its external_map not external_bsp :P 

So it's a simplified quinstance that's editor independent. Cool. 

Any love for quake 2? :) 

Would be awesome. I’m think it could be used for lots of interesting stuff 

Any love for quake 2? :)
Nothing usable right now, but I made some progress a few months ago (light.exe can read q2 bsp's and write them out with working lightmaps). What's missing is mapping the Q2 contents / surface flags to the what the tool can understand. 

Small update, mostly with changes to how invalid valve220 texturing is handled:
https://github.com/ericwa/ericw-tools/releases

I'll do another release soon with _phong_angle_concave which lets you disable / change the phong shading threshold for crevices / concave joints. 

Sounds amazing 

Yeah I've tested it and it's really useful for rocky structures where you want to smooth out the convex areas, but keep the concave parts hard (like where boulders intersect basically).
Also useful on some weird low-poly arch setups with angled trims where you'll only want concave smoothed but not convex. 

https://github.com/ericwa/ericw-tools/releases

Another small update:
- light: tweak phong shading to use area and angle weighting
- light: add "_phong_angle_concave" key
- light: fix -bspx option

full explanation for _phong_angle_concave is in the light manual: http://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/doc/light.html

I was going to add a toggle for the new area/angle phong shading weighting, but it's too subtle to notice in most cases, but I can make it optional if needed. 

Thanks again for _phong_angle_concave, it's quite handy!
I have some ideas of stuff to do with the new area weighting that will probably show off better how it helps, need to find some time to do it. 

Silly question, does light still act really strange around certain geometry (example on github here) or is 0.15.9 still the most reliable version? 

I haven't had those kinds of artifacts in a while with the new versions, at least not on sealed maps (sometimes on leaky maps the lighting is a bit weird). 

Been just dabbling a bit with my own flava of a compiling utility when tonight I had this idea:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/292236607199641600/416478757516345344/Clipboard01.jpg

After you set all your options just click "mini mode", stays on top also, and then no alt-tabbing to the compiling UI!

Anyhoo's... beyond that I almost have the "simple compile" interface done. then it will be on to the advanced UI design part. It will also have the map conversion and bsp operations(extract textures etc) incorporated as well.

tootles ;) 

I say Debug because I have screen elements that will not be in final design, they are there just so I can see what's it going on.

Here it is:
https://i.imgur.com/UzyjChj.jpg

I know "central" part looks identical to WC/Hammer/Jack etc, I just like that layout. Still not set in stone, if I "see" and easier to view arrangement I will ofc change it. 

This is windows-only gui tool or crossplatform? 

I loaded up my 'Nix distro, which is severely aged at this point, and it partially worked(Under Wine). Which is ofc not good enough. 

What was used to create this tool - MFC, .NET (WFp or WinForms), Delphi? 

An off-the-wall Basic IDE! Yes, laugh... hehe

I'm no programmer, and in reality this is just a glorified batch file/commandline tool. Mostly string declarations, manipulations and paths saving.

If there is an easy to use, freely downloadable cross platform IDE let me know. I would consider rewriting it.

All I need is access to File and Folder dialogs plus write to .INI files. 

LoL, nice. 

Is a bit of a pain. Would be real handy to just rely on standard func_groups/etc for organizing in editor and then just slap a detail flag on whatever as needed. Maybe handling it like q3map2 does is possible. Would feel more consistent and be less of a headache to work with for sure. 

But maybe I missed something. What is the point of func_group if you can just group a bunch of func_detail or standard brushes in the editor? 

a simple "detail or not" flag for the compiler with filtering in editor. I don't know if anything more is needed for quake? To me func_detail_ seems unnecessary and it'd be much better just marking brushes as detail. You could have detail stuff and worldspawn linked together in func_groups then atleast.
I did notice too that func_detail_wall and func_wall don't behave the same in game; custom entity keys were removed from func_detail_wall I think. 

To me func_detail_ seems unnecessary and it'd be much better just marking brushes as detail.

That requires a new map format.

That's why func_detail exists. To allow you to flag detail using the existing quake map format. 

I can add support for the quake 3 .map format's detail flag (stored per-plane in the .map file). @Qmaster in GTKRadiant there is a shortcut key to turn the selection into detail, so it could be handy if that's your editor. 

I did notice too that func_detail_wall and func_wall don't behave the same in game; custom entity keys were removed from func_detail_wall I think

They are completely different beasts.

func_wall is a separate entity in game, potentially interactive.

func_detail_wall becomes "baked" into the world geometry on compiling, like func_detail. Unlike func_detail, it doesn't chop up world faces that it butts into.