Editing Tools Q&A

[ChangKhan[RAVEN]]

If you have installed the tools as per the readme's instructions and you have any problems or have questions, e-mail me at mgummelt@ravensoft.com and I will do my best to answer them for you. Make sure to read the readme and all other documentation that came with the tools (there is a copy of the post Wilhuf made that links to countless Radiant-editor tutorials and resources).

(btw - with the JK2 ModView released, you can now use that tool to view models instead of the SoF2 version).

If I get a lot of the same questions, I may make a FAQ for posting somewhere.

Do not post questions for me in this thread as I may not always be able to access the forums. (Obviously, you can use the thread to ask and answer each other's questions and trade ideas/tips, etc, I just won't be constantly checking the thread for questions to answer).

Also, be aware that this first tools release does not include *all* the tools we plan to release - there is still the scripting tool (with manual and uncompiled source scripts), possibly a small tutorial for making custom models with the tools provided in the first tools release... and (I think) the MP VM source...

[B0MBER II]

I need a basic tutorial on jk2 ed!

[spacermonkey]

damn, I'd really like some info on model segmentation.. tags..



also skinmaps size, and do the models really have to have such erratic skinmaps, wouldnt it be easier to have just 3.. I know you said you wouldnt answer but I'm asking anyway

[XManny]

Radiant Tuts:
http://planetquake.com/bubba/tutorial.html

LET'S ALL HAXOR SOME 1337 MAPSORZ!

[Evan Nash]

Thank you for the SDK!!!

One problem tho. The program called "ShaderED2" crashes everytime I load it up.

=/

[Schizophrenic]

Anybody know why applying a sky texture doesn't work properly? When I try it just puts the flat texture on there and doesn't apply the shader to make it look like a normal sky texture.

[Jedi Howell]

I'd email ChangKahn for this, but my emails down.

I get what is apparently the right output(im not a q3 mapper, so im unfamiliar with the compiling tools):
____________________________________
==================
Running bsp command...

C:\JK2\GameData\Tools\\sof2map -bsp C:\JK2\GameData\base/maps/test.map


C:\JK2\GameData\base\maps>C:\JK2\GameData\Tools\\s of2map -bsp C:\JK2\GameData\base/maps/test.map

SoF2Map v1.0c (c) 2000 Raven Software Inc.



---- BSP ----

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/bespin.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/cinematics.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/common.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/decals.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/doomgiver.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/effects.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/explosions.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/flares.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/fogs.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/gfx.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/gfx2.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/imperial.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/items.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/marks.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/metashader.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/models.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/mp.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/nar_shaddaa.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/players.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/sabers.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/scavenger.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/skies.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/sprites.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/system.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/test.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/text_crawl.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/ui.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/yavin.shader

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/shaders/zoom.shader

Loading map file c:/jk2/gamedata/base/maps/test.map

entering c:/jk2/gamedata/base/maps/test.map

Backwards tree volume


completed.
Run time was 0 hours, 0 minutes and 15 seconds

_____________________________________________

but there is no bsp. Where is it/how do i create it? Im used to the old fashioned put-it-in-the-compiler-run-the-game style...

jh

[Evil Robot]

QERadiant just crashes for me - it goes to the "unnamed.map" main screen and doesn't proceed any further. I have to Ctrl-Alt-Delete out of it. Any suggestions?

System Specs-
1.4 GHZ Pentium 4
512 MB RAM
GeForce 2 MX
Win 98

[B0MBER II]

well you guys know that you have to install JKradient in your database directory, your .map file should be in your maps folder when transferring to a BSP

[XManny]

About the crashing: It might take 30 seconds to load. Just wait.

About the bsp: Make sure that under file, project settings the map path is leading to the map folder. Then start JKII Multi, type /devmap mapnamehere

[XorKaya]

umm... why is i can't select brushes that i've created in this... it just keep creating new ones and i don't see a button to turn off brush creation

[Jedi Howell]

shift + click

danke, ill try that

[Jedi Howell]

there's a MAP file in the maps directory, but i cant find a BSP. i type devmap test in the console, and i get

cant find maps/test.bsp

jh

[Evil Robot]

Originally posted by XManny
About the crashing: It might take 30 seconds to load. Just wait.

