Getting Started with Mapping (Killing Floor 2)

Introduction

This page includes a comprehensive guide on getting started with the Killing Floor 2 SDK for creating Maps and uploading them to the Steam Workshop. This page will only cover the essentials, further elaboration will need to be done at your own discretion; it is recommended that any new Level Designer should begin by looking at Official Maps and seeing how they approach particular scenarios.

Installation and First Launch

Installation

To install the SDK:

1. Open up Steam, hover over 'Library' and select the 'Tools' option.
2. From here locate 'Killing Floor 2 - SDK' and install it as you would any game on Steam
3. Once the download is complete, launch it as you would any other game.

Note:

If an opt-in Beta/preview is happening at the time, both the game and the SDK need to be on the same branch. Otherwise the SDK will crash on launch. i.e. If you are in the opt-in Beta for an update, the SDK also needs to be on the opt-in Beta.

Interface Guide

Important:

The SDK Interface is very laggy on launch - using up a lot of resources on your computer. To prevent the UI lag, simply create an empty save file or open up an existing map e.g. KF-TempMapName

First Launch and Glance

On first launch you may be prompted with a couple of dialogs. They are things that don't affect the editor or its performance so you can ignore and click past them. See Figures 1.1.

Past all the error dialogs your Editor should look something like Figure 1.2 below.

Figure 1.2: Default State of the Editor

Note:

For new users, I highly recommend reading the Startup Tips and not disabling the prompt, they often contain useful tips on how to use different aspects of the SDK.

Figure 1.1a: Checking will always result in error, so just ignore and wait a week

Figure 1.1b: Can safely ignore, you can put "-NoGADWarning" as the warning suggests into the Steam launch options for the SDK to suppress the warning

Figure 1.1c: Common error in the SDK, can safely ignore

SDK and Viewport Overview

Below is a breakdown of the core elements that you will be using in the SDK

Figure 1.3: Interface Overview

There are 2 crossed out buttons on the side menu:

1. The Terrain Tool - Obsolete, use the Landscape tool instead.
2. Foliage Paint Tool - Not supported, will crash the Editor when you build Lighting.

Content Browser Overview

The Content Browser is large enough to break it down in its own image. The Content Browser is where you will be grabbing all Assets (Actors, Meshes, Materials, Sounds, Decals, etc). It also serves as a tool for managing and organising your map's own individual assets, and also organising assets into Layers.

Common Hotkeys

Hotkey	Function	Hotkey	Function
Left Click	Select actor	Spacebar	Toggle between Movement/Rotation/Scaling
Right Click	Open Context Menu	~	Toggle between World and Local space transforms
Ctrl + Left Click	Multiple select	N	Toggle Pathnodes
Right Click + Scroll Wheel	Change movement speed around viewport	P	Toggle Paths
Alt+Drag with Widget	Duplicate and move with widget	T	Toggle Lanscape/Terrain
Ctrl+Z	Undo	O	Toggle Volumes
Ctrl+Y	Redo	B	Toggle Builder Brush
H	Hide selected actors	Alt+C	Toggle Collision Wireframes
Shift + H	Hide all but selected actors	]	Increase grid snap size
Ctrl + H	Unhide all actors	[	Descrease grid snap size
G	Toggle Game View mode in viewport	Ctrl + number	Set a bookmark
F4	Open actor properties	number	Snap to bookmark

There are a lot more hotkeys for the editor, these are the main ones people usually have issue with when first starting out. You can check for others here: https://sites.google.com/site/lessonsdarrenmckinsey/udk-hotkeys

Additional Preferences

These are some additional options you may or may not want to use based on your personal preferences:

• Preferences > Flight Camera Controls
  • Default is 'Use WASD for Camera Controls' - Standard FPS controls
  • 'Never use WASD for Camera Controls' - KF1 Editor Controls
• Preferences > Highlight Objects Under Mouse Cursor
• Preferences > Editor Language
• View > Change Autosave Options > Autosave Interval

Your First Map

Naming

Your first map can be named anything however a Killing Floor 2 map MUST be prefixed with 'KF-'. If it isn't, it cannot be played or recognized within the game.

Your map file name should also match your map's name.

If your map name has spaces, it is common naming convention to use UpperCamelCase. Avoid using underscores or dashes to represent spaces.You should also avoid publishing a map with numbers or 'versions' at the end, this can be a pain for server owners if they want to host your map on their server.

Map Name	Good File Name	Bad File Names
Burning Paris	KF-BurningParis.kfm	KF-Burning_Paris.kfm KF-Burning-Paris.kfm KF-Paris.kfm
Zed's Diner	KF-ZedsDiner.kfm	KF-Zeds_Diner.kfm KF-Zeds-Diner.kfm KF-ZesDinner.kfm KF-ZedsDinerTestingV3.kfm

File Save Location

You can save and load your map from any location. However the best recommended location is:

C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2\KFGame\Unpublished\BrewedPC

The main reason is, when you plan to upload your map to the workshop, the Workshop Front-End will look specifically in only this location for files to upload. Additionally if you plan to cook your map, it needs to be in this location for it to successfully cook.

I would avoid placing your working map file under the steam game directory as well (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\killingfloor2\KFGame\BrewedPC\Maps). This directory may confuse your editor if you plan to import, move, rename or edit assets within your map's own directory.

World Settings

World Settings can set important information for your map such as: Map Name, Map Author, Spawning Modifiers, Objectives and Collectibles, What game mode is played in the Editor, what in-game music the game uses and Optimization options.

To access it go to: View > World Properties.

For the moment, just leave most of the variables default, but you can:

• Input your map name and your user name in the appropriate areas under the 'World Info' section.
• Change the 'Default Game Type' and 'Game Type for PIE' to "KFGameInfo_Survival" under the 'Game Type' section.

