In my example "0007" is the Group number but I do not know what the "0" is. The index I referred to is a list of the Groups used. Here are the first 9 lines of the file that I used in the example earlier:-

//BSPGROUPS0026
//BSPGROUPINFO"None" "255 255 255" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"monsters_easy_only" "192 192 192" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"monsters_norm_only" "192 192 192" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"monsters_hard_only" "192 192 192" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"first_area" "255 128 128" "1"
//BSPGROUPINFO"cave1" "0 255 128" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"clip" "255 0 255" "0"
//BSPGROUPINFO"island" "128 255 128" "1"

The first line shows that I have 26 Groups. They are numbered 0 to 25. The first Group is by default called "None" although it can be renamed but it will always be numbered as zero.

The set of three numbers "255 255 255" refer to the outline colour in the editor, in this case it is the default white. I then created the other Groups that you see. I don't know what the last "0" is.

You will find BspEditor here

http://www.bspquakeeditor.com/

If you use the contact button there, the guy who has updated the editor will respond and will be able to give you much more technical answers than I can - I am just a user. 

each entity has it's own sound channels, and the game has a maximum number of channels for sounds.

one entity with a sound playing on channel 1 won't override another entity with a sound playing on channel 1.

but having one entity start sounds on the same channel is useful, for example on doors. that's how they stop the looping sound when a door stops moving, by playing the stop sound on the same channel.

i don't know how many channels the game itself has, but it's not a lot. there may be priority on channels, but i'm not sure. it could just go by which sound was started first. but yeah, if you have any long sound, make sure it's not looped and manually play it again via qc to make sure it never gets cut off.

i believe ambient sounds, started at map load time never cut out, but that's just because i've never noticed that happen. 

I made a mine lamp and wanted to add it as a b_model. But its a *.mdl file.

Is there a program that can make a bsp of it?
http://members.home.nl/gimli/Quake.jpg 

Make sure to add -condebug +developer 1 to engine cmd line and inspect qconsole.log after you've run the engine. What does it say?

What gfx card and OpenGL version is it? Does WinQuake run on it? Does any other OpenGL app run on it? 

I have +developer 1 cvar for sure, but I'm not sure about -condebug. I'm not also sure about gfx card, and openGL version, I have to check it.
I also don't know if another OpenGL application is running at the same time...
Nevertheless, WinQuake is working fine.. while very slow with my current project... (i.e very choppy)
I'll verify all these things by monday, and give you feedback then. 

I'm just wondering if there is any lightmap editor available for q1 format maps. Is it possible to extract the lightmap to images and reimport them into the bsp at all? All I really need is a tool that can increase the brightness whilst still keeping contrast, so a light scale operation would probably also work, but I don't think there are any utils that will do that for me. Does anyone know of anything that can help me? All my maps are too dark on other people's computers because I have such a bright screen... 

I don't see anything strange compared to what happened with my home PC in the console. Maybe the 2nd line message that says wipx_init: unable to open control socket but I'm not sure...
I guess it is a WinXP issue... Nevertheless, what should I focus on that could help me to solve this issue ? 

Gamma correction was designed to compensate for different monitor brightnesses. Have you tried that? 

Since you claim that my engine won't start properly, the log should show where it crashes (if it does crash, that is).

I asked for a couple of things before, where are the answers? I can't say anything without a lot more information. 

I guess so, but it doesn't work on all glquake engines, and some people bitch a lot if a map is too dark on their screens. 

OK, sorry for this, but as I'm at office, it is a little bit tricky for me to "play" cause I'm in an open space.. and everybody could see me... :(

Nevertheless, here are the characteristics of the labtop:
CPU: Genuine Intel CPU T2500@2.oGHz
RAM: 1Go RAM@1GHz
VCard: Intel 945GM Express Chipset Family
OpenGL Version: Not known but DirectX8 is installed (BTW our IT engineer seemed surprised I mentioned OpenGL for WinXP... where could I pick this information ?)

