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Q U E S T (QUake Editing STation) Release v.1.1 http://www.nuc.net/quest Copyright (c) 1996 Chris Carollo and Trey Harrison PART I - Getting Started 1.0 Overview of Quake Editing 1.1 Brushes 1.2 Entities 1.3 Linking brushes and entities 2.0 What You Need to Start Editing 2.1 Quest 2.2 Wad files 2.3 Pak files 2.4 Building Maps 2.5 Running Maps PART II - Editing with Quest 3.0 The Quest Screen Layout 3.1 The Editing Area 3.2 The Message Area 3.3 The Tool Area 3.4 The Menu Area 3.5 The Status Area 4.0 Editing Modes in Quest 4.1 Brush 4.2 Face 4.3 Entity 4.4 Script 5.0 Viewing Modes in Quest 5.1 2-D Mode 5.2 3-D Mode 5.3 BSP Mode PART IV - Appendices A Troubleshooting ---------------- PART I Getting Started ---------------- 1.0 OVERVIEW OF QUAKE EDITING ----------------------------- There are three basic elements to editing maps in Quake: 1.1 Brushes ----------- The basic building block of all Quake maps is the brush. A brush is nothing more than a convex polyhedron. Many people have given very complex descriptions of brushes, but in truth they are pretty simple. A 3-dimensional polyhedron (plural polyhedra) is a collection of polygons that enclose a space. A polyhedron must be closed, and therefore must contain at least four polygons (or "faces"), which would form a tetrahedron. A cube is a polyhedron with 6 faces. Polyhedra can consist of any number of polygons. A *convex* polyhedron is simply a polyhedron that has no "dents" or places where it folds back upon itself. If you fire any line through a convex polyhedron, it will never intersect the polyhedron more than twice (once on its way in, once on its way out). If it enters, exits, and then enters again, then the polyhedron isn't convex. If you know the different between a convex and concave polygon, just apply this to a 3-dimensional case. When a Quake map is compiled, a huge merge is done of all the faces of all the brushes in a map. QBSP fuses all brushes together and discards the parts that are inside other brushes or outside the useable part of the map. This is one of the reasons why it is important to make sure that maps are "sealed" - so that Quake can discard all those faces that are on the outside of the map. Another important concept is that brushes are solid. With the exception of water, acid, and lava brushes (more on those later), you can not be "inside" a brush. 1.2 Entities ------------ Another primary element of Quake maps is the entity. Entities include player starts, enemies, weapons, powerups, and lights. 1.3 Linking Brushes and Entities -------------------------------- There are certain entities that aren't physical entities at all, but are just descriptions for behaviors of certain brushes. These include doors, lifts, platforms, and teleporters, which are referred to as "Scripts" in Quest. 2.0 WHAT YOU NEED TO START EDITING ---------------------------------- 2.1 Quest --------- Requirements: - 486 or Pentium-class computer. A Pentium is strongly reccomended. - A mouse. - A VESA-compatable video card. - Registered Quake. Setup of Quest: 1 - Unzip Quest using the -d flag. (the -d is VERY important!) 2 - Edit the quest.cfg file to your liking. At the very least edit the entry for the default wadfile. (more on the wadfile later). 3 - Edit the mdlref.lst and point all the entries to your pak files. Global replace in Edit.com is real handy here. 2.2 Wad files ------------ Wad files are nothing more than collections of textures that can be applied to brushes. They can be either downloaded or generated. Some of the wad files used by id can be downloaded directly from the Quest homepage, or many other sources on the net. There are also other utilities available that will rip all the textures out of a pak or bsp file and generate a wad that you can use. Be warned that very large wad files may possibly not work with Quest. I reccomend creating a directory in which to place all your wadfiles. Once you have a wadfile that you'd like to use, be sure to edit quest.cfg and specify it so that Quest will use it by default on startup. However, if a wad file is specified in a .map file that is loaded, this wad file will be used within Quest. 2.3 Pak files ------------- Pak files are the main data files for Quake. The two pak files are located in the id1 directory inside your Quake directory. These files contain all the bsps, textures, models, and other miscellaneous structures in Quake. If you have Registered Quake (and you better, if you're going to be editing maps), 2.4 Building Maps ----------------- In order to run a map file in Quake, it must first be compiled into a bsp. There are three programs used in this process: qbsp - This actually creates the bsp tree and portalizes the map, checks for leaks, and removes polygons on the outside of the map. It's also a memory hog, so either run it on a monster of a machine (upwards of 64 megs of ram), or expect to swap to disk quite a bit. light - This does all the pretty lighting in Quake. Depending on the number of lights and the architecture of the map, it can be the most time-consuming portion of the compiling process during testing. vis - This builds the PVS (Potentially Visible Set). It basically builds and RLE compresses a list of which BSP leaves can see each other. When not doing a test build with the -fast parameter, it can take enormous emounts of time to process. These utilities can be found many places on the web, compiled for both DOS and WinNt/95. 