ION Radiant Compile Tools



 

Installation:
Ok, so you finally have created your level masterpiece and you want to get it into Anachronox. Well to do that you are going to have to compile your map.

If you unzipped the tools zip correctly, you should find compile tools in the
\tools\MapEditing\CompileTools
directory.
Copy the contents of this directory into the directory where you keep your map files.

Requirements:
Alright, now for a little info on compiling. Compiling maps is the most processing intensive task associated with Anachronox. If you are running an Anachronox minimum spec computer, then you might as well forget about it now. You may compile a map with a couple of boxes in it, but that is about the best it is going to get. Basically for any real map work, I am going to recommend a Pentium III 500mhz and above. You can get by with less, but your computer is going to be compiling for 24 hours if you do.

Above and beyond processing power though, is ram. If the .bsp tools have to cache to disk then you just added several hours of compile time. As far as ram goes, I recommend 584mb. Once again you can make do with less, but the price you pay will be compile time.

Compiling
In the directory you copied the compile tools to, you will notice 3 .bat files; cents, cfast, and cfull. To use any of these files, go to a command prompt, change dir to that directory, type in the name of the .bat, followed by a map name. So for example if your map was named "mymap" you might type "cfast mymap".

The cfast.bat is for a fast compile of the map. This is a quick, but poor quality, compile of the map. You will use this while building the map to see how it is looking. It is not uncommon for this process to take a couple of hours on very large maps.

The cfull.bat is for a full compile of the map. Full compiles are going to take extremely longer to compile on all but the simplest of maps. The reward for the long compile times is a much faster and much better lit map. Basically you want to do a full compile when you think your map is done, or if you want to check the speed along the way. It is not uncommon for this process to take a many hours on large maps. Some of the maps in Anachronox took as long as 18 hours to compile, though 2 to 6 hours were more typical times.

The cents.bat is an only entities compile of the map. It is extremely fast, (less than a minute), but only effects entities in the map. The only ents compile can be used any time you have edited entities in a level but HAVE NOT changed any brushes. This comes in very handy when you start populating your map.