Opening levels from other editors

RED+ saves Alpine Faction levels and opens levels from RED, from Alpine Faction's editor and from older RED+ builds. This page covers what you need to know, and do, when a level moves between them.

Which game plays what RED+ saves

RED+ saves levels as RFL version 305 or 304, which you choose in Preferences:

Stock Red Faction and Dash Faction do not play these levels.

Some things in a level need more than the level version:

• A level with a Sun lights placed meshes, enemies and the player from the Sun only in Alpine Faction 1.4 with its Direct3D 11 renderer. See The Sun.
• Alpine Faction 1.4 draws gas regions with its Direct3D 11 renderer.
• Weather regions are an Alpine Faction 1.4 feature.
• Caustics (RED+) are drawn only by the RED+ game client. Alpine Faction 1.4 does not draw them. See Caustics.

Everything RED+ bakes into the lightmaps, such as Full Dark, Emissive Light and light cookies, shows in any game that plays the level.

RED+'s settings in other editors

RED+ keeps its own settings in a section of its own in the level file. See Saving levels for the list.

An editor that drops them

An editor that does not know RED+'s section, such as Alpine Faction 1.4's editor, leaves it out when it saves the level. The next time you open that level in RED+:

• The baked lighting is still there.
• The level's lighting settings, the Full Dark, Emissive Light and Follow Light settings on faces, light cookies, Liquid Glow (RED+) and Caustics (RED+) settings, locked follow-light wiring and unticked Casts shadow boxes are gone. The next bake in RED+ bakes without them.
• Each Sun is rebuilt from the ordinary light RED+ wrote for it, with its direction, colour and strength. The RED+ log has a line containing rebuilt the Sun from the. See The Sun.

A level with a Sun carries an ordinary light named RF+ Sun for each Sun. Another editor bakes it as an ordinary light: delete it there before you bake in that editor.

An editor that keeps them

RED numbers every brush face again each time the geometry is rebuilt, so deleting a brush, or changing how many faces a brush has, changes the numbers of the faces after it. RED+ keeps its face settings by these numbers, and when it saves, it also writes where each of those faces is.

When you open a level in which another editor has kept RED+'s section but rebuilt the geometry, RED+ finds each face again by its brush, its place in the brush and its corners, and puts the settings back on it. A setting whose face is no longer in the level is dropped. The log window then shows a line starting RED+ settings: that says how many settings were put back and how many were dropped. The RED+ log (logs\RedPlusEditor.log) lists each one.

Alpine Faction's own level settings

Alpine Faction's level settings, such as those under Advanced Options in Level Properties, are in Alpine Faction's own section. RED+ keeps a copy of them in its section. If the two differ because another editor changed the level after RED+ saved it, RED+ uses Alpine Faction's. The RED+ log has a line containing Alpine's are used.

Sections from Glacier

Sections that Glacier's editor adds to a level are kept as they are when RED+ saves it.

Settings for objects that are gone

When RED+ opens a level, it drops the settings it holds for objects that are no longer in the level: light cookies, follow-light links, glowing liquids, caustics, locked wiring and meshes that cast no shadow. A new object that later gets the same UID does not inherit them. The log window counts them in the RED+ settings: line.

Levels from Alpine Faction's editor

A level saved by Alpine Faction 1.4's editor (RFL version 305 or lower) opens as usual.

A level saved by a newer Alpine Faction editor (RFL version 306) opens too, but RED+ saves RFL version 305, as Alpine Faction 1.4 does. The log window shows a warning containing This level was saved by a newer Alpine Faction editor. What the newer editor added, such as its own Sun, projection cameras and rope emitters, is not read by RED+ and is not kept when you save the level in RED+.

If a level carries other data RED+ does not read, the log window shows a warning containing This level carries data RED+ does not read as its own. That data is not kept when you save the level in RED+. The RED+ log says what each part was and why it was not read.

Levels from older RED+ builds

Open the level in RED+ and save it. RED+ writes it in the current layout. You do not need to bake the lighting again. If you ship the level in a .vpp, pack it again with File›, Create Level Packfile. See Create Level Packfile.

Some older levels need this more than others:

• Saved by build 56 or earlier: the file does not say where each face with RED+ settings is, so RED+ cannot put settings back after another editor renumbers the faces. Save the level once in RED+ before you open it in another editor.
• Saved by build 17 or earlier: those builds kept RED+'s settings in Alpine Faction's part of the file. RED+ reads them only when the file is laid out exactly as those builds wrote it. Otherwise the log window warns that the level carries data RED+ does not read.
• Saved by builds 20 to 25 with weather regions: RED+ opens them with each region's Blocked by geometry and Column Width. Save the level once and its weather regions work in the game.

Levels from RED

When you open a level older than version 300, such as one saved by RED, the Legacy Level File message appears. It says the level will be converted to an Alpine Faction level with the version RED+ saves, and that the converted level will no longer play in games other than Alpine Faction. Alpine Level Design opens the Red Faction Wiki page about Alpine levels. Click OK to go on.

Saving the level in RED+ makes it an Alpine Faction level.