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Dear skilled mappers,
As a beginner in mapping, I'm facing an unexpected (but probably well known?) issue. The number of monsters and entities in my map is quite low, and anyway far below the standard number in the original editor's maps. The original game's maps display without any problem, whereas my map doesn't: it seems a threshold is reached concerning the number of monsters/entities and the most recently added ones are not displayed (as a player I am attacked by an invisible opponent, an invisible brush entity blocks my way, etc.) The entities beyond the threshold index behave normally except they are not drawn by the engine. This occurs very soon in the mapping process, even before I really start to populate my map with monsters, as if all the available slots for entities would already be taken by doors, lifts, lights, artefacts or whatever. Yet the number of those is, once again, really low. Especially compared to how many entities are found in the game's original maps. Any help would save not only my day but weeks of work, actually. Thanks a lot in advance!!! This could still be any number of problems afaik, so lets narrow it down:
Which engine do you use? Even "standard" Quake could mean three different ones: DOSQuake, WinQuake or GLQuake. What mapeditor and compiler are you using Have you tried loading your map in another engine and see if the problem persists? How many entities are there actualy in your map? Are your sure your map does not leak? Make sure your map does not extend past + or - 4096 units on any axis.
If it does and you can't shrink it without negatively impacting your map, compile it with the "-bsp2" command line parameter (for bsp.exe) and run it in a modern engine. Also, if your map has lots of entities it's probably a good idea to make sure you're running protocol 666, not protocol 15. A usual Q1 map can have 37678 brushes and 640 entities. If you have less, than another error has faulted.
Are you sure there are no "empty functions" in your map, like a func_door without arguments? It is easy to add a func and forget to add arguments. You would hardly notice.
Most times these cause a "too many edicts" error. Thank you for your quick answers :-)
I actually map for Hexen II. The only engines supporting it that I know are Ultimate Quake Engine 1.13 and Hammer of Thyrion. I have the problem with both of them. My map editor is Trenchbroom 2019.6 My compiler is ericw-tools-v0.18.1-win32\bin\qbsp.exe Without counting the world, there are currently about 220 entities in my map which is probably far below the limit (although I don't know what that limit in Hexen II is compared to Quake's 640). My map IS actually leaking. Good guess Wakey! I would have never thought about that because it seemed to me that leaking problems were far behind for a while... and I must confess I still can't understand what the problem is. I open the pts file and carefully follow the "leak line" in TB but at the places it goes from inside to outside, it simply goes through solid world brushes and not between them through unnoticeable interstices as usual leaks do. So now I know it's about leaking, but I can't figure out what the leak is. Shall I very humbly and respectfully submit my map to one of you to get their insight and improve my understanding please? I would be most grateful for that! @Shamblernaut: the actual count of entities doesn't seem to be the direct responsible but as a side note, what are protocol 666 and protocol 15??? your map does not gave to be open anywhere to leak.
An entity by mistake placed into the void can cause a leak too. At least thats true for q3bsp, so i asume that is a valid statement for q1 maps as well. What shamblernaut was talking about are different network protocols. 15 is the original, 666 is an enhanced one, by Fitzquake methinks. It's important because Quake works with a client-server protocol, so even offline in sp the gamecode communicates internally over this. Leaks can be very tricky. Following the pts file will lead to the initial brush, but it always starts at one corner fading on a irragular vector into the void.
Very useful to set the sky brush dark and look with a 3d viewer along the pts line. About the protocols, got it, thank you for the precisions.
The pts line didn't show clearly the leaking point but went from inside to outside in an irregularly shaped part of the map (a cave). Certainly not a coincidence (thank you so much Wakey for having put me on the leak's track!) I never understood where exactly was the leak but I found a workaround. I encompassed the whole area into a giant square box. By chance the cave was a dead end and was connected to the rest of the map only through a rectangular tunnel. I just opened a square hole in the giant box wall to let the tunnel go through, et voilà! Hop this trick could help someone in a similar situation in the future. As a side note, strangely enough brush entities or water brushes partially in the void don't seem to cause a leak. I have the impression that the only "entities in the void" counting for leaks are model/point entities... Thank you again to all of you for your help. the "put a big box around a leaky area" is an old trick, and it does work, but you'll have longer compile times and a larger BSP than if you actually plugged the leak. Depending on the cost/benefit analysis, might be worth finding the actual leak, or not.
is something i want to learn more in-depth.
