niccce. happy to help, drow! 

I'm using ericw-tools to compile my maps but the lightmaps always look like shit. They are too blurry. Is there a way of increasing the lightmap resolution? 

you can do it on a per entity basis by adding an '_lmscale' field set to eg 0.25
on the command line you can use '-lmscale 4' with ericw's light util.
I'd also recommend the '-bspx' light util argument, if only so that you don't need the external lits.

alternatively compile it as a q3 bsp via q3map2 (using q1 ents still so that mods don't break). A _lightmapscale field set to 0.25 or so for that, I believe. this'll give you a few more options that are not available with q1 bsps.

that's the theory, anyway. note that each of these have different results when viewed in other engines. 

There's a good chance I inadvertently broke one of _lmscale/-lmscale/-bspx since I haven't tested them since Spike contributed the features, but a ton of other things have changed since then. If that's the case, there are old releases available at: https://github.com/ericwa/ericw-tools/releases and feel free to file a bug.

Anyway I would +1 using q3bsp. AFAIK all of the _lmscale/-lmscale/-bspx options will produce a q1bsp that only looks right in FTEQW. 

iirc the per-entity _lmscale + -bspx will generate redundant data for engines that don't support it.
obviously other engines will get inferior lighting, but it should at least otherwise work (unless you use -novanilla for smaller bsp sizes, in which case other engines will glitch, but shouldn't crash).

I really ought to add this stuff to QSS too, same as many other things. 

QSS now supports lmscale too, in case anyone cares. 

Won't you lose lightstyles by going q3bsp? I always considered that a feature-gap that might have a sound technical explanation (*) but just robs single-player maps of a simple way to make things appear more dynamic and dramatic.


(*): I guess lightstyles just don't go well with the light-grid, but then I'm not a fan of that anyway because its size just balloons quickly as you extend map dimensions unless you lower the resolution so much you could just as well sample from the lightmap. 

the rbsp variant (and derivatives like fbsp) supports lightstyles (4 per surface, like quake).
and yes, 4 styles per lightgrid node too (it uses some compression scheme).
FTE supports them (if you've custom shaders then lightmap passes need to be first due to format weirdness), but dp doesn't.

(side note: it might be nice to calculate model lighting for the centre of each leaf, and interpolate between those, using surface data in place of neighbouring solid ones.)

even with q3bsp itself, you can get lightstyles with rtlights.
alternatively you can get quite creative with custom shaders. 

The problem with q3bsp is that i can't use TrenchBroom and Radiant is pathetic. :( 

Can you provide a screenshot of the light/shadow situation?

In Quake (when not going to q3bsp) it's pretty much not possible got get sharper shadow/light contrast than shown, e.g., on https://maikmerten.de/base1/randomscreens/happy-with-those-cones.jpg - all one can achieve is to make sure you don't get ugly stairs by using some advanced light options (in my case, for final compiles I use -extra4). 

The problem with q3bsp is that i can't use TrenchBroom
Does the compiler not accept q1 map format?

You could use the -convert flag on my qbsp (see http://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/doc/qbsp.html ) and hook that in as a compile step. You can convert vanilla q1 map to q2 (which I think q3bsp compilers accept). Or, valve to brush primitives, etc. 

In Quake (when not going to q3bsp) it's pretty much not possible got get sharper shadow/light contrast than shown
There is the "scale your textures up 2x and use texutre scale 0.5" hack that gets you higher resolution. Downside is it causes more qbsp subdivision of your level so the faces still fit in Software Quake's surface cache. 

Downside is it causes more qbsp subdivision of your level...

Would QS/QSS have any issues with that?

I don't think I asked this specifically in a previous post, if it has been answered already my apologies ;) 

It makes a mess of linear filtering.
Replacement textures should at least fix that, but anyone using the default settings+textures will find it looks a bit ugly.
Software renderers will have less mipmaps available (this also affects fte's r_softwarebanding).

note that you can also double the -subdivide qbsp arg too which will reduce the subdivisions needed.
QS supports up to (128-1)*16-precision. glquake actually supports up to (18-1)*16-precision.
FTE/DP/QSS(now) support up to (256-1)*16-precision. However that doesn't mean you must use lightmaps that big, as it kinda makes a mess of the lightmap allocator resulting in excessive wasted space, with more texture switches/batches (doubling won't hurt much though). 

