The process above is how I created my Q3 map Pyramid of the Magician and here is the source if you are curious to see what it looks like in an editor. (will probably need Radiant to look at it)

I think it would be easier for most people if the terrain mesh could be created from brushes and vertex edited into the shape they want. The real trick to this whole process is the compiler not the editor. 

more a response to sock than sleepwalkr 

Kinn

If the editor/compiler support for this is added, I think OBJ import will be absolutely essential to making it useful. 

Surely the benefit of meshes is that you use a dedicated tool like Maya to model them

The beauty of the Q3 ASE model format was it could be created from brushes or in a modelling package. Forcing the process to only work in a modelling package would shut out people who only have the editor.

Using the compiler to convert a mesh into a brush mesh (tetrahedrons) would bring all the terrains into a single pipeline. Plus the compiler could mark all back surfaces of the tetrahedron with a terrainskip. One other solution is the mesh is in a special external file (like ASE) which will require editor and compiler support.

The thing that is lacking from Q1 terrains is a detail flag, an optional clipping HULL and proper shadow support. 

If all the special compiler is doing is turning a mesh into a bunch of tetrahedrons anyway, then I'm not sure what real advantage you get from a special compiler.

Anyway, who here uses Unity? I'm wondering if there's any audience for this maya->quake unity project that i've made. 

of Unity, though I'm not currently working on anything with that engine.

The power of it is that it's free, if you include the logo at the start.

Have you tried throwing it at your phone or a browser yet? 

It's currently just some crap i bashed together as a script i can use via the unity editor.

So that others can use this, I think the best thing then would be for me to turn this into a standalone app that you can just run without needing to install Unity. I'll try to get on this asap.

Of course it's overkill doing something like this through Unity. I just did it like this for my own convenience at the time because it imports almost any mesh format already, already has an interface for me to input settings, options etc... 

I won't be able to use unity's mesh importers at run-time, and I ain't writing my own (I'm too busy right now). It'll have to stay as editor-only. I can make it a bit more user-friendly though.

The Unity editor is free to download and use though, so anyone can use it if they don't mind installing it. 

by the way, if anyone wants to have a gander at the .map of that terrain shizzle, to see what it looks like, here is that cavey test thing:

this one has all the brushes as worldspawn and doesn't seem to leak:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61424391/Quake%20Stuff/bdwtest07a.map

This is the same geometry, but the terrain is in a func_group for convenience. Leaks in txqbsp currently. (yes I am using -group).

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61424391/Quake%20Stuff/bdwtest07.map 

When I wrote above I was thinking of just using the triangles of the mesh in the .map format, not having full tetrahedrons. Anyway, a few good ideas here. :) 

I was thinking about messing around in mapping for Quake. I last played around with it about 2002 or so and was discouraged by the engine limitations and the communities (then) general disdain for newer engines at the time and the maps that required them (I was using TxQuake I think but don't hold me to it, it was a GLQuake spin off) so I stopped trying as everything I was doing was going to kill the original engine in R-Speeds alone and so many comments here were purist in nature that I didn't consider it worthwhile to go on. I see now that that opinion has changed considerably so I'm willing to look into it again.

The problem that I am facing now is that I've forgotten pretty much everything regarding spawnflags, triggers and the like (I still have a what I consider to be a firm grasp on the basics of brush manipulation and r-speeds and all of that).

Is there a basic guide that is still out there that covers the basics? Consider me as a newbie that needs everything spelled out in excruciating detail.

I searched through this entire thread and what I am seeing is a lot of dead links (For example using "triggers" or "guide" as search terms).

Google isn't much help as just about everything seems to be sending me to USGS type sites regarding earthquakes.

I have already installed Hammer 3.3 and the Quake One configuration utility, have the wads and have refamiliarized myself with the software changes from 1.6 although I haven't as yet bothered with the more recent tyre-tools 0.5 as I'm not getting that far into it as of yet.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Baker's quake adapter have a mini-guide? For WC you can also search the Forge tutorials which were beginner things on setting up stuff like doors, keys, counters and so on.

Might well be 404 though. I'll have a search once I get to a computer. 

I seem to remember WC 1.6a had some docs included inside for Quake. 

I didn't see a guide for Quake adapter that addressed the entities in detail but I will look again. It assumed a basic knowledge of flags IIRC. I used to have that written down or remembered but after over a decade I've forgotten much of that.

Quakeforge.net is pretty sparse and really seems to also assume a knowledge base that I currently don't have anymore.

I didn't think of WC1.6 but I suppose that I could install it and see what's there. I'm pretty sure that I have a copy buried somewhere. 

The PQ stuff is now gone, which was my first idea in this search for information. Many of the dead links went to things like Necros's guide which is what I probably was going to reference first anyway. 

that you need can be found in The Forge -
http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/worldcraft/index2.shtm

For Entities -

http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/worldcraft/entity/standard/standard.shtm

I'd say that's fairly comprehensive.

Also QuakeAdapter is good for getting you started, though I think at this point jumping into TrenchBroom is the best option (but I know you had trouble getting it to work). 

Yeah. I just came across that on my own after trying different quake and forge combinations in Google (and adding archives to the search). I'll use that and play around with it to try and re-familiarize myself with it.

I still expect to put up some dumb questions though. I'm "Special" like that sometimes. Thanks for the reply though. 

Good news: current git version of tyrutils qbsp with func_group support has no problems with bdwtest07.map. 

Hi, I'm completely new at mapping for Quake. I found this site via Carmack's tweet and thought I'd give it a try. So I have a very basic question-how do you save your map so it is seen by Quake? And what do you have to do to just make it work? I'm on Mac OS X 10.6. Thank you! 

There's several things you need on top of the TrenchBroom editor. When you make levels with it it will save .map files. These then need to be converted to the quake .bsp file format (which is in turn placed in quake/id/maps).
To create a .bsp file you'll need a BSP program, a Light program and a Vis program.
You can download these tools from here -
http://disenchant.net/files/utils/tyrutils-0.5-win32.zip

Next you'll want to make compiling your .map to .bsp super easy so download Necros compiling program -
http://shoresofnis.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/ne_q1spcompilinggui/

And you'll also need to get yourself the textures used in Quake to create your levels, the one that has all the standard textures in one .wad file are here -

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/wads/id.wad.zip

Also the help document for TrenchBroom is here -

http://kristianduske.com/trenchbroom/docs/ 

You will need these tools:

http://disenchant.net/files/utils/tyrutils-0.5-osx.zip

and the compiling GUI doesn't run on the Mac. You will have to look at the command line parameters of the tools, I'm afraid. Are you familiar with the Terminal? 

So those tools won't help. Are there native Mac versions available somewhere? Has someone ever attempted to port BJP's compilers? 

(stop beating me to it) 

ported BJPs tools to OS X, but I haven't published them. But I will provide OS X builds of rebb's tools at some point. 

My brain was half-asleep! :P