2.5 Running Maps ---------------- In Quake, if you type "map mymap" in the console (or run "quake +map mymap), it will look for the file id1/maps/mymap.bsp by default. So in order to run a map, it should be placed into the id1/maps directory off of your quake directory. Quake also has the capability to look for maps first in another directory tree, which can be specified with the "-game" parameter. If you ran "quake -game mygame", Quake would first look in the mygame tree (still off the Quake directory) for all its files, and then in the id1 tree. So if you made a mygame/maps directory in your Quake directory, it would look first there for your maps, then in id1/maps. ------------------ PART II Editing with Quest ------------------ 3.0 THE QUEST SCREEN LAYOUT --------------------------- The Quest editing screen is broken into five main areas: 3.1 The Editing Area -------------------- The main editing area consists of one or more viewports. The active viewport is designated by a bright white outline, as opposed to a greyer outline for inactive viewports. To make an inactive viewport active, simply click on it. The camera is manipulated using the following keys: A Move Forward Z Move Backward Left Strafe Left Right Strafe Right Up Strafe Upward Down Strafe Downward Alt-Left Rotate left Alt-Right Rotate right Alt-Up Look up Alt-Down Look down S Zoom map in (2-d mode only) X Zoom map out (2-d mode only) Note that the strafing commands always behave consistently, regardless of the direction in which the camera is pointing. However, the rotate left and rotate right commands always rotate as if the camera were not pointed up or down. You can think of this as a person turning to their left or right while looking at their toes or at the moon. Mouse movement is also supported. While holding down the right mouse button you can drag around the camera. If you hold down both the right and the left mouse buttons you can move the camera depthwise, also. The camera limitations of 90 degrees is completely intentional, and is not likely to change. Elements can only be moved in the plane parallel to the view plane (perpendicular to the view direction). Allowing the user to edit at a skewed angle introduces many problems, all of which are eliminated by limiting the editing to planes parallel to the principal axes. A freelook-style view option will be added and used to view the map, but editing will not be allowed in this mode. 3.2 The Message Area -------------------- The message area contains informative messages about the status of the map and of Quest as you edit. It can be scrolled backward and forward using the up and down buttons and the scrollbar on the right side of the area. 3.3 The Tool Area ----------------- The tool area contains buttons that can be used as shortcuts to functions: [ Many not yet implemented. ] Adding a Cube Brush - the button with the cube is used to add a new cubic brush to the map. Copying - the button with the overlapping squares is used to copy to the clipboard. Pasting - the button with the single square is used to copy to the clipboard. Deleting - the button with the scrawled X with delete. Selecting Textures - the button with the large capital letter "T" is used to select a new texture, and apply it to any selected brushes/faces. 3.4 The Menu Area ----------------- The menu area can be used to execute every function available in Quest. It is set up in a hierarchical fashion (users of 3D Studio will be familiar with it). As you select a function in the menu, another submenu (indented slightly) will appear below the current choices. This menu system has the advantage of having a strongly structured hierarchy while also allowing the user to select any of the items along this hierarchy with a single mouse click. Here are explanations of the menu items: FILE - General file-related menu ---- New - Clears the current map (after prompting for confirmation). Load - Loads a map via the file dialog. Save - Saves the map as its current name. Save As - Brings up a file dialog and allows you to specify the name of your map. Exit - Exits Quest (after confirmation) CREATE ------ Brush ~~~~~ Cube - Creates a rectangular brush that attempts to fit to the size of the currently selected texture. Prism - Creates prism (or a solid cylinder to the layperson). It brings up a dialog that is used to specify the parameters of the prism. Room - Creates a rectangular room from 6 brushes. It brings up a dialog that is used to specify the parameters of the room. Entity ~~~~~~ Info - Creates info-related items, such as player and deathmatch starts. Monster - Creates monsters, such as ogres and fiends. Weapon - Creates weapons, such as the rocket launcher. Item - Creates items, such as armor and health. Light - Creates lights, such as wall torches. Ambient - Creates ambient sounds. Script ~~~~~~ Movement Door - Creates a door. Lift - Creates a lift. Platform - Creates a moving platform. Button - Creates a button. Change Level - Creates a level changer. Teleport - Creates a teleporter. Push - Creates a pushing brush. SecretDoor - Creates a secret door. CornerPoint - Creates a path cornerpoint. Linking Link - Link a target. Once - Assign a one-time trigger. Multiple - Assign a multple trigger. Count - Assign