Rotatings are a cunt to set up - czg's tutorial is fairly clear, but the idiotic way that the rotatings were coded makes it a process of trial and error to implement, since I believe that it does use both angles and pitch / yaw / roll.

I'd guess that this hacky code got past when the Hipnotic project leader was off with flu. 

I found out by trial and error that the Y axis is vertical. The Z axis is "depth" and thus one of the horizontal axis.

X and Z are horizontal, Y is vertical. In math, X goes left-right, Y goes bottom-top. Z is "depth" in three dimensional space.

The "mechanical" part was pretty simple actually. The rotating object itself is turned into, surprise, a rotate_object. It rotates around a corresponding info_rotate. Third we have the corresponding func_ entity, like func_rotate_entity and func_rotate_door. This point entity has all the information, mainly the "rotate" key. It holds the combined direction and speed information. "rotate" "0 45 0" gave me what I needed: Turn 45 degrees per second, around the Y axis.

Luckily I didn't have to set up collision detection. Player has no RL, so he shouldn't be able to reach the fan. :) Laziness!

:) 

No Z is usually vertical
In quake for instance, z is vertical

IN Math it is relativ, because you can rotate the coordinate system.
but always the same is:
when you look through the z-axis in the positive way then, x is right and y is left
when you look through the x-axis in the positive way then, y is right and z is left
when you look through the y-axis in the positive way then, z is right and x is left

Had my final exams focused on geometry ;) 

Then how do you explain that "rotate" (0 45 0) makes it turn around the vertical axis?

The key's format is (x y z) so in translation, that means "turn 45 degrees per second around the Y axis."

So either Y is vertical in Quake, or the func_rotate_* is buggy. Or the whole map is rotated and I didn't notice. :)

Anyway, it works :) 

3dsmax is the most common 3d tool for games because its cheaper - alot of people prefer maya (forget shitty softimage) but it does the same thing; changing z for y. And has alot of other problems for exportation.

Ballache. 

Again, I don't know any specifics about func_rotates, but the key format pitch/yaw/roll is one of the used ones and then your example means 0 degrees vertical pitch, 45 degrees counter-clockwise around the z-axis and 0 degrees roll around that vector (possibly not used).

And you can look in any Q1 editor to verify that z-axis is indeed the vertical axis (i.e. up/down from the floor). 

ijed: Ballache is the right word :)

AguirRe: That is so far over my head, I might have to re-read that when I'm less tired to grasp what it means. It sounds reasonable though. 

test is to load a map in FitzQuake or any of my engines and use the console command viewpos.

Then you'll get the xyz coordinates of your current map position and then three extra values that specifies how an intermission entity key should be specified to look in the same direction as you're currently looking. Move the view and check again to see how the values change.

This is one of the formats used when specifying a vector. Another is the more simple spot/sunlight key of TyrLite or my Light; pitch/yaw. See the readmes for more details on this. 

Didn't know that - should help alot; the intermissions in warp were shit, I just added a roll value to make them more interesting. 

I realize you're probably right. I will run some tests on this.

It would explain a few things. 

The "rotate" 0,0,0
does not mean x,y,z
It is not a kartesian coordinate system it is a Spherical one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_coordinate_system 

It's basically like a spherical system, but with one important difference. In the wikipedia article the three coordinates are (ρ, φ, θ), and ρ is the radius, or distance from the origin. Quake angle components are more like (φ, θ, η), where φ and θ are as before. η is not the distance from the origin - instead it is the "roll" component. The easiest way to think about this is if φ is moving the mouse up and down and θ is moving the mouse left to right, then η is rotating your monitor about. Of course, you don't usually do that for a viewpoint, but for a model it might make sense to rotate it on that axis. 

Clearly func doesn't like greek characters, lets do that again with letters

It's basically like a spherical system, but with one important difference. In the wikipedia article the three coordinates are (rho, phi, theta), and rho is the radius, or distance from the origin. Quake angle components are more like (phi, theta, eta), where phi and theta are as before. eta is not the distance from the origin - instead it is the "roll" component.

The easiest way to think about this is if phi is moving the mouse up and down and theta is moving the mouse left to right, then eta is rotating your monitor about. Of course, you don't usually do that for a viewpoint(unless you're an alien crawling on the ceiling or something), but for a model it might make sense to rotate it on that axis. 

it even more interesting, the pitch in the intermission mangle key is reversed to the sunmangle pitch. In intermission, a negative pitch is pointing upwards, while the same in sunmangle points downwards.