It's been awhile!

I remember coming here when I was just getting back into Quake, and was trying to learn to map.

Anyway, I need some serious help. I've been working on a dm6 remake with modern geometry, and some extra tricks to do for ease of movement. I had to come up with a way to make circular polygons, which turned out great (map features 16 sided polygons for some rooms).

This map is meant for competitive play in ezquake, and so far people have thought I've done a pretty good job. However, there is a problem with it, and it's the performance stability. After a bit of digging and talking to Spike, we identified the issue was overdraw with the entities. This can be proven by going to the worst spot in the map, disabling entities, and watching your fps go way up (tested in ezquake).

When talking to Spike, he told me of Hint brushes. He tried explaining how I would use them to make my map more efficient, but he arguably did a horrible job, and I'm still lost in what I am supposed to do with them, and where to put them.

So, as a final call to help, how the hell do I use hint brushes?

My map: http://www.mediafire.com/file/kod7fj4yod745wv/dm6_pro.map

Ignore the texturing, no one ever uses them anyway in the competitive scene. I used a self discovered way to make circular polygons in trenchbroom, but I'm sure many know how to do it. If not, I will be happy to share how I did it. 

You could also just post a map that uses them effectively, and I can try to figure it out by example. I have some knowledge in how vis portals work, but I obviously don't know enough. 

Editor screen please, top view 2d.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/File:Hint_example6.PNG

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Hint_brush 

Hint brushes force a new cut when the compiler is creating vis portals. It won't magically hide stuff at point A from a player at point B, if point A really is visible from point B. However if point A is actually hidden from point B and the default vis portal creation is not recognizing that, then adding hint brushes can help.

In addition to Qmaster's link, here's another:

http://omnicide.razorwind.ru/wiki/index.php/Tutorials:Understanding_a_VIS_and_Hint_brushes

My little summary (and that link) is going from what I remember about Quake 3... if Quake 1 hints differ in some way then hopefully someone else can elaborate. 

IMO, don't bother with hint brushes until you have established that qbsp is making a bad decision in a particular spot. I guess you could just preemptively apply them and hope it works, but I doubt it will do anything.

First run in Quakespasm with "r_showtris 1" and post a screenshot from the slowest position. Maybe post your fully compiled (qbsp + vis + light) bsp as well.

Also check Darkplaces with "r_drawportals 1" - this will draw the actual BSP portals (the boundaries between leafs), which are what you would be trying to influence with hint brushes. 

I just looked at the map, compiled it, it shouldn't be any slower than the original DM6, the e-poly seem really close to DM6, and the visibility is fine. I'm really surprised anyone would have performance (and stability?!) probs with it, and I doubt hints will help so much (could probably optimize some of the hallways a tad, having the main arena appear a bit later but it really wouldn't change much). 

I aggregated some questions regarding how to pull off certain effects. I'd like to use unmodified id1 progs.dat, which makes certain things difficult or impossible, I guess, but perhaps I'm just not aware of some nifty tricks.

- some maps nowadays have transparent grates. I guess this is a new-ish engine feature (QS? FTE? DP?). I haven't had luck googling around on how this works - can somebody point me to some documentation?

- there doesn't seem to be a straighforward way to embed a .mdl in a map with id1 progs.dat - but is there a hackish way?


-I'd like to do an arena fight with a pentagram on the floor (that's the simple part). As the fight progresses, I'd like flames to ignite at the corners of the pentagram. When all five corners are ignited, the player is transported to a demonic realm (teleport or changelevel). As far as I know, light_flame* can not be toggled on/off. Of course, I can put standard light entities there an toggle then on, but then the question remains on how to make the flames appear. Ideas? (if this cannot be done, I can still change the concept to, e.g., have pillars with demonic symbols raise instead at the corners)