Note:

A simple directory structure is much like C:\games\startrek\ An example of a non-simple directory structure would be C:\program files\startrek

Elite Force should be installed into a simple directory structure; You must install the GDK in the game directory.

This is because it is easier for the computer, and all it's mix-matched versions of software, to access properly.

If you currently have the game and the editor installed in a complex directory structure and it works then it might be best to leave it alone; However if you are having problems (or wish to avoid them) a simple structure is probably best for you.

Setting the Playmode
This tutorial specifically covers Singleplayer as a mode but it does frequent some vital information on Multiplayer. Since I don't play well with others I choose singleplayer but I explain below, explicitly, setting up for either.

Open the tools directory (the folder where EFRadiant is installed) and look for two .def files.

 Single Player
      If you are going to make a single player map rename the HM_entities.def to HM_entities.bak and make sure that SP_entities.def exists as such.

   Multiplayer
      If you are going to make a Holomatch map you should rename your SP_entities.def to SP_entities.bak and make sure that HM_entities.def exists as such.

You should NOT delete your .def files unless you really want nothing to do with the other mode of play as you will have to reinstall the GDK in order to gain back the deleted def file(s).

Starting EFRadiant
The editor, being located in your tools sub-directory of your Elite Force folder, will look like the program below:

Once you Double-click on the EFRadiant.exe icon you will be in for a wait, even on fast computers, as EFRadiant is loading
all the information it needs from your .pk3 files.  These PK3 files contain the game's textures, maps, sounds, and other needed files.
The editor only loads up shaders, texture directories, anything else is loaded when it is specifically requested by the user in EFRadiant.

We'll get into how you can edit your own PK3 files using a file compresser such as WinZip in a later section.

Figure 2.1

Upon EFRadiant's first start you will probably also get a preferences window similar to Figure 2.2 (below). If not then press 'P' and simply fill in the Preferences window relative to the Figure 2.2's settings.

Since every computer system is setup a little different your directories and settings may vary but should be in the range of those listed in the figure.

Figure 2.2

The bar accross the top of a program that usually reads something like : 'File', 'Edit', and 'Help' is a program's menu. The picture below (Figure 2.3) shows EFRadiant's menu. The menu is where most of the non-building mouse work will  take place.

Figure 2.3

If you didn't see the preferences window pop-up you can click Edit » Preferences or just press 'P'.

File Options (Open..., Load..., Save, Save As..., Save Selected...)
You should know that anything in level design will be time consuming whether it's the actual level designing, or the planning, or the proccess of compiling your map into a playable version of the game. You need to know how to save your map often in case your system crashes, which sometimes, usually at the most inconveinent time, it does.

Open Opens your previously saved maps; very simple. Click on the File » Open....
Load Load adds your a saved map into your current map. Click on the File » Load....
Save Saves your maps to the hard drive for later retreival through the Open option. Click on the File » Save.
Save As Saves a new copy of your map to a different location on your computer. Click on the File » Save As....
Save Selected Saves any brushes and entities that you have selected. Click on the File »Save Selected....

If you are having trouble so far review the windows help in your windows /help directory you shouldn’t even be this far if you need help with the standard functions of Windows.

As you may have noticed in the begining when you set your preferences for EFRadiant there is an AutoSave option. This saves files under your BASEEF/MAPS/SNAPSHOTS directory. As you may recall from the Preference Window you can also set the maximum files so that your computer's free space doesn't become totally consumed after a few weeks of level editing.

Retrieving backups is a little bit more difficult than just loading a map file. You need to rename the snapshot file to a .map file, move it to the BASEEF/MAPS folder and then open it in EFRadiant.

In EFRadiant click on SourceSafe » Configure. From there it’s pretty self explanatory but for the sake of examples I have mine setup like this:

INI File: \\RAVEND\VSS\SRCSAFE.INI
Project Path: $/stvef/Baseef/Maps
SS – Checked (SourceSafe active)
BehavEd Path: c:\games\stvef\tools\BehavEd.exe

Of course you will need to modify this to meet your system's settings.

