tutorials

Using the 2d Shape Editor [UED 2 / 3]

The 2d shape editor is a powerful tool contained within UnrealEd. It allows much more flexibility when creating brushes and can cut down editing time dramatically.

Editor Overview

To open the 2d shape editor, click this icon in the UnrealEd toolbar

Creating a brush

The shape you see in the editor represents a cross-section of a brush. You can use the same shape and extend it in different ways.

Step 1: making a 2d shape
The white squares are the vertices of the shape. You can drag them around to make different shapes. The green square is the shape's origin (where the pivot is set when you build it), and the orange square allows you to move the entire shape around the grid. You can add and remove vertices by selecting an existing node (where you want the new one to be placed/deleted) and clicking these icons Add and delete vertices

Step 2: processing the shape
There are five different ways of processing a 2d shape; sheet, revolved shape, extruded shape, extrude to point and extrude to bevel. Probably the most frequently used tools are extruded shape and revolved shape. The following example uses the file (arch1.2ds) listed on the right of this page.

Revolve and Extrude
Open the arch1.2ds file (right) in the 2d shape editor. Click the extrude icon, enter the length (in unreal units) that you want the tunnel to be and then click ok. If you minimise the 2d shape editor and look in one of the viewports you should see your shape as a 3d builder brush. You can now use the brush just like any of the other brush tools.

archway shape 1 [arch1.2ds]

extruded archway tunnel

curving archway tunnel

To make the tunnel curve around a corner, do the following:

Move the shape to the left or right of the origin (green square).
Click the revolved shape icon.
Enter the number of sides you want per 360 degrees (like building a cylinder).
Enter the number of sides you want to use in the brush. For example if you enter SidesPer360:16 and Sides:4 only a quarter of the total circle will be used.
Click ok.

Sheets
To build an irregular shaped sheet brush, make a shape in the 2d editor and click the sheet icon. This is especially useful for areas where a regular square sheet brush doesn't fit.

Extrude to point / extrude to bevel
Interesting effects can be achieved by using extrude to point/bevel. How to make a cracked wall effect:

Make an irregular shape in the 2d shape editor (or open the 2ds file shown below).
Move the shape onto the origin - the origin is where the point of the brush will be.
Use one of the following tools:
Extrude to point: simply click the extrude to point icon and enter a depth.
Extrude to bevel: this creates a flat-topped brush that narrows towards a point. Click the extrude to bevel icon, enter a cap height (actual height of the brush) and a height (distance of point to extend towards).
Click ok.

The ruined wall below was made by using this 2d shape and extruding it to a bevel (height 64, cap height 32). The shape was then subtracted from the wall and a couple of steel cables added to make it look like reinforced concrete.

ruined wall shape [ruined_wall.2ds]

ruined wall preview

Bezier Curve Tool

Archway #2
The first archway example showed an archway made with straight segments, however this archway may not be practical if you're building on a larger scale, and the detail isn't very high. It's also time consuming to align all the vertices so they look like a curve. By using the bezier curve tool, you could make an archway using only four nodes instead of nine, and still have more detail.

Adding a curve

Select a node so the line you want to bend is highlighted.
Press the bezier curve icon
Drag the blue nodes around to change the shape of the curve.

archway shape 2 [arch2.2ds]

Change the detail level
The default number of faces in a curve is five. To change the number of faces in the curve, select Edit > Segment > Detail Level > a value. In the example on the right, I changed the detail level of the curve to 10.

Deleting a curve
To delete a curve, select the segment you want to delete and press the linear segment icon. This turns it back to a straight line.

More Tools

Scale / Flip / Rotate
Scale up and scale down resizes the whole shape to double or half it's original size. You can flip the whole shape horizontally or vertically, and rotate it 90 or 45 degrees.

Insert New Shape
Sometimes you might need to have more than one shape. Click Edit > Insert new shape to add a new shape at the origin.

Images
You can load an image into the background of the editor for reference when creating a shape. This is very useful if you're trying to create a complicated shape from a drawing, or make it match up exactly with a texture. Click File > Image > Open From Disk to open an bitmap image file. Unfortunately File > Image > Get From Current Texture seems to crash the editor.

Grid Size
You can change the grid size by clicking Edit > Grid Size > a value. This allows you to work at a smaller or larger scale more easily.

Problems

Where did my shape go?
If the shape suddenly disappears for no reason, the camera my have moved too far away. Click View > Move Camera to Origin. For UnrealEd 2 (UT99), save the shape, close and re-open the 2d shape editor.

Beware - if you close the 2d shape editor you will not be prompted to save the shape first. Save the shape after you build it or minimise the 2d shape editor.

Why can't I add more nodes?
First make sure you have a node selected (so the square turns red). If you still can't add nodes try making the grid size smaller or moving the nodes you are trying to add between further apart. If the editor runs out of space to put nodes on it will place the new node on top of an existing one.

If all else fails
Save the shape anyway and restart the editor.