Just can't properly wrap my around yet. How did you guys learn it and do it now? Learning by playing doesn't seem to do the trick for me. My guess is that most of you will already have a rough idea of the routes in a map in your head when starting to block out a rough layout - is that right? To you take notes and sketches beforehand? Like "I want this traps in that map, that many arenas..."? Especialy interleaved routes with some backtracking and opening paths give me a headache, but my guess is that im thinking about them the wrong way. 32768 brushes - 620 entities standard quake
I often asked myself what happens on the edge of the 33768 brushes. Having a map that big gets weary adding one brush or deleting one entity. Still the knowhow behind it isn'nt clear to me. Let's say I have map with that account. It is widly surrounded in the editor with all kind of edges. I assume the compiler uses all that outer brushedges to come to that 32768. Then, would it be of any use to pull all outer edges to one line so the outside would be a cube with only 8 sides. It should make a difference, or am I just short sighted as these outer brushes get deleted after compiling? a brush can have up to 255 faces in q1,
what matters is therefor the facecount. outside faces seeing the void (if your map is sealed, no leaks...) aren't considered when creating the bsp. Hallo.
Got this error message on my map: Host_Error: Mod_LoadModel: 9 not found. Seams I've wrote a wronge value somwhere. Is there a way to find the entity/brush in trenchbroom, via notepad,.. or another way to fix this? Trenchboom>View>Switch to Entity Inspector
or when it won't come up, I would search with Texpath in the *.map file all entities. A bit meak. a map layout.
Does anyone of you have some general tips when it comes to layouting your map? That would be way to obvious xD
Then rather some Boom Eternal cutscene. But i'm not so keen on learning how to steal at all, i just don't want to come up with some linear hallway-room-hallway-room kinda thing. You get the idea. Forget your intention of completing a finished map. Just imagine you are in a corner of a room. Start sculpting a corner without the intention to finish something off. Make a small ledge on the floor. Try to compare on the moment what your intuition is telling you.
I am working on three maps now, and stop immediately when I feel I want to finish them. That's why I am no speed mapper. It can take years and I don't care. But it hasnt yielded any release in years.
The last one was a WoP map in 2015. Most of the time i experiment around with brushwork, but that doesnt help in upping my skills to create a map interesting to play. Make your method more structured.
When you just do random stuff finishing can get near to impossible. You don't know when to stop or where it's going so it just becomes an unending slog. When you set yourself limitations and challenges, it becomes more satisfying to complete and you have to be creative to make something interesting. Blockout Build the entire layout in simple form, without detail or gameplay. The layout itself is up to you - I like to make things loop as much as possible and expand any dead ends into self-contained segments with unique challenges - button hunts, locked in a room with a shambler, whatever. Loops mean the player enters the same area from different directions along the critical path; try and avoid forcing backtracking unless you're going to change the structure of the level on the return or drastically change the gameplay (repopulate). You should be thinking analytically and planning what you want to do with these areas later on. If a particular area gets visited a lot, be sure to make it bigger. Detail Make yourself a handful of object to decorate the level with. Ideally these should be from an external bsp to let you make big changes with minimum effort further down the line. Does take a bit more work at the start, but it's worth it. Sprinkle the deco all over the place. Areas that deserve something special, make it. This is the more artistic part, so you'll be making your ugly blockout nice looking, modifying or expanding it where needs be. Gameplay Fill it with monsters. You should have planned ambushes and set ups in your head already during the blockout and deco phases - now you get to fill in the blanks. you should be playtesting constantly, on hard skill (nobody is better at your map than you). You shouldn't have to make any structural changes to the level now, but if you do or you have a cool idea, go for it. Playtesting Get a few people together and test it - demos are ideal. This is where the assumptions you've made on how the level with function with a rel player are tested. Listen to each complaint and understand what it's about. Release Wait for a month or so without working on it. Then replay the level and make any changes that you deem necessary. Once those are done and playtested, upload the zip. Postpatch There's probably some bugs. Be prepared to patch the release after it's done. This should be limited to fixes only, no new stuff.
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