Best Quake 1 map editor for a noob in 2011?

[Grateful Chainsaw]

Hi, I looked at the thread for Mapping 101, but I can't decide what is the best editor for me to learn. Should I go with GTKRadiant or Quark? Should I dig up an old version of Worldcraft somewhere? Should I make model maps in Blender and convert them to Quake? Or should I do something entirely different from the above?

Simply put, what are the advantages and disadvantages of the different editors?

With regards to mapping experience, I've made a few simple Doom 2 maps over the years and played Minecraft. I have no experience with the usual mapping for a 3D FPS, though I can code, so I don't consider myself a complete idiot. =P In Doom, the "standard" map editor that almost everyone uses is Doom Builder, even though it's relatively new.. I wonder if there's something like that for Quake.

If there's one editor aspect I'm really looking for, it's a lack of physical limitations. I'm willing to work with the vanilla set of mapping features, but if the editor imposes a relatively small maximum limit in terms of something like polygons or filesize, I would rather stay away from that editor.


Thanks guys!

[Baker]

There isn't a best editor that I know of.

Some people swear by GTKRadiant 1.4, others use Quark or Worldcraft 3.3 + (the Quake Adapter)

It just has to do with personal preference. Neither of them have any limits that I know of regarding filesize or polygons.

[RangerC]

Valve's Worldcraft/Hammer Editor is the easiest in my opinion -
Well my first map was made with Q3Radiant (GTKRadiant's "handling" is the same) and had "really good" stuff and i understood almost everything, but it was a big step to finish the map. Give me Q3 or GTK and im not able to make a map with them anymore.... Damn these CONTROLS.

I never needed a tutorial for Worldcraft/Hammer, you should understand the basics in some minutes.

Why am i saying Worldcraft/Hammer all the time?
May sound abit stupid, but im mapping in Hammer 3.4 and import and compile the level for Quake in Worldcraft - dunno why.

[Baker]

May sound abit stupid, but im mapping in Hammer 3.4 and import and compile the level for Quake in Worldcraft - dunno why.

Yeah but the license agreement for Hammer prohibits the development of maps for non-Valve games.

So suggesting Hammer for Quake mapping is suggesting breaking the license agreement = bad.

[RangerC]

Yeah but the license agreement for Hammer prohibits the development of maps for non-Valve games.

So suggesting Hammer for Quake mapping is suggesting breaking the license agreement = bad.

Oh, i thought only the compilers are affected, hmm.
It can't be followed back ehm...
Noone cares about it right now ahem...
We never talked about it, i used Worldcraft all the time

[MadGypsy]

I'm by no means any kind of an authority on anything Quake but if you intend to make Quake maps super easy, I will say that I learned worldcraft 3.3 (with quake adapter) in about 10 minutes. However, if you made it in blender and it started to come out really good, you may find that you don't want to be limited to the allowable shapes for quake and you might decide to just make your own game with 100% freedom in the BGE (blender game engine). This is what happened to me anyway. Quake didn't like my "brushes" so I said screw Quake and considered my map the first step to a non-Quake FPS of my own design.

I noticed you can make your own character models in quark but everything is automatically based on triangles which is really annoying and pretty much a pain (to me). If you intend to make your own character models, I would suggest using blender to box model with quads and simply triangulate your mesh when you are finished. Triangulating your mesh will screw up some of your normals though so just hit cntrl+n to recalculate your normals to the outside of your mesh. This is just my opinion and the way that is easiest for me. There are a lot of talented modelers on this site that may disagree with me.

Blender does not export .MDL so just export as .OBJ and there is a shareware program called quick3D professional that can convert your models to just about any file type you want. It will retain all the proper information (keyframes, UVs etc) or at least it always has for everything that I've used it for.

you also have to remember that blender is right handed 3D and quake is left handed, so all of your models/maps have to be adjusted to compensate for this. Also Z axis is up in quake (or at least in worldcraft) and Y axis is up in blender

Gypsy

[metchsteekle]

if you use QuArK you can make smooth (enough) curves relatively easy, example is my map (on quaketastic until I can contact sir Cortex about qrf).

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/fi...redux_beta.rar

[Grateful Chainsaw]

Thanks, everyone!

I also asked around on IRC and decided to give GTKRadiant a shot for now, though I may decide to use something else later. Looks like it's easy enough to make simple maps once I downloaded a texture pack, but it seems like I still need to decide on compilers for the BSP, vis, and lights so I can actually build and test my maps in-game.

What do you guys think about the various compiler options available?

[MadGypsy]

Worldcraft has the same thing. I ended up with a medley of compilers based on what various quake tools claimed were "the best". I don't know if these really are the best but I use:

file: Txqbsp (txqbspbjp.zip) - found on page: http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/
file: Wvis (wvis.zip) - found on page: http://wantonhubris.com/blog/tag/quake/
file: Light (bengtlightcolouredR2.zip) - found on page: http://www.quaddicted.com/tools/

Gypsy

[R00k]

BSP Headquarters

[noah99]

is there an octree style editor for quake?