Okay, so I've got q1rad and a nice surface lights file set up.

1. coloured lighting - how?
2. how do I stop the faces that are surfacelights appearing so much brighter than everything else?

Cheers 

As I am packing map-files to a PAK-file, I wondered what could be the max limit of a BSP.
At first I stopped mapping, when my bsp reached 1.4Mb but adding winmem16 gave me the oppertunity to go further.
I watched Dissolution Of Eternity, with its Last Bastion of 2.291.536byte
And as it is played under DOS there is no problem.
Now I am here with a map of 2.345.900 and I am concerned it will give an Alloc_hunc error.
(Not for me, but for distributing it in a PAK file) 

well, look at it this way,
nesp09 is about 5.8mb and only needed a special engine to run because it had too many monsters.

most of the file size comes from textures anyway, and as long as you keep your textures under 2mb you're fine.

LTH: read the text that riot wrote with his tools it explains everything about q1rad and the lights.

and there's nothing you can do about surfaces of surface lights being bright -- that's the way it works. :\ 

I like to distribute a PAK-file.
Not to let people load a special engine.
You are right for the textures, Necros, but also told me diagonal water textures look odd.
So I used animated tex, what drives up the bitecount.
So let me be odd, and ask it again...(?!) 

one of my new maps is nearly 9MB.
of course, I'm getting the hunc_alloc errors :) 

 

That's a huge map/ Of course, if you have to go custom, the executable would take less than another meg. For a map that size, I don't think it would be a bad idea. 

Hello,

I have downloaded the wqbsp165.zip file avalaible on www.annihilator.com/gameediting/files/q1files.html web site. The autor ensure transparent water is avalaible with his tool...I made a try with the starting map (adding water) to know how looks like transparent water in Quake... and it doesn't work.. I don't know where the problem comes from... I uses a PC (Atlon 2GHz, 256 Mo RAM, etc.. my PC is a new one buyed less than 3 month), and the QuArK 6.4.0-alpha3 map builder tool... This tool is able to launch QBSP.exe (your release), RVIS.exe and ARGHLITE.exe utilities for BSP build... I try to find more informations in the related text files, but without success...
Is there anybody who can help me to solve the problem please ?? 

there should be a command line option when you compile the map. it should lookd like '-transwater' or something. just run wqbsp.exe /?
and you'll get all available options. or read the readme of this tool.
in the game, to see transparent water you have to enable it via console with command: r_wateralpha 0.3 (where 0.3 is the opacity level from 0 to 1)
gl 

and of course you have to use opengl accelerated engine to see the transwater. 

OK, I've made a run of qbsp.exe only, and a "-transwater" option doesn't exist... I need to check this again..

Concerning the "r_wateralpha 0.3" option, I'll try to find it this evening...

Furthermore, I think a have an openGL engine: I use fitzquake0.75 from few weeks... (it creates me a glquake directory in each map/pak directory used)

Thanx for the infos.. 

sure there is no -transwater in id's qbsp.exe. it exists either in wqbsp or in bengt's treeqbsp which you can find here:
http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/treeqbspbjp.zip 

Well, transparent water seems to be included as a default feature in my qbsp version... Perhaps it's only the "r_wateralpha 0.3" option I forgot... I'll retry this evening..If it doesn't work anymore, I'll test bengt's treeqbsp...
Thanx for the link ;-)...
Bye 

usually, most engines default to r_wateralpha "1" because most people still don't compile maps for that. it's not something i use either actually. :P 

In the fitzquake075 readme, it is never talk about the r_wateralpha option... But, it says this engine is based on the source code released by ID software GLQuake: this feature is perhaps already included and not clearly specified...
There is also a "fog" console command that seems to enable/disable a fog "opacity" option. Does anyone known about this ?? 

the three people who read the readme. 

...I made the try, and it is very interesting to enable fog option (with a value of 0.2 or 0.3)... This generates a foggy environment that increases unsecurity sensation during the game...
Anyway.. is there an easy way to enable the console command at quake start-up imnstead of typing these ones manually ??? 

.. is there a solution to enable (for example) fog and r_wateralpha option at start-up to avoid console manipulations before starting the game ???

Thanx.. 

create autoexec.cfg file in your /id1 folder and just write there everything u want like:

+mlook
r_wateralpha 0.3
name JPLambert
sensitivity 10

etc... 

personally i have an alias to enable/disable things like shadows/wateralpha/mirrors with one key. because not all the maps support wateralpha and when you run non alpha map it causes HOM like effect on the water so you'll have to disable it. i do that by pressing one key, not by typing it manually every time on console.

my autoexec looks like this:

http://vondur.net/files/autoexec.cfg 

OK, I've got only a default one... I'm going to make some modifications (like in your autoexec.cfg file) to add options and more binding keys... Thank you for the link...
I think in the future I will required some help again... I'm about to start building my first map based on the egyptian Hatchepsout temple (I think the file will be named Hellchepsout ;-) but I'm not really sure... ).. Perhaps it is a big challenge to start with big map, I will see.... I'm still creating some new textures using some temple photos I found on the web... I hope it will show a great map appearance as real as possible !!!
Bye... 

building a large map (or open map with huge castle) requires smart brush placement. look for r_speeds. it shouldn't be more than 1000, otherwise the map will be unplayable on weak systems. 

When you say large map, you told about bsp file size, or about the number of brushes/textures/monsters, etc... it can be found in it ??
And do you really think it still exists "weak systems" today ?? Obsolete PC (like 2 years old PC) are running using at least 1GHz processor and 128 Mo RAM.. or I don't understand what you mean about "weak systems"... What is, for you, a "weak system" ?? 

I screwed with a mesh to make it intersect the stairs brushes to create sand.

http://www.cursesandepithets.com/quake3/pushsc/mesh.jpg

Is this a horrible abuse or a good idea? 

under large map i meant the map with high polycount, i.e. a lot of bruses/textures/monsters etc.
under weak systems i meant old puters like pii with voodoo card on board (or w/o gfx accelerator at all). believe me there still are such puters with quake players on them :)

of course it's your choice either to support weak systems or not. personally I've raised my r_speeds ceiling from 700 to 1000 recently. but i'm still trying to make r_speeds as low as possible.