"Program Not Responding" is a crash error, right?

One other piece of additional information: my nVidia drivers are the latest 28.32 ones, if that helps. Someone please help? I just want to edit this awesome game

[Jedi Howell]

Program Not Responding means that Windows can't get the proggie to finish whatever its doing and talk to it. Doesn't mean it's crashed. Just leave it on for awhile. Mine took about 5min to load the first time, but after that only takes about 5sec.

but then again, i hv 640megs of ram. I think that makes a difference. other times may vary. If u leave it like that for half an hour, and it doesn't respond, then it's probly stuck.

jh

[Sleek]

I too am having the same problem as Jedi Howell.

[IntenseYen]

when everi try to view a JK2 skin in ModView i get "ERROR: Filesystem call made without initialzation" help? please?! heh

[Jedi Howell]

see this thread

jh

[Xeph]

Same problem as JH. BSP FullVis (extra) doesn't seem to actually create a .bsp file.

[Emon]

What pisses me off about all Radiant editors is that there is no snap-to-vertex or accurate rotations. Try doing an arbitrary rotation of 45 degrees, and keep doing it. Eventually your brush becomes warped out.

With JED, stuff like that NEVER happens. JED has been so far, the absolute most powerful editor I have ever used. I HATE Radiant.

[twoshadows]

Emon, soon you will learn the ways of the force, er Radiant.
There is a snap T to grid and you can define the rotations.

hit P for prefferences, find the rotation inc and set it to 1 - then set your GRID to &1 - and there you have it - 1 degree rotations

SIMPLE.


I will say that GKTRadiant is a much better though..so far...but again, I JUST GOT THE TOOLS TODAY- JUST LIKE THE REST OF YOU.


I've one simple question...why would common caulk NOT be included in the common.shader file? Very, VERY odd.
So I made an entry in the common.shader file

textures/common/caulk
{
surfaceparm nodraw
surfaceparm nolightmap
surfaceparm nomarks
}

Testing THAT now, as before all caulked textures showed up as MISSING textures in game.

EDIT - yup - I was right - adding that line to the common.shader file fixed the missing caulk texture problem - now I'll just have to include that in my pk3's Raven...that's can't be an easy one to miss ya'll

[Darth Draugmahl]

Hmm I thought I posted but perhaps I only previewed it...

Anyway, I haven't ever mapped for a q3 engine game before so if this is a newbie question I apologize.

What is it that I need to do to get existing md3's from the pk3 file that aren't showing up in the editor? For example, if I want to put an X-wing in my map and I don't feel like building it from polys (which I don't) how do I get the one in the pk3 to show up in the editor so I can place it on my map? Thanks much.

[SiN13]

I'm having trouble getting a map object md3 to load in the editor I always get an error message on ones I created with q3 tools or ones that came in the pk3's. The outcast md3s will load in the viewer but the textures wont show up, but my md3's wont load I get an error about the header being wrong. Is there something I should be doing to build an md3 file that will work with outcast and how do I get exisiting md3's to load in the map editor?

[Tee]

Twoshadows, the correct caulk shader is in the system dir, not common

[Absath]

ok heres a question...i have a model converted to .md3 from max, and the corresponding texture maps. how do i get the md3viewer to show the textures on the model? right now all i get is a white model, and a message that reads "texture c:/documentsandsettings/to/desktop/X.jpg not found" where X is the image file that corresponds to each part of the model...ive tried creating that directory and dumping the images in there...still doesnt work.

so how do i get the .md3 viewer to display my model and the skin for it as i work? any ideas?

[Darth Draugmahl]

I dug through the pk3 after you posted Absath and based on what I could determine between the md3's and the pk3 file it "should" be working for you if you placed the .jpg files where the md3 viewer is looking for them (the xwing looks for it's textures in the imp_mine folder and they are in that folder). Obviously you did that and it didn't work.

