I beleive you man, don't worry...
I started a map (1 month ago, in paralell with other tasks..) using DKT2 texture sets, and most of them are white, so here I will need massive conversion... So I guess I will try first your method... :) 

I've searched Mapping Help (via the Google sitecelephais.net-board idea) but can't find the answer:

what are the max verts allowed on a static (no animation) model?

I've probably asked this before but as I keep reminding myself, time dulls the... the... er... um... hazelnuts, Bob. 

1000 to be compatible with every engine. Strangely enough it was originally 2000 in dosquake/winquake, but glquake only support 1000 - maybe back in the early days of 3d cards 2000 a model was considered just too taxing. It's possible that the released source codes reverted back to 2000, but if you want to be compatible with everything that doesn't help. 

it's 1024 to be exact. But I think pretty many engines have raised that limit to at least 2000 (same as WinQuake); Fitz, DP, my engines, Joe, Tomaz ...

Shouldn't be a big problem. 

Ah, so 3656 verts might be the problem then! Ooops. 

Very helpful ;) 

Anyone knows if it is possible to find some custom medieval/gothic/horror textures for doom3? 

A q4 map which uses versions of Undulation's Gnosis texture set, with normal and spec maps added. Other than that, there's nothing other than bits and peices out there that I know of. 

I have recently started building a new map. It is always a pleasure for me to work on a map that is at its beginning. The compile time takes few second only and everything is simple and fast. I would like to know how you deal with your map as it grows bigger:

1. Do you split it in parts and work on them separately? I'm always afraid of exceeding the engine limits when doing so. The problem will get visible only after joining all parts together and will be very hard to correct then.

2. How often do you run fullvis on your maps while building them? I do it from time to time to check if I don't get into problems with performance and r_speeds. Is there any other way to check against those problems? I have a slow computer and vis (even fastvis) always takes some serious part of the whole time I spend on a map.

3. What about lightning? Do you prefer doing the lights on the way as you proceed with the map? Or is it wiser to implement lightning after the whole brushwork is done and save the time for running light.exe when doing brushwork?

4. What about using prefabs and copy/paste. I guess this shouldn't be overused.

5. What else can be done? There must be many things I didn't think of right now. Certainly a good computer, big monitor and the right editor help a lot. (I'm still stuck with Hammer since Radiant doesn't work on my laptop). 

what is the version of hammer that supports hl2?

any link? 

Install the HL2 SDK via Steam and it should appear in a magic folder in a magic kingdom. 

My main trick is to create giant black brushes that enclose the parts of the map i'm not working on. This doesn't save on QBSP time (all brushes still get processed) but it does save on light and vis time (fewer lightmaps, fewer visportals.) 

Enclosing map parts with big solid cubes saves a lot of qbsp time actually. Thanks to Tyrann's logic all brushes inside the cubes are quickly removed already in the CSGFaces stage. 

cool, good to know. 

i compiler when i go to bed or when i go to bath room, eat, go to beatch e.t.c. 

I'm with Trinca there. Just use bsp only when the map gets too big, and vis/light/both when you have a break from your computer.

If you don't have one of those ultra noisy graphics cards that will keep you up all night*, you can even do it when you go to bed, and wake up to a freshly baked level every morning.

*they usually aren't noisy if you aren't playing an intensive game. 

you can even do it when you go to bed, and wake up 2 weeks later to a freshly baked level every morning.

fixed 

Err... I tried your method on DKT2 texture set... and unfortunately it didn't work... Either I missed something on your explanations, or TexMex v3.4 is not suitable for your method..
Any idea ? I need help desperately.. :( 

What pc are you compiling with? I know it runs doom 3, so it can't be that bad. How come it takes so long?

My 10k brush map takes 40 minutes to do everything full.

Mind you, it's not a big open level, and I did make a void speedmap that took ages once. 

including vis? dear lord, that's awesome :o

man, my vising takes forever, even with my current machine (mind you, the cpu isn't anything to scream about these days, just an amd 2500+) so likely that's slowing down compile times a lot.

the nice thing is that i usually don't need to vis the maps for me to test them. :P i just use aguire's engine and chug along at a decent 40fps with 13k+ wpoly :P but that doesn't help when it comes to working out vis and blocking.

also, it makes prepping a map for final release a right pain, esp. when you notice some minor structural defect the minute you load up the freshly fullvised map >_< 

My 10k brush map

will it be custom engine only 

JPL I have sent you an email. 

it's on the brink at the moment. I still have more to add before I start optimising, but it's looking likely to be custom engine only. The ones I know will support it are currently limited to Aguire and Tyrann's engines. I want it to run on Fitzquake (currently it exceeds some limits, but still runs ok) because I prefer fitz lighting, and it supports widescreen, but it's going to be a tight squeeze. 

I've just seen it. I will reply this evening (I'm at office right now: so job means no Quake :( ... ) 

a new version of my most frequent quake error:

SZ_GetSpace: overflow without allowoverflow set

I already had the similar error with that map but I continued to place monsters (using agirre's engine) waiting for corpse removal to be employed. But this error is different, the previous one was about buffer size.