Introduction

Almost everyone who plays Myth2 thinks it would be great to make their own maps.  But almost everyone who tries gets at least a little confused and discouraged along the way (myself included).  In writing this tutorial, I tried to point out the basics of what you actually need to know to start making maps.  Some of these concepts are very unfamiliar to many people, and I've tried to make it all easier to understand.

The Fear and Loathing documentation contain much more information than I give you here, but they give you too much to absorb at once - and it can be hard to figure out where to start by reading them.  Certain procedures are extremely hard to find or understand in the F&L docs, forcing us to find our answers from each other, in map editing forums across the net.  I started making this tutorial after seeing the same questions over and over on the forums.  Feel free to distribute this tutorial to anyone you meet who needs it, or point them to my site.  Although neither perfect nor comprehensive, I think this tutorial answers many of the most common questions asked by beginning map-makers.  Once you begin to grasp the concepts here, re-read the Fear and Loathing documentation - it should start to make a little more sense to you.

This is version 1.0 of my map-making tutorial.  I'm sure there are a few parts that are a bit unclear, hard as I tried to be plain.  There may be a few technically inaccurate explanations, but I don't believe there are any serious errors that will trip you up.  Feedback is welcomed - just email me at the address below.

I.  Getting Started with Image Maps
 

With great anticipation, you fired up Loathing and selected "New Map", and it sat there waiting for you to choose your color map image - but you're still not sure how to make one. Or maybe you load an image and Loathing crashes every time. Maybe this tutorial will help you out some.

PLANNING

The best way to start a map is to do some planning. A map should have some kind of theme to its environment. A rocky desert setting, snowy mountain pass, tournament field, sandy beach - your setting should be one of the first things you decide. You should try to imagine how the surface features of your map should be arranged. Planning ahead ensures that your map has enough room for 6 starting locations, if that's what you want. If hill games are intended, there might be some interesting central feature to the map. Do you want an open field where forty berzerks can charge abreast? Or confined spaces where they have to charge single-file?

Surface features can and should affect gameplay, and it's up to you to decide how much - and if gameplay would be affected positively or adversely by a certain map plan. Your map may include varied elevations with ledges for missle troops to shoot from, or be a mostly-flat plain with a deep river channel dividing it. In any case, it should be interesting. A map can force players to adopt a certain strategy, or give certain units distinct advantages or disadvantages. This isn't necessarily bad, and can be fun - "eye of the beholder" thing here. But you do want to give thought to these things before you get too far with your map.

The most important things to plan ahead are: 1. Environment theme, 2. Number of start locations, 3. Physical barriers and surface features. You might want to consider what units you're going to use on the map, but it's not always necessary at this stage. You can plan a map to suit certain units, but you can also pick units later that suit the map.

DRAWING

When you have an idea in your head of how your map should look and function, you can start drawing. Your map's dimensions in pixels must be divisible by 256 to work. Make a new picture 1024, 1280, or 1536 pixels wide and/or tall. That blank white canvas looks pretty intimidating, so fill it in with a color that will be dominant on your map. Use the example of a grassy field. You know your map will have a lot of green, so go ahead and make the canvas green. If you're using Photoshop, select two shades of green and fill the canvas with a "render clouds" filter. Add some spatter filters. This is just the most basic start, and might help you visualize your map better. Then you can pick a new color and begin defining some areas that won't be grass. Get some colors down, and your map will begin to develop. We'll discuss detailing later.

DISPLACEMENT MAPS

The displacement map tells Loathing where the high and low surface elevations are. Since this is so important, I usually start with the displacement map - and then make a color map using the displacement map as a guide. You can do it the other way around, but the maps have to match up pixel for pixel either way.

A displacement map is made from shades of gray, so go ahead and work in 'grayscale' mode. To be used or tested, it must be saved as 256 grays indexed color to work, as a .BMP for PC or a PICT for Mac. It must also be at a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch). In fact, all of your image maps, your overhead map, and your pregame image, all have to be at 72 dpi resolution, or they won't work. Save the original in grayscale mode (before converting to indexed color) so that you can go back and make seamless changes and details later.

Now, about those grays. Black is the lowest elevation that will appear on your map, and white is the highest. When spots of the map go from black to white, it's best to use a gradient between them. Even if you want to make a steep incline, use a gradient of gray shades between the white and black. Too big a jump in the mesh will stretch the pixels in your color map, which doesn't look very nice. White should be used mostly for areas that won't be traveled on - areas that rise above the playing field. You can ignore this advice, but keep in mind that when units are fighting on the highest elevation of the map, the camera can seem unnaturally close to the ground, which also limits your view of the area.