BTW, I just made a small test with glquake131, and the game get stucked at the beginning (no possibility to move at all...), and I had to reset and restart the computer...

Oh and here is the qconsole.log


Console initialized.
Winsock TCP/IP Initialized
WIPX_Init: Unable to open control socket
Exe: 00:10:49 May 26 2005
32.0 megabyte heap
Video mode 1280x720x16 60Hz initialized
FOUND: ARB_multitexture
FOUND: ARB_texture_env_combine
FOUND: WGL_EXT_swap_control
FOUND: EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
Sound Initialization
Set primary sound buffer format: yes
Using secondary sound buffer
2 channel(s)
16 bits/sample
11025 bytes/sec
DirectSound initialized
Sound sampling rate: 11025
CDAudio_Init: No CD in player.
CD Audio Initialized

joystick not found -- no valid joysticks (a5)


========= Quake Initialized =========

execing quake.rc
execing default.cfg
execing config.cfg
execing autoexec.cfg
Unknown command "gl_texquality"
Unknown command "r_interpolate_model_weapon"
SpawnServer: start
Clearing memory
Programs occupy 405K.
meshing progs/player.mdl...
408 tri 628 vert 1367 cmd
meshing progs/eyes.mdl...
16 tri 24 vert 53 cmd
meshing progs/h_player.mdl...
40 tri 64 vert 141 cmd
meshing progs/gib1.mdl...
28 tri 46 vert 102 cmd
meshing progs/gib2.mdl...
82 tri 138 vert 305 cmd
meshing progs/gib3.mdl...
20 tri 32 vert 71 cmd
meshing progs/v_axe.mdl...
184 tri 288 vert 629 cmd
meshing progs/v_shot.mdl...
128 tri 190 vert 412 cmd
meshing progs/v_nail.mdl...
188 tri 312 vert 687 cmd
meshing progs/v_rock.mdl...
54 tri 86 vert 189 cmd
meshing progs/v_shot2.mdl...
152 tri 250 vert 550 cmd
meshing progs/v_nail2.mdl...
190 tri 302 vert 661 cmd
meshing progs/v_rock2.mdl...
124 tri 204 vert 449 cmd
meshing progs/bolt.mdl...
26 tri 52 vert 118 cmd
meshing progs/bolt2.mdl...
26 tri 40 vert 88 cmd
meshing progs/bolt3.mdl...
26 tri 40 vert 88 cmd
meshing progs/lavaball.mdl...
20 tri 32 vert 71 cmd
meshing progs/missile.mdl...
58 tri 100 vert 222 cmd
meshing progs/grenade.mdl...
14 tri 24 vert 54 cmd
meshing progs/spike.mdl...
4 tri 8 vert 19 cmd
meshing progs/s_spike.mdl...
4 tri 8 vert 19 cmd
meshing progs/backpack.mdl...
110 tri 160 vert 346 cmd
meshing progs/zom_gib.mdl...
20 tri 32 vert 71 cmd
meshing progs/v_light.mdl...
172 tri 282 vert 620 cmd
meshing progs/flame2.mdl...
86 tri 140 vert 308 cmd
meshing progs/flame.mdl...
122 tri 198 vert 435 cmd
meshing progs/zombie.mdl...
347 tri 559 vert 1225 cmd
meshing progs/h_zombie.mdl...
49 tri 73 vert 159 cmd
40 entities inhibited
trigger_teleport, target 't11' has no target
Server spawned.
CL_EstablishConnection: connected to local
3 demo(s) in loop
Client LOCAL connected

VERSION 1.09 SERVER (4223 CRC)Serverinfo packet received.




Introduction

CDAudio: drive not ready
CL_SignonReply: 1
CL_SignonReply: 2
CL_SignonReply: 3
26.3 megabyte data cache
CL_SignonReply: 4
Sending clc_disconnect
VID_Gamma_Restore: failed on SetDeviceGammaRamp



Hope it is enough :) 

Comments to the info; I've heard Intel onboard chips (and/or drivers) are terrible for gaming, so that might be the reason. OpenGL info should be obtainable from the desktop RMB configuration (advanced). Maybe newer (or older) drivers are available from Intel?

