Dragon Age Origins New Level Guide

How to create and lightmap a Level for use in an Area

File > New > Level > Room Level

IMPORTANT - Create a player start. Click flag icon next to lightmapping icons > click anywhere on ground.

IMPORTANT - Click on "New Area" in top-left list > Object Inspector in bottom-right > Layout Name > anything under 8 characters no spaces or strange characters.

IMPORTANT - Right-click in 3D view and select Insert > New Room.

---

Building your room

Click Models (blue box) in the Palette in the top-right. These folders contain everything such as floor tiles/walls etc to build your rooms.

Use DATool to browse through these quickly to find the floors/walls you want. Enable Grid Snap with the magnet icon to make sure they line up.

The "prp" folder contains things like beds/barrels to clutter your Level.

If you get "Cannot spawn models into the selected parent object" when trying to place a model then you don't have "New Room" selected.

---

Adding lights to the room

Right-click on "New Room" in top-left list> Insert > New Light

Move it up off the floor a little. In Object Inspector > "Color Intensity" 2 or more > Light Type - "Point - Static (lc)" > Choose any bright color.

Right-click on "New Room" in top-left list> Insert > New Light (or copy & paste your first light then move it out the way)

In the Object Inspector > Light Type - "Ambient - Baked" (this light stops your shadows being pitch black). Choose a dark blue colour and keep the Color Intensity under 2/3.

I'm not sure what the mix of Baked/Static light is supposed to be. If you just put a Baked + Ambient it complains about not having Static, but if you put a Static + Ambient it seems to work fine, but the wiki says Static is the most expensive.

---

Rendering lightmaps (getting the shadows)

Press the Render Lightmaps icon (you need ActivePython 2.5 installed to default location). When it's done click the "Display Lightmaps On/Off" icon in the top-left to refresh the results. Uncheck the "View Models Fully Lit" icon in the lop-left. You should see shadows being cast from the Static light.

Lightmap-atlas messages might appear the first time you render. That seems normal.

Sometimes re-rendering the lightmaps messes them up badly when Display Lightmaps On/Off is on. It doesn't seem to use the latest lightmaps. Try pressing Display Lightmaps On/Off a few times to update it. If they're still messed up sometimes one of these fixes it (don't know which) - unloading/reloading your Area or Level/changing your Area's layout property/posting your Level to Local.

---

Exporting

Press the Do All Local Posts icon to the right of the lightmapping icons. It will export the name you typed into the "New Area" "Layout Name". If there's a complaint about walkable/player start then delete your old start then place a new one on a flat area.

Save your .lvl file. It's not used by the game and the name/location doesn't matter. Only the exported/posted files are used.

---

Using this in an Area

File > New > Area > Any Name

In the Object Inspector > Area Layout you should get a "..." box (make sure it's Checked Out) > click then select your "Layout Name" which should now be there.

---

Now you have a pretty lightmapped level inside an area, hopefully.