Qmle should get you on your way, but I think you knew that already.

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2000/cs4455_spring/planetquake/modediting.html 

it's really hard to make a decision between max and maya as they are both excellent modelling programs.

however, if you're just doing this for quake, i'd say max might be your best bet.

i found it was slightly easier to learn than maya. the only real reason to pick maya over max would be if you were going into the industry, maya is more widely used.

but max has excellent tools for modifying meshes to reduce polycount, and it has fully developed bones/animation system.

as an example, all the animation for the quoth monsters was done in max.

but i won't lie to you... it will take you a long time to learn all the tools. there are just so many. but once you do, pretty much anything is possible. 

Alias was recently aquired by Discreet (the company that makes Max), so perhaps the two will become more and more alike. I doubt either will be phased out, however, as they both provide Discreet with a nice revenue stream at the moment.

I find Max a lot easier to learn, less buggy (we are talking recent versions here) and with a generally better interface. Maya has a lot of nice features that Max doesn't have (last time I checked), but some of the basic modelling features of Max just shit on those of Maya - the interface for using them is generally loads better too.

I've heard that Maya is better for texturing and animation, and whilst the animation side seems really good (not that I have done anything complex, but it is very easy to set up a skelton, weight a skin and get animating). The texturing features of both programs are not too different, but I find Max a little easier, perhaps because I was already used to the rest of the program when I tried actually skinning something with it (I used to use in-house tools at my previous job for level texturing, which were better than both Max and Maya :)

I find Maya requires the user to do a lot of extra selection and deselection that Max does not require, making Max slightly easier to work with and more time-efficient. 

AguirRe, do you ever make maps? 

Madfox: thanks for that link, it was very informative although most of the links on that page were down.

necros/than: OK, I guess Max it is. I've already had a first look at the program with a one hour session last night. Gulp! I have a very tatty copy of 3DSMAX Bible so on my next session I am going to try to make the Three Fingered Gaaboot and we'll see what transpires.

Thanks chaps. 

I haven't actually created any maps of my own, but I've been extensively through most of the paces to build/repair maps.

I believe that without that experience or the source map contributions and suggestions from many mappers, it would've been very difficult to improve on the tools/engines. 

I was just wondering if you had your leakproof, fully vised first map sitting around somewhere. 

I can give you my last HOM maps that were so leakfull they couldn't sit anywhere without wondering around...

and I'm gratefull to get some good advice to make them playable before they got lost in Quake's void.

Like to beta test Drew? 

I've a memory live a sieve so can you just play along here?

Does Fitzquake change liquids to always be fullbright? I have the texture 'brimstone' and it has no fullbrights. I simply add an * to the front of the name, and although I get my warping liquid effect, I also get fullbright.

But I really do want non-fullbright liquid. Am I missing something? I want all other fullbrights to remain, I just don't want this one liquid to be fullbright.

I've done the usual things with TexMex and the same texture without the '*' is definitely not fullbright. Put the '*' in and it lights up like... well like something pretty damn bright. 

That's quake. Liquids do not get lightmaps, so they are always uniformly bright. Darkplaces is the only engine I'm aware of that breaks this functionality. 

Double bugger, twice!

But thanks for the info anyway. 

Baker,

I'm having some problems with Quark! All my maps gives this message when I try to connect to a server running it: "map model file does not match"

[url=http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ezquake0009gu.jpg][img]http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/7492/ezquake0009gu.th.jpg[/img][/url]

If I run the map directly into the client, there's no problem and it works fine!

This happens with any map I compile! Even with the basic map created by Quark (a square with a spawnpoint).

I already tried all kinds of Qbsp, VIS and Light utilities. A friend of mine, who is also trying to make some maps, has the same problems. Plus, he tried other tools too (worldcraft, qoole) and he always get the same erros.

I asked Trinca about it and he said to me he does exactly the same as I do, but unlike my case, there's no error.

I would appreciate any help, thanks! 

The "Baker" in the last message is there because I copied this message from a thread at quakeone.com.

And here is the link to the image of the error message.

http://img108.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ezquake0009gu.jpg

TKS! 

that message before (it's QW specific), but looking at the Fuh source, have you tried disabling cvar sv_mapcheck? 

the server has a different version than you have, i have had friends getting this when trying to connect to a server with a map and another version of the map is on the client
OR
you have 2 version of the same map 1 in id1/maps 1 in qw/maps then the same happens 

I'd beta for you, but I can't right now. no computer, no quake. 

check that you don't have a map of the same name in both id1/maps and qw/maps or other directories. I always put my maps in id1/maps.

Also, try running in fitzquake / aguirre's quake if all else fails. 

Does anyone know how I can extract Daikatana textures from a BSP into TGAs?

I'd like to try them out in JPL's new map.

Thanks. 

If anyone need the four DKT texture sets, just send me an email, and I will send you the stuff.
Note that it is 15MB zipped... 

Are those texture sets in (native?) DKT WAL format or are they Q1 WAD files? 

interested if anyone has the original 24-bit texes, AFAIK JPL has only got the 8-bit WADs.

There is a relased Q3A map with some of the Event texes in 24-bit jpgs and they look fabulous. 

As aguirRe said, it is only 8-bit wad files.... 

To answer your original question, you can e.g. use TexMex to extract the 8-bit bsp texes and save to tga. There won't be any big difference of course as this process is also made in the GL-engines automatically.

However, if you use idgamma normally there'll be a difference if you don't also adjust the tgas in a similar way (which is very difficult, but can produce interesting results). 

I meant DKT BSP files, which TexMex can't seem to open :\

I have the original DKT WAL files but Wally doesn't like their format :\

So far the only solution is to convert them to BMP with Daiwal and use some other batch software to convert them to TGA. I downloaded Advanced Batch Converter but it only does 6 images at a time in demo mode :\

I can send you the WALs if you likey :) 

How much is the total amount compressed (7-zip, rar or zip in that preferred order)? Can you upload it somewhere and offer a link?

If you want to batch convert pics, I can recommend IrfanView ( http://www.irfanview.com ), it's small, free and very good at batch conversion. XnView is another pretty good free pic viewer/converter.