. A geometry class that represents both form and volume used on brushes (triangle models dont represent a volume). Radiant allows three basic CSG operations: Substract, Make Hollow and Merge.

Compilation

A process of transforming .MAP (editing format) file into .BSP file (playable map) when map is optimized and lighting, culling, and collision structures are created. Compilation can take many time based on quality settings (there is preview, final and release compilation) and map type. See Build menu.

D

Detail brush

A detail brush is a type of brush that does not block the -VIS stage of the compiler. In short, any brush that does not provide structure/seal to a room, and merely is there to detail the room, should be made a detail brush [ctrl + M]. See also brush.

E

Entity

An object used to interact with the game, see entity.

Classname

String entity key that represents entity class.

G

Grid

A grid is a framework with vertical and horizontal lines in unison used to structure content. The grid, in Radiant, is to the left, where you build your world.

L

LIGHT

Third (and last) compile stage that creates lightmaps and vertex lighting for a map. On outdoor maps it is most long stage.

Light

A light is an entity that creates light and adds color to surfaces of brushes around it. Proper lighting can make any map look appealing. Darkplaces engine have static map-placed light entities and dynamic realtime lights edited ingame (some of them get exported to static lights on map compile).

M

Map

A level editing format (which get transformed into playable format during map compilation), a single map (or scene).

Metasurface pipeline

A technique used on BSP map compilation phase. All brushes and models are breaked into their triangles and new drawsurfaces is created from that pile. Metasurface pipeline is needed for most of advanced map compilation features (models lightmapping, normal smoothing) and required by Blood Omnicide.

Model

A model is a premade piece of geometry which you can put into your map. By default models get only vertex lighting, but with "force meta/lightmapped" spawnflag they get lightmaps compiled. Models become a part of the world unless targeted to other entities (in this case model is being added to targeted entity geometry).

N

Npc

Npc is an abbreviation of non-player character (sometimes "non-playable character" or "non-player class"). It's a character in a computer game whose actions are not controlled by a human player.

Normal smoothing

Brushes are flat shaded by default. Normal smoothing allows soft lighting on them. See normal smoothing.

O

Origin

The center point of the map, i.e. 0,0,0. Also center of any object and common material used to define origin of bmodel.

P

Patch Mesh

A sub-type of brush used to simulate curves. It is generated by a matrix of vertexes which can be moved independently of each other to form the curved shape. NetRadiant has several standard types (Bevel, Endcap, Cylinder, Sphere) that will generate most needed curves, as well as the ability to create 'simple patch meshes' that allow for a free-form shaping. Patch Meshes are only visible from one side, and cannot be used reliably for fog, water, or any other spatial type of shader effect.

Prefab

A prefab are a group of brushes which can be imported to your map. The difference between a prefab and a model are that prefabs still consist of individual brushes whereas models are made out of already compiled polygons. Prefabs are .map files.

Point entity

Any entity that only require origin to be placed. Is is a most frequently used entity. Point entity have fixed volume box (bound box). Enemies, items, decoration models, start spots are point entities.

Q

Q3Map2

Vastly improved original tool for Id Tech 3 to compile levels into the Q3BSP format (the playable format).

S

Script

A script is a set of written instructions used by gamecode or engine to produce certain specific effects.

Shader

Refers to material.

Spawnflags

Spawnflags key is special entity key used by Radiant to assign boolean entity properties. Possible spawnflags for entityclass are shown above keys in entity inspector. Spawnflags can address 24 bits.

T

Texture

An image or graphic which can be applied to a surface. See texture.

V

Vertex

The points between which the faces of the brush are drawn, usually the corners of a brush.

VIS

Second compile stage where VIS are being calculated for a map.

Void

The gray area outside of the map itself, where nothing is. If there's a way to get to this area from any entity in the map, the map is leaked.

W

Worldspawn

The entity that contains all the regular brushes in your map, so every brush you create will be added to the worldspawn entity. Any dynamic brushes (doors, trains) are not part of worldspawn. See worldspawn.

Z

Z-Fighting

A common mapping error relating to texture placement and brush alignment. It is cause when the faces of two brushes either completely or partially occupy the same plane, and are textured with either two different textures or the same texture with different settings. Visually in game, it is characterized by that plane showing both textures at the same time on that face, resulting is what looks like the textures 'fighting' to be shown.