When your high and low areas are defined in shades of gray, save your original. Then convert to indexed 256 grays and save the displacement map .BMP or PICT with a unique name. When you import this into Loathing, note that you can also edit the range, or the degree to which the disp. map distorts the mesh.

If you have trouble visualizing how to draw high and low spots in shades of gray, you can use the elevation tools in Loathing to create displacement - but this is an extremely touchy and tedious process better reserved for fine tuning in small areas. Trust me, the displacement map is the best route.

DETAIL

To add realistic detail to color or displacement maps, keep in mind one thing: SCALE. Eight pixels on the map looks like six feet to a unit standing on it. You don't want to spend hours drawing a bunch of daisies on the battlefield and then find out they're 12 feet across! A good rule of thumb is to fudge on tiny details. You can't realistically depict something in just a few pixels, so anything intended to be tiny on the map shouldn't be drawn. Noise filters and other effects can simulate detail very well. Tiny details are also ill-advised for displacement maps. The mesh isn't fine enough to translate tiny details, so they will only cause problems. Use the modeled scenery for anything tiny you want to stand out.

If you started your color map in the way I described, you've got some broad areas kind of basically laid out. Here's how to add detail and make your map more "believable". First, almost nothing in nature is all one solid color. Look at all of your color areas and touch them up with bands and splotches of complimentary and off colors. Blending, smearing, and blurring can be useful here. You want subtlety and transitions between colors. Second, use photos as a guide, or even use them directly in the image. Textures add a lot to the detail in a map. In a program with layers, you can blend a texture right in with your colors. Photoshop's "rubber stamp" tool is a good way to paint sampled textures onto your map. Another thing that adds realism is the lighting. Loathing adds the shadows created by deformations in the mesh, but you can make them more pronounced by considering them in the color map. An area you know will be in shadow can be darkened. Conversely, you can brighten areas that will receive highlights. Add smaller details like cliff ridges and such in this way. Photoshop's "dodge" and "burn" tools work well for this because they alter the existing color into brighter and darker shades. Whenever you draw shadows or highlights on the color map, remember that Myth lights the scene from the top right corner, so draw accordingly or your battlefield will appear to have two suns.

You probably haven't yet made a Passability map (passability defines where units can and can't walk), but you should consider passability in the working stages of your color map. Areas that restrict movement (a steep incline, etc.) should be a different color - or somehow distinguished - from the terrain surrounding it. This is a 'playability' issue - when impassable terrain is indistinguishable, players might assume their units can cross, and will be surprised and frustrated to find that they can't. It helps players more easily navigate your map to 'point out' impassible areas by giving visual clues on the color map (a green grassy hillslope might give way to dark gray rocks to mark the impassable steep edges). Bungie does this with their maps, so we're all accustomed to these visual clues in playing the game.

Use all the tricks your software can perform to help you with your color map. Save it in its original format so that you can make changes and add things later. Convert a copy to 240 indexed colors and save as an 8-bit BMP or PICT for use in Loathing.  Note that your other grayscale image maps should be 256 grays, but your color map should be 240 colors.  This is because Myth II uses those extra color spaces to draw the blood and exposion scars on the mesh.  If you use all 256 colors, the blood and burn colors get chosen from your palette, which usually makes them look all wrong.

If you need some more pointers about color maps, Vista have some nice tutorials on making grass and rocks and things, so please check them out.

REFLECTIONS

The Reflectivity Map (sometimes called the Media Map) is used to tell Loathing where the reflective surfaces are. Usually this is reserved for water, although you might try using it for ice or something. You can make the reflectivity map by drawing over your color map. Paint all the water solid black, and paint everything that's not water solid white. Save as 256 indexed grays (yes, even though it's black and white). Problems with media heights in Loathing are beyond the scope of this tutorial. Heh.

TERRAIN AND PASSABILITY

I devised a method and template for making a passability map which I find much easier than painting all the mesh cells with the bungie brush. This technique is described next.

II.  Passability Map Technique

"Painting those little mesh cells with a 'brush' really sucks. There must be an easier way!"
 Sound familiar? Follow me . . .

The passability map is very important, but painstakingly difficult to create in Loathing. If your mesh has a lot of small sloped or steep areas and tight turns, this method will get you going with much less effort.

