I would recommend running vis before light, sometimes the light data can confuse Vis. 

This is especially important if you're using Q1Rad, since that tool will use the portal information in its calculations. 

thanks guys for the help guys, i'm gonna make a start on mapping now :) 

What exactly is the rule on releasing wads containing textures from other games? I've noticed that games like Hexen2, Heretic2, Rune, Unreal, Daikatana all have wads made and released. Is this not illegal? Is it legal because the wads only contain textures from the demos(I don't know this, I'm merely assuming)?

The reason I'm asking is because I've made complete wads of the above mentioned games(excluding Unreal & Daikatana) as well as RTCW, ET and Wheel of Time, in both full and half resolution, and they are going to waste just sitting on my hard-drive. 

I think those wads are probably illegal, but I don't think anybody's ever been prosecuted over something like that so whether or not you release them depends upon your personal scruples more than anything else. 

Yeh, they're completely illegal, but it's Q1, hardly competition for these games...

Only time I've known it to actual cause an issue was the Q3 textures being used in a custom map for the UT of the time. The author got a cease and desist from iD iirc 

That was kinda my look on the situation. But what does everyone think about releasing wads that are complete (minus few textures that just wouldn't work in Quake)? Do you think that may be going overboard? 

Some people will tell you that you are an unethical immoral bastard and should be hung by your manly parts. (See http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60207&start=1&end=19 but do not let the "loud dogs" bite you).
Others will highly appreciate your work and the possibility of using/see fresh great quality textures in upcoming maps.

It's always been done, it's always been great. Please release them. :) 

I think sikkpin's comment was more based on the practise of releasing every texture from a game as a wad as opposed to generally releasing texture in packs.

I think releasing as wide variety of textures as possible encourages creativity (ie, all the textures from a given game). While it would possibly make more sense to organise the textures from a new game into thematic packs, it is a lot of work to sort an entire games textures and often the folder names create too fractured a set of wads. The only reason the dkt textures are organised by episode is that they were already sorted like that in the folder structure and happen to be fairly exclusive themes.

As for your point about the moral dimension, I don't believe it is any 'better' to release a few textures from a game rather than an entire set. Q1 is an old game now, it'd be a different matter if these games' textures were released for HL2 or UT3. While it is technically illegal so is taping a song off the radio, you don't see the RIAA going after home taping. Therefore it seems best to release these games' textures in their entirety to encourage creativity. 

I apparently have difficulty with the possessive singular 

You are a lacey bitch.

Good way of putting it with home taping paralell. 

too much credit. They fought the proliferation of
audio digital technology tooth and nail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Tape 

While it is technically illegal so is taping a song off the radio, you don't see the RIAA going after home taping.

It doesn't really work to start with the claim that all infringement is equal, and then use the fact that the RIAA only goes after some infringement and not others as support for your claim.

Regarding the actual point, some infringement is worse than others, and I think that the volume of sampled content is a major factor. In that vein, taking one or two textures from a game is less infringing than a wholesale rip of all textures.

Hell, there are even different degrees of murder, and some are worse than others, why wouldn't there be a spectrum of copyright infringement too? 

There a way to have monsters see through from an ordinarily blocked leaf into another?

So a fish or scrag can see the player through trnsparent water brushes, for example. 

Using a func_water entity, but don't want to break the edict limit if I can help it.

Wondering if anyone has a more efficient solution. 

I want to check that I understand the problem correctly. I think what you would like to have is a regular water leaf in your map, and for monsters to be able to trace line of sight through the water leaf and one or more open leaves about it. To achieve this, you need to modify the function visible() in ai.qc. The lines

if(trace_inwater && trace_inopen)
return FALSE;

tell the code to deny line of sight to traces which go through both. Commenting out this code will make all water boundaries visible. If you want some more complicated rules for who can see through what, it might be worth creating seperate visibility functions for different rules. 

Thanks Preach.

I was thinking to have this dependant on the water alpha somehow, or on distance, but that seems like overcomplication, when the map should be designed with this in mind. 

how do i compile with qbsp and tell it to load multiple wad files?

i have:
"wad" "wad1.wad; wad2.wad; wad3.wad"

but all it does it use the first wad. commas (,) don't load any wads at all, so what am i missing? 

i found out it needs to be:
"wad1.wad;wad2.wad;wad3.wad;"
no spaces and a closing ; :P 

so making a water brush into a func_illusionary looses the transparency...

is there any way to trick the engine into making a water brush non-solid but still have transparency? :P 

.alpha in the progs for illusionaries is the only thing that occurs, but then you'd still lose the 'animation' of the water texture and it would only work in engines supporting .alpha. 

too many efrags

WTF?!?!
Is it because I have too many func_illusionarys? 

"Too many efrags!"
This console warning is normally caused by having entities (typically torches) too close to or
even partly inside solid walls. Another possibility is too many (or too far apart) brushes that
are included in one brush entity. EFrags means Entity Fragments. Enhanced Win/GLQuake has higher
limits.

So there I have it! My func_illusionary is made up of too many parts which are too spread out.... 

Alright, first of all , hi ppl.

now onto my problem, I downloaded and installed bsp so I can make quake maps. but after doing the tutorial (in fact any tutorial), they all tell me to go export then click on Qbsp.bat.

Now the problem is, I don't have a Qbsp.bat, When I found it in bats folder, there was a thing that said Qbsp, but it was an application and not a bat.

How can I use this if its not a batch file?

My details are:

OS: Windows xp home (sp3)
bsp dir: C;-> bsp
quake dir: C;-> quake

theyre all in their default locations, but I can't see how to test my maps if I cant compile. 

You need compile tool I guess.

Check there for TxQBSP, VIS, and LIGHT tools: http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/