I made a test with GenSurf (not really impressive) and Nemesis' Terrain Generator (wich is really impressive...), but it generates me an amount of compilation errors (like textures/poly misalignment) during TxQBSP process that crashed the BSP elaboration... (no VIS, no Light...) so... so playable BSP...grrr...
I know that some of you guys (Mike Woodham for example if I remember well) are currently using Nemesis' terrain generator tool, so the question is: how do you avoid errors in order to build the BSP ?? Is there a turnaround (without making hand-made terrains) to be able to increase confidence for this tool ?? 

I have not experienced the errors you mention.

But given that NTG works on a grid system and in my editor (BspEditor) the imported NTG file always lines up with the editor's grid, I would suspect you may not have 'snap-to-grid' or something similar in your editor.

I don't see why you should get poly misalignment errors otherwise. I have had up to 32,000 brushes in the editor and although I have had issues, it has never been poly connected.

If you want to e-mail me a small section of a map that is giving this error, I will try it in my editor and see if I can spot anything? 

...although I am a fan of NTG as can be noted from previous posts and my recent releases, if the terrain section is only small, doing it by hand is fairly straightforward even if a bit longwinded ;-) 

I tried to compile the generated terrain only, and this kind of misalignement error remains... I'm using aguirRe's TxQBSP tool, and QuArK editor.
I know there is a snap-to-grid option for polys in Quark, but I didn't use it while I was supposing NTG generates a correctly "grided" file... Well, I have to check if NTG and QuArK grid-settings match at least.. This can perhaps explain why I had this problem...
BTW, is there a quick tutorial that explains all the NTG features somewhere ??? I found by myself how to create mountains and canyon, but I'm not really used with the others features (like smoothing options, etc...), so I need a little bit help.... ;) 

There are some tutorials on Nim's site but his site is still not accessable at the moment. He does not seem to know when it will be as it is an issue outside of his control: global_register PHP setting!

The tools do need explanation and I am not sure that I am the right person for that, but in the meantime you can use the Smoothing tool from the Tool menu at its default settings, and this will certainly get rid of the acutely angled brushes that can be formed using the Raise/Lower tool.

One word of caution though, if you use it on lower slopes it will allow the player to climb the terrain more easily - this may not be the effect you want as terrain is most often used as a barrier to the player.

Also, using generated terrain is any easy way to increase clip-nodes beyond standard limits. This will be dependent on the base triangle size (I use 64 and 128) but you will probably need to use some large clip_brushes in your map if the clip-nodes get into the high 20,000s and you still have standard walls, floors, ceilings to build.

The main thing I did wrong in the early days was to build a fabulous terrain - mountains canyons, water courses etc - and then try to build a map into it. I would suggest that a better course of action is to build the map first and then place terrain sections into it. Fmb_sm40 is a good example of this technique where the terrain is about 12 or so seperate sections. (Of course I use the term 'good example' with tounge firmly in cheek.)

Ummm, don't know if this helps? 

It helps for sure... while I already see that Nemesis web site is down... grrr...
For mu first test, I tried to create the terrain in one pass... even if I have a clear idea about what I need, it's now for sure a bad idea... well, "hierarchization" of the map will save me... I hope.... ;P I have to split the terrain in many parts...
Well, so for the moments, I have to find by myself which settings will be the better for me... Anyway, thanx for your feedback.. 

Is there a way to invoke/emulate a console command from within the game (without the player knowing) by perhaps using a trigger?

I want to 'play' with some ideas but dont want to get into coding. For example (and I dont actually want to do this), 'r_fullbright 1' followed by 'r_fullbright 0' could effectively flash the screen.

Any ideas? 

not without custom qc, no. :\
the hipnotic pack does have an entity for this, i believe.

what is the specific effect you want to achieve? there may still be a way to do it. 

Well, one of the things I am looking at is the use of fog. I liked the overall effect that I had in Fmb_sm40, especially in conjunction with the underground scenario, but I am aware that you can have too much of a good thing and also that it renders the sky/skyboxes as useless.

As far as I can see, fog in the Quake engines is global and you cannot use it regionally. But I noted that it could be switched on and off at the console...

So, to achieve regional fog I could set triggers in the map file and according to where the player was, trigger it on or off. Only I now know that I can't.

Marcher's sky wheted my appetite for skyboxes and I think I can develop the underground terrain thing a bit more.

But as I say, I don't want to get into coding (old dog, new tricks). 

Hmm, in Nehahra we could turn fog on and off, or even make it change (density etc). I remember testing it by making a hallway where the fog gradually builds up as you walk furhter into it (and vice versa).
Probably requires coding to get that working in any other mod I guess though... 

yeah, you'd really qc for that, sorry. :\
i'm pretty sure i could whip up a trigger for you that would change the fog density on touching it, but it would obviously need a progs for that... 

How to select brush faces in WC1.6 (shareware)? I remember that was done with Ctrl, Shift & mouse in newer versions of WC but it doesn't seem to work here in the old one.

And how to select stuff in 3d-view window? It doesn't seem to work. 