To start, I 'painted' some areas of a test mesh with a nice big block of each terrain type, then exported this 'terrain map' from the mesh. Those brightly-colored areas displayed in Loathing's passability editor are now a grayscale. This 256-gray bitmap image was then cropped down to include only the range of gray squares, which I then labeled. I saved this little image to use as a "Terrain Template", which you can download by clicking here: Terrain Template Bitmap.

Note:  The trick to success with this tutorial is the system-standard 256 gray palette. If converting my template .BMP to a PICT alters the grayscale palette, Mac users will need to perform the above steps on their own.

Now that you have a template of the grayscale tones for each terrain passability type, open it up in your graphics program that you use to make maps. Your program might not be able to do what you need it to do (layers are very helpful), and you'll find out as we go, but you'll at least need a program that can have two documents open at once. Not asking a lot there. You will also want to open either your mesh's Color map or Displacement map, whichever you want to use as a guide for painting your passability grays.

Immediately, before you do anything else, convert your guide map to grayscale. Then convert it to indexed color, 256 grays, the system-standard gray palette. Hope you're still with me.

The reason for doing that now is that if you paint and THEN convert, the grays can and will change. If the grays change, you'll have an incorrect passability map. Converting your guide image to the same 256 grays before-hand ensures that the grays you paint on won't change. Go ahead and "save as" to give this image a name like terrain1.bmp - be careful that you don't overwrite your color or displacement map. (Remember, this tutorial is for "everyone").

Here's where the fun begins. You should have the Terrain Template open side-by-side with your converted map image. Most graphics programs have some sort of "eye-dropper" tool to sample and select a color from somewhere in an image. That's the tool you need here. If your graphics program can do layers with variable opacity (levels of "see-thru-ness"), you'll have no problems. What you need to do is cover every pixel of your guide map with a gray that corresponds to the terrain type you want. Say you have a ridge of steep cliff faces surrounding your map. Select the gray for "flying impassable" from the palette and paint the outer edge of your guide map with this color. Then put a ring of "steep" gray just inside it, if you want a high spot for soulless to back safely into. Obviously, you don't have to use all of the terrain types. Just put in whatever your map calls for. Just remember that you should not be able to see all the details of your guide map when you're finished. Every area of the passability map has to be covered in only the shades of gray Loathing uses to designate terrain type.

When your passability map is done, save it, and open Loathing. Import it as the terrain map, and click the passability editor button (the one that shows the terrain colors and lets you paint them). Now you see the results of your work. Chances are, you will still have to do some touching up in spots with the little bungie brush. But I think it's a lot easier than painting the whole mesh that way.

Next is a tip on how to keep your Local folder intact and still play on Bungie net.

III.  Your "Local" folder and Bungie.net games; a survival tip
 

"Why are all the games red?"
"I deleted the Local folder and my new map is gone!"

When you use Fear and Loathing, all sorts of tags get placed in the Local folder. Sometimes if anything at all is in there, the games on Bungie.net will turn red on you - the game knows your tags have been edited and won't let you play. The solution everyone will offer you on B.net is partially correct; deleting the Local folder will allow you to play the games on Bungie.net. But what if there's something important in there? Like a mesh you've spent a lot of time working on but haven't gotten to the "build plug-in" stage?

The best and simplest solution for map-makers who play Bungie.net games is this. Just make a brand new "safe" folder in your Myth2 directory and call it something like "My Map Stuff" or "Work in Progress". Nothing in Myth2's code will touch this folder, and it won't hurt anything by being there. When you're going to play online games, take the Local folder and move it into your "safe" folder. Play Koth Chest for several hours on B.net and quit Myth2. Inside your Myth2 directory, there is now a new Local folder. It should be empty. When you want to work on your maps, delete this empty Local folder, and move your "real" Local folder out of the "safe" folder and back into the main Myth2 directory.

Some people use two installations of Myth2 to solve the same problem, but it's not necessary - especially when it's taking up another 500 MB.
Just remember - before playing Bungie.net games, tuck the Local folder safely away. Before working on maps, drag it back out where Fear and Loathing can find it. All your meshes in various states of development will stay perfectly safe, and the B.net games won't be red.

Placing units and things on your map is covered in the next section.