I don't remember now if the yaw is different as well in the two variants.

It wasn't meant to be easy ... 

can be found here: http://hosted.planetquake.gamespy.com/worldcraft/index2.shtm

The info_intermission seems correctly described, but I don't know about the rotate stuff. It might help to check it out, though. 

"Now for a func_rotate_entity, you must give it a "rotate" key and set its value to three integers,
"0 -90 0" for example, which will make it roatate clockwise along the Z axis at 90 degrees/second. You
can set it to rotate around all the axis too, and to make it rotate the other way, just add/remove a -." 

... you say "x,y,z". If you say "x,z,y", it's fine.

Again, from czg's tutorial, "...and 'angles' '0 90 -180' will make a door that rotates 90 degrees counterclockwise on the Z axis, and 180 degrees clockwise on the Y axis. Of course set it to whatever suits your needs." 

Yup. I thought it meant "x,y z axis."

My head hurts. I guess I'm more the trial-and-error type. I have a good idea how to make it behave like I want now.

Sadly a rotate_entity seems not to get lit by dynamic lights. Makes it look a bit funny. Oh well, just don't give the player rockets then... but then you have deathmatch, where people are going to want rockets... right now, my cool fan looks stupid when hit by a dynamic light (flashlight.) i.e. nothing happens... I'll just tell player to not ever point it upwards... :/

would a func_movewall (or whatever the collison detection thing was) fix the dynamic light issue? 

The movewall works pretty crappy as well - and feels messy to use since you're making a bunch of clip brushes linked to the rotatable.

Having said that I doubt anyone will notice that the lighting is off if you set it up right.

The way I'd do it is to put a pointlight with delay 4 in the centre of the fan with a very low light factor, just higher than your minlight - assuming the fan isn't in a vertical shaft with sunlight coming down.

Delay 4 changes the attenuation of the light to be a local minlight - a delay of 2 could work as well since it increases the range of the light whilst making if fade more softly as well.

I'm not sure about this but you could also move the model away from the point entities and put it in it own little room (somewhere the player will never get to to) and light it there. Then, in theory, it will snap back to its target point (info_rotate) on map startup . . . I have no idea if that will work - maybe its asking too much (ie, a bone).

Just a case of messing with it until it works - even more trial and error ;) 

Forgot to mention that you'll also need compilers that can handle specialised lighting - AguirRe's for example. 

"assuming it isn't in a vertical shaft with sunlight coming down"

muahahah :)of course it is. I sent you the beta btw so you can see for yourself.

The idea with a separate room for the model might be worth checking out. otherwise I'll just very slightly light it from below, although that is illogical because sunlight comes from above. The underside _should_ be dark, but hey, if it's for the greater good...

^^ play the beta! Uuh yeah! :) 

Building the radar tower tonight! Mapping is fun!!! Blowing up things is fun!

Thanks world!!! Thanks Quoth!!!

:-D 

Hi i have a fairly noob question but it can be difficult to find tutorials for modding old games with so many sequels...
how can i import md1 models into worldcraft 1.6 so i can place them in a map? 

You can't, at least not directly. You can do a hack that allows you to spawn .mdl via an info notnull - but it doesn't work too well since the model is offset from its origin and cannot be rotated. This means its annoying to place and also needs geometry outside the world so that it doesn't cause a leak, if in an even remotely enclosed space since the offset is pretty big.

QuArK can load .mdls into a map but I don't know if it can convert them to world geometry - probably not.

Some mods have included a way to spawn models / mapobjects into the game - Nehahra had such an entity, which gave us the monster head on spikes in the realm of the ancients as well as alot of other stuff.

A very hacy way to do it is to replace a static model entity that the game knows exists with the model that you want - which is how I did it in warp, replacing the Shub teleport train model with a sleeping soldier (one of the death poses). But that means modifying your root directory; making a mod folder.

Another way to do it would be to open qme, export the model to .max (or whatever 3d software you can get your hands on) then export again as some kind of prefab for, probably, QuArK again. 

I built a map with Radiant 1.5, in Quake 1 mode, in hopes of compiling it in the original quake but every time I try to build I get "hqbsp" not found. Any ideas where I could get it? I've googled it but no go. Any ideas?