The Cafu Documentation

Welcome to the Cafu Documentation!
The purpose of this Wiki is to provide documentation about using and editing the Cafu Engine. For developers, all aspects of Cafu related editing like mapping, modding, modelling, texturing, etc. are covered.

The Cafu Engine “root” website is at http://www.cafu.de

As with all Wikis, this site lives from its readers contributions. If you want to help, please read Becoming an Editor for an explanation on how you can edit and create new pages — it's easy!

The Cafu User Manual describes the Cafu Engine Demo packages that are released periodically to demonstrate the features of the Cafu Engine.

1. Quick Start
2. Installation
   • Minimum System Requirements
   • Installing the Cafu Demo
   • Upgrading
   • De-Installation
3. Running Cafu
   • The Main Menu
   • Keyboard Layout
   • The Command Console
4. Further Information
   • Windows and Linux specifics
   • Known Issues
   • Contact and Support
5. User FAQ

This manual describes how the Cafu engine can be modified to implement own ideas and concepts, how new content is created for use within its worlds, and how entirely new games and applications can be realized with the Cafu engine.

1. Manifest: Cafu Package Contents
2. Developer FAQ

1. The CaWE User's Guide
   1. Installation, Initial Configuration and De-Installation
   2. Getting started
      1. Introduction to Editing
      2. The Main Window User Interface
      3. 2D and 3D Views (Video)
      4. The Material Browser
      5. Your First Map (Flash Tutorial)
   3. Map Editing Tools
      1. The Selection Tool
      2. The Camera Tool
      3. The New Brush Tool
      4. The New Entity Tool (Flash Tutorial)
      5. The New Bezier Patch Tool
      6. The New Terrain Tool
      7. The New Light Tool
      8. The New Decal Tool
      9. The Edit Surface Properties Tool
      10. The Edit Terrain Tool
      11. The Clipping Tool
      12. The Edit Vertices (Morph) Tool
   4. Selected Topics
      1. Groups
      2. Dealing with Leaks (Flash Tutorial)
      3. Creating Teleporter Stations
      4. About Lights and Shadows
      5. Importing Maps from other Games/Editors
   5. Menu Reference
      1. The File Menu
      2. The Edit Menu
      3. The Map Menu
      4. The View Menu
      5. The Tools Menu
      6. The Compile Menu
      7. The Window Menu
      8. The Help Menu
   6. Dialog Reference
      1. The Configure CaWE Options Dialog
      2. The Replace Materials Dialog
      3. The Paste Special Dialog
      4. The Find Entities Dialog
      5. The Object Properties Dialog
      6. The Goto Brush/Entity Dialog
      7. The Entity Report Dialog
      8. The Map Error Report Dialog
      9. The Transform Type-In Dialog
      10. The Surface Properties Dialog
      11. The Entity Inspector Dialog
   7. Reference
      1. Entity Guide
      2. Lua Scripting Reference Documentation
   8. Tutorials Synopsis
      • Flash: Your First Map (Related Article)
      • Flash: Placing a Model (Related Article)
      • Flash: Dealing with Leaks (Related Article)
      • Creating Teleporter Stations
      • Adding a sky
2. Compiling Maps for Cafu
3. Compiling Maps at the Command-Line
4. Creating Height-Maps for your Terrains

1. The GUI Editor
2. The Font Wizard: Creating new fonts
3. GUI Files Explained
4. Lua Scripting Reference Documentation

1. The Model Editor: Introduction
2. The Main Window
3. How-Tos (Video)
4. Model Elements
   1. Skeleton
   2. Meshes
   3. Skins
   4. GUI Fixtures
   5. Animations
   6. Channels
5. Program Dialogs
   1. Scene Setup
   2. Submodels
   3. Level-of-Detail Models
   4. Transforms: translate, rotate and scale
6. Menu and Toolbar Reference
7. Model Files Explained
8. Dependencies among Models

1. Supported File Formats
2. Texture types
3. Skybox creation (Environmental Map, Cubemap)
4. Tutorials
   • Using own textures
   • Making "perfect" detail-maps

1. What is it? An Introduction
2. The Materialviewer
3. The Materials (cmat files) Manual
   1. Overview
   2. Texture Map Specifications
   3. Shader Specifications
   4. Expressions and Tables
   5. Keyword Reference

1. Getting Started with the Cafu Source Code
2. IDEs and Text Editors (Video)
3. How to Submit Patches
4. Coding Conventions
5. C++ Reference Documentation
6. Selected Topics
   1. Game Development Overview
   2. Starting your own Game
   3. Loading game worlds
   4. Using the Autodesk FBX SDK