I have to wonder though. Using an info_notnull why not just set it to just remove 25 shells instead? Why go to the trouble of giving all the ammo and then removing it using a door? I just removed the 25 shell ammo in a test map and it worked fine. 

 

Sorry Cocerello, I misunderstood your post.

About the ammo/weapons removal thing, I have been playing around with it and now I have several questions (mostly to Preach, I guess):

1) It says in that tutorial OTP linked to that you should use "a brush based info_notnull", but I only seem to be able to add "info_notnull" as a point entity in TrenchBroom. If I create a brush and then add an info_notnull, then I have a brush with an info_notnull sitting on top. I also tried changing the class name of the brush to info_notnull, but that changed the classname of all the brushes in the map, which seemed like a very bad thing to do (yes, I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm learning). Just having a point entity seems to work, but I feel like I'm missing something here...

2) If you add/edit the "items" variable for a door, do you use the name of an item as value, or does every item have a specific number? In particular, if I want the door to remove only the player's shotgun, do I type "items" and then "shotgun", or "items" and then some number?

3) The reason I'm asking question 2:

If the weapons/ammo removal only has to happen at the start of the map, where you know the player has only a shotgun and 25 shells, does one need all three entities (the two info_notnulls and the door) or can one do the same with an info-notnull with the values
touch BackpackTouch
think InitTrigger
nextthink 0.2
ammo_shells -25

and then a door that just removes the shotgun? (I tried doing this, but I'm not sure "items" --> "shotgun" was the correct value.)

Or is there a reason why this is a terrible idea even at the start of the map?

4) Is there a way of muting the sounds of ammo/weapons being added and subtracted? 

Fifth, it is explained in the thread Onetruepurple linked.

Preach, thanks for the info. I checked it a bit more, and it happens too when you put the info_player start above the ammo box, while separating both boxes by 16 units. 

I can't talk for Trenchbroom - in Worlcraft you can type the entity class names.

What you can do is use Notepad++ or similar to modify the .map file.

.map files have pretty easy to understand contents. Just make your brush into a func_door and give it a unique 'targetname', then search for the targetname in your text editor and edit the class directly. Then when you re-load in Trenchbroom, the entity will be what you wanted :) 

is really easy to mess about with this as you can just rename the entity in the top right and whatever fields you desire. 

Ah, ok, that solves the mystery of the brush-based info_notnull -- I knew how to change class names in TB, but didn't know I needed to turn the brush into a func_door first (otherwise it changes the class name of all the regular brushes in the map).

I am guessing the advantage of having a brush-based entity here rather than a point entity is that it is easier to make sure the player falls though it at the start -- am I correct?

Thank you, RickyT23 and FifthElephant.

One question down, three to go... :) 

what good does "snap to grid" do? 

Not snapping to grid is why your maps kept bringing up errors when compiling. 

for me, snap to grid just decreases the grid size. is this normal? 

snap to grid moves all vertices of the selected brush(s) to their nearest corresponding point on the grid.

It never changes the grid size. 

That should probably be - it changes float vertex positions to integer. 

how do I decompile maps? 

Get the map files. 

If you just want to see the entity lump, you can
load bsps in QuArK 6.66. Or extract textures.
But dont use QuArK.
Dont do that. 

use winbspc

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/tools/winbspc12.zip

note: the decompiled map is not going to be that useful to build with or see how it was built, as it would be impossible to recover the original brushwork.

you should NOT use it to lift others work! if the author intended to allow you to do that, they'd release the .map.

you CAN use it to see how entities are put together or how a trick might have been done. that's basically the most useful thing decompiling can do. 

Two more silly questions:

1) Which is the best wad for the standard id textures (i.e. all the textures that were in the original game)? There are so many different wads on Quaddicted that I don't know where to start.

2) Is it better to add textures as you go along, or at the end, once all the brushwork is finished? I've been doing the latter, but now I'm starting to think it may have been a stupid idea... 

I believe has all the ones you want 

Willem tried blocking a map out without textures but didn't end up finishing... 

Thanks for the wad name and for the advice. Yeah, now that I've started "colouring in" what I have built so far, I see what a bad idea it was not to texture from the start... 

it depends what textures you end up using. Some textures like bricks and stuff are fine but if you're making something like a base map then it would be difficult to align the textures properly once you have blocked everything. 

Luckily it's a medieval map, so mostly bricks and wood. Still, it's proving to be a bit of a pain, especially getting the wood grain right everywhere, and texturing tiny details that I could have copied and pasted already textured. Oh well, better to realise the mistake now than several weeks or months later...

Besides, it's a beginner map, so chances are I'll need to redo most of it sooner or later anyway. 

Which is the best wad for the standard id textures (i.e. all the textures that were in the original game)? There are so many different wads on Quaddicted that I don't know where to start.

You can combine wads together. 

I've been using hmap2 to compile the map I'm working on from time to time to test how things work (being inexperienced, I am still trying to get a feel for scale, etc.).

Now, having added textures to much of the map, every time I compile there are certain brushes that are still displayed without textures. hmap2 claims it cannot find the wad -- but the rest of the brushes do show up as textured, and they use the same wad. I've tried changing the textures on those brushes to something else, but the problem persists.

Does anyone here have any idea what the cause of the problem might be? 

http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

The guy who made these versions of the compilers set the standard. He added many features and bugfixes that are now taken for granted.

I would recommend it. TxQbsp is as solid as a rock. Use that to compile the bsp.

Recently Tyrann has done some excellent work on his version of the compilers. You could also try these:

http://disenchant.net/

They are now, also, as solid as a rock.


One other thing you could try - before you compile the map check the wad paths in the .map file. Save your .map file from your editor, then open the file in Notepad++.

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.6.7.html

Look for the wad paths and check that they all add up.



The other possibility is that it could be a problem that you are having with the specific textures that don't show. Which wad are you using and which textures wont show? What are the dimensions of them? Are you using .wad or .hlwad files?