Disable Hardware acceleration in the options menu. 

Thanks for the offer. I'll leave it on the back-burner for now but if things develop further with my ideas, perhaps I might be able to call on you then? 

I made another test yesterday night with NTG, taking into account your advices, and now it works fine :)) It seems that I made too much manipulations with brush edges and faces in NTG, and TxQBSP (aguirRe's tool) find me many warnings (CuteNodePortals, HealingPoint), and then finally found me an Error in latest hull (ReachOccupant...)... Well, I solved the stuff restarting the terrain in a simpliest way, with much more care about edges and "volume" manipulations, and now it remains me only warnings (CuteNodePortals only BTW) so I can start to build other architectural stuff on the terrain...
Thanks for your help 

Sounds good. Again, a word of caution when building architecture into an existing terrain: if you place your new brushes onto the existing grid and they bisect the terrain brushes, you are more likely to get errors. Therefore, try to keep to the same grid layout as the terrain i.e. in the top view of the editor you can see that the terrain is made up of pairs of triangles forming squares, so place your new brushes in the intersections of these squares.

Of course, you will also find that when you form a room or building in the terrain, the terrain will 'fill' the room. You then have the choice of manipulating the terrain brushwork (horror of horrors) or, and only if your editor can handle it, using subtraction.

Now, I don't have a problem with subtraction but I know a lot of mappers stay well clear of it. I suspect that this is borne out of
a) using an editor that can't handle it
b) a bad experience at sometime in their youth, or
c) a bit a mass hysteria

If you 'need' to use subtraction, I would suggest you experiment with a test map af a few brushes first, just to get the hang of it.

A final point. If you read any of the previous posts about terrain and its problems (I can't point you to the right posts as I think they are mostly in the News Archive, which is still not available) you wil know that generated terrain seems to create clipping errors during compile. These become evident in the game as invisible barriers. To minimise this, stear clear of acutely angled brushwork, only use subtraction on-grid, and avoid extremely small brushes - these are easily created inadvertantly if you use subtraction on terrain and you are bisecting those brushes.

Rock on!



Pun absolutely intentional:-)


Long post caused by lack of interest in the decorating that I'm supposed to be doing. Sorry. 

The story was I tried to make a very complex terrain into my first try, and so it was a nightmare to solve any problems. So I restart with a less complex terrain, having the same architecture, but with much more less micro-brushes, much more less polys, etc... and so it works...
My editor (QuArK... no comment please...) can't handle NTG, but it can handle multiple projects, so with a copy-paste, it's really easy to import terrain map file in the project, and so use substraction in order to "fit" with my "requirements" (I'm talking like I do all day at office... brrrr...).
Anyway, the good thing is that at least I have a good first try... and now only experience can improve the "process"...
For sure I will post some screenshot later, in order to give everybody an overview of the results.
Thanks again Mike for your helpfull advices.. 

Are you still looking for the Full version of Worldcraft 1.6? I can send it to you if you like. Having said that you would probably be better off using GTK Radiant, but if it is Worlcraft you want, I can send it to you. Just let me know

http://www.planetquake.com/worldcraft/index2.shtm
Have a look around there, you may find the info you require (selecting faces) etc. It's been a long time since I have seen WC, I wouldn't remember what it looked like 

or why not use the new hammer editor instead of wc? 

There's a link to the full version somewhere in the General Abuse section archive or here in Mapping Help, I think it still works it's where I got my copy from. 

Is there any tutorial how to enable Quake editing in Hammer? I downloaded the editor from http://collective.valve-erc.com/index.php?go=hammer
but I can't get it to work with quake maps.
I'm just looking for new editor - GTK Radiant somehow doesn't work on my comp :( 

Use TexMex to export your Q1 wad as a Half-Life wad3 - this can then be loaded into Hammer. I believe aguirRe's tools take care of the compilation from there, you'll have to read his documentation. 

I can create map files with Hammer now but I can't convert to Q1 map format. I have tried both convmap from aguirre and mapconv but the first one does nothing and the second one exits with an error. Maybe this is because in Hammer I only can choose Map Type: HalfLife. After exporting to map, the file looks like this:
( 0 -512 0 ) ( 0 0 0 ) ( 512 0 0 ) WMET1_1 [ 1 0 0 0 ] [ 0 -1 0 0 ] 0 1 1
( 0 0 -32 ) ( 0 0 0 ) ( 0 -512 0 ) WMET1_1 [ 0 1 0 0 ] [ 0 0 -1 0 ] 0 1 1
When compiling with mapconv the error is:
Exception EConverterError ... '[' ist kein gueltiger Integerwert.
Someone help please! 

Well sure you can send it but is it necessary? I have been doing pretty well with the shareware version so far. How does it differ?

And as for GTKRadiant - Yeah well I like the editor and I'm familiar with it but I understood that it requires some tweaking before you can make it Quake compatible. And I'm already pretty far into mapping my level so there's no need to change the editor at this point.

http://www.planetduke.com/msdn/ 

Has a brush limit of 500 I believe.

Eventually you'll surpass that, trust me. :)