Multiple "maps" from a single BSP?

[damage_inc]

I think all we're going to get is what's displayed when you type "mapspl.exe help" into a command prompt/terminal)! Which is a bit advanced for my current map making knowledge. I even d'loaded the map source from quaddicted... it's HUGE!

Index of /files/maps/singleplayer/ scroll down, it's alphabetized. If you're interested. I did it to check out his "changelevel" entity params to see how it works, still didn't "see" it.

I'm just curious as it's a pretty unique feature. To go along with a great freakin' map to boot!

These are each "changelevel's" param's from the .map source, maybe someone with more knowledge can explain the differing spawnflags:

@LINE 94580
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" "digs04"
"spawnflags" "3328"

@LINE 96709
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" "digs04"
"spawnflags" "1"

@LINE 97874
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" "start"
"spawnflags" "768"

@LINE 106882
"classname" "trigger_changelevel"
"map" "digs04"
"spawnflags" "3584"

The "map" "start" well, that's easy, you finished the map!

[damage_inc]

I think I found it?! Has nothing to do with his utility, just standard editing know how. I found this for Quake 2 but I imagine it'd work for Quake(1):

Notes:
If your destination map has multiple spawn points, and you'd like to specify which spawn point they goto here's what you need to do. Right now in the map field of the change level entity, you're using the format of just entering a map name. Change that format to "map name$player start name". And then in the destination map give the desired player start a targetname of whatever you entered as the "player start name". Confusing? =] Here's an example: Say I want to exit from my current map "curmap" to a specified player start named "playstar" in a map called "nexmap". In the change level entity in "curmap" I would enter "nexmap$playstar" in the map field. This is a usefull thing to use if you're creating a hub of levels in which the player will be traveling back and forth between levels multiple times.

Has to be something similar...

[hgdagon]

The author of mapspl said the program is for working with chunks of maps... I wonder why no one ever used this when creating levels?? I mean a single bsp for more than one map. But I'd say in Quake going back to preveous map was qiute annoying, imo

[Zop]

Those high number spawnflags control whether or not something is loaded in the map based on the current skill (easy, nightmare, etc) setting. I imagine when you play the map, the skill value changes before each reload, and thus different things are shown in the map.

[H1CC]

Imagine you have trigger_setskill that is available or not available depending on the already present skill...
When you finish one 'level within the map' it only allows the 'changelevel' trigger to work on the skill you are supposed to be at in that 'level within map'... then changes it to the next 'skill variable' as soon as you enter the next 'level within map'.


One problem.
Quake only allows for 3 different conditions of whether or not things will be spawned... Easy Medium and Hard. Nightmare has the same spawning of entities as Hard but with significant changes to things like monster AI.


Presuming you use a trigger_relay mechanism of sorts to... well... relay multiple 'skill-setting triggers' in a specific order you MAY be able to combine different skill 0, skill 1, and skill 2 settings into more than just 3 combinations...
Working that out would be tedious enough to make in map entity ordering alone let alone to work out when considering how exactly the player is supposed to actually hit the 'trigger_setskill' stuff to activate the process automatically on next level load.
If there are only 3 to 6 or so different 'maps within a map' here then it's not hard to imagine it was done this way... though if you've got like 10 or 11 or 29 of 'em I'd have to imagine it involves more than some manipulation of 'skill setting' to do the trick.
Try changing the skill in console after you just load the next 'level within a single .bsp file' and are about to begin the play of that 'level' and if it messes up the ordering into the next 'levels' then that's probably part of how it was done.

[Seven]

I am of course by far no mapper nor do I know much about it, but I think that Spike already pointed you into the correct direction:

I suspect you could use runes and killtargets to take out the extra start spots or something, ...

If you compare the original start map from Quake, you can see quite similar things happen:
Depending on the runes you have, the start map always looks different.
The differences are not as big as in digs map, but you get the idea:
- The spawn point when carrying runes is different to initial point
- The entrance to the specific episodes are blocked and if you have all 4 runes, the entrance floor to the end map is opened.

And now look into digs04 map:
You must collect a rune to even start the map. That is quite an evidence to that approach. And when you find all secrets in that map, you will find a rune in one of it, which will most probably lead you to another area of it as a bonus.

On top of that, digs also placed different teleportes beneath spawning points. Those decide where you will teleportet to. For example: Start a new game, use noclip cheat and move straight upwards. You will touch a teleporter which will bring you to the next starting point of the map.

The length of this thread and the riddles that this map gives us shows the skill and cleverness of digs
Great !

[damage_inc]

Much agreed Seven, digs is very clever. Through all of this "digs'ing" around, I even found a thread over at Func_ that shows mapping "tricks", sans qc using entities and such! Reminded me of the ole 3D Game Alchemy for Doom(II), Hexen/Heretic etc I bought once.



All the sector and line tricks to pull off special effects. Cool stuff indeed

EDIT: I think I had this one too...