How to compile your level into a playable mod. tutorial - Max Payne

Tutorial written by Spazwad

mirrored here for archival purposes

RasMaker... A Real Payne in the Rass

Okay, for a command-line utility, it ain't too bad, but we're all used to cushy graphical user interfaces, aren't we now? Well I suppose we'll just have to suck it up and learn how to use it. What it does is both compile and extract needed files. You can use it on .mpm's or .ras's to unpack loads of files, or alternately, it can be used to create your own .ras's or .mpm's. For this tutorial, we're going to focus on creating .mpm's.

Extracting the Basic Mod

For this tutorial I will assume that you understand Windows enough to know the very basics. To place our level into a mpm, we need to have an example to follow. Thankfully Remedy has supplied us with one in the Basic Mod. First, copy the 'Basic Room Example Mod.mpm' file to the same directory as rasmaker. Now go to the start menu and click 'Run'. Choose browse and goto your rasmaker directory. Click on rasmaker and choose 'open'. Now add '-x "Basic Room Example Mod.mpm"' to the end(without single quotes, but with double quotes). You now have a way to compile your level into a mpm file for MP to read.

Readying Your Files for Compiling

Okay, this is where things get a bit tricky. When you extracted the basic room example mod.mpm, it created a new directory called 'data' in your rasmaker directory and filled it with the now uncompressed data from the basic room mod example.mpm. We will be editting things in the 'data' directory to make it so when we recompile it, it will hold your level instead of the Basic Room from Remedy. Find the 'examples' directory and replace the .lbd file in there with the .lbd file of your own level. Now find the 'levels.txt' file. Now you need to change the line,
Level = basic_room.ldb;
so that your .lbd file is listed, instead of 'basic_room.lbd'. The next line you must edit is
PlayerStartingPlace = "::StartRoom::Jumppoint_00";

'StartRoom' is the name of the room, or the mesh that is the parent to the Jumppoint_00 entity. If your room mesh is named 'New_Mesh_02', you would change it to read,
PlayerStartingPlace = "::New_Mesh_02::Jumppoint_00";

This is all that you need to change. Now to recompile the data into a readable mod.

Compile, Compile, Compile

Go back to start and choose 'run' again. Open rasmaker and then add "-a data yourmapname.mpm" (without the double-quotes). If all went well, you will now have your mod. Copy it to the same directory as your Max Payne executable and run Max Payne. Before you choose 'Play', choose your mod from the drop down menu at the bottom called, 'Choose Customized Game'. Click Play, and then choose the load option. Now just cross your fingers and hope it works.