Q3Radiant Editor Manual


Installation & Set Up

Instalation of the editor has changed in the latest build. It is much more simple then before.

Installing the editor

Run the setup file you downloaded of the latest GTKradiant program. You know longer have to install GTKRadiant to the Quake3 directory. It can reside in any directory you would like to have it.

Setting up Paths

During installation you will be asked where your Quake3 game is located. Browse to the folder and select Ok. Then you will be prompted for a directory name for the Quake3 game pak. Setup will create this directory in the Quake3 game directory.

You will then be prompted for your Return To Castle Wolfenstein folder. Repeat the same process as you did for Quake3, only this time pointing to your RTCW directory.

Improving Performance

If you find that the editor is sluggish on your system, try some or all of the following tweaks:

Setting up Preferences

To set up your editing preferences, open the Edit menu and select Preferences. Use preferences to set a variety of options and editor behavior based on your personal preferences.

Globals
Game Settings / Select The Game

GTKRadiant now stores preferences on a per game basis. For instance: Any settings you set up for Quake3 are stored for that game mode only. Switching to Return To Castle Wolfenstein mode, will use the preferences you setup when that Game mode was set up.

Display
2D Display

3D View
Thanks to some new code. Radiants 3D View is Ultra fast.

Texture Settings

Interface
Layout

Mouse Editing

Other
Startup/Autosave

Paths Misc BSP Monitoring

The Project File

The project file contains the paths for the various GTKRadiant file-processing functions. Using the installer to set up the editor should write these for you.

New Project


This creates a new folder (which you must name) in your Quake III Arena or RTCW directory.
This is a good function for mods. You can use a different directory other then baseq3 if you plan to have alot of new resources and dont want to clutter it into the baseq3 folder.

Load Project


This opens up a browse directory pointed at the scripts directory. It is looking for a text file with a .qe4 file extension.

Changing the Project File


You can edit the project file by changing the pathnames to various functions in field of the dialogue window that pops up. HOWEVER, before doing this, you should make a backup copy of your Quake project file and give it a new name. Make your changes to this new file. If you mess things up, you can always reload the original. This is a good thing to do if you are making maps for a mod that uses a separate set of definitions for entities or directories for textures and want to easily change between types of projects.

Project Settings

Menu commands
These commands are your map compile commands. You can CHANGE these commands or ADD your own. Each new command must start with “bsp_” The following is the compile command string for “bsp_Fullvis” taken off one of our project files.

Command parameters:

! The exclamation mark is replaced by the contents of the rshcmd field. It is the path to the processor.
$ The dollar sign is replaced by the Mapspath.
&& The double ampersand is the command terminator (end of command)
q3map This is the process command. Without a switch after it, it performs the .bsp compile phase.
-vis This is a switch to select the vis compile phase.
-light This is a switch to select the lighting compile phase.
-threads This is a switch to break the compile up into a number of different processor threads. The number of processors follows the switch parameter.

Other parameters

-onlyents Process only the entities in the map.
-fast A quicker process. However, it treats the map as if it were all one vis area.
-extra As in -light -extra. This is a second lighting pass that more finely subdivides the map into areas of light and shadow.
-nowater Compiled without liquids in the map. Used in the first compile phase only.
-nocurves Compiles without curves in the map. Used in the first compile phase only.

Misc settings
Use brush primitives in MAP files.
Once this is set for a map, the program converts the texture mapping to this format. Once chosen, there is no going back to the old format. Brush primitives are described in detail under the Working with Textures section.

Setting up the Windows

There are six configurable windows in Q3Radiant.

The Camera Window (CAM)
The Camera window initially shows a gray field. This is where the 3D in-progress view of your map appears. You can SHIFT + click mouse button 1 to select objects in this window. If the images in this window appear overly dark, you can adjust the gamma value. Open the Misc menu and select Gamma. Enter a value between 0 and 1 for the light value. Close the program. Reopen the program. Check the darkness. Repeat this until you have a value you like.

