Killing Floor Mapping Guide tutorial

Killing Floor is powered by Unreal Engine 2.5, and maps are created in Unreal Editor 3.0. Prior experience with UED will be useful if you plan to start a Killing Floor map as this guide is intended for people with intermediate/advanced knowledge of the Unreal Editor. If you are a complete newcomer to Unreal Engine editing, you should check out some beginner resources before you launch into anything specific to KF. The following are some good places to start understanding Killing Floor's tools.

Angelmapper.com
Architectonic.planetunreal.gamespy.com
Udn.epicgames.com

Single player story mode isn't officially supported but you are free to use it as you wish. These single player parts of the game are not covered in this guide.

Designing a map for Killing Floor requires a slightly different sort of thought to say - a Deathmatch level in Unreal. The main things to keep in mind when planning a KF map are:

1. Where will the players be able to set up their defenses?
2. Where will enemies spawn?
3. Where will the trader shops be located?

Q: Where will the players be able to set up their defenses?
A: Killing Floor is a sandbox style game, and players will often gravitate towards defensive points that they feel comfortable with. It's your job as a mapper, to give them as much choice as possible, and to make sure that these locations are each as balanced as possible.

For example, if I decide to create an enormous tower in the middle of an open area, players are probably going to spend all of their time up there, and never come down. This might be fun for a while, but it will have the effect of giving the map a static and eventually boring feel. The most important aspect of any killing floor map is that it be constantly tense when the wave is underway. And this means presenting players with defensible, but not impenetrable areas.

For example: A small shack with only one entrance, and multiple windows to fire out of is probably being a little too kind to the players! If you add a back door to the shack, the scenario becomes more interesting, because now the players are forced to watch two directions at once, and this increases the tension!

Q: Where will enemies spawn?
A: Killing Floor makes use of "ZombieVolume" actors, to determine what is a good place for a mob of enemies to spawn at. This will be discussed in more detail, in a later section. As a rule of thumb however, you should keep in mind that the more speciman spawns a map has, and the more interesting and sneaky the places they are, the more exciting the gameplay will feel. Vent shafts, roof tops, windows. All of these are better places to spawn specimens than just right there on the ground!

Q: Where will the trader shops be located?
A: The "Trader" in Killing Floor provides players the opportunity to upgrade their arsenal or get rid of junk they no longer need. Because of this, she is a hugely important character, and critical to winning a match. Every killing floor map should contain more than one trader! If a mapper places only a single trader area, it's pretty clear where the players are going to be camping when they play the map! This creates stale, boring gameplay; and we don't want that! Typical KF maps have anywhere between 3 and 5 trader zones, but the actual number is largely determined by the size of the map. So if you plan on creating some massive area, maybe you will want to place five or more spots. The actual process of setting up trader shops will be discussed in a later section of this document.

As discussed earlier, trader rooms play a pivotal role in any Killing Floor map. When placing them, you should be make sure they are evenly spaced from one another, so that there is one trader room in each major area of the map.

Now that we've covered the rules of trader placement, we can look at the actual creation of these areas. It doesn't matter where a trader is situated (in a room, behind a fence, etc) so long as there is some way of establishing distance between the shoppers and her. It's recommened that you look the TraderExample map which you can download from here. If you copy and paste the trader and all the objects around her into your map it will allow you to keep an consistent feel with the official maps provided with Killing Floor.

When you have set apart your trader area, you will want to block it off with a mover called TraderDoor. The inside of the trader area will now need a ShopVolume. It needs to take up the space inside so people can shop and it should not extend outside of the room. If it does then players will be able to shop at that trader location even if it isn't active.

The tag of the TraderDoor needs to be the same name as the ShopVolume's event. For example: TraderLocation1. Next you will need to add six Teleporters so people still in the shop can be warped outside when the trading time has run out. These Teleporters need to be placed just outside of the TraderDoor.

In the ShopVolume's properties under ShopVolume set the URL to the same name as the tag of the teleporters. For example: TraderTeleport1.

For the players to be able to navigate easily to the trader locations you will need to set the pivot of the ShopVolume to near or exactly where the trader is standing. You will also want to make sure there are path nodes leading up to the TraderDoor.