To reply to your post in the bastion thread - what are marksurfaces exactly? 

are contained in one of the many data "lumps" that the compiler and other tools put in the bsp, you can see the amount in the bsp summary at the end of the compiler log.

I don't know what they are exactly, but they're probably related to the faces in the map. Metlslime explained more about them earlier in this thread.

In your bsp, the amount is above 34k and most Q1 engines cannot properly handle more than 32k. There seem to be some fuzzy margin that the amount can be exceeded by without causing obvious problems (like crashes), but I don't know how large this margin is.

I know for sure that exceeding the 32k limit can lead to engine crash. In my engine, you'll get a warning when loading a bsp that exceeds certain limits, e.g. the marksurfaces.

I can't say that you'll have to do something about it; other released maps have exceeded this limit and still seem to work. I only mentioned it because some players seem to experience strange engine behaviour while playing your map and this is one possible cause.

I actually blasted through the entire map in god/quad mode as brutally as possible while running the engine in debug mode to see if anything bad would happen, but nothing did. Only packet overflows, which wasn't very surprising.

The gameplay *was* a bit insane at places. I fear that I might not make it through the later parts alive without cheats ... But I'll try! 

Thanks for the info. It seems that marksurfaces are a bit of a hit and miss thing.

Also very encouraging to know that the map handled a god/quad blast through, especially now that the monsters produce even more gibs. :)

The final area is tough, but search around for a 666 (easy to find) and a quad (hard to find). 

Thanks for your help a few weeks back -- I finally got the time to take your advice and (click my heals) that thing is finally sealed. A few days working on the texture alignment and it'll be out the door. 

Where's the best place to go to look for Quake 1 texture sets?

I've stuck with originals and Q2 textures, for now, but I want something else and preferably with some kind of preview which is hard with ftp sites like gamers.org.

So where would you guys suggest looking? 

check out this thread for texture sets:

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=11317 

i tried to watch the demos, but they refused to load. it looks like you used DP to record them? so i downloaded Dp and tried again, but still no luck. what should i do? 

yeap, I used DP for its effecient rendering -- that's a whole heapin' lot of polies there.

I believe I know the source of the problem. I checked out my hunch; not only is dark places demos incompatable with older versions of Quake (thus the problem using KeyGrip earlier) but versions of DP are incompatable with one another. I tried the demo with a slightly older version of DP and it didn't work,

Here is the thing. Lord Havoc has neglected to update the site info in some time, so the latest build showing is the one from December. This link will get you the newest Beta which I used for recording.

http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/darkplacesengine20040331beta1.zip 

well, that worked, thanks for the demos man. really helpful! :) 

What are the "recommended" map compilation utils for Quake maps these days? I am using wqbsp, rvis+ and tyrlight, but I keep hearing of some newer utils. What are their advantages and where can I download them? 

i recommend all of aguire's compilers without any reservations. they are simply sooo awesome.
http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

the qbsp is robust and handles almost any kind of brushwork
the vis has a freakin' save feature which pwns me
the light has sweet new things like _softangle for spots, delay5 to keep overbrights for going nuts and just anglesense so that lights on the same plane as other faces get lit.

i'm a fan now. :D 

Accept no substitutes :) 

Your excellent maps and continuous stream of new challenges are what keep me going.

Btw necros, where *is* that new impressive map of yours that I've been waiting for? 

for the other maps in it's pack to be finished. ;) 

I think I can leak to you that the map you are inquiring about is simply awesome. One unique situational fight after the next. 

As I want to make appear a message in Quake1,
and this message is more than 4 sentences, I would like the appearance take place longer than standard time, how should I do this?
I tried delay, but this makes the trigger take place at a later time, while I mean longer.

Another not so common question:
Playing Quake in senquences one appears at the end level. After this I want to return the player back in the start level with no bossgates, and all triggers off.
Should this be:

spawnflags => kill alltargets

I'm just guessing. 

on your first question, there are two ways of doing it.

one: make a bunch of trigger relays with all the same message which have incremental delays, 0, 2, 4, 6, etc... and have them all fire in order... basically, quake will keep outputting the same message, beeping each time.
two: open the quake.rc file in pak0.pak, and store it in your own pak file. add a line that points says centertime.cfg
now create a file called centertime in the same directory as quake.rc. in that new file, write "scr_centertime 6". now, all centerprint messages will stay for 6 seconds instead of the default 2.

on your second question, i don't think it's possible to erase the player's status with runes without qc. i may be wrong though... 

I'll try the first with four triggers and delay time, as it feels the most easy way.

By my second one I was wondering, because on the moment one plays the end.bsp I think this option was implemented by the trigger_changelevel.I just can't find the argument, maybe it is also in the quake.rc
In the original Quake I never succeeded to complete the end level without god-mode.
Then the game just start from the beginning with all counts off. 

I have always noticed in Quake that rockets/grenades sometimes pass straight through shamblers without exploding - any idea what causes this?

Also, I have noticed in some maps there are places which cannot be navigated by Shamblers, but other Hull 2 monsters can navigate them perfectly. Has anyone else noticed this and do you think these two issues are related? 

discussion recently about this issue and scrags flying through walls in one of the threads but I can't find it again. I don't recall any explanation was found, though. 

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=1&start=4190 

The shambler thing has got to be one of Quake's greatest mysteries. The scrags-through-walls could just be a bug in the flymonster code, but the fact that all hull 2 walkmonsters share the shambler's movement properties just makes it baffling that this is a shambler-only problem.

Perhaps it really is arcane magyck at work.

Hmmm... "Quake's greatest mysteries" - I think I've coined a new discussion topic :) 

i honestly think the flying monster ai stuff was a last minute addition to quake, and id just sort of threw it together real quick. 

do you think the "shambler only takes 1/2 dmg from explosives" thing was a last-minute fudge to hopefully reduce the no. of people noticing the aforementioned missile-collision bug? 

OK, a newbie Q1 mapping question: I have a door that consists of 2 parts, one is going left, the other is going right. I want both parts of the door to open at the same time. As of now, when I approach the door structure, one of the parts starts moving first and the other follows as I come closer to the door. How do I "link" them to open and close together?