a trigger with a count. Relay - Assign a relayed trigger. Secret - Assign a secret trigger. Misc Illusionary - Create an illusionary (walk-through) brush. ChangeSkill - Create a brush that changes the skill level. MonsterJump - Create a brush that causes monters to jump. Hurt - Create a hurt-inducing brush. Add - Add a brush/entity to a script. BSP Tree - Rebuilds the BSP for the solid polygon mode. ~~~~~~~~ MODIFY ------ Brush ~~~~~ Rotate - Rotate brushes around a centerpoint. Scale - Scale brushes around a centerpoint. Gridsnap - Snap all selected brushes to the grid. Intersect - Does a boolean intersection on selected brushes. Subtract - Does a boolean subtraction of selected brushes. Entity ~~~~~~ Properties - Edit the properties of selected entities. Rotate - Rotate an entity that may be rotated. DELETE ------ Brush - Delete selected brushes. Entity - Delete selected entities. SETTINGS -------- Def texture - Select the active texture and apply it to all selected brushes/faces. Texture Wad - Select the currently used texture wad. 3.5 The Status Area ------------------- The status area is used to convey information about the current status of Quest to the user. It displays such information as movement deltas, the current texture, and the texture and centerpoint of brushes. 4.0 EDITING MODES IN QUEST -------------------------- There are three primary editing modes in Quest. They are switched between via the TAB key. 4.1 Brush Mode -------------- As described earlier, brushes are the basic building blocks of all Quake maps. In Quest, only brushes that are selected may be edited. To select a brush, click on it's focal point (denoted by a small red circle at the center of the brush) while holding down Control. When a brush is selected, it turns yellow. Many brushes may be selected at a time by holding down Control and clicking and dragging a window around multiple focal points (be sure your initial click is not on a focal point, though!) If a brush is already selected when it is Control-clicked on, it will become deselected. A Control-click that does not select any brushes will deselect all currently selected brushes. When brushes are selected, the following operations are possible: Vertex Movement - The vertices of selected brushes may be moved. Vertices are denoted by cyan squares. They can be dragged with the left mouse button. Multiple vertices can be selected by holding down Shift when clicking. If a selected vertex is Shift-clicked on, it will be deselected. Many vertices can be selected at a time by Shift-clicking and dragging a window around multiple vertices. A click away from all vertices will deselect all currently selected vertices. Texture Application - A texture can be applied to selected brushes with the Texture button in the tool area or via the Settings->Def Texture menu item. All selected brushes will have the current texture applied to them. Note that simply selecting brushes will not apply the current texture to them - you must select the desired brushes, THEN choose the texture. Copy Brush - Brushes may be copied to the clipboard via Ctrl-C or the copy button in the tool area. Note that any brushes already in the clipboard will be removed when new brushes are copied to it. Paste Brush - When brushes are in the clipboard, they may be pasted to the map via Ctrl-V or the paste button in the tool area. This is a common method for adding new brushes. Note that a Copy and a Paste in direct succession will paste the new brush exactly on top of the old brush, so be sure to move it off the old brush! Delete Brush - The Delete button, pressing DEL, or selecting Delete->Brush from the menu will delete all selected brushes from the map. Split Face - The face of a selected brush may be split. When splitting a brush face, you will need to select two points on the same face of a single brush. These points can be either vertices, edges, or one of each. An edge is created between the two selected points. If a selected point is on an edge, the edge is divided in two and a new vertex is added. [ Face splitting is not yet implemented ] Merge Face/Vertex - Really a special case of vertex movement, vertices and faces can be merged. If a vertex is moved on top of another vertex in the brush, they will be merged into a single vertex. If vertex movement causes a face to disappear, it will be removed from the brush, and its edges will be merged. [ Face merging is not yet implemented ] New brushes can be created with the Create->Brush family of menu items, or with the Create Brush button. When a brush is created, it is placed a certain distance in front of the current camera position. It can then be selected and placed where it is desired. 4.2 Face Mode ------------- This mode behaves similarly to Brush Mode. The focal points are green rather than red, and turn yellow when you select the face because it can be difficult to determine which face is selected. When you have faces selected, vertices behave as they do in brush mode, but if you click on the T button, the texture will be applied to the individual faces. Also, hitting Ctrl-E with a single face selected will bring up a Face editing Window. It displays a textured view of the selected face, and allows you to modify the offset/scaling on it. The following keys can be used: Ctrl + Up - Increase Y scaling by .05 Ctrl + Down - Decrease Y scaling by .05 Ctrl + Right - Increase X scaling by .05 Ctrl + Left - Decrease X scaling by .05 Up - Move texture Up by snap size Down - Move texture Down by snap size Left - Move texture Left by snap size Right - Move texture Right by snap size Note that texture rotation is not yet implemented. 