direct BSP editing would be pretty sweet, but I suspect making the hulls would be a nightmare with the sorts of geometry people would make 

hmmm... even if you could just load up a bsp mesh and bake new lighting in, it'd be pretty darn awesome. 

I made the script mainly as a way to convert bsp to a standard 3d format and learn python scripting in blender. I do think it might be a good place to start if you want to take some kind of beauty shot render of your map though, since you can add lighting, texture resolution and detail before doing proper renders using cycles or whatever you like. 

I'd love to see some of the classic maps lit properly, maybe I should download this blender thing 

A real time light editor would be great. A stand alone program would be fine. Sliders for the various light options (delay, attenuation, light styles, color ect). Spinner controls for spotlight placement. Export to .map file. TB does a good job of previewing geometry, previewing the lightmap I think is the next evolution to editing. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/scottish-author-iain-m-banks-dies-of-cancer-aged-59-8651163.html 

In mac osx, Blender doesn�t show me those option of enabling bsp format.
Unpacked everything in the right folder, i guess. 

Sorry if it doesn't work for you. I just downloaded, installed and tested it in Windows (I used Linux at home) and it was fine. Here are the steps:

1. Extract the folder io_mesh_bsp to your blender/<version>/scripts/addons folder (I don't know where this will be on the mac version, but I assume it's the same.
2. Start Blender (or restart if it was already open)
3. File > Import > Quake BSP (.bsp) should now be available from the menu.
4. Select a bsp file and it should load.

Tips I forgot to mention in the txt in the zip:
1. Blender's default texture settings are fucked so most people probably won't see any textures. You need to enable GLSL from the display section of the panel that appears when you press the n key (mouse cursor must be in the 3d view I think)
2. If you enable GLSL, the lighting will be mostly black by default, so select the Lamp object from the outliner and set it to "hemi" so it lights everything quite evenly. 

you'll need to save the startup file for options like GLSL, lamp to hemisphere type, backface culling etc. to be saved.

If you want a pixelated look for the 3d view (but not renders...) then you need to go into user settings (ctrl+alt+u) > system and disable mipmaps.

I think they are working on a new 3d view for an upcoming release (maybe this year?) so hopefully this kind of shit will get better. 

to get blender to remember that you enabled a plugin, you need to save user settings, otherwise it will only be available until you load another file or select file>new. Some things like this are quite annoying. 

the problem is not Blender nor Windows or Linux,
addon is working fine in both.
Fucking OSX...Grrrr...most expensive one is least useable one,
me pukes... 

 

http://graphitemaster.github.io/gmqcc/index.html 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71H69yDZ6W4 

Will have to try it out sometime. 

Ok, no problem. I may have to go back there within the next coming year, so maybe another attempt would be possible ;) 

Whilst on holiday. I must be cray cray. 

question so dumb you'll wonder how it's possible I need to ask (arg, many similar versions of same map):
is there a command (or an easy way) to find out exactly what bsp file a demo is loading when it loads

I don't want to haveto delete all the versions I think it might be and check if it works heh. 

Run the demo through lmpc and it'll be in there somewhere... (or run "strings $demo_file | grep bsp" or equivalent). 

The 23,000 post award. holy shit that allot of bs for 1 thread 

Sorry to keep spamming about this. I've created a thread over at Blender Artists about the importer, with a link to the latest version etc.

http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?297143-Quake-(1996-game)-bsp-import-script

I doubt I will work on it anymore unless more bugs are found, but there is a list of possible improvements in the readme. This includes filtering models by entity type, importing lightmaps and welding vertices on import.

Also, as a side note, the best path I found for getting it into Maya seemed to be via dae if I remember correctly. If you want to do that, there are a bunch of export options, so if dae doesn't work well, just try dxf etc. until something works. I definitely had dm7rmx in maya though.