tutorials

Map Screenshot Guide [UED 3]

Why use screenshots?

Level previews help people to recognise a map when looking in the map list. People will generally ignore a map in the list if it has no description or screenshot. Preview screenshots show up in the UT2k4 instant action/host game map list and the vote menu.

This tutorial covers:

How to take screenshots in-game
Editing and importing screenshots
Creating a MaterialSequence and setting up the level preview

Taking Screenshots

Set up the display
First you should set a decent resolution and gamma in the display settings. To clear the screen of all hud icons, weapon and crosshair, type "togglescreenshotmode" in the console. Alternatively you can go into spectator mode and type "showhud" to hide only the hud.

Find a good view
A good screenshot should show the main play area or a key location in your map, any interesting features, or any other view that characterises the map. If you have good level previews people are more likely to remember your map any play it again.

Try to avoid including huge expanses of wall or floor in your screenshots, this makes it look boring and leads the eye away from key features. Some screenshots look better at a diagonal angle, facing slightly up or down.

Useful Commands
Press tab and type the following in the console:
fly - allows you to fly around the map. (offline only)
ghost - you can fly and go through walls. (offline only)
walk - return to a walking state from the above commands. (offline only)
fov - type fov and an angle (0 - 360) i.e. fov 100 to change your field of vision. The default is 90, increase it to take wide-angle shots or decrease it to zoom in.

Taking screenshots
When you're ready to take a screenshot, press F9. This will save your screenshot as a bitmap (.bmp) file in the ut2004/screenshots folder.

Examples - good and bad
These preview shots are about the same size as those shown in the map list.

These screenshots of DM-Rankin are very dark and flat. They don't show any of the interesting architecture or main areas that the map has. If these were set as level preview you'd think twice about playing it!

	A little better, but there is still a very dark area around the edges of the shot. This screenshot could be taken again, focusing more on the corridor area. It might look good as a large image but when it's this small you can hardly make out what the picture shows at all.

Much better. Both screenshots show the same room from different angles. I like the second one, it gives a better overview of the room and the different floors.

	The screenshot (DM-CBP2-KillbillyBarn) has a huge ion painter in it! All you see is the top of the silo and some hills (although the skybox is nice), not much of the map at all, and one of the secrets is out.

	Some better screenshots of KillbillyBarn. 1: Close-up of the front of the barn, old car and silo. 2: Taken from a distance, showing the sillhouette of the barn and the sunset, looking over an old tree near the edge of the map. 3: Shows most of the central area of the map, perhaps not quite as interesting as the others but does the job.

Level Preview

Editing the screenshots
The screenshots you took should have been saved in the ut2004/screenshots folder. Using an image editor like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop you can adjust the brightness/saturation if needed. You'll need to resize the screenshots to 512 x 256 pixels and save them as .tga .bmp or .pcx files before they can be imported.

Import screenshots as textures

In the texture browser click File > Import. Browse and open your screenshot file.
Type the following in the box that appears:
Package: MyLevel
Group: Screenshots (or anything you like)
Name: The name of the screenshot. It helps if they're numbered.
Make sure Generate Mipmaps is unchecked under options. The texture is now imported. You don't need to save the MyLevel package itself as it's saved within your map file.
Compress the texture - right-click it and click Compress > DXT1.
Change the level of detail by going to the texture properties (right-click > properties), expand the tab that says Texture and change the LODSet property to LODSET_Interface.
Repeat the above for any other screenshots you want to import.

Don't close the editor until your material sequence is created and set as the level preview. Unless the textures you imported are in use they will be lost when the editor is closed.

How to create a MaterialSequence
Most maps use three screenshots for a preview, each one fading to the next. This is done by creating a MaterialSequence.

In the texture browser click File > New...
Enter the following in the New Material window:
Package: MyLevel
Group: Screenshots (or preferably whatever you put last time)
Name: The name of the level preview. Can be anything you like.
Class: Raw Material
Properties > MaterialClass: MaterialSequence
The properties window for the new MaterialSequence will open. Click SequenceItems > Add and enter the following:
Action: MSA_ShowMaterial
Material: Select the first screenshot from the texture browser and click use.
Time: 1.5 (this is the time the screenshot is shown in seconds)
Click add again and enter the following to fade between screenshots:
Action: MSA_FadeToMaterial
Material: The second screenshot.
Time: 1.0 (fading time)
Repeat the above for all the screenshots so you get a sequence like this:
show screen1 > fade to screen2 > show screen2 > fade to screen3 > show screen3 > fade to screen1

Setting the level Preview
In the editor click View > Level Properties and expand the LevelSummary tab. You can set other important information here like Author, Description and Player Count. Select the material sequence you made from the texture browser, then click Use next to the screenshot property in the level summary. Check the description, author name and screenshot all show up correctly in the UT2004 map list before you release the map.

Problems

Missing Level Info
Sometimes your level description and screenshot haven't changed in the map list, even when you updated them and saved the map.
First open the latest version of your map and check that all the level info is still there.
If it is, try the following:

Remove your map from the ut2004/maps folder.
Start UT2004 and look in the map list, then exit.
Copy your map back into the ut2004/maps folder.
Start UT2004 again and look in the map list to check it's fixed.

Black or garbled screenshots
If you have an Nvidia 8800 series graphics card, this may cause screenshots in UT2004 to turn completely black. Unfortunately there is no known fix for this at present, so I recommend taking screenshots with fraps. Having anti-aliasing turned on often messes up screenshots with some cards.