Introduction

The Torque Mission Editor is a set of eight tools which allow you to perform a wide variety of tasks, such as place and manipulate objects, create and modify terrain and lighting settings, set up path's and other triggered events. To put it in simplest terms, the mission editor is where you'll be creating the world in which your game takes place in.

The Mission Editor Toolset

Push F11 to open the mission editor. Once the mission editor is open, you have access to the following tools.

World Editor (F2)
This tool allows you to translate, rotate, and scale objects that have already been placed in the world.

World Editor Inspector (F3)
In addition to providing all the capabilities of the World Editor, this editor allows you to view and modify properties of individual mission objects.

World Editor Creator (F4)
In addition to providing all the capabilities of the World Editor, this tool allows you to place new objects in the current mission.

Mission Area Editor (F5)
This tool allows you to adjust the boundaries of the current mission as well as provides a means to mirror the current terrain.

Terrain Editor (F6)
This tool allows you to manually sculpt the terrain, as cut faces out of the terrain (useful for making things like tunnels).

Terrain Terraform Editor (F7)
In addition to providing all the capabilities of the Terrain Editor, this editor allows you to apply various algorithmic filters to the terrain as well as load images as terrain files.

Terrain Texture Editor (F8)
In addition to providing all the capabilities of the Terrain Editor, this tool allows you to select any number of textures and apply them using a set of algorithms to determine blending and placement.

Terrain Texture Painter (Window Menu > Terrain Texture Painter)
In addition to providing all the capabilities of the Terrain Editor, this tool allows you to select and subsequently to apply up to 6 different textures to the terrain.

This list may be succinct, but the true range of possibilities these tools provide will be demonstrated in the following tutorials. Before we get into how to use them, though, it's useful to have some general Mission Editor information under your belt.}

The Mission Editor's Windows and Menus

The World Editor provides a traditional menu bar along the top edge for selecting the current tool as well as other features. This functions exactly as it would in any other program.

In addition to the menu bar, the mission editor utilizes a tool window which is used to display specific options for the active mission editor tool.

Moving Around in the Mission Editor

By default, the camera is attatched to the player when you start a mission. While this is useful for playing/testing your game, it's not useful for mission editing. To be able to create your world with the greatest ease, you need to be able to move in all directions, instead of just along the terrain. This brings us to the camera options.

Free Look / Player View Toggle (Alt+C)
Free look is exactly what it sounds like: The camera isn't attached to any character and is free to move in all directions. Use W, A, S, and D to move forward, backward, and sideways, while using the mouse to pitch and turn. If you have the mission editor open, hold down the right mouse button while you are moving the mouse to pitch and turn.

Player view is the standard first person view you have when looking through the eyes of a player model

Free Look Camera Speed (Camera Menu > Slowest - Fastest)
While in free look, go to Camera menu bar item > Slowest - Fastest to adjust the speed of the camera.

Drop Character at Camera Position (Shift+F7)
This places the player character at the position of the free look camera as well as switches views from free look to first person player view.

Drop Camera at Character Position (Shift+F8)
This will place the free look camera at the player character's position, while staying in free look.

Conclusion

That's it! You're ready to start building your own environment. When you're ready, continue on to the next lesson, Making Your Own Terrain.