I also discovered the 'truth' last night! 

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=4&start=478&end=500 

Until I smash engine limits and only AguirRe's engine will run my map, I'll just stick to Tyrlite!! 

I have figured out how to make lightning gun lightning which I can put in my level and then trigger to fire (almost) forever, as part of some sort of generator-type-machine, but isnt shambler lightning prettier?

Have been reading through Teaching Old Progs.dat New Tricks!

How would I change Lightning gun lightning for Shambler lightning?

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=37116&start=11&end=11

What would I have to change in my info_notnulls? 

 

You'd use
http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=37116&start=14&end=14
instead.

The particular function you'd want is CastLightning. Rather than setting "enemy" "1", which would make the lightning shoot at the player, make another info_notnull. Find out the edict number of this info_notnull, say 23, using the 'edicts' command in the console. Then set "enemy" "23" on the lighting shooter.

Be warned, this kind of hack can be hard to pull off when you have skill levels, because if monsters etc. get removed, the entity number of the lightning target can change. One way to avoid this is to ensure that the lightning target is added before any monsters, so nothing can be removed earlier than this entity. The other way to do it is to have three copies of the setup in your editor, one that only appears in easy skill, one for medium and one for hard. Then work out the correct entity number for each skill level. 

I edit the .map file using wordpad or notepad and move the entity to the start? Or swap it with the first one? Would that work?

Thnx BTW :) 

The first way would certainly work, except that you'd have to do this each time, which would be a pain. It's better to make sure that the entities are in order in your editor, which in worldcraft means adding them first - no idea about other editors. I think the latter way of doing it(one version for each skill) is gonna be easier in the long run... 

As it happens, I havent put any enemies in the map yet! I think what I'll do is use Weapon Lightning for the mo as a marker type thing, and then right at the end (after all testing and stuff) change it for shambler lightning. Anyhoo, its good to know I've got options here!

Thnx again!!! 

If there's nothing in the map that's gonna get removed by spawnflags yet - that's the perfect time to sort this out! You won't have many entities to look for in your list of edicts, and you won't have to worry about anything getting removed. Just don't delete any entities currently in the map and all should(fingers crossed) continue working in the future. So I'd recommend change it now, get it working, then continue adding monsters etc. 

I hope so. I mean I'll try it. I dont know much about the transition between an .rmf file and a .map file. If the edicts are assigned roughly in order with the chronology of how entites are placed in an .rmf, then I would see how it would work! 

I believe that what Im gonna do is make the level to a point where I need some testers, cause that way after I have sorted out the gamepley, I can fix up the lightning using Notepad!!! - Then do it all again for the final version :|

Yes, I believe I have popped my .map-in-Notepad cherry. I see now why its called 'Hacking'

Worldcraft 3.3

Nice GUI and texture alignment stuff, but if you export a .map from an .rmf, then re-load it after a bit of tampering in notepad (or even without any tampering I guess) you lose all of the extra texture alignment info!!

I got the lightning sussed. I moved the targetted info_notnulls to where the first few entities start after all of the world stuff, then use AguirRes engine to look at the edicts, get the number, then change the 'enemy' key appropriately.
I have also discovered how you can clean up a .map file by removing any extra shit you dont need!!!

Worldcraft and notepad dont work in unison very well tho! Worldcraft takes stuff out and adds stuff in like extra keys on import!! So backups have been essential!! - I have to resume building on an un-hacked version. The experiment worked, but I will have to re-do it all again anyway cause I can't resume working on the hacked version :( 

.map file mapping ... 

i just downloaded 1.5 gtk radiant and there isnt a textures menu can anyone help me? 

I only messed around with 1.5 briefly, I prefer 1.4, but anyway, is it called something else? materials or something maybe? What happens if you press the T key, does that bring up the texture browser? 

and the texture window will come up. Personally, I only use 1.5 for creating prefabs but not for texturing. I hate the new texture methodology here because of the fewer options and the less intuitive set up. Why screw up something that had worked well since QeRadiant? 

ill try that if it dont work ill download 1.4 instead 

they moved the texture menu down so that it is part of the texture viewer portion of the screen. (I think) 

can you use 1.4 to create maps for temulous? 

any of the Radiant builds can be used for Quake mapping. This is I do it - I set Radiant for Quake 3 Arena, I convert the Quake wad I'm using to the Targa format and place them in my Quake 3 directory like this:
Quake3/Baseq3/Textures/Armagon

Next, you'll need the definitions file, go to
Quake3/BaseQ3/Scripts folder and replace the entities.def file with the Quake1.def file.
Which you can find here:
http://mortisville.quakedev.com/quake1.def
(Filezilla is the greatest!)

You'll have everything you need to build a map file. You'll run into a few things that might cause you trouble. Don't bother with the curve
tools, they wont translate over to Quake 1, and Quake 3 texture alignment is more flexible than Q1 native so it is best to experiment in this area to see what you can get away with.

Part I 

download the tools on AquiRe's site,
http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

and read the instructions.

When I'm ready to compile a map into a playable bsp file, I make a simple batch file (a text file with a .bat extension) with this sort of text:

Txqbsp -q2map mymap.map
vis -fast mymap
light -extra -soft -fast mymap

The -q2map is a conditional AquiRe added that allows the compiler to convert the Q3 map (Q2 and Q3 are the same format except for the addition of curves) into Quake data during compilation. 

Maps, wad files and the tools all in the same folder, but you can be more orginized if you want to by including directoy info like:

Txqbsp -q2map maps/mymap.map

and include a line in the Worldtype for you wads like so:

C:\maps\textures\armagon.wad 

does anyone have one for gtk radiant 1.5.0? 

But this might help you. Documentation.

http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/files/radiant/docs/1.5/

Also, here's a tutorial for 1.5 that I found in a few seconds via the magic of Google, but I have no idea if it's worth anything.

http://files.filefront.com/GTKRadiant+15+Mapping+Tutorial/;6785024;/fileinfo.html 

I was looking at the Quoth tutorial yesterday and saw that they have facilitated lightning use with the entity trap_fired_lightning (or whatever it is). I may not have got the key name correct whilst sitting here typing but I was definately using the correct one yesterday (it is trap_fired_lightining, isnt it ;). How on earth do you make it fire downwards??!?! It doesn't matter what values I set for 'mangle' or 'angle', it wont fire downwards! Annoying really. I may just end up using the hacks I was gonna use for the lightning anyway, I just thought the Quoth one would be easier!

Any clues?

Ive tried 'mangle' '-90 0 0', '0 -90 0', '-90 -90 -90', Ive tried the same values for 'angle'. None seem to work!!