But tyrann's tools are pretty good! 

That they are. 

and the compiling GUI doesn't run on the Mac.
rats, i've been thinking i should remake that gui in java for cross platform. :( 

So I've made my very first map in Trenchbroom and saved it as .map. Now I have a probably very silly problem - I'm clueless as to how I should install qbsp and other utils. It's not as simple as a double click, is it? Thanks! 

Just place the compiling programs in the same folder as your .map file and run them like this -

qbsp.exe mymap
vis.exe mymap
light.exe mymap

Where mymap is the name of your map... once you have run all three it should load your level! (just hope you put some lights in there and also the info_player_start entity!) 

You'll also have to copy the BSP file to your "quake/id1/maps" folder. 

Open a terminal and run the following

cd <path to your map>
./qbsp mymap
./vis mymap
./light mymap

Notes:
1. You can enter the path to your map file by dragging it onto terminal, so you can enter cd<space> and then just drag the folder where your map is located onto the terminal window. Then hit Return (in the Terminal).
2. I'm not sure whether the names of the compiler tools in the above description are accurate. They might be different.
3. You can download Mac versions of the compiler tools from http://disenchant.net 

Funny, I've really searched many different help sites, but none said anything about putting map and utils in the same folder... the Mac utils still don't work, however (I'm on 10.6, maybe wrong version), so I'll have to stick to windows.
Thanks a lot, guys :) 

I hope I don't bother you guys too much with my questions, but since there's not much help available I'm pretty much forced to ask people around. I've noticed the Create Brush Entity/Trigger/Teleport and the Teleport Destination entity, but I don't know how to make them work :/
Still, I am quite happy I got to the point where Quake finally recognizes my map :D
Thank you! 

I forgot to explain that I'm trying to make a teleport, and that's what I need help with ;) 

Two things - the trigger area, which can be any brush, usually painted with a 'trigger' texture so you know what it is at a glance.

Turn that into an entity 'trigger_teleport' and make a info_teleport_destination.

Call the target of the trigger and the targetname of the destination the same thing, it doesn't matter what as long as they're the same.

"my_first_teleporter" or whatever :)

And it'll work. Problem is you won't be able to see the trigger in game - you'll just vanish and reappear at the destination when touching its area.

So you can include another brush there with the starfield texture which will make it a liquid volume, and look like the teleporters in the original maps.

Final thing to remember - all triggers are rectangles, if you include more brushes inside then they will just draw a big box over the top encompassing all of it to make a box.

In other words, prism trigger shape = rectange trigger volume. 

Hooray! Man, I love this feeling :D
However, two issues showed up. The powerups (quad damage and invisibility) don't work. I only used drag&drop, do they need extra attention? The other thing are messed up textures, like when you enter void with noclip. Can it be caused by a leak I've overlooked or something? The map is basically a box with flying ledges connected with stairs and bridges, maybe the box is too big?
Thanks again, I'm having wonderful fun :D 

My guess is that the powerups have fallen out of the level. In game, enter "developer 1" in the console before running your map and you should get a message telling you when they fall out. If so, try placing them a bit higher up - you want to avoid them intersecting the floor. 

Should just work without anything else needed. Not sure what's going on there.

The second issue sounds like the HOM or Hall of Mirrors effect. That means you've got some weird brushes that are making the vis process break.

Look for stuff that's very small. Try not to get smaller than 8 units unless it's for something that's also a func_door, func_wall or whatever. 

How big is the box and which engine do you run the map on? Sounds like Winquake choking on a huge box and items disappearing either due to an overflow or because they spawn in midair and drop down from a great height. If this is the case, reduce the size or switch to a modern sourceport (QuakeSpasm). 

Or alternatively increase the texture scale of the box brushes to some large number, e.g. 99. 

I did a bit of work on my map today and suddenly in the console it's giving this message -

mod_loadtexinfo one or more textures is missing from bsp file

But I have looked around the level and nothing seems out of place? Could this be some kind of limit that I have reached? 

Thank you all again, I think I finally got it all working. Now I just need to work on balance and good light, which is pure pleasure :) 

Did you remember to list all the .wads in worldspawn? 

I've not changed or added any new wads, been working from the same files this whole time but only in the most recent rebuilds it's sending this message. 

Maybe animated textures not having all their frames added? Do you see any checker board replacement textures in the game? 

Oh, hold on, what engine is his? Did you just enable developer mode? 

But like I said I have only added extra textures from the same wad file (idbase_ultimate). Nothing removed or changed. I enabled developer mode after seeing the message and it lists off a lot of textures but I loaded up DM3 and that also listed missing textures too (but doesn't print the error message)... 

Most likely a null texture on some side/back face or rogue brush. Open the map in a text editor and search/replace all instances of __TB_empty with some texture name from the wad. 

What's the deal with worldcraft refusing to select certain brushes in the 3d view? Or textures for that matter? I don't ever remember it doing that.