Quaaake Level & Editor 1

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Q U E S T (QUake Editing STation) Public Beta 1.017 Copyright (c) 1996 Chris Carollo and Trey Harrison 1.0 Overview of Quake Editing 2.0 The Quest Screen Layout 2.1 The Editing Area 2.2 The Message Area 2.3 The Tool Area 2.4 The Menu Area 2.5 The Status Area 3.0 Editing Modes in Quest 3.1 Brush 3.2 Entity 3.3 Script 4.0 Viewing Modes in Quest 4.1 3-D Mode 4.2 2-D Mode 1.0 Overview of Quake Editing ----------------------------- 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. Quake maps are generated from a huge merge 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. The other primary element of Quake maps is the entity. Entities include player starts, enemies, weapons, powerups, and lights. 2.0 The Quest Screen Layout --------------------------- The Quest editing screen is broken into five main areas: 2.1 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 C Zoom map in V Zoom map out 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. 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. The C and V keys are only applicable in 2-d mode. A freelook-style view option will be used to view the map, but editing will not be allowed in this mode. 2.2 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. 2.3 The Tool Area ----------------- The tool area contains buttons that can be used as shortcuts to functions. These buttons are: Moving the Camera - the buttons along the bottom of the area with arrows are used to move and rotate the camera. Adding a New Brush - the button with the cube is used to add a new cube brush to the map. Copying Brushes - the button with the overlapping squares is used to copy brushes. Deleting - depending on the editing mode, the button with the scrawled X will delete the selected brushes or entities. [ not yet implemented ] Building the Map - the button with the large capital letter "B" is used to build the map (or the current group) and enter Quake. [ not yet implemented ] Selecting Textures - the button with the large capital letter "T" is used to select the current texture. More buttons will be added to the tool area as they are deemed useful. 2.4 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. 2.5 The Status Area ------------------- The status area is used to convey information about the current status of Quest to the user. 3.0 Editing Modes in Quest -------------------------- There are three primary editing modes in Quest. They are toggled between with the TAB key. 3.1 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 vertcies will deselect all currently selected vertices. Texture Application - A texture can be applied to selected vertices 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. Only when a texture is chosen is it applied to selected brushes. Copy Brush - Brushes may be duplicated as a method of adding new brushes. After selecting the brushes to be copied, click on the Copy button. Then hit Ctrl-A to select all vertices in the selected brushes, and drag the copied brushes to their new location. Be sure not to delselect the brushes after clicking all copy buttons, or you will have two identical overlapping brushes. 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 ] Group/Name - Brushes can be assembled into groups. These groups can be named, displayed individually, built individually, and more. To create a group of brushes, simply select them and execute Create->Group, or click on the Create Group button. This will create a dialog that will allow you to specify the name of the group. [ Brush grouping 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. The following keyboard shortcuts are available in Brush Mode: Ctrl-A: Select all vertices in all selected brushes. 3.2 Entity Mode --------------- Entities are much simpler to work with than brushes. In the 3-d world, they simply have a location. The only operations on entities are addition, modification, movement, and deletion. Entities can be adding using the Create->Entity menu tree. Many of the stock entity types are available there. More will be added as I determine their classnames. 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 when an item appears (skill level, coop, deathmatch, etc) is defined with an attribute. The edit entity button, Edit->Entity, or Ctrl-E will create 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. 3.3 Script Mode --------------- Scripts are basically just attributes on brushes. Not all brushes will have attributes - in fact, most brushes in the map won't. Just those brushes with a special behavior (lifts, doors, crushers, platforms, and the brushes that trigger these events) will need to have a script. Triggering events is very simple in Quake - coming in contact with a brush set as a trigger is usually sufficient. Scripts can be done for single or multiple brushes - Quake allows for both. Scripts are created by defining the type of object you're creating (lift, door, etc), and then defining points along its movement path. These points are depicted as lines from the focal point of the object, with arrows displaying the direction of movement. [ The implementation of scripts are not yet finalized. This is just a rough estimate of how I'd like them to work ] 4.0 Viewing Modes in Quest -------------------------- As of Quest 1.017, only two viewing modes are implemented. In both the 3-D Wireframe and the 2-D Modes, pressing B will toggle fullbright mode, where there is no depth clipping or shading. 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.