IV.  Placing Units and Scenery
 

"I click on the units button and nothing happens"

IMPORTANT NOTICE - Loathing uses multiple windows and pop-up menus.  Most of these have a default position that they like to pop up in.  Most importantly, if your monitor resolution is set too low, some of these windows might pop up "off screen", where you can't see them. I usually run my monitor at 1024 x 768. If yours is set lower (especially 640 x 480), it might be the reason Loathing doesn't seem to work. You need room on your monitor's screen to display and use the pop-up menus.

I will explain the basics of getting stuff to appear on your map. There are a lot of extra options you should be familiar with. My best advice for those is to read the Loathing documentation for explanations of what all those options do.

PLACING UNITS

You might want to start by placing a few fast units on your mesh so that you can have them run around on the map and test the passability. When you single click the units button, it allows you to place a unit type from your unit palette. However, if you're just starting to add units on a new mesh, there is nothing in the palette.

Double click the units button to open the units palette. A blank window should appear with an "add" button. Click the "add" button, and a pull-down list of available unit tags pops up. Scroll down the list to find and select the basic "berzerk" tag. When you click ''open'', a new window of options will appear. For now, set the berserk to team 0, and to appear in all game types. Also check the "may be traded" box. In your unit palette, you have now made it possible to add tradable berserkers for team 0 to your mesh.

Close the unit palette. Single-click the units button, and the menu shows what's in your palette - Berserks for Team 0. Click on the mesh in the 3D window (not the overhead map-type window). Wherever you click, a berserk appears. Make eight of them.

Now click the main selector tool, the first arrow button. Click on a berzerk to select him. Click and drag to make him face a new direction. While holding the mouse button, control-drag to move him to a new spot. Arrange your eight berserks however you'd like. You can change it later if you want to.

Now select four of the berzerks. You can do this just like in the game - by pulling a box around them, or by shift-clicking one at a time. When you have four berzerks selected, choose "selection: edit marker" from the top menu. Make these four berserks "invisible" by checking that box. You can still see them faintly on the mesh, but they will be invisible in the game. This is not a new way to cheat. What it means it that Team 0 will start the game with only the four visible berserkers, but have the option to "buy" four more in unit trading - provided you place other tradable units on the map. The unit palette still shows just one entry - Berserks for Team 0, but it now shows that eight of them are placed on the mesh.

You will need to add the same units for each team to the unit palette. For selecting options pertaining to units, check the Loathing documentation if you're unsure of what checking or unchecking a certain box will do.

You can add and place just the berzerks for each team, or you can place the entire unit sets one team at a time.

Here's an important point that confuses some people.  Double-click the units button and add a different unit type to your palette - maybe a warlock.  You assign him to Team 0 like you did the berserks, and make him tradable.  You close the unit palette and single-click the units button.  You click on the mesh and add...A BERSERK!  You should, when you single-click the units button, see a menu window appear.  If you can't see it, read the note above concerning monitor resolutions. Or try moving another window out of the way, if you can.   This menu window, when you find it, probably says "berzerk, Team 0".  It's a selection menu that always defaults to the last unit you placed, or clicked on, or looked at wrong.  Click on the box in the menu, right where it says "berserk Team 0", and the pull-down list of all units in your palette should appear.  If the list is long, you have to drag up or down with the mouse to scroll the menu list.  Now if you've added a warlock for Team 0 to your unit palette, you should be able to select that from this menu window.  Click on the 3D mesh window and you should now be adding warlocks instead of berserks.

PLACING WILDLIFE

Ambient wildlife is added and placed the same way, but the unit palette tag for wildlife should always be set to Team -1, and the "is ambient life" box must be checked. "Is uncontrollable" is not necessary for wildlife, and is best used for units that belong to a team, but that you don't want them to be able to control (for example, an uncontrollable assassin target that they must guard while he wanders the map of his own volition).

TEAMS

In a single-player map, the player is always Team 0 and the enemy is Team 1. If two enemy factions are to fight each other, the second enemy is Team 2. Single-player maps require scripting to work properly, unless you want the enemy to stand in one spot and wait for the player to come and kill them. Ares from Creation wrote a fairly in-depth scripting tutorial that should help you get started there.

