I ran into this AGES ago, but I probably went on my holidays straight after, with a fractured pinky, and forgot all about you, sorry...

http://www.mediafire.com/?nwmbmwymmmz
http://www.mediafire.com/?zyztmjyyyxz

when I click the central button in the second picture, it CTD. 

Some people may run into a problem starting this if they downloaded it within the first day that I posted the update. I didn't realize it until later that evening that I left my project file (quake.qe3) in the archive which means unless you use the same path structure I use it won't be able to find the "palette.lmp" file and therefore exit. I uploaded a "fixed" zip the next day, with Spirit quickly removing the old one from Shub and replacing it with the new so the link would still work.

So if you are one of those people, either re-download it, or simple delete the "quake.qe3" file. The latter being the easiest.

For RickyT23 & Trinca: If the above applies to you two, delete said file and try again. A "Project Settings" dialog should popup allowing you to enter all necessary paths. I recommend that you use the "Find" buttons so the formating is correct.

If the above does NOT apply then...

Trinca: You can use the "default.qe3" to help you with formating though it is slightly outdated as the "texturepath" should no longer have a wad at the end, just the folder name, and it doesn't contain a "defaultwads" key (which is written like: "wad1.wad;wad2.wad;..."). I kept it in there mainly for all of the useful BSP commands.
Or, if you let me know where you have it installed, I can fill out all the info for you here and you can just copy/paste.

RickyT23: If your "qe3.exe" file is located in your "...Id1/maps" dir (based on the pics), then your "Texture Directory" should be written like "gfx/" and the "palette.lmp" file should be put in there.

I'm assuming that the above applies to you both so I hope that your problems will be solved. I apologize for an inconvenience, you don't know how pissed I was at myself for leaving that file in there. If you still have problems I'll try and check back as regularly as possible to assist. Thank you for trying it out. 

ok, thks i will try when i get home! 

make sure you check out the 'window' menu on the far right side. it has many presets for different window layouts to help make you comfortable. :) 

What's a Project Directory?
What's a Remote Basepath!?

Also, setting a Texture Directory only kept the last 3 characters of the location I selected via the dialog box.

Putting in stuff to hopefully get around this and try the editor now though. Just calling shit as I see it. 

Could not load D:\Quake\qe3\maps/d:\quake\id1\textures\palette.lmp
GetLastError() = 123 

Used default as a base (copy/pasted it, renamed to quake.qe3) and manually edited the paths and it worked.

Some first impressions:
- I miss texture move lock toggle via shift+T (gtkradiant also has texture rotate lock as shift+R)

- I have 2 monitors, and want my texture window on my secondary monitor, but it's currently clamped to my primary display.

- A way to change the display of the scale of the textures in the texture window. 

General note: escape to close dialogs = win
I keep hitting ESCAPE wanting to get the textures window out of my face but I have to find T instead.

Is there a scroll bar for the texture window that I'm not seeing? Would be really handy instead of having to use mousewheel to scroll through all the textures to get to the lower ones.

For actual editing from what I've seen so far seems nice though.

*begs for tf2 support* ;)

Having this though, I'm getting the urge to make a Quake map again hehe :D 

can anyone post a screen of this all filled out?

http://trinca.quaddicted.com/temp/conf.jpg

that�s my problem... ;) at me moment of course... 

Yeah those menus are broken, have to edit the file manually.

Or at least I wasn't able to get that menu to work. 

This worked for me:
http://quake_1.republika.pl/q3e_01.jpg

Directory structure: D:\Quake\Quake\qe3\
All the contents of the package are extracted to qe3.

I must say the setup is very unintuitive. How can a first time user know what is meant by remote basepath etc?
And if you set it up wrongly then the program won't even start next time but close with a message about missing palette file.

After getting through the setup problems it starts too look very fine though. Still lack of documentation is a big problem but at least a command list can be found in Help menu.

To get the bsp menu working I have just copied this text at the bottom of quake.qe3 file in the scripts directory.

"bsp_NoVis" "!qbsp $"
"bsp_Entities" "!qbsp -onlyents $"
"bsp_Relight" "!qbsp -onlyents $ && !light $"
"bsp_FullVis (light -maxlt -extra4)" "!qbsp $ && !vis $ && !light -maxlight 1 -extra4 $"
"bsp_FullVis (light -extra4)" "!qbsp $ && !vis $ && !light -extra4"
"bsp_FullVis (no light)" "!qbsp $ && !vis $"
"bsp_FullVis (nowater)" "!qbsp -solid $ && !vis $ && !light $"
"bsp_FullVis" "!qbsp $ && !vis $ && !light $"
"bsp_FastVis (nowater)" "!qbsp -solid $ && !vis -fast $ && !light $"
"bsp_FastVis" "!qbsp $ && !vis -fast $ && !light $"
 

Some editor needs to beat the existing editors in noobster friendliness.

