what good does "snap to grid" do? 

Not snapping to grid is why your maps kept bringing up errors when compiling. 

for me, snap to grid just decreases the grid size. is this normal? 

snap to grid moves all vertices of the selected brush(s) to their nearest corresponding point on the grid.

It never changes the grid size. 

That should probably be - it changes float vertex positions to integer. 

how do I decompile maps? 

Get the map files. 

If you just want to see the entity lump, you can
load bsps in QuArK 6.66. Or extract textures.
But dont use QuArK.
Dont do that. 

use winbspc

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/tools/winbspc12.zip

note: the decompiled map is not going to be that useful to build with or see how it was built, as it would be impossible to recover the original brushwork.

you should NOT use it to lift others work! if the author intended to allow you to do that, they'd release the .map.

you CAN use it to see how entities are put together or how a trick might have been done. that's basically the most useful thing decompiling can do. 

Two more silly questions:

1) Which is the best wad for the standard id textures (i.e. all the textures that were in the original game)? There are so many different wads on Quaddicted that I don't know where to start.

2) Is it better to add textures as you go along, or at the end, once all the brushwork is finished? I've been doing the latter, but now I'm starting to think it may have been a stupid idea... 

I believe has all the ones you want 

Willem tried blocking a map out without textures but didn't end up finishing... 

Thanks for the wad name and for the advice. Yeah, now that I've started "colouring in" what I have built so far, I see what a bad idea it was not to texture from the start... 

it depends what textures you end up using. Some textures like bricks and stuff are fine but if you're making something like a base map then it would be difficult to align the textures properly once you have blocked everything. 

Luckily it's a medieval map, so mostly bricks and wood. Still, it's proving to be a bit of a pain, especially getting the wood grain right everywhere, and texturing tiny details that I could have copied and pasted already textured. Oh well, better to realise the mistake now than several weeks or months later...

Besides, it's a beginner map, so chances are I'll need to redo most of it sooner or later anyway. 

Which is the best wad for the standard id textures (i.e. all the textures that were in the original game)? There are so many different wads on Quaddicted that I don't know where to start.

You can combine wads together. 

I've been using hmap2 to compile the map I'm working on from time to time to test how things work (being inexperienced, I am still trying to get a feel for scale, etc.).

Now, having added textures to much of the map, every time I compile there are certain brushes that are still displayed without textures. hmap2 claims it cannot find the wad -- but the rest of the brushes do show up as textured, and they use the same wad. I've tried changing the textures on those brushes to something else, but the problem persists.

Does anyone here have any idea what the cause of the problem might be? 

http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

The guy who made these versions of the compilers set the standard. He added many features and bugfixes that are now taken for granted.

I would recommend it. TxQbsp is as solid as a rock. Use that to compile the bsp.

Recently Tyrann has done some excellent work on his version of the compilers. You could also try these:

http://disenchant.net/

They are now, also, as solid as a rock.


One other thing you could try - before you compile the map check the wad paths in the .map file. Save your .map file from your editor, then open the file in Notepad++.

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v6.6.7.html

Look for the wad paths and check that they all add up.



The other possibility is that it could be a problem that you are having with the specific textures that don't show. Which wad are you using and which textures wont show? What are the dimensions of them? Are you using .wad or .hlwad files? 

http://quakewiki.org/wiki/Getting_Started_Mapping 

Thanks for the recommendations, RickyT23. I've installed tyrutils, but can't get qbsp to work at all. I guess I don't understand the syntax yet; hopefully I'll figure it out.

The other possibility is that it could be a problem that you are having with the specific textures that don't show. Which wad are you using and which textures wont show? What are the dimensions of them? Are you using .wad or .hlwad files?

The same textures I used elsewhere in the map, that do show up on other brushes. Mainly city6_7 from id.wad.zip as recommended by FifthElephant above. I'm using just this one wad at the moment.

One other thing you could try - before you compile the map check the wad paths in the .map file. Save your .map file from your editor, then open the file in Notepad++.

I'm on Linux -- does it have to be Notepad++, or can I just use a different text editor? I am able to open my .map files with the default text editor, but maybe that does not show all the information Notepad++ would show. What am I looking for?

You can combine wads together.

Thanks, necros. I wanted to restrict myself just to the id textures to begin with, though, which is why I was looking for a wad that contains all of those and nothing more.

http://quakewiki.org/wiki/Getting_Started_Mapping

Thanks, Spirit. I used that when I opened TrenchBroom for the very first time and it was tremendously helpful, but I don't think it solves my current problem. 

Try tyrqbsp with the -oldaxis switch. 

Re: not appearing textures.

Check the concerning brushes, maybe you�ve got duplicates there.. I had that once. 

That was exactly it -- duplicates!

Wonder how that happened? 

and Gin? 

Hehe :-)

Actually, I didn't even know there was a Ctrl+D function until now.

I rather suspect it has something to do with selecting a brush and then Ctrl+ clicking something else to select it too, and inadvertently moving the first brush and moving it back without noticing.