Constructing A Room
A Brush is a block/shape that you draw when you drag the mouse in the grid view.
These shapes maintain a form such as a circle, triangle, or square but never will a single brush be capable of making a star or bend as the brush's basic shape cannot have any points that go toward the center of the shape and then return outward (also known as doubling back in on itself).

However, as you might have guessed, you can have doubling back effect by using multiple brushes.

Making a brush is easy: In the larger grid view Left mouse button and drag until you see something similar to the Red box below in figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1

DESELECT THE BRUSH(ES) by pressing the Escape button.
SELECT THE BRUSH(ES) by holding down the Shift button and Left-Clicking on the brush that you want to select.

Deselect the brush. Reselect the brush, now position the mouse near the side of the brush and drag it until it looks something like what Figure 3.2 (below).

Press the Space Bar once to copy your selected brush. This tool quickly copies any brush(es) you might have selected and moves them away one grid unit by one grid unit and selects it for you. You should also notice that this deselects anything that you might of had selected before it.

Figure 3.2

Now press escape to deselect the brush and create another brush by dragging from one point to another and position it so that the above screen is similar to your EFRadiant's view (Picture Assistance).

You might want to experiment with the:

As you experiment with rotations you might notice an option called 'Arbitrary Rotation'. Hold off on using the arbitrary rotation because that process often morphs your brushes into different shapes than you want. It also adds a possibility of leaks if you are doing the rotation with walls.

Select any of the brushes you just made and press the Backspace button to delete it.
It should just poof away into oblivion.

As of now your creation when viewed in the 3-D view, being the view above the texture view, probably looks similar to Figure 3.5 (below).  If you can't see anything in the 3-D view you should use the arrow keys to turn the camera and A and Z to rotate the camera upward and downward.

Switch it to the YZ Side view and use the same brush making skills that we learned earlier to make some walls to your room.

Might start by selecting the current walls and dragging upward 256 units (from the Z view) to make them higher like walls rather than baseboards.

Note:

Press Q to turn on a grid assistance that will show you the exact measure of your currently selected brush(es). Hold Shift + Q to turn off this option.  It is recommended you leave it on.

You probably know that clicking inside your brush and holding while your move the mouse you can move the selected up and down, however a more precise method to move your brush up and or down in altitude is by pressing the + and - key of the keypad.

Notice that in the XY Top view you don't see the brush moving up or down because the XY Top view is a 2D representation looking down also known as a 2D Birds-eye view. You might have noticed by now that the side panel has a stricktly Z view, meaning it only sees brushes move up and down (Picture Assistance).  In the end your 3D view should be similar to that of mine shown in Figure  3.6.

Figure 3.6

Clipping brushes is where you can slice a brush along a line to make slants. You select a brush and press X to toggle the clipping tool. Left Click anywhere near (or far) from the brush in the grid view to spawn the first point. Then make another point somewhere else on the grid to cut the brush along that line. The yellow highlighted part is the part that will remain. However, rather than change how point 1 and point 2 are situated to select the other half you can simply press Ctrl and Enter at the same time to switch which side gets diced.

You can also cut both sides of the brush by pressing shift while hitting enter. This will split the brush into two according to the specifications of your points (Point 1, and Point 2).

You can also cut a brush along a third axis making for a truely unique brush--just click a third time before you press enter to finalize. You probably want to do this before your maps get really complex because finding each point while staring at hundereds of useless ones can get confusing.

Do not attempt to clip models or curves because the editor will crash.
Speaking of crashes, save often because you can surely spare a few megabytes
of hard drive space rather than spending hours remaking a map that crashed
without a recent backup.