For multi-player netmaps, Team 0 is the first team and the rest of the teams count up from 0 (i.e., units for the sixth team would be assigned to Team 5)

PLACING SCENERY AND MODELS

Scenery and models have their own buttons, but they are handled the same way as units - by adding them to a palette and then placing a selection from the palette on the mesh. Netgame flags and objects are included in scenery, and most of these should be set to Team -1, so that they are not owned at the start of a game. Some exceptions are Capture the Flag flags, and Balls on Parade balls - each team gets its own. Flags and Balls have their own game-specific tags (the scenery list will show both "netgame lmoth flag" and "netgame koth flag"), and these kinds of objects must be set in the scenery palette to appear in only the game type they're used for (so your mesh might have both of these flags in the center, but only the correct one will be visible in the game)

PLACING SOUNDS and PROJECTILE GROUPS

Sounds and Local Projectile Groups, not surprisingly, are added and placed in the same way. It gets easy once you've started. Note that local ambient STEREO sounds (the ones with an "st" at the end of their name) should not be used here, or your map may crash. These are intended to be used in the "mesh ambient sound" part of your mesh tag in Fear. None of the 'random' sounds are stereo, but be careful with the 'ambient' ones. Local projectile groups are what you use to make flickering campfires, smoke billowing out of volcanic fissures, and leaves falling off of trees.

PLACING the OBSERVERS

Before testing your map, you should place an "observer" for each team. This defines where the 'camera' view will start for each player. It is usually placed behind their troops, looking toward them. The big eyeball button is for observers. Double-click and add one for each team to the palette. Place these on the mesh, and move them into position.

REVIEW of PLACING THINGS

To recap a bit, remember that nothing is available to place on the mesh until it's added to the palette. Units or objects that will be possessed by all teams must be added to the palette for each team, and assigned to the proper team. To place a unit or scenery object from the palette onto the mesh, you choose the unit type from the pull-down palette menu and click the mesh to place it. Click-dragging changes unit facing, and control-dragging moves the unit or object on the mesh.

A FEW MORE THINGS

A couple of simple steps before we go to Fear and get ready to test your map. Under the "Mesh" menu in Loathing, select "raise mesh edges" and also "make mesh edges impassable". Now no units can accidentally wander off the map. To keep the camera from overshooting the borders and showing you that glitchy mess that results, use the command "set mesh parameters". It should give you four fields - top, bottom, left, and right - with a zero in each field. Change the zero to 28 and see what effect that has. You can keep adjusting this until the camera barely shows the edge of the map. You'll notice its turning movement is somewhat restricted when the camera is too close the map edge, so give it as much leeway as you can afford.

Next I'll explain the most basic things you need to do in Fear to make your map test-ready.

V.  Testing and Playing Your Mesh
 

If you want to test your mesh with a friend, they'll need all your tags, so it's best to build a plug-in in Fear. More on that in a bit. If you just want to load up your map in Myth2 and see what happens, here's what to do.

When you have a mesh with all its image maps imported and some units placed, it's time to open Fear. With Fear running, open its "meshes" folder. Inside, you should find the name of your mesh somewhere in the list. Double-click its name to open your mesh tag. Down on the lower left is a box that says "is complete". Check this. If it's a single-player map, check that box. If it's a netmap, check "body count" under 'game scoring types'. Unless you've placed the flags and balls for other game types, leave them unchecked. Make sure that the 'team count' (number of starting locations) is correct. You don't need an overhead map or pregame picture yet, since you're doing a basic test here. We just want to see if your mesh loads and works. Click the 'ok' button and Fear will save any changes to your mesh tag.

Skip this paragraph unless you have to build a plug-in right now. To build a plug-in, select "built plug-in" from the main menu in Fear. Name it. Ignore the URL box. Below is a list of all the stuff in your local folder. If there's more there than the stuff for the mesh you're making the plug-in for you have to check only the boxes for the tags that apply. If your mesh is named "Blood Swamp", your plug-in should at least have tags for 256.Blood Swamp and mesh.Blood Swamp. These are your image map references and mesh references. If you've made them already, the reference tags for your overhead, pregame, and any string list will also be there, and should go into the plug-in. Check the boxes for all the tags that apply, and click the ok. Fear builds a plug-in right into your plug-ins folder.

Start up Myth2. If your map is a single-player job, click "new game" while holding the shift key. It should appear in the list. If it's a netmap you have options. You can try it in an unranked room on Bungie.net if you're testing with a friend. To test it by yourself, all you need to do is "host" a game on the TCP/IP or Appletalk multiplayer part. You don't actually have to be connected to the internet. No one else is playing anyway. In your game options screen, your map should appear in the list. Body Count will be the only game option, unless you set it up for other game types already. Start the game. Myth2 will probably say that it's loading " ", instead of "Blood Swamp". You can fix that later by making a new string list tag. Unless you've made your overhead map already, the game should load up with an error message "overhead map preprocessing failed" but be otherwise normal. Now you can play body count, except that there's nobody to fight. Run around the map and see how it works. You may find glitches in passability that you'll want to fix, or other areas you'll wish to improve. You can keep making changes and testing until you're satisfied.

