☁️ Zone Info (Sky, Terrain, Fog)

Hi,

If you're starting with KF SDK mapping I recommend not touching the zone info actor at all, since it can cause issues (Edit: Those issues are mostly due to TWI, consult SuperTip1) So grab your actor from Info? -> ZoneInfo..

In short: ZoneInfo is an actor that lets you edit the properties of a “zone” in your map. A zone is any enclosed space you’ve cut off from others with portals. (Portal usage discussed in Optimisation LINK; They are hidden actors, not to be mistaken for teleporters, (although they technically can function as one it's not at all seamless lol)) If you don’t add ZoneInfo, the game just applies default settings to the zone/area.

✨ Why Even Bother?

There are technically a bunch of reasons. Controlling ambient brightness, setting up multiple skyboxes, or applying universal mesh cull distances — but since UE2 is a temperamental baby, I’d just use ZoneInfo for three things: terrain, skyboxes, and distance fog.

🟩 Terrain

If your terrain isn’t showing up in a certain zone, you’ll need to set the property ZoneInfo → terrain zone = True.

Now, even if your terrain cuts through other zones (through an entranceway or cave maybe), it’ll render properly there. Without? Invisible. Non-solid. No more need to smash your keyboard.

🌌 Skyboxes

A skybox is an isolated room that provides a live 360° camera feed of the sky around your map.

To make one work, insert the ZoneInfo child actor:

SkyZoneInfo

Sounds kind of like what Skyfall is for James Bond right? This is the camera for your skybox. Once you’ve built and positioned it inside the skybox, you usually don’t need to tweak its properties. Yay! 🎉

Spoiler

The “camera” is just *really zoomed in*… so have fun with that :)

🌫️ Distance Fog

Yep. it’s exactly what it sounds like.

Enable with:

ZoneInfo → DistanceFog=True

Then tweak:

DistanceFogStart
DistanceFogEnd
DistanceFogColor

A smaller gap between Fog Start and End = thicker fog. You can even set a negative Start value if you want to get creative. And for colour (yes, colour, not color), use byte values 0–255 for hue, saturation, and brightness.

💀 KillZ (Don’t)

If you somehow end up with a massive void under your terrain, please don’t rely on:

ZoneInfo → KillZ

Sure, it’ll kill anything that falls below a certain Y coordinate… but I wouldn’t trust it. Use vertex editing or a KillVolume (or both) instead. KillZ is a last resort for desperate mappers watching zeds sink into the abyss, eating performance as they rave it out beneath your map. 🙃

⚠️ Known Hiccups

Translucent meshes can block emitters and other translucent materials in your skybox when viewed through BSP — especially fog or clouds. There’s no known fix (thanks, UE2). So test early, preview often, and maybe the SDK gods will bless you.

That’s all folks (for this section) 👋 ...