You have every advantage, including that it is the only open source editor made by someone who "gets" mapping.

(Where as Worldcraft isn't open source and will be stuck in 2002 from now 'til doomsday and the other editors seem to not be very learnable).

As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to compile upon startup after loading a map without doing any settings. Default them to something a dumb user can easily comply with (i.e., decide what their Quake directory is .. don't ask them, etc.).

Remember, new users are always "dumb" because they have no experience. If you can satisfy the dumb user, you will as a bonus satisfy the user who is worried that they might discover they fall in the dumb group.

User noobster friendliness makes everyone happy. The advanced user will understand how to customize, and newbster can fumble around and start posting in the mapping help thread when his map won't compile because it doesn't have an info_player_start. 

What I did with ToeTag was to eliminate configuration options. I supply your compiling tools and everything else that you need to make a level. All that I require from you is for you to tell me where your Quake directory is. Once you do that, you're good to go! 

perfect!

Hows the texure lock - during - rotations thingy going?

(or isnt it?) 

Ankh thks i will try tonight!!! 

Ricky

Not so much. I have basic locking on drags (that works most of the time) but nothing for rotations. My math skills are so badly lacking that I haven't the first clue of how to even begin there.

It's on my list but it's probably one of those features that will never actually materialize. 

"Hows the texure lock - during - rotations thingy going?"

My understanding from talking with a Half-Life mapping expert (Scrama) is that the standard .map format can't easily support texture rotation.

That's why in WC3.3/Hammer .map 220 format, they added some extra fields. 

the Worldcraft 1.6/a version was very "temperamental" ..... 

I don't think the user should be limited like that. It might good for beginners not to be swamped with lots of options, but advanced users usually want to tweak the editor to their liking. So basic->advanced options tabs would probably be a better solution. 

The editor does not run on operating systems where people actually make choices themselves. 

I've considered an "Advanced" button on the preferences dialog but since, maybe, 3 people are using the editor it really hasn't gotten near the top of my task list.

There is some validity in wanting to use custom tools for compiling and such but it's never been an issue for me personally so I've been slow to accommodate it.

Spirit

Yes, you are correct. The Mac is not for anal retentive control freaks. 

WTF?! 

 

The editor is great.
I have some questions though.
Is there a possibility of grouping brushes like in Worldcraft?
Also there are no visgroups right? 

Ankh: No visgroups yet. It is definitely planned for the next release. When that will be, I have no idea.


Electro:
"What's a Project Directory?"
"What's a Remote Basepath!?"
Look in the "default.qe3" file for id's short description. The "Remote Basepath" is a legacy left over. It is used for assets that reside on a network server machine. I probably could have removed it but I think I left it in there for a reason, but I don't have the the code with me at the moment to tell you why. For now just set it the same as the "Project Directory"

"...Texture Directory only kept the last 3 characters ..."
This is from using the "Find" button, correct? I have never run into this problem so I don't really know what's happening here. Is the problem consistent?

"...texture move lock toggle via shift+T..."
Whenever I fix a bug that will enable the use of the "Shift" key for shortcuts this can be done. For now, Texture Lock locks for both move and rotate but eventually I'll split the two as unique commands.

"...texture window on my secondary monitor..."
This is not working because the Window Snapping feature doesn't handle anything but the primary display. I'll look into adapting it to handle multiple displays.

"...change the display of the scale of the textures..."
Ctrl+RMB+Drag. Look in the "QE3-mousecmds.txt" file in the "/docs" directory.

"...escape to close dialogs = win..."
Since "Escape" is used to deselect a brush, this can't happen because eventually the "Entity/Texture/Console", "Surface Inspector" and some other windows will be changed to be able to remain "on top" while editing.

"Is there a scroll bar for the texture window..."
RMB+Drag. Again, refer to "QE3-mousecmds.txt".

"...those menus are broken..."
How are they broken? What are they not doing correctly? They work fine for me.


I see now that I should have at least written a description about the Project Settings dialog. It was never my intention to design anything "noob friendly". I'm not trying to make an editor to please the masses or to get people who have never mapped before to start mapping, I just wanted to design an editor that I wanted to use. Hell, it's been almost a year and I still haven't been able to map yet. :). I do recognize my fault in not supplying proper setup documentation (what I wrote in the readme I though would suffice) but the setup will remain the way it is.