CSG
CSG_Subtract is the method of selecting a brush and deleting any other brush parts inside of it. In other words your selected brush, when using CSG_Subtract will delete part of (or all of) the other brush(es) occupying the same space depending on the space the selected brush occupies. This does not mean that it works all the time, for some textures it will not allow you to cut using this method.
If you cannot get the CSG_Subtract to work then you will have more work to do by manually forming your walls around other objects.

The main window, the largest one with the grid view, is really the only one you should use for editing anything because it allows for control over the brush(es) that you are working with, compared to the control that you get with the 3D or the strict Z view.

If you CSG_Subtract and you get a small piece left over that you can barely select without zooming in then it is because you didn't drag your 'cutting brush' to meet the exact space of the other brush that is being cut.

In other words if you have a square brush that is 12 units wide and you use it to CSG_subtract or cut another brush that is 12 x 12 x 12.0001 x 12.0001 then you will have a little 12 x 12 x .0001 x .0001 brush remaining from the brush being subtracted from after the cut (as well as your originally selected brush).

CSG_Subtraction Tips:
Make sure you have one (or more) brushes selected, these are
the 'tools' that will cut holes in the unselected brushes that are to be
subtracted from.
Any brush you select will be the brush that will be cutting another brush.
Sometimes the CSG_Subtract method works and it does it so
efficiently that the computer doesn't choke for a second. Try moving
the selected brush (the slicer) to discover if the
surrounding brushes have been modified. If there is a hole where the
slicer was then CSG_Subtract has achived it's goal, otherwies you
will need to reattempt it or manually perform the subtraction.

CSG_Hollow is the method of telling the computer to make the brush hollow for you.
This process will make six brushes out of a simple rectangle (your hallway brush being the simple rectangle).
Click Select » CSG » CSG_Hollow and watch in amazement as your hallway brush truely becomes a hollow hallway.

You will need to neaten up your rooms by selecting the hallway walls, excluding the left-over end walls. Once you have both the hallway's walls, ceiling, and floor and you are in the XY Top shrinking them so that they just touch the outsides of your rooms.

Delete the end walls, the brushes that would of blocked the player from getting into your hallway, using the backspace key.

To make sure your rooms are to scale we need to add some entities for a size reference.

Textures
To use textures you will first need to load the texture set (group of textures) that you want to use.  You might note that there are already a few sparce textures in the texture window already (Picture Assistance).
To load the Borg texture set simply go up to Textures » Borg and wait for it to stop loading the textures from the Borg set (Picture Assistance).
You should see something similar to Figure 4.1 (below) in your texture window when it finishes.

Figure 4.1

If you see no textures or black and blue checkered boxes then you need to review Installing the GDK.

What you just did was load all of the Borg textures that are in the BASEEF/PAK01.PK3/TEXTURES/Borg file into your selection box so that you can apply those textures (and more if you desire) on to the face(s) of brushes.

Faces are single sides of brushes.

To select a single side rather than the entire brush hold down Shift and Ctrl while you Left click on the face that you want to work with.

Get that? SELECT A FACE by holding CTRL and SHIFT while LEFT CLICKING on a brush face.

Applying textures to a brush: Select the brush then click the textures that you would like to cover the brush from the texture window (as seen in Figure 4.1 (above)). You can scroll up and down in the texture application window to select which texture you think would look good on your brush.

Pretending that your not satisfied with the Borg texture set and that you want something that flashes and glares a little techno looking texture you might select the Voyager texture set. Do so now by clicking Textures » Voyager.

You have just loaded the BASEEF/PAK01.PK3/TEXTURES/VOYAGER textures.

Notice how the Voyager texture set adds in with the Borg texture set. Now you can select both Borg and Voyager textures.
When you save your map and exit EFRadiant and then restart EFRadiant and reload your map that only the textures that you have used or that always load on start up are present in the texture window.

If you use too many textures in your map (around 40 or 50) then you won't be able to compile your map because the engine can't handle that many images.

