Thanks for that. Now I understand - my 64 units is plenty generous enough then.

And I whistle while I work.... 

you can bunny zig-zag and use air control to stay over the void most of the time. ;) Ok, best not to design maps for that, but still, works vs vore balls on a beam. 

How was this Q logo shadow done?
- http://www.phait-accompli.com/q/shadow_1.jpg
- http://www.phait-accompli.com/q/shadow_2.jpg 

made entirely out of SKY* textured brushes. Inside, some solids and a few powerful lights.

At least, that's one way I know of doing it. 

Actually it's not a room, just a single thick skybrush with the Q inside. I did the same in kdma, with a pentagram. Newer light compilers may deal with skybrush permeability differently though. 

That wouldn't work with my idea. See the light texes here?
http://www.phait-accompli.com/q/op/2.jpg

I was gonna have light emit from inside them, essentially, so that even the little bits that make up the frame cast a shadow. At least that same idea with something more... I dunno. That's just an idea. 

the logo is placed above the sky texture, which is in this case a func_illusion.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/shadow00.jpg
the screenshot shows a picture with the func_illusion invissible because the viewer is in it.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/shadow01.jpg
standing on ground, it would look like:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/shadow02.jpg

has anyone yet a solution for my rats which got lost in a brush??? 

What kell said. See that floating brush in your second screenshot? Noclip inside there and see what you find. 

And saw nothing. :| 

Can someone help MadFox as I do not quite understand his problem and would therefore benefit from knowing the answer - you know, reverse logic.

Besides which, I was thinking of using rats in my next level. 

It depends what engine you use. In a software engine the Q brushes are visible. In FitzQuake they're not. I assume this is related to the more efficient unseen face culling thing. But take our word for it, the brushes are there at least for the compiling of the map and therefore shadowcasting. 

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the rat problem either. Sounds like it might be to do with the position of the model relative to the entity origin, but I dunno. It may also be a qc thing, which ain't my field of expertise :P 

oops, yeah, i guess they're not actually visible in fitzquake, unless you set r_oldskyleaf to 1. 

Have you downloaded the rat model and .qc from somewhere or have you created them from scratch yourself? 

I have this really neat idea that I want to implement in my hangar:

as the bay doors close, there are 10 light entities that successively turn off. The 1st light turns off at 3 seconds (it's 2500 bright), the 2nd one turns off at 4 seconds (it's 2300 bright) and so on, for 10 lights that each decrement by 200. The effect would be vanishing light inside the hangar, since the doors are closing. While it works with smaller light values and less lights, I'm getting a bunch of:

WARNING: Too many light styles on a face
lightmap point near (-1032 -833 -152), tech04_8
light->origin (-2560 -1024 128)
WARNING: Too many light styles on a face
lightmap point near (-1102 -837 -175), crate1_top
light->origin (-2624 -1024 128)
WARNING: Too many light styles on a face
lightmap point near (-1102 -837 -175), crate1_top
light->origin (-2592 -1024 128)
WARNING: Too many light styles on a face
lightmap point near (-1102 -837 -175),

I guess I'm not surprised, but might there be any way of implementing my idea without error? It would be a dramatic effect I haven't seen used before. 

I made the rat.qc partly by observing the progs.dat from Malice, partly myself.
Just went on untill friqqc did.'t give errors.
Then Necros helped me with a part.

The model just sinks in the groundbrush, like
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat00.jpg

I first thought the rat.mdl wasn't well placed.
But I think it has something to do with the rat.qc
It also has a bite function, but apparently something in the rat.qc went wrong.

I placed it as a file, maybe somebody can take a look at it?
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat00.zip

thanks. 

You can't have more than four light styles (including ambient) on each face. Too many switchable lights in one area saturates this very quickly. 

brighter lights reach farther, so they are more likely to overlap. 

Do you know any QC? If so it could be easier for you to simply make a new light style which is a single light which starts off bright and gradually fades. 

I have a grasp of programmming syntax and stuff carried over from some PHP'ing, but I'm too weak-minded and impatient to really pursue any coding, even QC (as easy as they say it is) 

I have had a quick look at this rat problem and can see that no matter how you place the rat, he always 'lands' in the map with his paws 8 units below the surface.

I have compared the rat.qc with the dog.qc but cannot see anything obvious (yeah, OK, dogs are bigger than rats), so my question is - what determines the position of the lowest point of the model?

This line

setsize (self, '0 -8 -8', '08 08 16');

can adjust the position but I can only get the rat to 'land' lower. What is the realtionship between the two Z vector values? Also, is there a relationship between these figures and the '$origin' value?

Like MadFox, I am also trying to learn QC.

As always, any help you can give will be appreciated.

Ah, hold on. I have just "aligned" the ents.qc
/*QUAKED monster_rat (1 0 0) (-8 -8 -24) (8 8 40) Ambush
*/

the rat.qc entry
$origin 0 0 24

and the rat.qc entry
setsize (self, '-8 -8 -24', '08 08 40');

and the pretty little rat now sits on top of the floor correctly.

OK Madfox, all we've got to do now is figure out why the little bugger runs backwards and also why, when you shoot him, a corpse appears angled at 90 degrees and why the ghost of the rat continues to run backwards. But hey, we'll get there!! 

I just realized it had to do something with the placing of the rat.mdl
I lifted the rat.mdl with the Quark4.07 model editor, and now it is also on its feet!
I also turned all the frames 180 degrees, and now it is running good.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat01.jpg

Great you found it that way Mike!
In the start rat.qc I changed

$frame squishb1


void() rat_stand1;
/*
===============================================
RAT CODE


into

$frame squishb1

void() rat_stand1;
void() rat_run1;

/*
===============================================
RAT CODE


You were right with the dog.qc
I was trying to compare something of the same origin. I know there were more tricks in the Malice convertion.
The rat could also jump and attack.
But I think that needs more knowhow of the Qc-options.
I always thought they just replaced the dog with the rat. But in Malice they come with dozens, without hitting the eddict-count! 

I tried your changes to the rat.qc, and you are right. Only I can't see the mouse walking.
But the model is then placed on the excact 0 grid of the ground brush.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat02.jpg

I changed the rat.mdl in the download zip.
It now walks straight ahead, but there is always one I can't kill. Holy Mouse!
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat02.jpg 

double picture, the last one is ment
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat03.jpg
for seeing the change in height. 

I think the rat.qc is better now.
They can bite too, only sound gets stuck.
Just 12 mouses, but they're hard to fight.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/rat01.zip