1. Mapping Setup

1. Introduction
2. Extracting Files
3. Compiling the Test Map
4. Playing the Test Map

Introduction

In this tutorial I will provide everything you need to get you setup and ready for making Day of Defeat maps as fast as possible.

First you’ll want to download the J.A.C.K. hammer editor from the link below. This is my map editor of choice. This tutorial will only be applicable to the windows version as it’s the version that I use.

The version from the link is free but they also have a paid version available for purchase through steam which has some more advanced features that we won’t be using.

Download J.A.C.K.

Once you’ve got J.A.C.K. installed you’ll want to download the files provided below which has the config and compile files needed to get you mapping ASAP.

Download Mapping Files

Extracting Files

Next you’ll want to extract the DoDMapping folder inside the zip to your C:/ drive.
The config files provided point directly to this location so if you don’t place them in C:/ they won’t work. They also assume your Day of Defeat and Steam is in the C:/ drive.

Inside the C:/DoDMapping folder you will have the above files/folders. You can ignore the FGD and vhlt folder competely. The FGD tells J.A.C.K. how to handle all the entities needed to make dod maps and vhlt is the compilers used to build the map into a playable BSP.

IMPORTANT – You must do the steps below otherwise the build settings for J.A.C.K. will not be automatically setup for you and you’ll have to do it manually. I won’t be providing a tutorial on how to do this as the provided config files do it for you.

We need to copy VDKGameCfg.ini and VDKRunCfg.ini from this folder and into the J.A.C.K. settings folder. I’ve made these files so that you don’t have to do any setup within J.A.C.K. itself and you should just be able to get straight to the fun stuff.

So navigate to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\J.A.C.K.
On windows 10 you can just open Documents on the This PC screen and navigate to the J.A.C.K. folder within.

Now copy and overwrite VDKGameCfg.ini and VDKRunCfg.ini. You can make a backup of the old files if you would like.
If the C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\J.A.C.K. doesn’t exist you might have to run J.A.C.K. once to create them.

Compiling the Test Map

Now that you have the files all in place J.A.C.K. should be set up and ready to go.
So go ahead and launch J.A.C.K.

When you launch J.A.C.K. you’ll probably get an advert for a game that the developers have made so just tell it to not show it again and press close.

Our next step is to open the basic map file that I’ve provided.
File > Open > C:\DoDMapping\Maps\dod_test_map.jmf

Once the map has loaded you should see something like the image below in the 4 viewports.

All we’re going to do now is tell J.A.C.K. to run the map so we can check that everything is set up correctly.

So go ahead and press the button with a little gamepad on the top bar as shown below. You can also press the F9 shortcut key.

This will bring up the run/build options screen. Your options should match those shown below. I like to click Don’t run the game, and handle launching/loading the map myself directly.

And then press the OK button.

You may see this message pop up, just press No.

J.A.C.K. will now begin the compiling process for the map, you will see a few different black popup boxes as the process is completed, they look like the screenshot below.

Once the processes are completed the Compile Process Window should read END hlrad like below. Depending on the speed of your PC this should be pretty quick as we’re only compiling a very small map.

Lights are compiled last which is what the hlrad function is. So once it has ended you know the map is compiled.

Hopefully at this point the console won’t be displaying any error messages, if it has shown an error message feel free to comment below this post and I’ll try and help you out.

Playing the Test Map

Now that the map has compiled, we can now launch Day of Defeat and play it!
So go ahead and launch day of defeat, press new game and find the map called dod_test_map in your list of maps and press Start.

Feel free to have a run around, capture the flags and make sure everything is working as expected.

In the next tutorial I’ll be providing a template file to help making maps quick and easy, so I hope to see you there!

2.1 Mapping Template File