Earlier I mentioned shaders but I didn't give quite a detailed explanation as I am going to do here.
Shaders are .shaders files that contain information as to what a specific texture does while in game.  You can make a texture that is slippery, transparent, painful to player, one that makes images go back and forth or even one that does a combonation and more.

Making your own custom shaders is a more difficult task and even though Raven supplied ShaderEd.exe, a shader editing tool, your better off using good ol' notepad.exe by temporarily renaming the .shaders file into a .txt file and opening it that way.  Although I could write a lengthy tutorial on Shaders the best way for you to learn what a shader can do is for you to see first hand by exploring it your self and cracking open as many .shader files as you come accross.

Shaders are textures surrounded by a white box in the EFRadient texture window, but are not as easily detectable in the game best seen in Figure 4.1 (above).  Shaders may be as simple as playing a "sound/metal_4.wav" sound when the player walks on it, or it might be as complex as a fog allowing the player to float through it, but hurts the player every few seconds as it ripples like an ocean's waves.

Every sky is done with a shader.  The parallax sky, or the textures that don't change no matter what position you look at them from, like the space borg_sky brushes, are the easiest shaders, that the player should see, to work with but   don't go overboard with them because each different sky loads six different images into your graphics card and or RAM.  Two different skys on one level loads 12 different images.

If you do make a shader of your own don't forget to add your shader's name in the BASEEF/SCRITPS/SHADERLIST.TXT.

If you do venture out into making shaders I suggest you do so by hand rather than fall into the ShaderEd.exe trap; open the .shader files with
notepad and study the old fashion way.

If you don't want to look at any shaders then you can turn off (uncheck) Show Shaders option.
There is also the ability to type into the text box and search for a specific texture that turns you on.
For instance you can type in 'bigborg2' and any texture currently loaded without 'bigborg2' in its name
will be filtered out. If you have show shaders unchecked but type in the name of a shader you will still
get that shader texture.  Both the Show Shaders check box and the texture search box are shown
in Figure 4.2 (below).

Figure 4.2
(Picture Assistance)

Connecting Rooms
Select your original room.  An easy way to do this is to draw a large brush over your entire room (don't worry about its depth or any other of its specifics).  Next go up to Selection » Select » Select Complete Tall.  This should select everything that was inside of the 2D view of your selected brush.  You might press escape to deselect the brushes and see how the other options work:

Selection » Select » Select Complete Tall  -  Which selects everything inside your selected brush's 2D view.
Selection » Select » Select Touching         -  Which selects everything touching your selected brush in 3D.
Selection » Select » Select Partial Tall        - Which selects everything inside your selected brush's 3D view while deleting itself.
Selection » Select » Select Inside               -  Which selects everything inside your selected brush's 2D view while deleting itself.

Now use the spacebar, as learned earlier, to copy the selected brushes. Next you should position the current selection away from your original structure as we are going to put a simple hallway between the two using some elite options.

Instead of drawing several brushes to make a hallway between the two we are going to make one (1) brush.  Instead of individually cutting the walls of these rooms we are going to use something known as CSG_Subtract to do it for us. First thing is first, create this brush so that it enters, through the walls, into the center (or close to the center) of the two rooms without being inside the floor or ceiling of your room, otherwise it will cut them to.

Select the hallway brush and go up to Selection » CSG » CSG_Subtract. This should of cut everything inside of the hallway’s brush.  If it doesn't do anything then try switching the texture of the hallway brush to something that isn't a shader.  To do this you might uncheck the Show Shader option and select from the left-over options (also make sure that no search text is in the texture search box as it will show shaders even if show shaders isn't checked).

Circular Brushes
There are some options that are up in the menu section of the application. Create a square brush and make it nice and perfect. With that brush selected go up to brush and select the first option ‘3 sided’. This should of changed your block into a triangle. Now select brush and go down to 4 sided and so on.