If you had listed the qconsole.log contents from the run of my GLQuake instead of Fitz, you'd also known the GL-version ;) Didn't you get any log from my run?

You could try adding option -nomtex to see if that makes any difference. Try also -window to see if window operation is possible and use desktop resolution.

Have you tried another OpenGL app (i.e. not Quake) to see if that works? If you don't know any other, there should be screensavers in XP that use OpenGL. You could of course also try other Q1 engines; Joe, DP ...

You could also try asking Baker at QuakeOne forums, he seems to know a lot about Quake startup problems. 

if they want to use an engine that doesn't support gamma, there is still a way to do it.

In the control panel, the display settings for most cards should provide a way to set hardware gamma. This is exactly the same gamma setting that fitzquake/darkplaces modify when playing, by the way.

There is also a program called "setgamma" which you can add to a batch file if you want a one-click shortcut to launch the game with the correct gamma. For example:

setgamma 0.6
glquake
setgamma 1

You can get setgamma from the fitzquake website here (direct link): http://www.celephais.net/fitzquake/files/setgamma12.zip 

Is there an easy way to do it other than by tweaking all the lights individually?

Just read the txt files for tyrlight and Bengt's light tools and found -range and -dist command line options in the tyrlite text file. Hopefully that will work ok. Fingers crossed.

If any of you tools guys are listening, a brightness/contrast adjust option would probably be pretty damn cool too (that affects the lightmap after generation and I suppose would be able to be run on any bsp), if it is straightforward enough to implement. 

have a -scale option ... but maybe this is really only for quake2 compilers... 

Since tweaking light levels in already existing bsps is the main reason why I've developed my Light tool, there are a lot of possibilities to very easily set new parameters from the cmd line.

Check out the readme carefully, experiment a bit and you'll see how easy and fast it is.

And the tool that does the brightness/contrast level adjustments is ... Light (any light tool) ;) 

Doesn't setting a minlight increase all brightness in the map? It might look bad, but it can't be much worse than adjusting the gamma. 

only sets a higher minimum value. All lightmap areas that are above that value won't change. 

I made a second try this morning, using -window and/or -nomtex, but it didn't help at all... :/ After the game was launched, and stucked, I had a WinXP message stating that ialtmngr5 process was not responding... (I'm not sure about the name of the process). but it seems that it comes from the Video Card (I asked to my IT engineer that looked my suspiciously...)...

I made the same tests with FitzQuake, and fortunately it is working perfectly in window mode ! No more flickering/HOM like effects

Thanks a lot for the information: you rock ! 

Let's hope it continues to work, there are probably driver issues (the engine should never be able to bring down the OS). Also note that you might be running in 16bpp colour mode (the earlier Fitz log indicated that). 

Only if you use TyrLite minlight (default), if you use additive minlight (ArghLite style, option -addmin) instead, you'll get a *much* better minlight effect. It's actually one of the really essential features of my Light tool. 

oh, cool. 

Thanks for the info. I just scanned through the text file and found the following options for anyone that is interested:

-addmin = makes the minimum light additive.
-range # = scales all lights by #
-globrange = scales sun lights by -range (afaik)
-light/-maxlight # = minimum and maximum light levels. Can also be set in the worldspawn.

I'm posting this because a lot of the useful stuff is contained in the changelog info, which is a little bit time consuming to sort through.

I'll have a play with it and see if I can improve things. 

-globrange should be avoided (and is default off unless requesting other tool compatibility). -maxlight is also not very useful, use -lightcap instead to limit strong lights (but is less effective if you use "wait" keys).

The main global tweak options are -light, -addmin, -range and -dist, combined with -sunlight options.

More detailed descriptions are at the end of the readme, after the changelog. 

... and if you feel adventurous, try the global -anglesense # option. It can seriously change the lighting in a map ...