So, please correct me if I'm wrong:
To create a window you use a blank water texture and something like a quoth command trigger to set it to the right alpha yeah?

A few little questions:
1 Looking for a wad that has a blank texture like that in it :p

2 What's the performance hit for having a large surface like this? Thinking of having two large rooms which have a huge glass wall between them. 

None whatsoever! Not by modern standards.
As for a good texture, well you could try looking in some .bsp's. You just open the .bsp in TexMex and you can export it to .wad. I think there must be one in Than's last map ;)

http://than.quaddicted.com/files/apsp2.zip

http://http://than.quaddicted.com/

Spirit: There doesn't seem to be a link too this in Quaddicted's SP maps list. 

To make a window you make a normal waterbrush, and you set r_wateralpha to be 1. And on top of the brush (to make the window solid) you make another brush, which you then make into a func_wall. And you give the func_wall the texture called "skip". Doesn't matter what the texture looks like (but there must be a texture in your wad called "skip") and then you have to run the tool "newskip.exe" after compiling ("newskip mapname" in cmd).

Some modern engines support alpha on func_walls. I believe the key is "alpha" the value represents how transparent you want the func to be from 0 to 1.
The first version works in any engine which supports wateralpha, and you need the info_command entity to make the water transparent. 

I think most modern engines support alpha, actually. Including Fitzquake.

Some even support alpha on entities, ie monsters etc.

I use some of the window textures from Quake 2. 

hmm, okay, so I was almost there :)

Question for people using Quoth: is there a way to use triggered sounds but not make them loop? or to kill them after looping for a certain period? Retriggering or killtargetting doesn't seem to stop them playing once they've started :p 

The looping is a feature of the actual sound file (from what I know). People use some ancient version of Goldwave to toggle the looping flag if they want it. 

Dang, okay :( thanks. 

you can still edit the .wav sound and remove the loop markers.. then it will be one shot playing ;) 

Or killtarget it before it reaches the loop position. 

I wanted to get it to start up, loop a few times then stop. guess I'll have to look into removing the flag then manually loop it with relays. 

How are you triggering your sounds? If you are using qc just trigger the null.wav on the same channel when you want the sound to stop. 

I wanted to get it to start up, loop a few times then stop.

play_sound_triggered

use the 'toggle' flag
'wait' to length of the soundfile to loop
no need to set 'impulse', with the toggle flag on, impulse defaults to 7.
set up target/targetname

when you fire the play_sound_triggered, it will play the sound repeatedly until you trigger it again.

if the sound loops on it's own, set 'wait' to 999999 to retain toggle functionality. 

Ok so Ive been using worldcraft mapping for a few months, on and off for a little mod im working on. Now bare with me, im not a huge mapper or anything so this may be some really easy fix that I dont know about but here goes: I power up worldcraft and all is normal like usual, I start mapping for a good 3 hours, and then I try to compile my map. Now I left the room for a little because I know that the map takes a little bit to export. But I come back, and it says in the command line:
* Could not execute the command:
"C:\Program Files\Worldcraft\qbsp2.exe" "C:\Users\nick\Desktop\game\game\new"
* Windows gave the error message:
"The operation completed successfully."

** Executing...
** Command: C:\Program Files\Worldcraft\quaketools\vis.exe
** Parameters: "C:\Users\nick\Desktop\game\game\new"

---- Vis 2.31 ---- Modified by Bengt Jardrup

************ ERROR ************
Error opening C:\Users\nick\Desktop\game\game\new.bsp: No such file or directory

Elapsed time : 0:00

** Executing...
** Command: C:\Program Files\Worldcraft\quaketools\light.exe
** Parameters: "C:\Users\nick\Desktop\game\game\new"

----- Light 1.43 ---- Modified by Bengt Jardrup

************ ERROR ************
Error opening C:\Users\nick\Desktop\game\game\new.bsp: No such file or directory

Now I cant compile any map, Ive re-installed wc + Bengt Jardup's quake tools a million times, but it still wont work =[. Has anyone gotten this before? 

Its just the WC compiling GUI (the process window) seems to have a problem with moving the files around.

The solution:

1 (not vital but it helps) Use a windows command prompt to run the compiling tools. The WC process window will freeze sometimes, even if the tool is still running in the background. A windows command prompt is what the tools are designed for.

2 (will fix your prob.) Put all of your tools, all of your .rmf files and all of your .map files and EVERYTHING in c:\quake\id1\maps.

HTH 

Windows command prompt:

start > programs > accessories > Command Prompt

The type:

CD c:\quake\id1\maps

Then you can run your tool, i.e.

qbsp yourmap

then

vis -fast yourmap

then

light -extra yourmap

Also, use this QBSP tool, it is by far the best:

http://www.quaddicted.com/tools/txqbspbjp.zip 

All of your tools in the c:\quake\id1\maps directory first

(txqbsp.exe, vis.exe, light.exe) 

yeah the way WC acts like it's crashed when compiling through it's interface is pretty annoying, but when constructing certain areas I find the cordon function pretty useful, and I hop map versions a lot especially when planning trigger sequences and such, so I still use it a lot, but never for full compiles.

myself I have WC using tools inside a worldcraft/quaketools folder, and a seperate clean copy of quake on c:\ (no mods/maps other than my own and only one exe). Seems to be fine with this :E

For proper compiles Necro's utility is cool imo :) 

I tried to put all my tools and map files into the maps folder, didnt work. then I tried command prompt, didnt work. Should I just try Necro's utility then? 

is the 'toggle' flag a spawnflag? I tried setting a key/value of 'toggle' '1' and it didn't do anything. (each triggering of the play_sound_triggered causes another instance of the loop to start). 

yeah, 'flag' is spawnflags (not 'flags', which is also a var, but used internally by qc).

as for the compiling gui, it's just to save you time from making batch files. 

Will you please explain exactly how you tried to use a command prompt? There is no way that a command prompt wouldn't work if you are using it properly.

We need to start off with the basics here I think.

Copy your .map file into a new directory on your c: called "qbsp".
Put your TxQbsp.exe in the same folder.

Open a command prompt (click start, then type cmd in the search/run bar at the bottom of the start menu).

Then type in the command prompt:

cd c:\qbsp

then type

txqbsp yourmap


Then report back here as to what happens. 

everytime I put in:
...desktop\maps\txqbsp.exe test

It says, there was an error.
There error says that there is no such file or directory. 

when the test.map (as you called it) is in the same directory as txqbsp is, it should work.

when you try to test qbsp with the command "test" it won't.
Just giving the qbsp command without a map of string compiles a qbsp_log.txt with all possible commands one can give.

So if there's an error or file mising at least you can try to see if qbsp compiles a log.txt
then you can try to search for your map and see if it is there in thre same directory.

As winxp and higher don't use dos commands anymore, you might try to make a sublink to qbsp file, and there specify your argues like

program > txqbsp your map. 

now its telling me "No world brushes on line 1" though im hoping thats just the map problem now?? Sorry for being so bad at this kinda stuff but im new to it 

Do what I tell you! Put it in either c:\quake\id1\maps

or

c:\qbsp\

and then type either

cd c:\quake\id1\maps

or

cd c:\qbsp\

and then we'll talk