The only info that I can supply isn't very helpful but, I had a similar problem originally with the sof2 model viewer. I unpacked several folders several times and I got nothing but errors and then finally one of the folders worked fine. Then I unpacked the entire models/players set of folder and they all worked fine. I didn't do anything really differently between any of the unpacks and finally it just worked......perhaps it's just the nature of the editing tools. I've found also that I've had to reboot my machine a few times when using the tools due to errors showing up out of nowhere during extended editing and I have a fairly high-end machine. Hope you get it working


*******************************

Next stupid question from me: I've gotten the md3's to load into my map using the misc_model entity. That's well and good but they're not solid (like it says it won't be in the editor). I noticed the same thing in the 15 minutes I played around with the RTCW editing tools so I guess I have to ask, is this a standard thing for QIII engine games or am I missing something. I suppose the only alternative is to draw clip brushes around everything but that's seems like a hassle if I'm just doing something incorrectly and I can avoid it.

[Darth Draugmahl]

Ok here's all the info I could find which probably anyone who mapped for this engine before already knew. I didn't, I only recognized some of the same issues I had when I toyed with the RTCW editor so I checked a RCTW mapping site which confirmed that I'm gonna have to friggen draw clip brushes all over the models on my map. ACK! Anyway this might help you with your dilemma.

If the md3 file is not available as a selectable model in the editor you can put it in anyway by drawing a brush and then selecting misc_model. You must then go and specify which model that is (if not prompted automatically then go to the bottom of the entity window to the "model" button) when you put the entity in you will probably get an error message. Make sure your brush is still highlighted and look at the keypairs. Edit the pathname down to /models/foldername/filename.md3 or whatever the path is, take out all the C:/programfile/... stuff out of it. Save your map. Close the editor. Reopen the editor. Your model should be in the map now.

[Sith Vicious]

I had the same problem. Here's how I fixed it. Make sure the viewer is in the GameData/tools directory. I looked at the path it was trying to read from and it was relative to its location in the gamedata folder. Then, I made sure the player files were in base/models/.../...

I think the viewers placement in the GameData folder is the key.

[Sith Vicious]

Here is the problem i have, maybe some of you could help. I have 3 md3 files. head.md3, torsoe.md3, and lower.md3. If I open any one of them and go to file export to .glm it keeps wanting to save as the first file i opened which is head.md3. This is after I open all md3's and tag them. I do not see where you can change this. I have exited the progrram and restarted it several times.. but same thing.

When I view the glm model in ModView it just shows up as the head even though I opened all 3 and exported. I can even preview the animations as the full model after I have opened all md3 files.

I guess I am just missing something. A md3 to glm tutorial would be soooo nice.

[Aquesian]

is it possible to port a section of a single player map for use as a multiplayer one? i would really like to make a ctf map based on a particular section of the doomgiver level with a few minor alterations (locking of doors etc). any tips on how i could best achieve this would be great. email me at Aquesian@hotmail.com if you have anything that could help !

[emorog]

there's a typo in the StarWarsMP.qe4. the entitypath is incorrect, it should be:

"entitypath" "__QERPATH\mp_entities.def"

[twoshadows]

Originally posted by Tee
Twoshadows, the correct caulk shader is in the system dir, not common

Yeah , it very well may be - but all my caulked surfaces showed up IN GAME as MISSING TEXTURES, UNTIL I FIXED RAVENS MISTAKE, by adding the caulk shader to the common.shader...and yes, that solved the problem perfectly.

[Xeph]

Any update on the compile with no BSP?

[DeTRiTiC-iQ]

Back to Emon's point about Radiant, simple arbitrary rotations aren't what he was talking about, in Jed you could make some pretty sweet looking areas by creating a perfect polygon, divding it up into segments, working with a segment, then duplicating and rotating. This DOESN'T work in Radiant because every Vertex of a brush has a unit value for its coordinate, with the Perfect Polygon method, you will never get unit lengths for all sides in Radiant because of the way it handles vertices. In Jed, one of the most useful things was the snap-to-vertex command, which meant that even if a vertex didn't occupy a grid point you could still work with it properly. Another useful Jed function, align-grid to surface, meant that the grid would align itself to the plane of the selected surface meaning that no matter what strange angle it was at, it could easily be edited.