Entity/Texture/Console/Group Window
Depending on the Windows layout view that you’ve chosen, one or more of the following sub-windows share this window. They are selectable by the tab at the bottom of the window, or by shortcut keys.

Entity Window

The Entity window is one of four windows that share the same window space: Console, Entity and Texture and Group. The entity window is used to create and modify the properties of game entities. The uppermost box in this window contains the entity names. Use the scroll bar to find the one you want or for speed, type in the first letter of the class of entity you desire (“w” for weapon, “I” for item and so on). Refer to the Working with Entities section for more details on this.

Texture Window

The Texture window displays textures that have been loaded from the texture directories for easy use. The texture subset tool (set in preferences) allows you to quickly jump to a texture if you know the first few letters of its name. The scrollbar tool adds normal Windows functionality to the window. The most common method of navigating the window is to right-mouse click and drag through the window contents. SHIFT + right-mouse click and drag speeds up the rate of movement through the window’s contents. A thin green outline around a texture indicates a non-shadered texture in use in the map. A thin white outline indicates a shadered texture. A bold red outline indicates a selected texture.

Console Window

The console tracks the editor’s processes, like loading, saving, and compiling. When you compile (selecting an option from the bsp menu), the contents of the console are dumped into the junk.txt file in your Temp file folder on your root drive. In the Split Window view layout, the Console window is always in view.

Groups Window

This window will deal with the future grouping functions that will soon be a part of the editor. At this time, it is only a non-functioning window.

Z-axis Scale Window
This window is used by three of the four views to show the Z-axis position (height) of the Point of View and any selected map components.

Map Window(s)

The Grid
Think of the Map window as a piece of graph paper, neatly divided into squares. However, unlike graph paper, you can change the size of the grid to fit your needs of the moment. You can change grid size from the Grid menu, but it’s faster to learn the key shortcuts listed below.

Setting Grid Size

Grid size Key
1 unit grid (1)
2 unit grid (2)
4 unit grid (3)
8 unit grid (4)
16 unit grid (5)
32 unit grid (6)
64 unit grid (7)
Grid Down Decreases the size of the grid. [ key
Grid Up Increases the size of the grid. ] key

Grid and Window Layouts
There are four distinct ways of laying out the work windows for Q3Radiant.

Design Notes:
Try not to build architecture with a grid smaller than 8 units.
Use a smaller grid if you need to build small details.
Use a large grid (32 or 64) for roughing in a level.
Use a large grid for moving large chunks of architecture around.

Snap to Grid
When this is checked, the edges and vertices of brushes and patches will “snap” to grid coordinates. Unless you are attempting some very fussy maneuvering of a map component, Snap to Grid makes life much easier. In fact, if you are building objects out of curve patches, it is crucial that you be able to line up patch control points with the vertices of surrounding solid geometry brushes.

Colors
Q3Radiant allows you to select the colors of your grids and tools. Because the manual refers to the colors of some features, you may wish to wait until you are more comfortable using the editor before changing too many things. You can always revert to the Q3Radiant defaults, should you choose change too much.

To change Map window and Texture window colors, select the “Misc” menu and choose colors. The pop-up lists a number of options.

Themes
Brings up three options:

Each of the following options opens the Windows color selector.

Grid Background…
The background color for the map window.

Texture Background…
The background color behind the textures in the texture window. This is probably best left a neutral color.

Grid Major…
These bolder grid lines mark 64 unit increments in the map window. These never change.

Grid Minor…
The finer grid lines in the map window.

Grid Text…
The color of the scale numbers along the left and top of the map window.

Grid Blocks…
These lines mark the 1024 x 1024 unit grids on the map.

Default Brush…
This is the color of unselected brushes in the map.

Selected Brush…
The color of selected brushes in the map.

Active View Name…
This is the text that says “XY Top” or “YZ Side” or “XZ Front” in the map view window(s).

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