i personally can't stand cutscenes unless they're like super short like a couple of seconds or something. 

I'm probably missing something obvious here but not having much luck. How do I set an ambient light level? Using QuakeEd3.1. 

'light' key 

oh sorry, on worldspawn. :P 

RMQ has a nice bit of cutscene capability, maybe some of those guys could help to point you? or...... Join us!!! 

Zerstorer is much smaller than RMQ or Nehahra and has cutscene code.

It is unsupported but does have documentation.

And yeah, another alternative is to join RMQ... 

In the "visions" map on Quaddicted.com is an example of things you want.
It's called the cck kit, a cutscene camera kit, with instructions how to change the screen ingame and centerprint messages controlling the camera to use a certain path.

It is a simple cck.qc and helps you to add the cutscenes by ways of a trigger_once for a perode of time. It's kind of slow but it works.

Play the map and you'll understand. 

pretty sure custents also contains camera code. 

custents has camera code though the progs.dat is a bit messy
my desire was to try and create my own cam but really I have to give up so I guess I'll stick with one of existing progs(custents,vision,zer,nehahra) :) 

I fixed up a bunch of animated textures awhile back and recently reinstalled all Quake stuff into a new harddrive. In Fitz I noticed the animations are now messed (pixels that didn't animate before were now animating). Even some static textures that are part of a set had a different colors ingame. In Wally, the same color was in both textures, therefore no mismatch. The only thing I forgot was installing Scourge and Dissolution (1.07 1.08). So I installed the packs and the animations are fixed. All texture sets are back to having no visable seams ingame again (these texture sets can be put next to each other and have no visable gl blend seam).

Does Fitz 0.85 rely on a particular 1.08 file for the correct palettte to show up, or is it something else? Maybe there's some different palette RGB values for this effect to occur? The Quake palette also has 12 RGB values repeated twice for some reason. Is there extra code applied to the different index numbers of the duplicated colors? 

I don't have an answer for most of your questions, but i can answer this part:

The Quake palette also has 12 RGB values repeated twice for some reason. Is there extra code applied to the different index numbers of the duplicated colors?

The last 32 colors in the palette are "fullbright" which means they do not take lighting or shadows. Some of these fullbright colors are identical in RGB to some of the non-fullbright colors in the palette.

To figure out if fullbright pixels are the problem, try turning on r_fullbright to view the textures without lighting.

I still don't know why the problem would go away with the mission packs installed. Do the mission pack installers update anything in id1? 

I don't really know, but when the packs are installed, regular Quake has the 1.08 in the console. So something's changed there. Btw, I first just installed the original 1.06 version in the cardboard foldout package from 15 years ago (it's still in near mint condition). I don't know if that has anything to do with it. That's when I noticed for about a day and a half there was this problem.

I'll try the r_fullbright for any other texture problems I might have though. I modified, tweeked, made, and stole over 5000 textures combined, so this was a shocker. The thing is, I'm now wondering if the texture fixes I made would be seen in the same way on every Quake setup. 

Any suggestions/advice for making this not look crap but without a lot of detail? The area has a huge monster count so I want to avoid a lot of geometry detail :E

Medieval castle/town thing 

lighting and shadows are "free" detail -- boring lightmaps cost the same as interesting ones. So put in lots of spotlights, dramatic shadows, etc. to break up large surfaces. 

Large flat surfaces are cut up into chunks with a maximum size of 240x240 -- so if you have a wall that is 1200 units long, it will be divided into 6 chunks, even with the same texture on it. So you can divide it up and put alternate textures on different chunks and potentially have zero increase of polycount. 

The pair of windows in the back should each be casting a spotlight beam down the wall below, so the bright lit areas contrast with triangular shadows under the supports on that wall. The unrealistic lighting model in quake is a blessing in disguise because it's a bit like painting in soot and grime into your scene. 

also if it's quoth, using the model system would be beneficial. 

 

What you're asking, but maybe make the area more dynamic as well, in how the monsters arrive.

So having them roam along paths is a simple way of making a fight more memorable, as is having them spawn in some entertaining way - a lightning bolt and then teleport for example, or leaping through the windows into the courtyard below.

Those are pretty simplistic things that'll make the area more fun, you can probably come up with a load more. 

Ta for the suggestions guys. I'll have a fiddle and post another shot. 

.. and maybe selecting another brick texture for the walls... Maybe some like in DKT3 or Doom3, or simply make your own ;)
There are also some textures that have details variation you may use...

Anyway, it looks interesting, but indeed there's lack of details and design touch tht makes the shot sexy ;) 

ID1 works just fine. Stick with What Metl said - also, is it really that much more crazy than that seen in Tronyn maps? Those tend to look good and have high monster count and there haven't been *too* many complaints about r_speeds etc 

> Any suggestions/advice for making this not look crap but without a lot of detail? The area has a huge monster count so I want to avoid a lot of geometry detail :E

Vary the floor height. Steps, for example.

The polycount looks to be really low, so I wouldn't worry at all. 

Only 1 fullbright is part of the 12 duplicate colors. So the other 11 duplicates are a mystery. Id wouldn't waste 11 potential extra colors. There could be some undocumented code applied to them for additional effects. 

I'd like to have a reference file for the different monsters as they appear in quake 1 that has information such as their health numbers, their attacks and what kind of damage they can do, and such information.

It would also be useful to have that information for the player's weapons.

I know that this information can be had by browsing through the .qc source, but I didn't want to reinvent the wheel if there already is such a document. Is there one?