I expect that the texture switch will work with just one problem - the surface won't be marked as CONTENT_SKY. This means that rockets that hit the surface will explode rather than being removed, and other similar effects. I'd imagine that the texture will still render correctly though. You can see the same thing happens in DM3 as it was compiled with an out of date version of the bsp tools. 

I still haven't tried any of this as I'm still at work...
But considering my sky is just pitch black in that area, any trick to simulating a false sky? some pitch black liquid maybe? 

try the dummy light trick with a negative light instead, and darken the regular sky texture for that section of the sky. 

Is it really a problem that the sky isn't truely a skybrush though? All the ID maps have this behaviour and don't seem to suffer for it, so I'd still say use Kinn's suggestion unless it causes a problem. It was just meant to be a quick warning in case it is important. Black water brushes would do a pretty good job of simulating sky if it does matter, the thicker you can make it the more likely it will be that the sound isn't audible. 

only one sky will show 

only one sky will show

My suggestion. I didn't see Preach's answer that fallowed until now. 

Did I need special build-tools to compile a map for nehahra?
At the moment I use txqbsp, rvis and tyrlite for fitzquake compiling
and it worked fine.
But for the neh-engine, Iam not satisfied, because the test-map is to dark and the brush that should be transparent, is not transparent at all.
Did I need other built-tools and other additional command-line settings
for this engine? 

Did I need special build-tools to compile a map for nehahra?
At the moment I use txqbsp, rvis and tyrlite for fitzquake compiling
and it worked fine.
But for the neh-engine, Iam not satisfied, because the test-map is to dark and the brush that should be transparent, is not transparent at all.
Did I need other built-tools and other additional command-line settings
for this engine? 

No you don't need any specific tools for Nehahra maps, just place the right entities in your map (according to the devkit documentation), and it should all work fine once in Nehahra.
Map too dark is probably just cause the engine is configured differently. 

Thanks for your help. You are right
the engine was wrong configured. 

I wanted to take a look at the teaching old progs thread but can�t view all threads.

What�s the specific key setup to create an explosive info_notnull?

It may be easier to just post the link direct to the thread.

Cheers. 

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=37116&start=7&end=7 

 

 

 

is it somehow possible to have partial transparent textures in q1 like in half-life? 

not in stock quake. it can be done in tomaz quake with tga textures and alpha channels, but i don't know about any other ports. 

ok - than I built my map without tansparent textures,
because I prefer fitzquake.
necros - thanks for your answer anyway 

I have a strange behaviour with my office PC labtop. I installed FitzQuake and the rendering is quite weird. When the game is launched, there are some weird HOMs-like and flickering effects everywhere... I have to type Ctrl+escape to return to XP, and then click onto the reduced FitzQuake window to return to a "normal" behaviour. So I decided to try also aguirRe's GL Quake, and the game never started (black screen... and Ctrl+Alt+Del to stop it at the end...)
I guess it comes from some missing options I have to set, but which option(s)?: that is the question... Anybody already faced this issue ? Any idea(s) that could help ? 

Can someone clarify this for me:-

There are 8 channels for sound. If I am playing a sound on CHAN_VOICE, can that sound be stopped mid-stream other than using another sound (or null.wav) on CHAN_VOICE. Put another way, if I end up calling more than 8 sounds to play at the same time, will the last sound called 'overwrite' an earlier one.

I am not clear on the use of the sound channels and cannot find much in the way of explanation. I have some Quake C Definitions that show:-

CHAN_AUTO = 0; // Create a new sound
CHAN_WEAPON = 1; // Replace entitie's weapon noise
CHAN_VOICE = 2; // Replace entitie's voice
CHAN_ITEM = 3; // Replace entitie's item noise
CHAN_BODY = 4; // Replace entitie's body noise

For example, should I use CHAN_AUTO or CHAN_VOICE for music. What does it mean by 'create' and 'replace'?

Any pointers? 

FQ failed to load a map and gave a SZ_GETSPACE: OVERFLOW error but didn't crash.

Does this imply that I'm only just over the limit? I had just added 4 ammo packs and 3 health packs, all of which are transported-in after the map starts (player lands on trigger as the map opens). 

I don't know about CHAN_AUTO, but the other channels will kill any previous sound playing on the same channel.

This is useful if, for example, the guy is in the middle of talking and you want him to yelp in pain. It makes no sense to hear them both at the same time.

Regarding the engine stuff, I have no clue. I forgot what SZ_GETSPACE: OVERFLOW means. I think it has something to do with allocating space for strings, and maybe this includes the entire entities string from the bsp, which might have just gone over the limit by adding the boxes? I'd ask Aguirre for sure. 

each entity can have up to 8 channels (?) through which sound can play.

if a sound is told to play on a channel where a sound is already being played, it gets overrode with the new sound.

CHAN_AUTO (0) picks any free channel automatically. 

I notice that CHAN_AUTO is not used very often (8 times in ID';s original) but CHAN_VOICE is used by every monster, the player, door, client and ai.

Does that suggest that CHAN_AUTO is less likely to be overridden and is a better option than CHAN_VOICE.

But could it also mean that if we have (say) 8 weapon firing monsters coming at the player, who is firing his nail gun constantly whilst standing next to two wall torches, near an ambient wind noise, when he activates a trigger that calls a CHAN_AUTO that that sound won't play because there are no spare channels?

I have a global sound that stops mid-stream for no apparent reason other than at the time, there is quite a bit going on. I'm looking for a way to maintain that sound regardless of any other sound that may be called.

For example, if I have a base level and the player has activated an alarm that spawns a steady stream of defenders, I want the alarm to continue regardless of everything else, until the player finds the silence button, which then stops the spawning. If I allow the alarm to go silent too early, the player won't understand what is happening - suitable messages will have told the player what the alarm means.

(That kind of gives the game away, so this message will self-destruct in 15 seconds) 

this message will self-destruct in 15 seconds

But only if the sound does not get overridden. :P