Overhead Maps, Pregame Pictures, and that string tag thing are covered next.

VI.  Overhead Map, Pregame Pic, and that String tag
 

Some more things you'll need before your map is finished.

NOTE: The original release of Fear didn't seem to work for importing the overhead map and pregame pic. You should download the 1.2 updater from Bungie Net, or use a program called Jade (PC and Mac version), available from Vista. Fear 1.2 does the pregame pic just fine, but apparently assumes your overhead map is 128 x 128 pixels, and causes problems if it's not. So if you don't want to update, or your overhead map has to be a different size than 128 x 128, use Jade. The Read Me will explain how to use it. I'll tell you how to do this in Fear, because it is possible.

NOTE: if at any time you make a new tag but can't select it from the list as I describe next, try closing and restarting Fear.

Overhead Maps

To make your overhead map, just take your color map and scale it down in size. 128 x 128 is actually a pretty good size, and if you're building the tag in Fear it's your only choice. You can sharpen it up if you think it needs it. This should be saved with a new name as a 256 indexed color (.BMP or PICT, depending on your platform again). In Fear's main menu, choose the "import bitmap : overhead map" command. The 'path' is where your overhead map picture is stored. "Open" it, and then open the tag for the mesh it belongs to. In the middle of the left column is a space that says "overhead map", and the blank probably says "no tag". Pull down the list and find your bitmap, and select it to fill in the blank. Click 'ok' to save.

The Pregame Image

The Pregame picture must be 377 pixels wide by 190 pixels high. You can really put anything you want in here, but it should have the name of your map in it. Most also show a picture of the color map or overhead in the top right corner. The rest can be a larger version of the color map, a screenshot from your map, or a neat scan of a crayon drawing you made in the first grade. It doesn't matter. Follow convention at your own risk. What matters is the size 377 x 190, and it must also be a 256 color .BMP or PICT. Save it and go back to Fear. Select "import bitmap : netmap preview", this time opening the path to your pregame image, and open the mesh tag again. Select this tag to replace 'no tag' in the "pregame" tag space. Click 'ok' to save.

Map Description String List Tag

Now for the string list tag. In Fear's main menu again, select 'new tag' at the top. It asks you to select a tag type for your new tag. It should be a "string lists" tag. Hit the "create" button, and Fear asks you to name the tag. Name it 'mapname1' or whatever you want. Fear now opens a blank text field. Type in the full name of your map. Again open the tag for your mesh. There is a space that says "map description" which currently says 'no tag'. Pull down the list and select the string tag you just made by name. Click 'ok' to save. Myth2 will now display the name of your map when it loads it, instead of those two blank quotation marks.

Other Options - RTFM

While you're finishing up, note some of the other options you can select for your map. In your mesh tag in Fear, you can choose from different lighting schemes (long desert shadows, catacomb shadows, etc.) and pick an ambient sound to apply to the map. You can set a light or strong wind to be present. "Particle System" lets you make it rain or snow on your map. You can adust the overall light and tint, and edit the color of blood. The Fear documentation is the best source for descriptions of what all these options do.

Building Plug-ins

When you build a new plug-in after these tags are in place, make sure they're checked in the list of tags to include. Using previous examples, you should have tags called 256.Blood Swamp, MESH.Blood Swamp, 256.youroverheadmap, 256.yourpregameimage, and STLI.mapname1. You might have others, depending on what else you've done, and you might have tags that pertain to other maps. For your plug-in, include all the tags that pertain to the map you're making the plug-in for, and none of the tags that don't. Again, to build the plug-in select "built plug-in" from the main Fear menu, check all the tags that should be included, and let 'er rip. The plug-in will appear in, of all places, your Myth2 Plug-ins folder.

To determine whether you've built your plug-in correctly, just move your Local folder into its "safe" folder, and see if you can still play your map.

More tutorials may appear here in the future, but I think that's enough to get a lot of you started on the path to making original netmaps for Myth2. See you on Bungie net!

Contact the author by email:
cydonian@fcmail.com