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. :) 

I'm at 416 now:( Shit...

I have been using IKBase textures with the shareware - if I switch to registered version will they still stay in the level? Would the switch be painless? 

I'm at 416 now:( Crap...

I have been using IKBase textures with the shareware - if I switch to registered version would the textures still stay in the level? Would the switch be painless? 

I've been using WC1.6 for all of my maps. No problem.

I you're planning to switch anyway, yes it should be painless. Export your RMFs to MAP for safety first though. 

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.

Excuse me? GTKRadiant requires no tweaking at all to make it work with Quake. Just download, install and map away... 

The Shareware Version Of WC Has No Brush Limit.

Always did for me, huh... 

Mikko was probably referring to pre 1.5 versions that didn't support quake natively.

but what Gom says is true. the newest version of GTKR supports Q1 natively and i supposed to be quite painless an installation. 

Well then it seems that I have been reading old posts/news since I have been under the impression that GTKRadiant doesn't natively support Q and that you have to tweak it to make it support it (or convert the level into a Q map).

However I'll stick with WC for now at least with this level I'm working on right now. I have never built a level before with WC but I have with GTKRadiant so getting some experience is not a bad idea.

But anyways if the shareware WC really has a brush limit then I need the full one - so please someone tell me where to get it. And still - will the custom textures 'vanish' if I switch from shareware to registered? 

Well it seems that I've been reading old news/posts since I have been under the impression that GTKRadiant doesn't natively support Q and that you have to tweak it to make it support it.

However I'll stick with WC for now - at least with the map I'm doing now. I have previous experience with GTKRadiant but not anything serious with WC so I need the experience.

But anyways if the shareware version really has a brush limit then I really need the registered version in case someone knows where it is or can send it to me at mikko.sandt@satabaana.net.

Also I still would like to know that will the custom textures vanish if I switch from shareware to registered? My level is so far covered with IKBase textures - would I lose them during the switch? 

Well it seems that I've been reading old news/posts since I have been under the impression that GTKRadiant doesn't natively support Q and that you have to tweak it to make it support it.

However I'll stick with WC for now - at least with the map I'm doing now. I have previous experience with GTKRadiant but not anything serious with WC so I need the experience.

But anyways if the shareware version really has a brush limit then I really need the registered version in case someone knows where it is or can send it to me at mikko.sandt@satabaana.net.

Also I still would like to know that will the custom textures vanish if I switch from shareware to registered? My level is so far covered with IKBase textures - would I lose them during the switch? 

WorldCraftFULL has been sent if you want it. 

they're just textures, after all, and not really connected to the program at all, wc just reads the textures.

you should be fine. 

What happened to your tutorials on converting Terragen worlds into skyboxes: your old site links are dead and I can't see it on your new site? 

Does anyone here have any troublesome maps? I'm particularly intersted in ones with clipping problems (terrain maps would be interesting) or ones where you have a leak, but the pointfile seems to pass straight through a solid brush. I've made some progress with qbsp, but I need some more real-world test maps.

If you're willing, please email zipped .map and .wad to:

tyrann - at - disenchant - dot - net

For the time being, I'll sniff around and see what's available for download from people's sites... 

If I remember, there's a leak in hull 1 or 2 in RPGSP1. I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing your new QBSP might fix.

AFAIK, all my other Q1 maps are pretty free of errors.

RPGSP1 source: http://rpg.spawnpoint.org/files/maps/rpgsp1source.zip 

Yup, no more leak. 8)

It's looking promising. Does anybody have a link to CZG's scraps listed here (the links all give 404s):
http://www.planetquake.com/greyvoid/maps.html