I'll try them. 

What programs are necessary for creating a Quake map?

How do you go about designing a map? 

What platform are you on? Have you ever used a level editor before? 

I'm using Windows XP Pro. I've used UnrealEd once or twice. 

Its very easy to use, its basically Hammer. You start off with loads of good textures to use. The Quake .wad files are all converted to Half-Life .hlwad flies for compatibility with the programme.

To make a Quake map you first create a .map file using an editor of your choice. The idea is to use 3D shapes (cubes, cylinders, prisms) to make an area which is sealed off from the 'outside'. If the inside area of your map leaks into the outside area the map will not compile properly. Which brings us to the second part - you have to compile the .map file into a .bsp file by running a QBSP programme on it, the it has to be 'visually optimised' by another programme called VIS, then the lighting has to be rendered with another programme called LIGHT.

All of these tools are supplied with the Worldcraft 3.3/Quakeadapter package, and autmatically set up ready to use. There's a good tutorial to get you started in the help section of Worldcraft.

here's a link:

http://www.quakeone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1242

that should get you started, welcome to Quake 1 mapping! I started doing it less than a year ago, and I just released my 9th map, so I'm sure if you try you'll be successfull!

I would experiment a bit with the above mentioned programmes, I'm sure you'll figure it out, but if you need help you can always ask here, lots of people will help.

As for designing a map, different people use different methods, some draw ideas out on paper first, some people build maps from the ground up.... ;-P 

I personally preferred QERadiant to Worldcraft but that's a somewhat religious argument. If you were on a Mac, I was going to give you the ToeTag pitch but ... oh well. Heh. 

Another vote for Radiant here (GtkRadiant 1.2 or 1.4). Unfortunately it isn't terribly easy to set up for Q1 editing.

Damn it, if I wasn't such an asshole I'd have a package and tutorial ready for new guys to use. (I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I've been too "busy" (aka lazy)) 

whats the difference? 

It's better in every way.

Honestly, the only thing I preferred about Worldcraft compared with Radiant was that Worldcraft would let you create illegal brushes (that you were attempting to form into a perfectly legal brush) without killing the brush. 

I'll have to give it a try 

I think Radiant will let you do that too, if you turn off "vertex editing splits face". Not entirely sure though.

Just don't use GtkRadiant 1.5 onwards. Don't be lured in by the "native Q1 support" shit. They've changed the basic brush editing/manipulation controls (and not for the better). Sigh, must not begin rant. It'd be quicker for me to dig up the old whinges rather than typing it again... 

OK, does anyone know what the magic formula is in C for converting from UV coordinates back into Quake texture vectors?

I know how to go from vectors to UVs (that code is inside of QBSP), but how do you go the other way? If we could figure that out, some real texturing muscle could be added to ToeTag and other level editors. 

Oh and Fribbles, I would love to read some of those old rants if you were being serious there. Are they somewhere that could be linked? 

Worldcraft has visgroups.
Ogier has something even better - hierarchies.

But I'm still trying to learn to use it really.

It's a bit unconfigurable (view window order!) and badly documented (since it's mainly a company internal tool) but seems pretty snappy. There are a huge number of direct keyboard shortcuts for everything.

If the Starbreeze guys could get the company to publish a newer version online... ;) 

but in Worldcraft you have four projections: xy, zy and xz and 3D or whatever. When I have looked at shots of other editors I am always put off straight away by the fact that most seem to have 2 projections on the screen at any one time - 3D and one other. Like Radiant or Doom-ed or whatever. Surely this means you have to press a button each time you want to see the map from a different angle. Which is surely gonna slow you down somewhat.

Also does Radiant have a fully functional texture lock tool which you can do ANYTHING with? Yes or no? Is it as good as WC3.3 / Hammer's?

I am honestly curious.

I mean you must have to spend a bit of time with an editor before you could say you know it well enough to pass judgement... 

Different engines point in different directions with the mangle key on info_intermissions BTW, namely JoeQuake/FitzQuake...

(just seeing as we were discussing this the other week....) 

most modern editors have the WC four view style. Radiant has it. 

...it was the purpose built ID editor for Quake2 right? Which version is best for Quake1 mapping, wheres the best place to look?

;-P 

I'm not a fan of the 4 view layout (as evidenced by ToeTags layout). You only ever need 1 2D view at a time and 90% of the time you'll be using top-down anyway. There, I said it. 

I often get annoyed because the four views are too small, but for creating brushes it useful to see a top and a side view at the same time. I guess in other view modes you have a "toggle view" button or something.

Im sure I could get used to other ways, I cant pass judgement till ive tried them! 

traditional four view in GTKRadiant 1.2.11 with the texture theme set to black and green is the way I do it.

I just set the game to Quake 3 Arena, and try to lock my texture handling to Quake acceptable degree handling (I know, the last map was rough, but I was under the lash of time).

I hate 1.5; is the ability to load texture sets really a deprecated feature? I've looked through the literature that came with 1.5 and I've spent many hours working with it and have found nothing to contradict that impression. 

4 views wastes 2 views worth of space. 1 big 'grid view' is all you need to work in, with assistance from the z-checker view and the 3d view. And when you do need a side view , ctrl-tab quickly switches between them once you get used to it. 

4 views wastes 2 views worth of space. 1 big 'grid view' is all you need to work in, with assistance from the z-checker view and the 3d view. And when you do need a side view , ctrl-tab quickly switches between them once you get used to it.

is pretty much the layout I use in Blender and Wings3d, and it works great. I'm more reluctant to do so in Radiant because the view point is not so easy to manipulate the entire scene as it is in a proper 3d ap. 

whenever I use Max or Maya, it's always just a single 3d window, sometimes switched to side views for measurement. 

there are a few disadvantages of course, but here is a shortlist of the reasons I still use Worldcraft over other editors:

*the ability to modify the properties of many entities at once. This also works with faces in texturing mode and you needn't change all the properties to be the same. You can just alter, angle, name, brightness, scale or whatever you like and it will only change those things.
*visgroups. Far more useful than some seem to think. Shits all over regions in radiant but requires a little overhead to set them up. Especially useful if you still use 1.6a :)
*fairly decent texture browser and multiwad support. Find/replace also works nicely and the search is great.
*native Quake support (up to 1.6a, you need simple conversion tools for the valve versions I think, but maybe bengt's latest compilers handle the maps natively - not sure).
*vertex edit mulitple brushes at once and select any number of vertices or edges to manipulate at once.
*rmf files store camera settings (you can create lots of cameras around your level and switch between them whilst editing instead of having to fly around) visgroups and brush groups (like func_groups, but you can group anything, including entities and it's stored in a hierachy).

The valve versions of wc from 3.3 onwards benefit from accelerated 3d, improved mouse controls and near perfect texture locking that works with rotations as well as moves. Not sure if it works on flipped brushes. The texture editing window also has a few new features like fit to face etc.

The only features I miss in WC that radiant has are the 3 point clipper (WC has only a 2 point clipper) and the filters. You can show/hide visgroups in worldcraft, but it's really nice having the ability to hide clips, triggers, lights etc. at the click of a button without needing to set up groups. Oh, and the single window view in radiant is quite nice - I can't look at four views at the same time :)