[I Am Slug]

One more person chiming in that bsp_fullvis creates no bsp anywhere on my system.

1) The map has no errors, and compiles fine on other peoples' computers.

2) My Project Settings paths are all correct, as is my gamepath in preferences.

3) I am given no error message when compiling. The text window at the bottom of JK2Radiant says

Running bsp command...

H:\JEDIOU~1\GameData\Tools\\sof2map -bsp H:\JediOutcast\GameData\base/maps/test.map 

 H:\JEDIOU~1\GameData\Tools\\sof2map -vis H:\JediOutcast\GameData\base/maps/test.map 

 H:\JEDIOU~1\GameData\Tools\\sof2map -light H:\JediOutcast\GameData\base/maps/test.map


H:\JediOutcast\GameData\base\maps>H:\JEDIOU~1\GameData\Tools\\sof2map -bsp H:\JediOutcast\GameData\base/maps/test.map  


completed.
Run time was 0 hours, 0 minutes and 4 seconds

I compiled a map earlier today with no problem. Have not been able to do since then.

Oh, and this is running under win2k

[Xeph]

I reinstalled JK2 and the tools and now it's working fine. I still have no idea what the problem was though. I can tell you I sure am sick of reinstalling though.

[Jafo]

Originally posted by twoshadows


Yeah , it very well may be - but all my caulked surfaces showed up IN GAME as MISSING TEXTURES, UNTIL I FIXED RAVENS MISTAKE, by adding the caulk shader to the common.shader...and yes, that solved the problem perfectly.

That wasnt ravens mistake. Just confusing not seeing it in common.

htp://jk2ed.jediknightii.net
General Tutorial for JK2radiant

[I Am Slug]

I've already tried reinstalling JO and the tools, to no effect.

[Edit: Update. Does this thing install 2 different entries into the registry, one under id and one under QERadiant? I deleted QERadiant last time, to no effect. Deleted both of them this time, and it reinstalled correctly, and I am now able to compile]

[Aeon]

First off, thanks to Raven for the best FPS i've played in a loooooong time and for releasing the modding tools in a timely fashion. You guys kick fat ass.

Now for my question. I fully expect this question to be completely ignored by developers and editors alike, but there's still the off chance that someone might want to help, so here goes:

I have the editing tools, but I need to know how to edit the actual mechanics of the game. Specifically, i want to make some changes to single player saber combat. I want to eliminate unblockable moves, increase the chances of saberlocks, and increase saber defense angles and abilities. I also want to know exactly which parameters are changed by "saberRealisticCombat".

Failing that, i want to create MP bots that aren't so squirrely...

Can anyone help? Please find it in your hearts to help a brotha out...

[Spyque64]

Ive been messing aorund with the JK2Radiant and I cant seem to get a map to compile.

Just doing a basic box like in the practice tutorial and when I go to use BSP to compile. I get this Illegal Operation-
SOF2MAP caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 015f:bff7b997.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=015f EIP=bff7b997 EFLGS=00000246
EBX=0cb80000 SS=0167 ESP=0cf8fdd0 EBP=0cf8fde0
ECX=0cf8fe28 DS=0167 ESI=0ca5c0a0 FS=2b47
EDX=81d35c60 ES=0167 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
ff 76 04 e8 26 89 ff ff 5e c2 04 00 56 8b 74 24
Stack dump:
0045ea24 004422d7 0ca5c0a0 81d3549c 0cf8fe38 0043d754 0000000d 0043d6ae 00000000 0043d675 ffffffff 00000000 00000000 0043ed1c ffffffff 00000000

It wont let me do any thing large. I can only make small hollow boxes.

Anyone got an idea whats up?