Those all go up to 9, now click on arbitrary sided and enter the number 16, this will make a circle that works. Unlike a curved surface it is not perfect but it is solid and you can let the player view it from any angle safely. This is a great option and very useful for those of you who want to make a circular hole in a wall.

Don’t enter more than about 20 into the arbitary sided device or your efradiant WILL crash. Sometimes when I am board I like to crash it so as an experiment enter 99 and watch EFRadiant nose dive. ^{You might want to save first.}

Utilizing Different Brush Types
Structural or Detail. There are two different types of brushes and while the player will
never be able to tell which brushes are which; Both block his sight and movement.
Only Developers and Beta Testers need to discern between the two.

All brushes are naturally Structural, each one blocks the player and engine from seeing through it.
Unless the player moves to see what is on the other side the computer will not render, or think about,
the unseen portions that the structure is hiding. A wall would be structural because it stops the player
from seeing what is on its other side, thus the computer doesn't need to render what is on the
opposing side at the moment!

Small objects don't need to be structural, but should be Detail, because no matter where the player is
in the room the user will always be able to see what is on the other side of it.  Certain items like chairs,
desks, tables, computers, and pipes should be Detail.  Rooms are Structural but what is in those rooms
should be detail.

Practice using Structural and Detail brushes and you'll find your maps running very smooth.  Use both
types of brushes correctly because if you use too much detail the computer will not stop seeing through
brushes and may render way too much.  Let the computer think about what is in the immediate
area--not the entire level all at once.

This is how a level looks without the Developer making anything a Detail; leaving everything a natural Structural type brush. Note how each brush cuts the one it's next to. It does this to better define what the engine will render, but it actually has to render more.

Figure 7.17

Each of the gray brushes, that aren't in contact with the outside of the level, are made Detail type brushes. Look how the compiler DOES NOT cut the adjacent walls into little bits.

Figure 7.17

To make a brush Detail: select the brush(es) that you want to be detail and click Selection » Make Detail
To make a brush Structural: select the brush(es) that you want to be detail and click Selection » Make Structure

Curves and meshes are already details (you can't make them otherwise).  Since they are Details they
don't block light from escaping your level and will generate a leak error if placed in contact with the void.

The void is the infinite (nearly) gray, or more accurately: black, space around your level.
Imagining that you did modify one of your walls that is touching the void into a detail it would
act as if that wall wasn't there, other than the fact that the player cannot walk nor see through,
that wall would simply become a leak point.  Light from the level would "leak" right out forcing
the compiler to render everything outside your level.

Curves
Making Curves, is easy to do:
Make a brush and using curves » cylinder. Very similarly the
best way to find out what does what in the curves section is
to try each and every one of the options so you know what
does what first hand.

Due to conflicts in operating systems, computer's memory, and all-around acts
of nature you should save before using curves.  Find out now what your computer
seems to handle best and make note.

Curves, being Detail brushes, will cause a leak error if you don't back the curves with structured walls,
you would be better off using a common/caulk texture behind the curve or mesh. Here is a very good
tutorial by EutecTic and Ricebug which I couldn't possibly do better than.

Curves are generally pretty unstable and should not be clipped nor turned into an entity.

The Caulk texture makes it so that the engine doesn't think about that face of a brush at all.
Don't caulk faces where the player will see them because they give the Hall Of Mirrors affect.

Entities
An Entity is something that performs a specific task other than stay in a static location with a constant value.
Entities can have structure but most of the time they do not unless they are elevators, doors, or are breakable things.
Entities can be something that the player picks up, uses, and or just looks at: lights, ammo, weapons, other characters, sounds...

Right-Clicking in the main grid view will bring up a menu that shows quite a few catagories. Each catagory leads way to some detailed entities. However some entities are right out in front such as the Light entity. When you position your mouse in the middle of the first room and Right-Click you will get something similar to that of Figure 7.1 (below).

Figure 7.1

You will end up with something in the grid view like Figure 7.2 (below).