Further information on World Info can be found here: Setting Up World Info (Killing Floor 2)

Important Tip Before Moving Forward

The SDK is stable for the most part, but it is not uncommon to encounter crashes at any point in its usage. In fact its something you need to be prepared for and goes without saying that:

Important:

YOU SHOULD SAVE AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE

While the auto-save function is useful for beginners, most users that become familiar opt to turn it off as it can interrupt workflow, bloat your game directory and also on large maps, take a long time to save.

Here are some recommended times to save:

• After any minor, moderate to large changes done in any aspect to your map
• Every 10 minutes
• If you plan to step away from the computer for a bit (e.g. going to the toilet)
• Before every Build (Lighting, Pathing, etc.)
• Planning to use or work with BSP Brushes
• Before importing new Assets (textures, meshes, sounds, etc.)
• Before placing down any newly imported Mesh
• Before moving/copying/duplicating assets in your map's directory
• Before combining meshes and/or applying collisions from the Builder Brush

After losing significant progress once or twice, saving frequently will become second habit.

Using the Brushes and Volumes

BSP Modifiers

Binary Space Partitioning

CSG Modifiers

Constructive Solid Geometry

Map Optimization

Map Optimization is the arguably one of the most important steps when completing a map. Aside from having good playable spaces, the map needs to perform well on all machines; maintaining stable Frames per Second (FPS). The following guide is a comprehensive list of areas that should be addressed before publishing a map. EVERY step should be evaluated and addressed as they will all add to performance.

Comprehensive Wiki Guide: Map Optimization Guide (Killing Floor 2)

Publishing to the Workshop

Important:

Make sure your map is in the correct location; As suggested above, the recommended location for maps should be: C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2\KFGame\Unpublished\BrewedPC).

KFWorkshopMapSummary.ini

By default, maps natively support Survival, Weekly, and Endless game modes; If you were to upload the map directly with the Workshop Upload Tool, your map would be playable in these game modes. Objective mode is set to false so the map will not show up in selection in Objective Gamemode. To enable this you have to create and bake an additional .ini file into the map during upload. Additionally if you had a map which didn't support a game mode (eg: Progression or Holdout not being supported in Endless) this .ini will allow you to remove map selection when that game mode is active.

Create a KFWorkshopMapSummary.ini within the following location:

C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2\KFGame\Config\Config

Note:

The nested 'Config' folder within Config is not a mistake, you will need to create that folder within Config. If it is not located in this exact location it will not show up in the Workshop Upload Tool.

Copy and paste the following into the KFWorkshopMapSummary.ini

[KF-MapName KFMapSummary]
MapName=KF-MapName
MapAssociation=0
ScreenshotPathName=UI_MapPreview_TEX.UI_MapPreview_Placeholder
bPlayableInSurvival=True
bPlayableInWeekly=True
bPlayableInVsSurvival=True
bPlayableInEndless=True
bPlayableInObjective=False

• KF-MapName cannot have any spaces or special characters. It must also be prefixed with KF-
• MapAssociation: 0 = Custom, 1 = Official Custom, 2 = Tripwire Official. Changing these values doesn't do anything.
• ScreenshotPathName: See below
• bPlayableInGamemode: True or False. If False, it wont show up in map selection. As a mapper you should not blindly make everything True; if your map is not supported make it False so you don't annoy the player downloading and playing your map.

Custom Map Preview

If you want a custom map preview you will need to include a map preview image in the map:

1. Import your preview image to any location within your map.
   1. The preview image itself MUST be 512x256 in size and in a .TGA format.
   2. The name can be anything but again I recommend sticking with the game's naming convention of 'UI_MapPreview_MapName; I used UI_MapPreview_ZedsDiner.
2. Double click the preview image and within the texture properties change the following (See Figure 11.1):
   1. untick SRGB. (If enabled your image may appear much darker within the game)
   2. LODGroup to UI

3. Important:

   .KFM will not keep any assets that are not used in the map when you save and close the SDK. You will need to create a Material Instance, apply the Map Preview texture to it, and place it on a mesh somewhere hidden in the map.

4. Once you have done this save your map
5. Add your Map's name and image's name to the ScreenshotPathName within KFWorkshopMapSummary.ini
   1. In this case the line would look like this:

      ScreenshotPathName=KF-ZedsDiner.UI_MapPreview_ZedsDiner

   2. If your image is in a group (eg: ENV_ZedsDiner_TEX), you should add this to the path name as well or you will receive an error.

      ScreenshotPathName=KF-ZedsDiner.ENV_ZedsDiner_TEX.UI_MapPreview_ZedsDiner

Uploading using the Workshop Upload Tool

To access the Upload Tool, open up your Steam Library Tools and right click on the Killing Floor SDK and select 'Workshop Upload Tool'. The upload steps are pretty straight forward:

1. Create a 'New Workshop Item'
2. Add your map under 'Packages to Brew'
3. If you have a 'KFWorkshopMapSummary.ini' add it to 'INIs to add'
4. Give it a workshop title; this is what the actual steam workshop item will be called.
5. Give a description
6. Give a preview image, it is not required for it to successfully upload however. It is recommended to make the preview a 512x512 PNG or JPEG.
7. Provide the appropriate Tags. IMPORTANT: As with the .INI only tick the appropriate gamemodes your map supports. If it isn't a Holdout Map or doesn't have Objective support, dont spam the tags.
8. Click on Start once you are ready to upload

Figure 11.2 shows what the Upload tool looks like with the provided .INI and MapPreview package.

Figure 11.1: Untick SRGB and change the LODGroup to UI

Figure 11.2: What the Workshop Upload Tool should look like just before you upload