Thanks for that link; I was actually reading through that before posting to see if it would answer any of my questions (I had a look here http://quakewiki.org/wiki/Textures too).

So if I shouldn't expect too much from Gimp, what is the better alternative? (Just curious; I wouldn't be able to afford any non-free software anyway) 

I've always found Gimp and Photoshop too much of a pain to use for Quake textures. Their world is 24 bit.

I have an old copy of PSP 4.0 (still runs on Windows 7) that I use for making and modifying Quake textures. It works with 256 color palette graphics pretty well. I've always used the .bmp format.

I tried a newer version of PSP (x5), but it was way overly complicated for most of what I do, so I deleted it. 

What kind of pain you have using Photoshop to make Quake textures? You can switch between RGB and "indexed" color modes, I have the Quake palette with and without fullbright lines... Want help? 

It's worth putting time into to learn imo. There are good reasons it's an industry standard (and not so goon ones).

Of course, it can be pretty cost prohibitive, which is one of the reasons I should eat my words and learn GIMP. 

Photoshop is great for Quake textures. Make heavy use of the 'gradient map' layer, and make yourself a set of gradients that match the rows of the Quake palette to use with them. 

I use LVPro 

It's just a personal preference thing, but I find these modern graphics/photo editing programs to have have an overly complex and cluttered up interface for something as simple as editing a bitmap.

I do have a copy of Gimp in my portable folder, some day I may give it another look. 

 

I've never thought of the Photoshop interface as cluttered. If you use hotkeys to flip between tools and create new layers when you need them, the interface is basically negligible. 

Each time you save something in it, the quality downgrades. 

As Spirit said. It's nowhere near as feature rich as Photoshop or Gimp, but its tools are basic enough for anyone to create and or edit some really good textures. That and it was made for the sole purpose of creating Quake textures, so that should be a plus. 

I use Wally just to handle wads. 

That editors and engines haven't moved on from the ".wad" file format! For mappers that is. A few older external programs could be eliminated along with it. 

That editors and engines haven't moved on from the ".wad" file format! For mappers that is. A few older external programs could be eliminated along with it.

Reading individual 8-bit images from a folder, instead of .wad files, could be neat (if you happen to use the one compiler and one editor that might actually implement it). 

Most new GL engines support "external" textures, 24 bit plain files on the filesystem. Quakespasm, Fitzquake, Darkplaces do. They override textures inside BSP files and have to be placed at <mod folder>/textures. They can even be used on a single level if you place them at <mod folder>/textures/<map name> 

... meaning you don't have to bother about Quake palette anymore if you don't care about backward compatibility. 

Sorry, you mean at development time. I believe QuArk works the way you want. 

Sorry, you mean at development time. I believe QuArk works the way you want.

If only the other 99% of QuArk worked the way I want. 

 

If only the other 99% of QuArk worked 

What's the 1% that works ... the About Box? 

What's the 1% that works

The "X" button in the top-right corner of the workspace seems to function as intended. You probably don't need much else actually! 

I meant more specifically, an uncompressed archive format(.zip) with the same directory structure as .wad files. Then they could be manipulated by the OS natively. Obvious Ex: Q3A's .pk3 It was just a thought I had while reading the comments above my post. 

1- The editor can deal with plain file textures;
2- A little program that packs texture files into a wad, just to feed qbsp. The wad can be deleted afterwards;
3- The engine deals with plain file textures.

It would take changes in the editors we love, like Jackhammer and Trenchbroom and this new compile step before qbsp. 

If you have to make a wad anyway for bsp, what's the point of making the editor and engine read individual texture files?