I also will advocate trenchbroom... it is clearly the best. 

I am currently using Trenchbroom :) 

Trenchbroom is definitely on my list. It looks like a great editor especially for terrain and such. However, I will not rest until this works. Not when people put in their time and effort to help me.

Radiant works now. I see the textures. I only get the Quake entities and I can make and save maps. I've read several compiling guides. I think my setup is good (Using Necros his GUI). But I get a line 4: invalid brush plane error.

I figured I need to convert it first but it looks like none of the programs can find the map. Regardless of where I put it. The source map is now in Quake/id1/working folder. Could this be the problem? First I left it in the Quake 3 arena map directory and that didn't work either. Is there a specific location needed? All the tools (compilers) are in Quake/Tools and the output map is in Quake/Id1/maps. 

I thought quake 3 maps had to be in a .pk3 file? 

Only when you release it for the public. 

I think my setup is good (Using Necros his GUI). But I get a line 4: invalid brush plane error.

Rmember to add the right switches, for example "txqbsp -group -q2map" or setup a compiler batch file (remember special switches) 

Switches is one thing, but the problem now is that the tools simply don't see or recognize the source map. 

Quake1/ID/maps <--- Where the bsp/lit file goes
Quake3/baseq3/maps <--- source, wad files + compiler tools

I don't know how the necros GUI tool works, I just use DOS batch files to compile stuff and copy it once finished. 

my gui basically makes dos batch files on the fly and runs them. :)

i'm actually not familiar with -q2map but i do see that it is a valid switch for aguirre's txqbsp so it SHOULD work.

you could also try getting aguirre's convmap.exe and using it in the compiler gui by checking the "map must be converted..." checkbox, and setting the arguments to -f32 as that will also convert a q3/q2 map to q1 format before trying to compile it.
Note: if you do this, remove -q2map from txqbsp, of course! :)

now, with all that said, the error sounds like it might actually be that the brush itself has an error. can you copy and paste the first 5~ lines of the map file? 

Yeah, I followed your readme instructions. Somehow there is an error opening the testmap (I've tried several compilers)It's just a square room with a info player start and a sky texture.

I think I have to convert the .map first to Q1 map format? Looking at programs to do that. 

that's how aguirre's convmap.exe works (and also how the original mapconv.exe which was made by sleepwalkr).

convmap also has many many other features besides covnerting q3->q1 map formats.

but there's basically 2 ways.
if you use convmap, then you will be converting and creating a new map file and then compiling the new map file.

if you use -q2map on txqbsp, then the compiler is converting it on the fly without writing out a converted map. 

Tried that too, several times. Made a new testmap. Something goes wrong there. Here's a bit of the map file:

// entity 0
{
"classname" "worldspawn"
// brush 0
{
( 448 192 -8 ) ( 128 192 -8 ) ( 128 -72 -8 ) radiant/notex 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
( 128 -136 8 ) ( 448 -136 8 ) ( 448 -136 0 ) radiant/notex 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
( 456 -72 8 ) ( 456 192 8 ) ( 456 192 0 ) radiant/notex 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
( 448 200 8 ) ( 128 200 8 ) ( 128 200 0 ) radiant/notex 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
( 120 192 8 ) ( 120 -72 8 ) ( 120 -72 0 ) radiant/notex 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
( 128 192 0 ) ( 448 192 0 ) ( 128 -72 0 ) q1/floor01_5 0 0 0 0.500000 0.500000 0 0 0
} 

ok, well, the lines look fine to me so the last thing we can try it to do this all manually.

to make this easy, make a folder on your C:\ called maps or something.

copy your q3 .map file there and copy your convmap.exe and txqbsp.exe there as well.

assuming your q3 map is called q3.map

open a command prompt and type:

C:
cd maps
convmap -f32 q3
move q3.out q1.map
txqbsp q1
 

Build a testmap in Trenchbroom and it compiled immediately. Currently looking at my single room in Quake.

I did what you said, I now have .out file. No bsp. 

did you follow all the steps?

type the rest:
move q3.out q1.map
txqbsp q1

the move command will rename the .out file to q1.map and then you need to try compiling it. 

Typed it as a single command :)
It works. Thank you very much. Now only to figure out what goes wrong. It does give a couple of no entities in empty space warnings but nothing destructive. 

Mick asked:
I'm currently working on porting some Q3 maps to Quakeworld. And some of the maps has doors in them. And after finishing the map it all works well on my localhost server through ezQuake. When typing /map mapname

But today some of the maps was added to qw.lanvegas.net:28501

And the doors doesn't work at all, they are both triggered by shooting and by touching a trigger. Does it have something to do with KTX server (1.37)? Or do I have to make the door's in some other way ?

Mapename: Q1Q3DM7

Thread at qw.nu -> http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/6152

I just downloaded the file q1q3md7_b4.bsp, and opened it up in a hex editor. I can't find any func_door entities in the file, or indeed any func_ type entities of any class. Did I get the wrong file? If there's a different copy on the server, any chance of a direct link? 

Not really about editing but this seems like the best place though. I'm using Quakespasm. Everytime I move, textures like water/teleporters/etc get all blurry. I'm using the default engine, with default textures, no changes whatsoever. I can't post a screenshot since it only happens when I look around.

If neccessary, I could figure out how to do demos and post that. Any ideas? 

What map? Transparent water?

Try r_novis 1 OR r_wateralpha 1. 

Haven't tracked it down yet, though. I'm on Mac OS X. Sprony, you should post this in the Quakespasm thread. 

transparent water and the r_wateralpha settings. I think that you have to go with r_oldwater 1 to fix that (but I'm not sure). Either that or recompile the maps to have transparent water. Google id1vis to find the tool that will do that for you.

Make sure that you back up the id1 folder first though.

The issue here is that vanilla Quake cuts you off from seeing through liquids from the outside. That was to help lower r_speeds due to computer limitations back then. This had to be done at the map compiling level (bsp). Quakespasm assumes by default that you have already converted the levels bsp file to remove that visual limitation but if you didn't you get blurry liquids. 

r_novis 1 does the trick for me. Thanks! 

Is called HOM (Hall of Mirrors) and means you're looking at water that wasn't vis'ed.

r_novis turns off all vis data for the level - which will make the map slightly slower running. In an id1 level this won't be a problem, but if you try the same trick in a big map it'll probably slow down the game FPS a fair bit, depending on your PC. 

So the obvious solution is not r_novis 1 but r_wateralpha 1. 

... fullvis the map... that would help eventually ;)