Q1/WC1.6/Tyrlite

When increasing the flare angle on spotlights do I add and "angle" key or an "angles" key? 

 

 

I've run into an odd problem with my coagula map. I'm trying to make it nice and interesting, but the nuts and bolts of it is that it's a box map that goes straight up. When I fly up to the top 3 meters or so the game acts as though I'm surrounded by an HOM, so I see a still of whatever it is I saw until I went above that height. I know there's supposed to be more map to go, because I built it and I can see stuff up there. I can live with that flaw, because you'd only get up there on a rocket jump, but it's weird.

Is this a limitation of Quake? A compile error? 

This problem is entirely unique to me and my map? 

I haven't seen it before. Make sure you're not building outside the +/-4096 limits. Check if the problem is present before/after vis. Otherwise... I don't know. 

Anyone know where I can find some detailed info on lighting for RTCW? All I can find are those ditzy "Your First Room" tuts... 

Yeah, that looks like exactly where the problem is. Great, I'll just select everything and move it down some. I've gone as high as I'm going to go, and ground floor is only -256. 

Hi again

i've almost finished my new map (quake 1) but when i tried compiling and playing it i got a bunch of error messages in the quake console. They were something like this:

TOTAL CHANNELS == MAX CHANNELS (x8)
HOST ERROR: TOO MANY STATIC ENTITIES

IF anyone knows what these mean & how to fix them then i'd be grateful if they could let me know. thanks. 

are things like walltorches, flames, small flames, light globes...

unfortunatly, you've got too many of them! you'll need to remove some and convert them into regular lights. 

that explains it, thanks necros.

I had light prefabs with torches on them throughout the map, i'll try changing some of them to light textures. hope to get this map finished and sent to underworldfan within the next few days :) 

Processing hull 0...
---- Brush_LoadEntity ----
----+----+
615 brushes
---- CSGFaces ----
----+----+
3805 brushfaces
4993 csgfaces
2978 mergedfaces
---- SolidBSP ----
----+----\
*** ERROR 42: Didn't split the polygon in SubdivideFace

Elapsed time : 0:01

Peak memory used : 2.0 MB

didn't split the polygon?

i'm using aguiRe's (for real this time :) ) modified treeqbsp. 

of your textures are scaled too small. Scale values below 0.2 can cause this error, but it appears to depend on the actual texture/face size as well. Maybe someone can clarify this.

I've made a utility that can enforce a minimum texture scale in a map file but it's probably not a good idea to use it on a map that has very precise texture scaling on small objects. It's very good for quick tests, though. 

i've taken out alot of the torches now, and the map runs, but i still get the TOTAL CHANNELS == MAX CHANNELS line come up about 10-20 times before it loads. i think i remember seeing this on a large map i downloaded a while back, will it still run fine on all versions of quake? 

What that means, chainer, is that there are too many sound making things in your map. Torches, grunting monsters, sky and water, ambient sounds, etc, all count towards the total # of sounds allowed, which is fairly low (i think MAX_CHANNELS = 8).

So it will play fine, but when the error comes up, you won't hear some sounds. This can have strange consequences, like firing your gun and no sound being made. 

I have a problem with the compiling of my map. It compiles without any errors, but when I launch Quake the map doesn't start. When I've removed all buttons from it the map started. Why does it happen? There were no problems with buttons before, but when the map became quite large (over 2200 brushes) the problems have suddenly appeared. 

pulsar, are there any error messages when you start quake? or is it just a black screen?

and is it only when you remove buttons, and nothing else? (doors maybe?)

check if you've got a funky string in one of your buttons. irrc, you can't use " in your strings... maybe others too... that could break the map... maybe... 

How many brushes define make up an average map? 

Around the 700 mark for DM and 2000+ for SP. There are exceptions of course e.g., coagula style levels. 

Rightly or wrongly, I assume you're talking about Q1. 

I don't know how 'define' got into that previous post. 

Having used this extensively necros it is possible to light a map solely with face lights. CRDM2 had 1 point light, and that was to generate the skylight, all the lighting in the map was done with surfacelights.

When using surface lights you gotta remember that the light is not shinning in all directions (aka a omni point light) but only in the direction the texture is facing. So having a room with loads of lights on the ceiling only will give you a bright floor but a very dark ceiling. The best way to avoid this is to have lights on the floor and ceiling, or bright lights on the walls, so that light is cast in all directions.

Remember also that surfacelights make the texture fullbright, so dont go making a 512x512 texture a surfacelight or is gonna stick out like a sore thumb.

Another thing, generally be generous with the amount of light coming off the textures, as they seem to be roughly half as bright as a omni point light. As a rough guide the little 32x32 light squares on the floors and ceilings in crdm2 had a brightness of 180.

Are you using the -bounce option? If un-specified at the command prompt light will bounce off surfaces and the map will be much brighter but at the expense of contrast, the map can look very washed out with light, its less apparent in a GL engine that supports colored lights (if your using colors) but load it in software and ouch :) For Quake I would use -bounce 0 as it produces the best overall effect ie. More contrast, but it does mean placing more light light emitting textures or making your tex lights brighter still...

Hope this helps. 

There were no error messages. My map sometimes even crashes the system when I try to launch it.
At first I decided that it happens because my very slow machine can't compile the big map right. The I've sent the map to my friend with fast system for compiling. The result was the same: the map haven't started.
The thing is that everything works right til one moment when it stops working without any reasons.
I've just added about 50 brushes (and no entities). All these brushes were normal (I tryied to avoid solids with strange form). The only idea was to remove some entities (that worked fine before). I started from removing buttons and it worked.

I'm very confused with it. Anybody help... 

maybe there are too many edicts? 

thanks for the info, duder. although, i started using q1rad primarily for the bouncing light effect...


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next question: for those of you who take big performance hits when faced with flickering lights, is that a precompiled flickering light, or the light given off by rockets and explosions?