First Steps:

If you are not already familiar with alpha channels and layers, refer to the Newbies Guide to Alpha Channels and Layers.

How Dawn of War Terrain Works:

The terrain in Dawn of War is made from several specific layers. From the lowest to the highest, these are:

• Heightmap: This defines the terrain geometry.
• Texture Stamping: This provides the rough colour information for the whole terrain.
• Detail textures: Provide patterned detailing, and some further colour information.
• Decals: Provide fine details that can be unique, and placed precisely.

The exact functions and technicalities of each of these layers will be explored in later tutorials.

The Mission Editor:

The Dawn of War Mission Editor (ME) is focused on painting rather than geometry, which might be a difficult adjustment if you've come to it from a background of 3D art or first-person-shooter design tools. If however you have any background with painting, digital or otherwise, it might be easier.

Firstly, you will need the 1.11 mod tools for Dawn of War, as they do not ship with the game. They are available in a slim exe and vital files only package (11Mb) or a full version with included art samples (75Mb). You can download them from one of these locations:

• Relic Community BitTorrent Tracker
• Fileshack: 11Mb version (Registration required)
• Fileshack: 75Mb version (Registration required)

I will add more mirrors as and when I learn of them.

New Map:

Ready to begin? Right then. Load the ME (Located here: [game_folder]\W40kME.exe) and hit new. The mission editor will present you with a dialogue box, from which you can select the size of your map and whether it is for a mod or the normal game.

A general rule for map sizes is to use 256*256 for 1v1 maps, and 512*512 for anything bigger. 1024*1024 is unstable. If you need a clearer idea of map sizes, they are shown in game when you are selecting from the skirmish maps:

Leave the default Cell Size at 2m. This defines the grid that placed object models will snap to by default.

Next you must select from the mod list: Use "WarHammer 40,000 Dawn of War" for skirmish maps.

Once you've done this, the editor will present you with a basic terrain sheet.

Viewing the Map:

With the default viewing options, you will not be able to see much of your map at once. This is because the fog and the sky model are cutting off the outer extents of the terrain sheet. Hit CTRL+K and CTRL+F, which respectively toggle the fog and the sky.

Other important keyboard shortcuts for looking at the map are the arrow keys, with which you scroll around the map, backspace, which sets the camera to the default angle and range, like in game, and alt+mouse, which changes the camera angle, as it does in game with "Full 3D Camera" enabled in the game options.

Only the central section of the terrain sheet is avaliable for gameplay, the border is reserved for detail to give an appearance of surrounding landscape when the camera is rotated in game. You can see the approximate proportion of usuable terrain in this shot of Deadman's Crossing. The rectangle deliniated in red is the play area of the map:

To see the play area on any map, go to the Overlay menu, and experiement with different combinations of the avalable options. On a new map, Terrain Type shows the play area most obviously, but later, when you have terrain built up around the edge of the map, ImpassEdit Map gives a clearer picture. Any such overlays can be turned off with the Toggle Overlay command at the top of the Overlay menu.

Scenario and Terrain Properties:

On the file menu, under "Scenario", you will find the Scenario Properties. From here you can define the map name: convention is the map title, followed by the number of players in brackets. This is the text that will show up in the map selection list.

Below that you can set map type: Skirmish/Multiplayer Map or Single Player Mission. None in this set of tutorials will deal specifically with single player missions, though you will need the same general editing skills as for skirmish maps.

The last area is for the map description, which will also show up in the map selection screen.

Below Scenario Properties on the Scenario menu, you will find Terrain Properties. From here you can choose Sunight Colour, Shadow Colour, and Time of Day (In the first public release of the mod tools, placing the time of day slider close to Morning, Noon or Night could create lighting bugs, and it was advised elsewhere that it be placed between those times. However, in version 1.10 of the tools, buggy time of day settings are locked out).

Below that you can choose a sky and scale it; change the camera angle to see it, and toggle the fog with CTRL+F if you want to see it more clearly.

Experiment with fog start distance, end distance, and colour to get what you want.

Detail texture repeat allows you to scale detail textures, which are covered in a later tutorial.

