Publishing and Cooking UT3 Community Maps

[Entropy]

We've gotten a lot of questions about how cooking and publishing work in UT3. If you're looking to create a new map and play it in the game (offline or online) this should help get you started:

Publishing and Cooking UT3 Community Maps

The CookedPC naming convention may seem confusing, but it’s a relatively simple process once everything is set up properly. “Cooking” bakes out unnecessary content from the map file, creates the shader cache information needed to properly load and run your map, and improves performance and loading times. “Publishing” sets up the files for distribution and puts everything into the proper directory so that other people can play what you’ve created.

Regarding the Published and Unpublished behavior:

Maps that are saved in the game editor are written to the Unpublished directory by default. This is the working directory for mod authors, and can be found here:

…\Documents and Settings\<UserID>\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Unpublished\CookedPC\CustomMaps

By default, however, the game recognizes only the Published directory when loading content. If you want to test Unpublished content, you can add the -useunpublished flag to the commandline. (The expected mod workflow is to iterate development on levels and content and run the game with -useunpublished.) When a map is ready, a final Publish will write cooked content to the Published directory, and these loading-optimized files will be ready for distribution.

The Published directory is located here:

…\Documents and Settings\<UserID>\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps

Saving a game in the editor should create the Unpublished folders. Publishing a file should create the Published folder. If either of those directories don’t exist, you’ll need to create them manually. When you download a map and want to play it, put it in the Published folder and it will then be recognized by the game and appear in the in menus. Note that files that are not in the proper directory will not be recognized by the game and will not load properly or appear in the menus.



I'll try to update this thread as necessary with new / relevant information.

Happy mapping!

[SkrU]

Do these published and nopublished dir's apply to server side as well?

[Mr_Rose]

On a similar note, would putting them in
…\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps
work at all?
Same question for unpublished of course.

[Pfhoenix]

It's important to remember for everyone, as this just happened to me - when you publish a map within Ued, Ued will delete *everything* out of the Published directory structure first.

Epic : this is a major failure. Fix please.

[[404]Cham3l3on]

I had to make the published folder tree in the C: just to get a custom map to show up. There was no folder (running Vista) in the Documents area for the Published/Cooked. There was no Published/Cooked area in the C: so I made the tree, installed a beta map and then restarted and it showed up??

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by SkrU

Do these published and nopublished dir's apply to server side as well?

Yes. The game will only recognize user created content if it is in the Published folder.

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Pfhoenix

It's important to remember for everyone, as this just happened to me - when you publish a map within Ued, Ued will delete *everything* out of the Published directory structure first.

Epic : this is a major failure. Fix please.

This is a bug, and should only happen the first time you publish a map and only if you already have something in the published directory after you've manually created it. Our hope is to address this in a later patch

[-VT-]

When i made my first publish/cook of a test map i did it created all of this:

A \Published\ Folder

A \CookedPC\ Folder within the \Published\ Folder with these files:
--GlobalPersistentCookerData.upk
--RefShaderCache-PC-D3D-SM2.upk
--RefShaderCache-PC-D3D-SM3.upk
--RefShaderCache-PC-D3D-SM4.upk

A \CustomMaps\ Folder within the \CookedPC\ Folder with these files:
--DM-TestMap.ini
--DM-TestMap.ut3

(Note: the map name was DM-TestMap)

1.) Are all of the folders correct?

2.) Are all of those .upk packages going to be created everytime i make a new map?

3.) If all i used was the stock materials provided by Epic and when i hit the Cook/Publish button and i get that dialog box that says something like "Save Packages ..something.. something.. YES? NO?" I'm supposed to hit no right?

[Entropy]

1) Your info appears correct.
2) Yes, but those are local files. don't include them if you distribute your map.
3) Hit YES to properly save your files. Save early, save often.

[eriFlleH]

Hey since we are on the subject. I rent a server, created the ./Published/CookedPC/CustomMaps/ folder and uploaded a DM map that someone posted on here. When I check the logs, it shows it cached the ini and saw the map, but then it makes my server go offline from the online browser.

I checked to make sure my game type was 2 / deathmatch and everything else seems to load up ok, but the server never seems to come alive.

For instance: I downloaded DM_ForgottenPast, added it to the maplist in the UTGame.ini, also in my command line, I put in "server DM-ForgottenPast?GameType=2?...

Is there something I am missing?