A few questions about mapping

[impulse9]

Hi, I've been into mapping for some time now and I've encountered a number of various problems that I haven't been able to solve so far. I've been to many different webpages but only a handful of them have actually helped me (speaking of which, more than half of the links to mapping tutorials are either broken or terribly outdated ). So I've decided to put my questions here and hopefully get some answers from more experienced mappers.

So here goes:

1) Lights. How do you make your maps so perfectly illuminated? I've figured out the ambient property of worldspawn can kinda do that, but at the same time it makes the map look very unnaturally bright, even at minimum values. Anyways, it looks crap. Then I've figured if I put lots of lights on the way it could look a bit more realistic but what happened was I made a light model and I copied it across the room so in the end I had gazillion lights which really looked bad. Then I tried to make less lights, but each one more powerfull, but even at intensity rates of 10,000 and more it had very strange and not at all strong effect. It is just too dark. So just how the ** do you do that .

2) Light beams. THIS (click) is the tutorial on how to make them, but it doesn't work since there is no "beam" texture in my sfx folder. I know this can be done with Nexuiz because I've seen it in some maps, but the above tutorial is apparently not the way.

3) Models. I am bad at making them myself, but there's got to be an internet database of somekind that offers different models for free use in maps? Well I haven't found one so far so that's why I'm asking. I would be especially glad if someone introduced a torch model to me, so I could add a little more gothic feel to my maps. Also, I've yet to discover how to make machines that move and make sound and stuff like that. I'd be glad if someone offered a little insight into it.

4) Lifts. How do you make a lift that will go up when you step on it, and will also go down after a specified amount of time, say 10 seconds. And also how to implement the lift sounds of it moving or stopping?

5) How to put custom music in your map, is it possible to import mp3s? And if so, what is the size limit and how to do it (whatever I tried didn't work).

6) Is it possible to make little lava balls that would fly in and out of lava and would damage the player if he/she crosses them? Y'know, like in quake1 .

7) Compiling. If I understand correctly, there has to be a bsp file for each game mode in the final pk3 file, along with the config file, textures, and sounds. Is this right?

Thanks for any answers, they are appreciated.

[KadaverJack]

5) How to put custom music in your map, is it possible to import mp3s? And if so, what is the size limit and how to do it (whatever I tried didn't work).

mp3 is not supported due to patent issues. wav (pcm) and ogg/vorbis audio files are supported.
To use custom music in your map, copy the file to sound/cdtracks/4_33.ogg and add a cfg file maps/<name of the bsp without ext>.cfg and write

Code: Select all

cd loop 4_33

in there.

7) Compiling. If I understand correctly, there has to be a bsp file for each game mode in the final pk3 file, along with the config file, textures, and sounds. Is this right?

No. Copying the bsp file would be pretty stupid, since it's usually the largest file in the pk3. Instead you need to write a mapcfg file for each game mode (and a text file, for proper menu support). See Nexuiz/Docs/mapping.txt

[Strahlemann]

1) Lights. How do you make your maps so perfectly illuminated? I've figured out the ambient property of worldspawn can kinda do that, but at the same time it makes the map look very unnaturally bright, even at minimum values. Anyways, it looks crap. Then I've figured if I put lots of lights on the way it could look a bit more realistic but what happened was I made a light model and I copied it across the room so in the end I had gazillion lights which really looked bad. Then I tried to make less lights, but each one more powerfull, but even at intensity rates of 10,000 and more it had very strange and not at all strong effect. It is just too dark. So just how the ** do you do that .

At first you need the right compile-settings. I use:
-light -bounce 3 -deluxe -fast -filter -patchshadows -samples 2

Often shaders for light-textures give a nice result. Textures that use a shader have a white outline in your radiant-texture-browser (note: not all shaders are light-emitting. But mostly the ones with a light-texture ) You can find them in your nexuiz/data/scripts folder.

The other way to light your environment are the light-entities. To see exactly how the maps that come with nexuiz are lit, see their sources. They're located under Nexuiz/data/maps

Lighting is a very wide field, so there are no exact guidelines how to light it perfectly.
A good read on lighting in general can be found here: http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm

2) Light beams. THIS (click) is the tutorial on how to make them, but it doesn't work since there is no "beam" texture in my sfx folder. I know this can be done with Nexuiz because I've seen it in some maps, but the above tutorial is apparently not the way.

Just use the beam textures that come with Nexuiz instead of the q3-beam texture the tutorial refers to.
For example use one of the beams located under textures/evil8_fx

4) Lifts. How do you make a lift that will go up when you step on it, and will also go down after a specified amount of time, say 10 seconds. And also how to implement the lift sounds of it moving or stopping?

To make a lift you just need to select the brushes of the lift and right-click -> func -> func-plat. To enter certain values like speed or lip select the lift and press N to open up the entity window. There will appear a description of all the keys and what they'll do ingame. The sounds will play automatically in Nexuiz.
For some examples open up the source of reslimed in radiant. Sometimes it can be useful to have func_door entities instead of func_plat entities. In reslimed there's the normal lift, the secret lift in the slimepit with the strength item (func_door activated by pressing a button) and the slime-trap (also activated by pressing a button). They are all some kind of lift, so see for yourself what suits best in your case.