Figure 7.2

If the entity is in the ceiling, as they tend to do, you will need to use the keypad's + and - signs to raise or lower the entity until it is near the center of the room. Put it near the center of the room as shown in Figure 7.3 (below). If you leave it outside the room or close to walls, as I will explain later, the entity does little good.

Note:

You can connect entites quickly by clicking on the source (base) entity followed by the target entity. Then hold ctrl + k until you see a line drawn between the two objects, whereas it even illistrates the direction. While lights cannot be connected to other lights--they can be connected, individually to info_notnull entities to create directional spotlights.

Figure 7.3

Now let's make the light entity a different color. First make sure your light entity is selected and then press K
and you will get a color options box (Picture Assistance).

Note:

Much like Lights are created from the Entity selection menu so are Non Player Characters (NPC's).  However, that will not immidiately make them friendly or hostile.  That involves scripting.  Scripting is easy but time consuming.  For a great tutorial on scripting try here.

Now that you have set the color you will want to set the radius of the light and some other options, right? Right!
So, make sure that the Light is selected and press N to bring up the entities properties as shown in Figure 7.4 (below).

Figure 7.4

Naming the boxes and in the Entity property window from the top to the bottom for future reference:

Entity List Box         - Which basically shows you the entity your looking at. Currently selected: 'Light'.
Entity Info Box         - Which tells you some possible commands that you can type in the Key and Value boxes.
Entity Checkboxes   - Which give you some specific options with that specific entity.
Entity Settings Box   - Which currently holds the key classname of which has the value light.
Entity Key Box        - Which lets you place an option into the Entity Settings Box.
Entity Value Box      - Which lets you attach a value to the entity Key that you just added to the Entity Settings Box.
Entity Angles            - Which lets you set the angle that the entity will be facing, including Up and Dn (down).
Del Key/Pair button  - Select something in the Entity Settings Box and then hit this button to delete it (returning it to its default value).
        (Note: Do Not Delete the Classname Key).

Sound... button         - If this entity were capable of playing a sound, which a light is NOT, then you could easily attach a sound from here.
Model... button         - If this entity were capable of using a model, which a light is NOT, then you could easily attach a mdl file from here.

For now were are going to give the Light a radius of 64. We do this by filling in the Key text box with the value Radius
and the Value text box with the number 64 as shown in Figure 7.5 (below). You should also add the other values into your Light entity (for practice).
Normally you only put the values that you specifically wish to change from the entities default properties.

But since this is my world and this is just a tutorial you can use this to learn the defaults.

You should also note that the Light value expressed in Figure 7.5 is 350, whereas 300 is the default.

Figure 7.5

The radius, being the distance your light entity will put out light, is to be 64 units.
So in the Key we type radius, then type in the value of 64 in the value box. Press Enter.
Every special value like that should be a square number because it helps the engine break down the number into smaller parts. Which means that it thinks about it faster. A radius of 64 is default so technically you don't need to put this as it will be 64 already. It is a good idea to put it in anyway just for the ability to readily see what the value is while your editing.

When you see the properties in the Entity Settings Box they are final to the entity unless you change them.

To show you more of what lights are for I have constructed this little
test room where each yellow grid unit is 64 units by 64 units in size.

Figure 7.7

Note:

The following light testing images use the region (holodeck) texture to show a relative grid size. That same texture, as you should see in Figure 7.7 has dark grey shading around the yellow lines which may make it seem as though the light is subdivided into four different parts, but it is not .

Here is the same room from the 2D view.  This picture was taken with the 8 grid unit guide on (the 4th setting);
meaning that each little grid unit consists of 8 units.  The larger grid then contains 8 grids units of 8 (making each
light gray box 64 units; 128 square units). Not Important--so don't worry if you have no idea what the hell I'm saying.

