# Welcome to Maplet! Maplet is a lightweight, easy to use indoor environment modeller, designed to produce geometrically correct models for use with games. Maplet is a 'solid' modeller. This means everything is treated as a solid volume, consisting of interior and exterior regions. Models are built up by combining various solid primitives in a variety of ways. For people used to traditional polygon modellers, this may be a little confusing at first. But with a bit of practice you can create all sorts of interesting models quickly and easily. # Basic controls Use the mouse to move the cursor around the grid. Hold down the right mouse button while moving the mouse to drag the eye point around. Hold down SHIFT and move the mouse to raise/lower the grid. Hold down the right mouse button and SHIFT to raise/lower the eye point. Hold down CTRL and move the mouse to rotate the eye point. If you get confused about where the cursor/grid is at any time, just select 'Reset' from the 'Edit' menu which will reset the eye point and grid to their initial positions. # Creating primitives Creating primitives is very easy: 1: Click and hold the left mouse button. 2: Drag out a rectangle. 3: Release the left mouse button. 4: Use the mouse to raise/lower the primitive. 5: Click the left mouse button again to create. You can abort the primitive creation process by hitting the ESC key. Primitives must have a non-zero volume - it is therefore impossible to create 'flat' polygons! You can move the eye point while creating primitives by holding down the right mouse button. # Creation modes When you create a new primitive, it is combined with the main map in different ways depending on the current creation mode. There are 2 creation modes - union and subtract. Union mode is used to combine primitives, which is useful for adding rooms/corridors etc to a model. Subtract mode is used to remove primitives, which is useful for adding 'detail' to the interior of a model. # Texturing Maplet's texturing abilities are currently very limited. Texturing is performed at the time primitives are created. Therefore, you must make sure you have the correct texture selected before editing models! Due to Maplet's solid modelling nature, its relatively difficult to change textures once a primitive is created. However, you can always rebuild a section of the model, or use the 'Replace Texture' option from the textures menu. The width and height of textures MUST be a 'power of 2' value. Recommend values for texture width and height are: 16,32,64,128,256. # Lighting and lightmaps Add lights to a scene using the 'L' key. This will create a new light at the current cursor position. Note that lights must be added to the interior of a model, or they wont be able to reach anything and will have no effect. Lights appear as colored boxes within a model. You can click on a light to modify its color or range properties. There are only a limited number of ranges available, but you can create 'dimmer' lights simply by lowering the intensity of a light. Lightmaps are 'precomputed' textures which represent the effect of lighting on a model. To lightmap your model, select the 'Lightmapper' tool from the 'Tools' menu. This is a relatively slow process so is not performed in realtime. Once a model has been lightmapped, you should export it to the appropriate format. Lightmaps are automatically erased if you edit a model. # Keyboard shortcuts
'A' | Zoom grid in.
'Z' | Zoom grid out.
'Q' | Rotate primitive 90 degrees.
'L' | Create light at current cursor position.
TAB | Change current primitive.
SPC | Change current creation mode.
ESC | Abort primitive creation.
SHIFT | Raise/lower cursor or eye point.
CTRL | Rotate eye point.