Ok, I got the water working, but I still dont have a skybox.

I have a "sky" key with the value "skybox_" in my worldspawn entity list.

My sky textures are in mymod/gfx/env/, and are named as:

skybox_lt
skybox_lf
skybox_up
skybox_dn
skybox_ft
skybox_bk

and they are in 24bit .bmp format.

any suggestions :) ? 

Ok, if I load my map and type in "loadsky skybox_" in the console, then it loads it, which asks the questiosn of whether or not WC is even taking into account the entity list change that I made in worldspawn. Also, I found out that the key should perhaps be "loadsky" instead of "sky", but I dont know if this is correct. And finaly, if I add "skybox_" with qoutes as the value to the key "loadsky", the map compiler says that it cant find mymap.bsp in the compile directory. Wierd huh? 

Ok, got it fixed, I changed the key to "sky" and the value to "skybox_". The sky loads now, but there are visible seams, which I'm guessing is because it's loading the wrong textures on the faces of the skybox. 

That is a JoeQuake syntax. Isnt it?

Well my skyboxes (Kells skyboxes) are not of .bmp format but TGA.


skybox_lt
skybox_lf
skybox_up
skybox_dn
skybox_ft
skybox_bk

the first line "skybox_lt" should be "rt" although I believe this is just a typo that you put into the post.

Try removing the _ from the value in the worldspawn and the names of the images.

Dont worry, it will work eventually :)

Darkplaces, AguirRe's GLQuake and FitzQuake all definately work with the key "sky", that is the normal way of doing it.


And finaly, if I add "skybox_" with qoutes as the value to the key "loadsky", the map compiler says that it cant find mymap.bsp in the compile directory. Wierd huh?

Big can of worms - "compile DIR". Just make sure that all of your bsp and map files, as well as the tools you use are inside "quake\id1", and that Worldcraft is set accordingly. Then you will avoid any annoying "file not found" errors.

Also in WC save your map and click "export to map file", then open the map file in Notepad or a text editor (not Word). The Worldspawn is right at the top of the file. You can edit/add keys/values this way, just save the file.

Learn to use your compile tools with a command prompt also, as the WC process window can be buggy as hell.....

let us know what happens when you remove the "_"s and make sure that the skyboxes are 24 bit targas (TGAs), leave the key as "sky". That should work really...... 

Try your map with different engines. Im not sure all of them will load BMP files as skyboxes. Also JoeQuake and some other engines (Qrack, Tomaz, QMB) might not load the skybox, and you'll have to type loadsky blah.

Darkplaces AGlQuake and Fitz should all work though :) 

Thnx for the info. It works now.

I got all of mt sky textures as skybox_lt, skybox_rt, etc, in my mymod/gfx/env/ dir. All of the sky textures are in 24bit .tga file format. I put in the "sky" key in the worldspawn along with the "skybx_" value. I got everything to compile fine.

I should make a note that I'm using hmap2.exe for my compiling, which i think is written by LordHavoc for use with DP.

The only slight bug I have with the skyboxes is that there are big visible seams, because the textures are not aligned properly, but this is due to the fact of what I think is the case of my saying "skybox_rt (right)" and DP saying "skybox_rt (left)". I'll fiddle with that and get backt o you.

The reason for all of this sudden commotion is because I started working on my mod. I'm experimenting with making HUGE maps (as in they go way off past the grid in the WC editor). I want to make GTA-like city levels. I got a few ideas I wanna try out. 

But remember that if you make the level too big it will take infinity to visually optimise (vis) so keep an eye on your details (marksurfaces, clipnodes etc etc). 

Yeah, my coagula map is already starting to kick my machines ass in VIS time. Grrr... 

I donn know much about the technicalities of VIS, or BSP tree's for that matter. I do know that the VIS program creates portals, which are sort of like ares that are visible, while other areas are not, because they are hidden bu occulders (or something like that). I believe that it's also used to like determine the visibility of the surfaces which are affected by the lighting in the level. Perhaps I got it all wrong. 