Under the Water heading, there isn't much to choose from, but you can change the colour of the water along with certain other properties such as scaling and animation speed. Water is explained in the tutorial on heightmaps.

You can also toggle sky, water and terrain rendering from these options; for now it is recommended that you leave them on.

Map Naming and File Structure:

When you save a map, the correct file naming convention is [playercount]_[mapname].sgb

So for instance, "2p_deadmans_crossing.sgb" or "4p_biffys_peril.sgb". When you save a file, it must be saved in [game_directory]\W40k\Data\Scenarios\, with skirmish maps in the MP folder and single player in SP.

When a map is saved, 4 files are created. These are your .sgb file, which contains the map itself, and three .tga image files. Basically, one of these holds colour information for the terrain, and the other two are the icon and minimap that show up in the map selection screen and the HUD. For now these don't matter, we will return to them later.

ME UI and Toolbar:

Here is an image of the ME:

At the top, as with any application, you can see the menu bar and the toolbar. On the right is a tray which gives you information and options relating to whatever tool you have selected. The main black area is the 3D viewport in which you will be looking at your map.

Note: the tray is slightly buggy; often when you are using tools and change a setting in the tray, it will keep hold of the focus of your mouse pointer and as a result it will seem as if the 3D viewport has become unresponsive. To fix this when it occurs, just left click on a blank area of the tray, then start working in the 3D viewport again.

Here is an image of the most important buttons on the toolbar:

They are:

1. Select Objects
2. Object Placement
3. Decal Placement
4. Markers
5. Heightmap Editor
6. Texture Stamping
7. Detail Map Editor
8. Terrain Type Editor
9. Impass Map Editor

Each function will be explained in detail later, with the exception of markers, which are not particularly relevant to skirmish maps.

Object Placement:

When this is selected from the tool bar, the tray on the right of the ME displays a branching list of avaliable objects. In this list you can find all of the decorative objects used in the game, as well as objects vital to gameplay. Gameplay objects are found under "environment > gameplay", and they include slag heaps, critical locations, strategic points, relics, and most importantly starting locations. Once you begin creating a map, you will also want to make sure it is at the right scale, which can be checked by temporarily placing buildings and units.

To place an object, first select it in the list, then left click in the 3D view where you want to place it. Further left clicks will keep on placing objects of the same type.

To move a placed object around, left click on it and hold the mouse button down, then move the mouse (Remember though, this won't work unless you are using the object placement tool).

To delete a placed object, select it then press your delete key. You can select objects individually by left clicking and dragging slightly, then letting go of the button, or you can select a group of objects by clicking away from them, holding the button down, and drag selecting them with a box. Though you can select in this way using the Object Selection and Object Placement tools, deleting can only be done when you switch to the Object Placement tool.

The height of objects will be set automatically by the height of the terrain where you place them, and if you drag them around their height will adjust accordingly. If you try to drag an object onto a piece of terrain that too steep or otherwise impassable, it will spring back to its previous location. You can also adjust height manually on most objects by selecting them, holding down shift, then clicking and dragging with the right mouse button. Notice though that Relics, Slag Heaps, Critical and Strategic Locations all reset themselves to terrain height automatically.

If you need to reset the height of an object, you can snap it to the terrain by clicking the "Relative to Terrain" radio button in the tray, then the "Snap" button next to it.

Objects you place will snap to the default grid setting you selected when you were going through the new map dialogue, but with the settings in the tray you can also define a larger grid setting and specify that your object selection snaps to it.

"Use Random Rotation" causes objects to be oriented at a random 90 degree rotation upon placement. Selected objects can be rotated after placement by moving the mouse while holding down SHIFT+Left Mouse Button, though they will still snap to 90 degree increments.

Finally, the "Player:" drop down list is what is used to define the owners of objects. All gameplay and decorative objects must be set to owner World, if they are not they will not show up in game. The only exceptions are the starting locations, which need to be set up sequentially with the player numbers.

Hey Presto:

You should now be able to make a a working skirmish map on a flat terrain sheet by placing starting locations and requisition points. Not very pretty or exciting to play though, is it? Those are the basics; the next tutorials will deal with the techniques and tools needed to make a proper map.