At a quick look at the winquake source code, there is no limit on marksurfaces beyond BSP format (65536) and heap size.
Sorry, ignore that comment..

https://github.com/id-Software/Quake/blob/master/WinQuake/model.c#L1035

vanilla winquake would break when there are more than 32767, since it's treating them as signed 16-bit. 

Well, it is (or appears to be) possible to exceed the limit somewhat. Not sure the way I tested it is an entirely reliable indicator, but loading the map in deathmatch mode (to bypass edicts and buffer issues) worked just fine, actually even up to around 37k marksurfaces - although this does seem suspicious, I admit.

Func_wall'ing (or, I guess, new-detail-ericw'ing) proved the best way to lower marksurfaces so far... if it wasn't for the buffer thing. Rebb gave me a few good tips for additional or alternative improvement: maxnodesize 8192 can shave off some 500 marksurfaces, and if I was to give up on Winquake support entirely, increasing texture subdivision could lower it considerably to the point of not needing and func_walls at all. Although I have no idea how this would affect old GLquake and other ports. 

vanilla glquake cheats when drawing submodels.
so yes, you can exceed the 32k limit but ONLY if the world model itself is still under.
Note that any liquid leafs that contain the buggy range them will crash (or at least write out of bounds), but luckily qbsp doesn't normally generate those anyway.

or just get everyone to use one of the numerous engines that interpret things as unsigned. its not like its just one or two. 

http://imgur.com/a/qN587

I'm using Quakespasm and testing textures and some of them want to appear like this, does anyone know why!? 

It seems the texture has a color that is used as fullbright in the Quake palette. 

That was the exact problem, thanks! 

Is there a way to make the rotation tool not lock to 15 degree intervals?

Also I can not understand how this forum works. Are all these posts in the same thread? It's visually very confusing. 

I have the mac version of RC4 here at work. In that version you can select the number of degrees in the box and type in the increment you want. 

Uhg sorry for the double post.

The forum takes some getting used to. I like it a lot but it took a while and when search was added this forum became a goldmine for mapping info. Use Search!

Also Forum should be your starting point (the forum link is right under the header image, next to News) or bookmark this:

http://www.celephais.net/board/forum.php

Note the Coding Help, Mapping Help, Screenshots etc. Those are basically "stickied" and self-explanatory. Seek help there.

General Abuse is where you can post anything that is a short, specific topic.

News is for releases. So if you release a mod or a map post a news thread not in General Abuse.

Also take note of the the tiny links on the right side of the Forum page under the last post listed - that's where you can start a new thread or see every thread.

This FAQ is also invaluable. Welcome and good luck!

http://www.celephais.net/board/faq.php 

Is there a way to change the distance a sound effect- be it an ambient_* entity or an info_notnull manually playing a sound- can be heard in a map in stock Quake? I've searched around and found a few tidbits relating to making sounds heard from further away or even the whole map in Quoth, but I'm looking for something that works in vanilla id1, either an entity field I'm missing someplace or more info_notnull hacks or etc. 

I have this event in my map with a starfield anim skybox, and two static entities. I added lights under the statics so they come up bright.

At least, they did. I didn't pay much attention at it,
but my last maps end up with pichblack ones.
I haven't changed anything, but I have no idea what has happened.

scrambled 

I think you need to make the floor of the room a regular non-sky texture, add a light so the floor is lit up, then add a sky-textured "false bottom" above that.

The problem with having sky only is, the engine function that sets up the .mdl lighting (R_LightPoint) traces downward from the model, but it needs to find a lightmapped (non-sky) face in order to read a light value. 

The trick to light models above sky (such as in space maps) is indeed like ericw says. All it takes is a solid brush inside the bottom sky brush (ideally some 32 units away from the inner surface) and a single spotlight with a large cone. However, note that this only works as long as the distance between sky(floor) and model doesn't exceed 1024 units or so. 

That's what I was looking for.
I had no idea where to search.
thanx ericw neg!ke. 

It can exceed 1024 units in fitzquake derived engines. I think I set the max to 8k, which was enough at the time. 

hey everyone,

now that I'm done with jam9, I've got more questions about quake mapping.

While I was making my map for the jam, I've run into some issue with world bounds or whatever its called. Even though my map compiled just fine, in the game, when you cross certain point you start seeing other side of the map, while everything around you disappear. It's like I've been warped around the available space. I fixed it by moving my whole map slightly to the side, but what I'd like to know is this warping like normal behaviour when you get out of bounds? How to avoid it? Is there anyway to display current world bounds, preferably in Trenchbroom? Couldn't find anything.

Also, I know that BSP2 format have extended limitations of the original bsp format, and I would very much like to use them. How do I make my maps BSP2 is it automatic or do I need some special tools for that? Because clearly in my example with jam map, tools didn't detected me going out of range.

Thanks! 

The map can not be larger than 8092x8092x8092 units. You may have passed one of the thresholds. Moving the map back within the bounds is the correct thing to do. 

I ran into the same issue while doing my Qump map. Though in my case the problem is caused after 2000-3000 units. I had been fixing and tinkering other things first, now this can be solved on the go. Thanks alot. 

I had the same issue. My outdoor area caused this and I had to do some interesting things to figure out what was going on.

As far as BSP2 from what I understand you use the -bsp2 command line switch in QBSP when you are compiling. However, I tried this and it didn't solve my problem so there are most likely some other things we'd need to do.

I know sock and Tronyn use the format and most likely Skacky. Can you guys confirm or give us some tips? Documentation is spotty on this. 

quakespasm can be told to support larger coords with sv_protocol 999, which will effectively remove that limit completely. FTE will autodetect, while DP does the equivalent regardless (dpp7 always uses floats for coords).

with most people still using quakespasm or worse, you would have to convince all those people to fiddle with commands(every time they start the engine _before_ loading your map) or even switch engines, and frankly people are too lazy for that. Your best choice is to just stick to the limit Fifth said, and re-center your map if any part that can contain a visible point entity exceeds the +/-4096 range (that is, you can have scenery/fancy sky/brush areas outside that range, but don't let players/monsters/(ideally)projectiles into it.

BSP2 will not help you here - even the vanilla bsp format supports coords up to +/-32k.

note that brushwork (and submodels, thanks to them usually having origin 0 0 0) can be outside the +/- 4096 range. its only point entities like monsters/items and especially players that you have to worry about. probably you don't care about projectiles, which means you can provide nice detailed scenery around your map, and just shove a clip brush around it in case the player tries rocket jumping near scrags or whatever. 

The 8192^3 limit cannot be surpassed. 

thanks everyone! things are now more clear to me :) although I can't believe that sock's giant maps fit into that limit, because my jam9 map isn't really big and I didn't go too far away from the origin. 

One tip, add 2 entities and set their origins (type in) to 4096 4096 4096 and -4096 -4096 -4096. These are the corners of the box you need to fit in. (Make sure to delete them after) 

(Make sure to delete them after)

Won't info_null remove itself before qbsp detects an entity outside hulls, though? 

@ericw nice tip! just did it on my map... turns out my map that big :-E at least in one direction lol :D