All through the making of earthQuake: Ghosts of Despair (yep, even back when it was just called earthQuake and had 75% less pretension) there has been a whole host of problems that have seriously threatened it being completed, in the way I wanted it.
The first issue was that Quake is a 17 year old game. It was made at a time of “corridor shooters”; this wasn’t only a game play choice, tech at the time, both software and hardware, wasn’t up to making open world levels (such as GTA; in fact GTA at first wasn’t able to, hence the original being a top-down game) so tight, small, maps with a (comparatively) tiny viewable distance were a design necessity.
Therefore the game engine itself (code that ‘runs’ the game) wasn’t designed to cope with huge levels and had limits built into it’s code that prevented them. id Software being id Software though, while not updating the engine themselves past the 90’s, did release the source code, enabling anyone with the knowledge and skills to update the engine. Initially this (aside form graphically updates and gameplay/effects features) enabled larger, more complicated maps, but even these new limits were eventually reached as the BSP format could be pushed no longer.
I reached this point about 12-18 months ago. Prior to that I’d had issues with the tools; QBSP, Light and Vis , that are used to compile the map into something the game engine can run, as the originals also had limits. Newer versions of these had also been made, and I’d sort of gotten through that. However the limits I was reaching in the size and complexity of the map were effectively beyond what a BSP format map could overcome. FOrtunately, I was by far not the only or first person to be reaching this point, and an engine coder MH, programmed a new BSP format; BSP2, which not only overcame these limits, but also retained a co-existing functionality. This was also incorporated into new QBSP, Light and Vis tools, and over time into other engines than MH’s own.
This meant my earthQuake map was back on line, and I could map, both inefficiently and with consideration of size, to my heart’s content.
That’s not quite the whole story, however. The map editor I was using; Worldcraft 1.6, had start to show the strains. The first, by no means a real problem but there nonetheless, was that the map was larger than the editor’s gird, that you use to create the brushes on, which meant as I worked on different areas of the map, I had to move the whole map around the available grid. A pain, but nothing more.
The next warning sign was after I’d (separately) made a new area of the map; the park, and the pasted it into the main map: “too many visible objects” (which I guessed was down to the number of tress, but I wasn’t sure.
Next, on testing each iteration of the block of flats (which again I was making in a separate test map, and then pasting in) I’d notice that brushes from the new building wouldn’t appear in the editor (they appeared fine in-game when it was compiled though) again, a pain, when trying to visualise how it was looking, and positioning it properly, but nothing some sensible design decisions when planning what you built outside of the main map, and how you guided yourself in lining it up, were made.
The final, and more fatal, issue came about when I had added lights to the flats and then pasted it all in to the main map. Now, there were a number of grouped collections of lights in the map (grouped so that their values; colour, brightness etc., could be changed quickly and collectively) the streetlights, the park’s lights, individual buildings’ lights etc., but when I added the flats w/ lights and compiled ALL lights in the map had the same values.
Oh dear, I thought stoically, (or, more honestly, *EXPLETIVE-ING EXPLETIVE-ING, EXPLETIVE-EXPLETIVE-ING EXPLETIVE-ER*), as I, not entirely inaccurately, reasoned this was either a) the end of my plans for the map’s size and scope, or b) I’d need to use a new editor. Now, I’m very much an old dog and struggle to learn new stuff, so I was (am) loathe to learn a whole new editor, plus I’m acutely stubborn and didn’t want to give up my plans for the map (again.)
My first turning point was to look at the newest version of Worldcraft; 3.3. I already had it, so it was a reasonably simple job to set it up for earthQuake. Unfortunately it solved little. I then began setting up the Radiant editor for Quake, but I found it ever so slightly impenetrable, coming from Worldcraft. This swapping editors would obviously be something I’m looking at strongly for my next mod, but, and it’s a big but, making a big change, with it’s inevitable learning curve, at this stage of this mod, is not something I really want to do.
As usual, however, posting on forums, came up trumps, and someone suggested using a newer editor; TrenchBroom, as it was designed to handle larger Quake maps, as well bring modern editor techniques to Quake mapping. It was fairly trouble-free in getting equake.map working in it, and low and behold, there was my map, all shown completely and correctly, hurrah!
Not only that, it’s simple for me to go into it and make sure that all the lights etc are set up correctly, save it and compile as normal. Now, TrenchBroom does things very differently to Worldcraft (interestingly in a way that really interests me for future mods; it’ll be a choice between using it and Radiant in the future), but I’m not sure I want to go there yet for brush work and creating the level as such. Therefore, my somewhat hokey plan is to continue to use Worldcraft to make the level, then open it in TrenchBroom to ensure everything is setup, aligned and positioned correctly before compiling. This serves a number of purposes, 1) keeps the map going, 2) Means I don’t have to completely learn a new editor while 3) allowing me to become somewhat used to a new one while I do so.
So there it is, the mod and the map is still on. Still lots to do, not entirely sure something else won’t break or fail or put up a fatal problem. There’s lots of structures to make, details to add and efficiencies to employ, but it’s one more hurdle overcome, for now. To end, a new image:
earthQuake: ghosts of despair 