Note:

Press Q to turn on a grid assistance that will show you the exact measure of your currently selected brush(es). Hold Shift + Q to turn off this option.  It is recommended you leave it on.

It is important that you know that 64 units is one light gray box because our light has a radius of 64 units.

Figure 7.8

Observe how each different setting (in figure 7.9 and 7.10) has little impact if the light entity is in the wall!

Figure 7.9

Figure 7.10

Still more fun can be had when implimenting color. You should note that the wall
that the lights are directly up against isn't as bright as it should be because the lights are still
partially in the wall--this can be corrected by simply dragging the light a few units
away from the structure.
Figure 7.11
 Each color 'addatively' merges with it's
neighboring light entity in Figure 7.12. This is a funky effect where when in wall they
are on only gets about 25% of the light it's supposed to; while the surroundings
seem to get the correct amount.

Figure 7.12

For another test let's pull the light entity 64 units away
from the wall as shown in figure 7.13 (below).
Figure 7.13

Note:

All of the following images in this section are based on the 2D light design as seen in Figure 7.13 (above).

Keeping the radius as 64 look how things like Linear and Light affect how the Light looks.

Linear: 0 Light : 300 Radius: 64

Figure 7.15

Figure 7.16

Linear: 0 Light : 600 Radius: 64

Linear: 1 Light : 300 Radius: 64

Figure 7.17

Figure 7.18

Linear: 1 Light : 600 Radius: 64

Linear: 0 Light : 300 Radius: 64

Figure 7.19

Figure 7.20

Linear: 1 Light : 300 Radius: 64

Player Start
Now we are going to make an Info_Player_Start entity so that you have an idea as to whether your map is big enough for the player to fit properly inside (Picture Assistance).

You would rather the ceiling be too hight that too low because if the ceiling is too low then the player wont be able to move anyway.

First Right-Click in the main grid view so that you get an entity list. Next go to Info » Info_Player_Start.
Now set the options so that:

The player spawns without the blue transporter beam effect (Silentspawn),
The player keeps his previous weapons and ammo (Keep_Prev),
The player drops to the floor if he is off of it (DroopToFloor).

You should now have something similar to that shown in Figure 7.6 (below) (Picture Assistance).

Figure 7.6

I don't advise you select more than one entity and use the entity's property page unless
the entities are of the same class.  For example it is perfectly fine to select 6 different lights
with various different colors and change the light value.  However, you should not select
some lights, weapons, and ammo and tell them to drop to ground.

Func_Doors
As you might have guessed this entity is your everyday sliding door. To build the best door is simple but
probably not what you would expect.

Draw a brush to meet your door's desired dimensions.
You can also make multiple brushes one door entity.

Make the brush that you just created into a door entity by selecting your brush and right clicking to bring up the
entity selection menu.  Select the FUNC » FUNC_DOOR option. You should notice some underlying text labeling it
as a FUNC_DOOR in the 2D view.

Make sure the door is selected and press N to bring up its properties.

At the bottom of the entity properties window you should see eight (8) buttons featuring angles. 0Click the angle that you want your door to open to.

In the KEY box type LIP. In the VALUE box type 8 so that the LIP of your door, or the distance that your door will go up is the length of the door minus eight units.

We need to have some LIP to our FUNC_DOOR so that the door doesn't completely slide into another brush and make for questionable physics of our maps. Of course just re-modulate your shields and you'll be fine.

Elevators/Lifts
There is a way to use a FUNC_DOOR as a lift.  See the above section on FUNC_DOOR for details on how they work.
Once you have constructed your FUNC_DOOR you will need to enter an angle of 'up' or 'down'. Enter a lip value (negative value if need be) that equals the distance (in units) you want your elevator to move to.

If your elevator is 16 units high and the position you are moving it to is 64 units upward you would subtract the elevators height from 64 so that the top of the elevator will just meet where the upper level's floor   

Create the brush(es) are going to have as the lift with an elevator like texture.
Make the elevator brush(es) a FUNC»Platform. 

