2.1 Map Editing in Noggit

Learning the basics of map editing in Noggit

THIS TUTORIAL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This tutorial explains how to use most basic Noggit’s features required for worldbuilding.

First of all, you need to download Noggit itself:

We also prepared special map for you to practice on.

Launch Noggit and open the ExteriorTest map in the Continents tab.

Click on one of these squares to open the map.

Orange squares represent .adt files located in your project folder, gray ones are ADTs stored in client .mpq archives and the green ones are .adts that have a corresponding .wdl file the purpose of which will be explained in further parts of the tutorial

This map created special for practicing in ground modeling, texturing, model spawning, water editing and other things.

If everything is okay, now you should have your map loaded and be able to start practicing. As you can see, there are different pre-textured areas for you, so you can raise them and practice your shaping (also known as terraforming) skills. You can also find some examples of mountain and texturing styles there. But before you start, let us explain how to use the different tools and modes available in Noggit. 

Introduction to Noggit’s graphic user interface

On the left side of your screen there is tool bar with 9 icons which represent all the existing world editing modes. Here are the explanations of each one from top to bottom of the toolbar: *

• Raise/Lower - modifies the height of the ground
• Flatten/Blur - flattens or blurs the ground
• 3D Paint - allows you to paint textures
• Holes - adds or removes the holes from the ground which are necessary for caves, cellars and etc
• AreaID Paint  - sets the area ID to the selected chunk which effects the name showed up on your screen while entering the zone
• Impassible Flag - marks the chunk as impassible for a player to pass, so basically - an invisible wall
• Water edit - allows you to perform various operations with water, such as adding it chunk by chunk, changing its height and many more
• Shader editor - currently unused button of a planned feature which can also be useful for us in some cases
• Object editor - allows you to work with the objects on your map, such as WMOs and M2s

Underneath the toolbar you can see a currently selected texture for texture painter or texture swapper.

The top menu contains a lot of tabs with additional functions which are responsible for rendering and editing options (“View” and “Edit”) and some additional functions (“Assist ”). There is also a “Help” tab that contains a small hotkey information note.

There is also a status bar in the bottom of the working space that shows you some information about your current position on the map.

All tool keyboard and mouse shortcuts can be found in a hotkey pop-up windows by pressing “H” on your keyboard.

Ground Modeling

As was already said, your map contains a lot of pretextured areas and mountain shaping examples you can practice ground modelling skills in. Try to look at the finished and shaped areas and reproduce them yourself by raising flat textured spaces. In order to do this you will  need the first two editing modes available in Noggit.

(!) Basic editing modes can be changed by pressing 1-9 buttons on your keyboard.

So, select the first tool called “Raise/Lower".

 When selected: Hold the “Shift" key and move your mouse on the terrain. It will increase the height of the ground in your brush area.

Doing the same with “Ctrl” key held will do the opposite thing - decrease the ground height.

In the option windows in the upper right corner of your screen there are a set of various brushes and setting that affect the result of raising or lowering the ground. The linear brush which is also selected by default is the most important one for modelling the ground. It creates the smoothest shapes for your mountains. Other brush types are also working and used for other purposes, for example other mountain styles. You can try each one somewhere on the map to get the basic idea of what they are useful for. Now try to raise some mountains.

There are some keybindings that may help you to increase the speed of your terraforming. If you hold the ALT and move your mouse, the brush radius will change without touching the UI.

You have probably already noticed that at some place the ground has some spiky sharp edges. In order to remove them, use the second tool called “Flatten/Blur” by using “Shift + LMB" for flattening, and “Ctrl + LMB" for blurring.

So, you can know start sculpting the mountains. Look how the finished areas are created and try to replicate the shaping style. When you get a close result, you can try to shape the mountains in your own way. Maybe you will create something better ;).

By pressing F9 you can toggle the height lines on your map which are really helpful when you are modelling the ground.

Texture Swapping

You may expect that the next thing we are going to learn after ground modelling is texturing, but it is not. We will explain how to texture the terrain in the next parts of the tutorial series. But now you should learn swapping textures that are already painted on the map.

In order to do this switch to 3D Texturing mode using the toolbar or by pressing 3 on your keyboard.

Hold the “Ctrl” button and click somewhere on the ground. You should now see a “Texture picker” window which shows you the textures that are currently used on the chunk. 

If you press F7 on your keyboard, the map will become covered with red and green lines, You should remember that green squares show the borders of each .adt file in your map, while red squares represent chunks of this file.

As you may have already noticed, one chunk can only contain 4 textures and it is essential for WoW modding to keep all 4 chunks filled, but you should not worry about it while working with the tutorial material. The reasons for doing it will be explained in the next parts of out tutorial.

Press the button called “Texture Swapper” in the brush setting window in the upper right corner of your screen.

 Now select the texture you want to change with a texture picker.

Press the “Set destination” button in the “Texture swapper” window. Now this texture is selected as a target one for swapping, so that it will be replaced.

Select a texture you want to replace the target one with. In order to do this, press X on your keyboard. You should now see a “Texture palette” window.

Now you may load all the available tileset textures in the game or load some from a zone you want.

Press “Load all tilesets” button or load a specific set. You may sort the textures by pressing the “Filter textures” button and selecting the required parameters.

Once the texture is selected, press the button “Swap ADT” in the swapper window. It will change the currently selected texture pair on one .adt you are currently on. You can also swap textures chunk by chunk by holding “Shift” and pressing left mouse button while moving it on the ground.

Placing models

In order to spawn models on your map you need to run WoWModelViewer and Noggit at the same time.

Look up a model using a search field in WMV.

When you find the model you want to spawn, switch to Noggit and press the following key combination: SHIFT + C for spawning an .m2 model; ALT + C for spawning a .wmo model.

You can use the “Ctrl + C”/”Ctrl + V” keybinding for copying and pasting models. When the model is selected you are able to scale it and rotate in different directions. Hold “Shift”, “Ctrl”, “Alt” and press right, left and middle mouse buttons while moving your mouse. Practice a bit and you will get used to the rotating shortcuts.

[KEY COMBINATION PICTURE]

You can use SHIFT + R for resetting the model’s rotation and PageDown for setting a model to the ground level. Numpad keys can be used for moving model slowly which is helpful for correcting the position of some small models. If you hold “Shift” while pressing one of those numpad buttons, the model will move slightly faster.

We also want to remind you that all the basic key binding information can always be found in a Help window in Noggit.

Adding water

Now it’s time to add some water to your map.

Switch to “Water edit”. You can fill the entire .adt with water by going to the “Assist” menu and clicking on the “Create water” button. “Clear water” in the same menu is used for removing all the water data from the .adt.

Pressing “Create water” will create a flat tile water at 0 ground level. You can change the height of the water layer by using the buttons in the setting menu in the right upper corner of your screen. It is also possible to change opacity and water type. Play around with those features to understand how they work.

Now create water on the blank flat .adt. Try raising the ground and creating some kind of lake. Now, you have some water underneath your terrain. It is not good because it produces water sounds in game, and also allows fishing everywhere on the map. So, you always have to cut the unnecessary water by pressing “Crop water” on the setting panel of “Water edit”. It cuts all the extra water under the ground.

Sometimes you need to have different levels of water on your map within one .adt. You can add water to the chunk by pressing “Shift + LeftMouse” and remove it with “Ctrl + LeftMouse”. You can also select chunks with “Alt + LeftMouse” and deselect them with “Alt + Ctrl  + LeftMouse”. When something is selected, height control buttons affect only the selected water chunks. It works for everything except opacity generator and water type selector. Those are currently not supported in chunk by chunk editing.