4.3 Entity Mode --------------- Entities are much simpler to work with than brushes. In the 3-d world, they simply have a location, and some have an orientation. The only operations on entities are addition, modification, movement, and deletion. Entities can be adding using the Create->Entity menu tree. Most of the stock entity types are available there. More will be added as I determine how Quake creates them. A short description is displayed in the status area as you move the mouse pointer over entities. Entities are moved much as vertices are. Shift allows you to select entities, which can then can be dragged to their new positions. The complexity of entities lies in the fact that entities can have attributes that define thier properties. For example, certain items may have light values, and where an item appears (skill level, coop, deathmatch, etc) is defined with an attribute. The edit entity button, Edit->Entity, or Ctrl-E will bring up an Edit Entity dialog, which will allow you to manually enter attributes. When you click on OK, the displayed attributes will be applied to all selected entities. The delete button, prssing DEL, or selecting Delete->Entity from the menu will delete all selected entities from the map. 4.4 Script Mode --------------- Scripts are one of the most complicated aspects of editing. They include attributes on brushes (lifts, doors, moving platforms), actions on brushes (teleports, buttons, damaging brushes), linking actions together (triggering actions upon killing a monster or picking up an item) and other miscellaneous elements of the map (intermission camera). Scripts can be done for single or multiple brushes - Quake allows for both, depending on the script you're trying to create or modify. Doors, for example, must be defined singly. Before doing anything more than basic Script editing, please be sure to read the Quake Map Specs! Note that many brushes when assigned to scripts become invisible, so don't panic. Many are that way intentionally. Links between scripts/entities are signified by a cyan line. Are links are directional - that is, one end of the link is the "from" end and the other is the "to" end. The "to" end is differentiated by a cyan square. http://www.infi.net/~nichd/qmapspec.html Here are the following script types supported by Quest: Doors Buttons - Select brushes, do Create->Script->Movement->Door or ~~~~~~~ Lift or Button. Fill in any values, and hit okay. The selected brushes will become doors/lifts/buttons. Note that brushes assigned to scripts with the same "create" command all are members of the same script. Lifts - Similar to Doors and Buttons. The difference with lifts ~~~~~ is that you need to place the lift at its top position in Quest. When you start the map in Quake, it will start in the lowered position, but will rise to the top position when touched. Teleport - Select brushes. Do a Create->Script->Movement->Teleport. ~~~~~~~~ The selected brushes will become teleport brushes. Create a teleport destination with Create->Entity->Info. Select the teleport brush, do a Create->Script->Linking->Link. Select the teleport destination, and right-click. You will see the cyan link line. ChangeLevel - Select brushes. Do a Create->Script->Movement-> ~~~~~~~~~~~ ChangLevel. Enter the map to warp to, and the the selected brushes will become ChangeLevel triggers. Push - Select brushes. Enter the speed and direction that the brush ~~~~ will cause the player to be pushed. SecretDoor - Similar to the standard door, with a "secret" status. ~~~~~~~~~~ Platform - Similar to Doors and Lifts. The difference with Platforms ~~~~~~~~ is how to get them to move. The path platforms follow is defined by a circular string of cornerpoints. You need to link a string of corner points in a circular manner (link the first to the second, then link the second to the third...then link back to the first). After you've linked the path, link the platform to a cornerpoint. When Quake starts, the platform will start at the corner point to which you've linked it. Notice that it does NOT start where you placed it in the level, but at the corner point you link it to. Its exact location is defined by the minimum points of the bounding box of the platform brushes. CornerPoint - This will create a cornerpoint entity. Corner points ~~~~~~~~~~~ can be used to specify the path that Platforms or monsters follow. Link - This isn't so much a script type as it is an action. It ~~~~ creates a link between the specified objects (watch the message area for what to do when). Links are removed intelligently when deleting scripts. Once Multiple - This does two things. It assigns a trigger to the selected ~~~~~~~~ brushes, and then automatically prompts you for the target of the trigger. "Once" creates a trigger that will only activate once. "Multiple" will activate multiple times. Secret - This acts as the Once and Multiple Triggers, but it a ~~~~~~ "secret" status. Count - Count and relay scripts are unique. They are applied on ~~~~~ "top" of another trigger. If you have a script that you would like to activate after