Make two TRIGGER»MULTIPLE brushes with the texture of COMMON/TRIGGER as the complete and only texture on them.

Put a PATH_CORNER entity where you want the elevator to lower to and another PATH_CORNER where you want it to rise to.
Press Esc to deselect anything you might already have selected an

Select the top PATH_CORNER then select the bottom PATH_CORNER entity and hold down Ctrl and the K key until you see a connection line drawn between them.

Now, select the bottom path_corner entity and then select the top PATH_CORNER entity and hold down the Ctrl and the K key.
Select either one of those PATH_CORNER entities and press N to bring up thier properties.

Key = wait
Value = 4500

This means that the elevator will wait 4.5 seconds before returning to its start place.

Select the func_platform brush(es) select the path_corner that is farthest away from it and hold down Ctrl and the K key until a line is drawn between them.

Make sure that your elevator is directly under or over the PATH_CORNER entity that it is going to other wise it will slant (unless that is what you want it to do)

Pendulum
Create a little block with the origin texture on it and then create a couple of brushes of any shape that you would like to have swing back and forth. Select all of those brushes, including the origin brush, and convert them into a func_pendulum.

Press escape to deselect them, Now reaquire thier selection by holding the shift key while clicking on either one of them, If they are now all selected you can press N and play with some settings.

The important thing is that you select your origin brush and the brush(es) that you want to move together. It should move fluidically. 

Force Fields
Force Fields are just brushes with a specific texture added to them.

Make the force field brush (any shape you want).

Now click on 'textures' in the EFRadiant menu header followed by clicking 'borg' to load the borg textures.

The force field textures in the borg catagory are as follows: static, static2, static2_nonsolid, static_yellow

Select your brush and then click on one of the above mentioned textures. Then your done, and when you compile your map you will see a force field. Make it a func_wall to turn it off and on, be sure to check the details on this.

Teleporters
There are two main types of teleporters:
1) Seemless teleporters -- Player doesn't notice they are being moved
2) The blue startrek transporter beam-in effect1)
To make a player move without a blue fog around them you must make a script file with behaveed
you can see the included map files.

Basically you input the code affect "munro" and set origin a ref_tag's name
Next you place a trigger_once entity and a run script in you map where you want the player to transport from.
Connect the two by clicking on the tirgger_once and then the spawnscript and holding down the ctrl and K key,
then tell the runscript to use your script.

2) To make a player move with the fancy startrek transportation effect create a trigger_transport and point it to an
INFO_NOTNULL by selecting the FUNC_TRANSPORT and INFO_NOTNULL and holding Ctrl and K until they are connected.
Here is the SOURCE.

Level Transitions
Put a func_trigger once where you want the player to get sent to another level.

Then you connect it to a TARGET_LEVELCHANGE.
Press N while the entity is selected and follow the directions in the information box as to what key and value you should use. There is also a complete Source Map availible.

Text in the game
In the game you can actually see what is being said through text (captions) on the lower part of the screen.

In fact the ending of the level message is placed in a file called extra.pre that sits in a directory
named after your map. If you map's name is mymap.bsp then the name of the file would be mymap.pre
in the real_scripts/mymap directory.  First make a text file and name it extra.txt.

Open the text file and the desired sound as shown below:
sound/mysound.mp3 "die janeway, die die die"

Rename the text file to a pre file (extra.pre) and when the sound is used it will display the text "die janeway, die die die".
It is also said that if you don't want any text for a sound you type the following instead:

sound/mysound.mp3 NOTEXT

If your captions don't show up in the game make sure that your caption setting is on.

Compiling
You MUST save the map your working on in your BASEEF/MAPS directory else you cannot compile.

Compiling with XP
Please follow these directions very closely and if you don't know what you are doing don't do it without making sure of what you are doing. Basically, if you can make a shortcut and cut it into another directory then you should be fine but...