thank you very much for such a detailed answer. I am a little depressed that I will have to use an external bsp for my pendulum. I wanted to use only one file. I tried to replace the rotate_object_point with the rotate_object. But when I move the pendulum to a point other than zero, my pendulum starts to shake. But for rotate_object_point all works well. Probably have to use this method.

Thanks again 

The method doesn't RELY on the external model, it's just the simpler way of doing it. If you're set on having one file, you can refer back to the CZG tutorial, in particular the first paragraph. You need to make sure that you've included an info_rotate to mark the centre of rotation (instead of positioning it at '0 0 0'), and ensure that you've set the targets/targetnames up as CZG writes.

I have often though it would be useful if there was a way to take an external BSP model, and embed it into a BSP map, as if it had been a brush entity. Either compiler support for merging BSP models in when compiling the main map, or some kind of extra tool to run afterwards. If there was a BSP library for Python I'd have a go... 

I added info_rotate to the object and now it works well with rotate_object. Thank you! 

I need help, I'm very new to mapping and was wondering, how to add sounds to my sky. You know that familiar sound of quake's sky. I use trenchbroom and tried to search on the internet, but couldn't find any info or tutorial on how to do it. Thank you guys in advance. 

I think you just need to run vis to get that? (make sure the map is sealed too) 

yeah run vis to get the automatic ambients for sky,water,slime,lava 

also more info on texture names & sounds here: http://www.celephais.net/stuff/texturefaq.htm 

stuff comes up when i am working on the exact tutorial that covers this info! 

Yeah I asked this on your latest video @dumptruck_ds, it's because of your videos I came to this site to begin with. Looking forward to more of your tutorials. And to everybody else, thanks for the info. 

Great news. Well this is the place to come for any Quake questions. I guess I need to do a more in-depth compiling tutorial soon. That would have helped. Welcome! 

hello everyone

In terms of performance, is it better to have several sky brushes or a single big bush? Let's say I have a wall with 3 windows; should I make three individual brushes with the sky texture or a single big brush with the sky texture behind the wall?

Thanks 

It makes absolutely no difference, type r_showtris 2 in the console in game to see how your brushes are turned into triangles. 

Alright, that's good to know. Thanks! 

Just started mapping for Quake 2 and I wanted to know if you guys recommend any command line tools for:

1) bsp, vis, rad. Right now I'm using qbism/q2tools-220
2) creating wad's from PCX?
3) creating font textures?
4) creating skies?

Also, is there any documentation for special Q2 textures like there is for Q1?

https://quakewiki.org/wiki/Textures 

Welcome. There aren't as many q2 mappers around these parts. A few. But don't take the silence personally.

Have you visited tastyspleen? http://forum.tastyspleen.net/quake/index.php?board=40.0 

http://quake.wikia.com/wiki/Cut_content_(Q1)

Those images that look like they are from Deluxe Paint, the ones with the grid, where are they from?

I tried google image search and did not find anything. I reckon at some point Romero released some stuff like this, similar how he did with Doom.

Does anyone have a link to this?

Would be much appreciated. :) 

Here's a conundrum for anyone familiar with ericw's tools' extra options:

_mirrorinside (part of the extra options added by qbsp) causes any default brush entity to act as a sort of clip brush, which allows players and enemies to both see and shoot each other through it regardless of what faces are visible or textured with what, but can't be walked through. This applies to both stationary func_walls as well as func_doors (and I assume any other brush entity that acts similarly) and obviously illusionaries as well, which act normally (can be passed through). Any entity that requires being shot (i.e. buttons with health set) become inoperable due to all gunfire passing right through.

It's not listed in the readme anywhere that _mirrorinside should only be used on illusionaries and similar entities, and it does properly mirror the exterior to the interior of any brush entity, so I assumed all was good, but now I realize something's kind of fucky. Interestingly func_details are not affected by this- i.e. a func_detail_wall remains a solid wall that can be neither shot through nor walked through- which makes sense as so far as I can tell one of the main purposes of _mirrorinside is making truly flat fences and similar using a detail brush and making every side but the one you want skip, thus mirroring the one that's left. Just not sure if this is a bug or undocumented behavior, given _mirrorinside seems pretty experimental to begin with- can provide an example .bsp and .map if needed. 

Hi everyone, I'm trying my hand at Quake 2 modding and I was hoping someone here could help me out.

So far I'm trying to use Blender, I installed scripts for importing .md2 files but I'm struggling because the .pcx skins aren't supported by Blender... I converted them to .tga but I can't change the .md2 file's header to use the converted skin instead... :\

Any recommendations would be welcome. 

if you can't rename the pcx, rename the tga instead and hope the reader goes by contents instead of some random part of the filename. 

It didn't work, but meanwhile I did a lot more tests and I think I understand what's going on a bit better.

I still can't get the skins to show up in Blender, but I guess that's just because they have poor support for old model formats. I could get it to work in Misfit Model 3D, but I'd still like to have a way to explicitly edit the md2's headers, which I couldn't do with anything so far.

BTW I love your work! You did a great job with FTE, it's already my favourite port for Quake 2. The only reason I don't use it more is because it's still a bit unstable on my system. 

Should I run VIS each time I compile? I noticed that it still looks "vised" without running it and even new geometry doesn't stick.

P.S. there was a place on a map, that got a hole after VIS. But after I compiled it without VIS the hole was gone. 

firstly, never embed fence textures into the worldmodel. tools can't cope with that yet.

in theory, vis is purely an optimisation. in practise there's a few sideeffects like avoiding excessive network bloat or insignificant stuff like checkclient returning world instead of the qc then using a traceline that's doomed to failure.
In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter all that much, but be sure to vis before release. 

In regards to Quake's music, I hate it. Hence I do not have it installed and do not ever bother with setting a track number. But I want to know how to best make my maps for a broad audience.

1. What happens if worldspawn doesn't have a track number set?

2. Which track is the most, er, generic and best suited as a default track? (Ya ya conflicted opinions incoming)

3. Is it possible to set a track number to null so that no cd music plays such that I can play my own scripted music sequences from ambient_generics (think Half-Life style)? I have a certain project that I would like to make more immersive through ambient sounds, triggered music events, and eerie silence in places. 

In regards to Quake's music, I hate it.
Absolute heresy. Get the cross and torches.

1. What happens if worldspawn doesn't have a track number set?
The track number will default to 0, which doesn't exist and so won't play anything. Some ports will print an error message in the console when this happens, i.e. Quakespasm with external music enabled prints couldn't find a cdrip for track 0.