being triggered a certain number of times, a Count trigger should be applied on top of it. Select the script and do a Create->Script->Linking->Counter. Specify the number of times you'd like it to be triggered before it is activated. Then whenever you edit or link to the script, it will prompt you if you like to edit/link to the counter or the script itself. As with many things, it is easier to see it in action, so try it out. Relay - As with counter scripts, relays are applied on top of existing ~~~~~ scripts. A relay script is triggered when the script linked to it is triggered. So if you want a series of doors to open in succession, create them normally, then assign all doors other than the first one a relay script, and point the first to the second, second to third, etc. You can also specify delays in the relay script. Illusionary - The illusionary script is probably the simplest of all ~~~~~~~~~~~ scripts. It allows the specified brushes to be moved through, even though they appear solid. ChangeSkill - This will change the skill level of the player to ~~~~~~~~~~~ the specified skill when they touch the brush. MonsterJump - This causes any monsters touching this brush to jump ~~~~~~~~~~~ in the specified direction/speed. It can be used for some very cool effects in a map. Hurt - This simply causes the player to be hurt by the specified ~~~~ amount whenever they come in contact with the brush. 5.0 VIEWING MODES IN QUEST -------------------------- In both the 3-D Wireframe and the 2-D Modes, pressing B will toggle fullbright mode, where there is no depth clipping. F1 will toggle a fullscreen viewport. 4.1 3-D Wireframe Mode ------------ 3-D Wireframe Mode is the primary mode of Quest. It is used as a realtime-updated view of the map in three dimensions. 3-D mode is useful for selecting brushes and vertices, because it is fairly easy to see exactly what is selected, which can be confusing in 2-D mode. 4.2 2-D Mode ------------ 2-D Mode (or Flat Mode) is toggled with the F key. 2-D mode is very useful for alignment and movement, which perspective views can make almost impossible. Note that in 2-D mode, sections of the map may be behind the camera and therefore not displayed, even when fullbright is enabled. 4.3 BSP Mode ------------ BSP mode is toggled with the F3 key. For a proper display, the BSP must be re-build after any brush changes, but on most maps this is very quickly done (a matter of seconds). This can be done via Create->BSP Tree. This mode allows a solid polygon view of the level at a good framerate for most maps. It is not used for editing, but can be helpful for seeing what the map looks like. Appendix A - TROUBLESHOOTING ---------------------------- Q - I get a "RegisterBitmap" error when starting Quest. Why? A - Unzip with a "-d" parameter. Q - I get a "LoadModel" error when starting Quest. Why? A - Edit the mdlref.lst to point to your pak files. Q - I get a "Invalid Wadfile" error when starting Quest. Why? A - Edit the quest.cfg file and specify a valid wadfile. Q - I get garbage on the screen when using Quest. Why? A - This is a known problem with the graphics routines/library that we are using. It is esepecially prevalent on Matrox cards. Two possible solutions are booting without EMM386, and running under Win95 (yes, Win95 actually *fixes* this one in some cases!). There is no "perfect" solution. Q - Quest keeps complaining that points aren't coplanar. What does this mean? A - If you move vertices that cause a face of a brush to become "warped" or "twisted", you've disrupted the coplanarity of your face and Quest will notice this and display a warning. Simply moving it back will fix the problem. It is important to make sure all vertices on a face lie in the same plane, or you might get unexpected results when re-loading a map. Q - Quest complains about a brush not beng convex. Why? A - When moving vertices, Quest checks to make sure that the involved brushes maintain their convexity (see section 1.1 for a description of convex vs concave brushes). If your brush looks convex but Quest still complains, you've probably turned the brush inside-out. To flip a brush, you must rotate it - don't drag the bottom vertices over the top ones. Q - qbsp reports a leak in my map and my maps won't vis! What's the problem? A - This is because the map isn't sealed...which can be a very annoying and difficult problem to track down. Here's what to do about it: 1. Copy the bsp file that qbsp output to your maps directory (it's okay that vis didn't work, for now). 2. qbsp should have output a .pts file, also. Copy it to the same location of your bsp file. 3. Start quake as you normally would, and load your map. 4. From the console, type "pointfile". 5. Quake will then load the .pts and display a string of points that go through the leak. Make sure you turn off the display of brush models, because even if doors/ lifts cover a hole, the map is still considered "not sealed". Sometimes it's easier to turn on No Clipping ("noclip" from the console) and track the points from the outside of the map in. Note that qbsp will not always report a leak, but if a map doens't vis and qbsp outputs a .pts file, then a leak exists. I've heard of strange occurances where qbsp won't output a .prt file (necessary for vis-ing), but it won't output a .pts file either. I'm not sure what causes this, or of any solutions to it.