If your map is like one big arena this is the worst possible scenario, because each portal can see most of the other portals and this takes a lot of time for the program to process. JPL's Castle of the Dark Ages is a very bad map for this and took 50 days for his computer to run vis. Three Towers and a Sick Base was a harsh learning curve for me in the wonderfull world of vis, that map took 6 and a half days to vis. Some of Tronyns maps are also like this. So making a huge map like you describe could work but you will have to keep the details pretty low, so that there are minimum portals.

Some of Ijed's maps in WARPSPASM are massive, some of the biggest levels ever, but he used effective vis-blocking (making sure that the map is broken up by walls and cleverly placed bends in corridors) amd vis times we're comparitively short for him.

Dont confuse vis-blocking with Worldcraft's vis-groups feature, they are completely unrelated.

A massive city could work if all of the buildings touch the sky and are flat on top, and all of a similar height (they will act as barriers and stop the vis process from considering too much of what is on the other side of them), but if you make it so that all of the rooftops are accessible then your finished map will take a huge amount of time to vis.

And your r_speeds will be very high, causeing even modern machines to stutter and suffer frame rate drops.

Please go and make a huge map with good gameplay and vis-blocking :)

Also hmap2 tools are not the best (sorry Lordhavoc), better use these:

http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

:) 

Thanx for all that info,and I downloaded your tools, so I'll check them out. Is there perhaps some official guide (as in more technical), that specificaly covers what each compile tool does and how to get the most out of it? 

Look in Quake 1 Tooltips at the bottom of the page.:)

The tools are probably the best for the Quake engine generally, rather than Darkplaces specifically. The idea of doing a GTA style mod would work if you meant GTA1 or GTA2, but seeing as you're asking about a skybox I figure you had a greater vision ;)

Lordhavocs website has all of the details for his tools and engine, but it really is the compiling which would screw you up! You could do a fast-vis "vis.exe -level 1" release which wouldnt take so long as a full compile, but it's not a healthy way of doing things.

Or so they tell me... 

"You could do a fast-vis "vis.exe -level 1" release which wouldnt take so long as a full compile, but it's not a healthy way of doing things. "

Not sure what you mean here but it's definitely a good idea while working on the map. You don't want to eat 6 days every time you want to test the map. :) 

Generally during map development only fastvis is usefull... and then you can face really evil runtime on final fullvis if your vis blocking is crapy.... believe me :( 

You and me both :)

I have never released a final version with a fast-vis, it gives crappy performance :) 

The main problem is that fullvis runtime can vary in between minutes, and months !! And there's no possibility to predict what it will be before the first test... that is generally for me the last run :P 

Work with fastvis but do a fullvis a couple of times a week - so there's no nasty surprises later on. 

me to, at least once a week i made one 

That's really wierd, seeing as most people have like quad core CPU's and gigabytes of RAM, I'd imagine it would take at most a few hours. Then again, I do come from a general 3D background, where I'm used to seeing fully raytraced renderes scenes in minutes (sometimes hours). 

I'm with you there. I don't know how people are invoking levels that take weeks or months to VIS on modern day machines, but they claim they are. :) 

They could blame QuArK, but for some reason they are even defending it. 

I remembered with the Koho-vis test my computer ended upon 11 minutes, which I thought quiet fast.

The map I was making turned out on 87% after 5 days and it was there already 2 days.
I scratched the map because of 3 homs and started all over again.
Now making sure all polys were on integer grid.

The map turned out alright. And it still takes 6 houres, but that's understandable, having all on grid.

Still 2 homs prevent me from publishing it. 

It is not the tool you are using (i.e QuArK), in my case this is the size of the map (i.e 7915 brushes), and the way it is built.

If you are doing crap, you can have the best equipment, it will not help you :P 

if you have a map which has 8000 marksurfaces and r_speeds never go past 400 then it will vis in a few minutes.

If you have a map with 40'000+ marksurfaces and r_speeds rarely drop below 20'000 (at level 4) then it will take days. 

If you have a map with 40'000+ marksurfaces and r_speeds rarely drop below 20'000 (at level 4) then it will take days.

You are wrong: it can take a month !!!