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HELIX is in Early Access Preview. Some features and documentation may be non-functional or out of date.

Custom Maps#

This guide walks you through the process of packaging custom maps for the Creator Hub by using the Creator Kit.

1. Creating a new Map Package on Creator Kit#

  1. In your CreatorKit project, open the the Package window and click the New Package button.

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  1. Write a name for your Map package and select Map on the Type field.

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  1. The location of your package folder will show up. You can always navigate back to this folder on the Package Manager Browse button.

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2. Acquiring Your Custom Map#

Either use Creator Kit to create your own custom map, or get a map asset from Fab.

Remember all the content of your map package should be on the folder highligthed on the previous step.

3. Importing a map#

For this tutorial, we will be using a police station asset acquired from Fab.

  1. Launch the project downloaded from Fab. It's needed to migrate assets from downloaded project into Creator Kit project.

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  2. Right click to root folder containing all assets in content browser and click Migrate, it is also ok to migrate the entire content folder, since the plugin workflow will take care of placing everything into your plugin content folder. Alternative, you can find the specific Level you want to migrate, right click the level and click migrate. Unreal will handle the dependencies.

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  3. Ensure each dependency is shown on the next window and click OK.

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  4. On the next window, find your Creator Kit installation's, go into plugins and find the package you just created. In this case we are going to import it into Map_MyNewMap. Then open the Content folder and select it.

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  5. Your assets will be copied into your Creator Kit plugin Content folder with same folder structure after process is done.

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  6. Close the custom map project and launch the Creator Kit project. Ensure your custom map is migrated into Creator Kit correctly.

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  7. Ensure you can play in your migrated custom map without any errors/warnings caused by migration process.

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3. Making Your Custom Map Compatible With HELIX#

  1. Your level should at least have one Player Start actor placed in to define where your players will be spawned on initial login to your world. Make sure it's correctly aligned with ground floor. You can press End key to automatically align the actor with floor in editor.

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  2. HELIX currently utilizes Lumen for dynamic lighting, and static lighting is not supported. Make sure lighting actors in your map are set to Dynamic mobility for them to work properly in builds.

  3. HELIX provides a set of base materials that creators can use when building custom maps. It’s strongly recommended to create your materials by deriving from these base materials. Doing so helps reduce package size and maintain optimal rendering performance in your level. For more details, see Default Materials Guide.

4. (Bonus) Adding Interactable Doors To Your Custom Map#

If your level has door meshes that you want to make interactable by players, you can take additional steps to replace them with Helix Doors.

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  1. You can find all the available template blueprints for different door types in HelixDoors plugin, within Plugins/HelixDoors/Blueprints folder in content browser.

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  2. After choosing the applicable door blueprint for your use case, just remove the door static mesh from your level and drag the blueprint to your scene. We will use BP_Door_Classic for first example, which acts as a classic house door.

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  3. Find the Visual Door Mesh component in your placed actor and change its mesh to the door static mesh previously used in the level. Tweak its transform to correctly center actor location as shown below.

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  4. Tweak the orange colored door collision box from the actor's Door Collision Size property. As a rule of thumb, the collision should be slightly smaller than the visual door mesh. This is required to prevent physics doors getting stuck by hitting to ground mesh or walls covering the door.

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  5. Tweak the location of door handle marker from Door Handle Right Offset and Door Handle Up Offset properties of the actor. The small orange sphere shape should approximately placed onto your door handle's connection point to door.

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  6. Tweak the local transforms of Door Offset Handle components in door actor. Those components are used to correctly align character's hand with door handle while interacting with door. Keep the arrow component directed towards door with perpendicular angle, and move it slightly above the actual door handle mesh as shown on the screenshot.

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  7. You can tweak the handle location by playing in the level from editor and find the best transform value for the handle component.

  8. After your door is fully tweaked, you can play in editor and test it out!

  9. Now we will replace another door in the level, this time by using BP_Door_Swinging, which is acts like entrance doors on the markets etc.

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  10. If required, you can create a child blueprint from the HELIX template door blueprints, tweak defaults as you like, and reuse them in your custom map. Make sure the new blueprint is placed in your map package folder. See Custom Blueprints for more information.

  11. See Door Lua API for more information about available properties for doors.

5. Finalizing and Cooking The Package#

  1. Make sure all the depending assets by your Map are placed inside same plugin package folder. If one of those assets are placed outside of the created package folder, cooked .pak file will have missing dependencies and this might cause crashes or runtime errors during playthrough with this package.

  2. Return to the HELIX Packaging Tool window.

  3. Go into your package and choose Main Asset to the level asset you would like to use for your package. This is should be the persistent level you used for your map.

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  4. Click package button and wait for cook process to complete.

  5. Once cooking is complete, a file explorer window will automatically open, displaying your final .pak files. Your custom character mesh is now ready to be uploaded to the Creator Hub!

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6. Testing Your Custom Map#

1. In Creator Kit#

As shown on the previous steps, you can directly test your map in Creator Kit by pressing play button from editor toolbar. This doesn't require you to cook any package.

2. In HELIX#

  1. Create a draft world with Local File option.

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  2. Select the .pak file you've cooked in Creator Kit.

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  3. If import was successful, your new world should be automatically created with your custom map placed in. If you don't see your map on the spawn location, or your character starts falling down just after game starts, ensure you have a valid Player Start actor placed in your level as explained in the previous steps.

7. On Your Own#

Once you've followed these steps and uploaded your package to Creator Hub, your should be able to create new worlds with your custom map package!