Editing Mapping tools

'''Mapping tools''' are devoted to the various tasks of Quake level development.

==Level Editors==
These are CAD-like programs used to construct and populate a level.  They include tools to create and modify [[Brush|brushes]], apply [[Textures|textures]], place and modify [[Entity|entities]], and set up simple [[QuakeC_basics|scripting]].  Some of these programs have their own proprietary file format for saving levels, but they can all save or export your level to a [[Quake_Map_Format|map file]], which is needed by compilers in order to generate a game-ready [[Quake_BSP_Format|bsp file]].

===General Purpose Editors===

{| class="sortable wikitable"
! Name 
! Supported OS
! width="150px" | Author
! width="50px" | Initial release
! width="100px" | Latest release
|- 
| [http://www.bspquakeeditor.com/ BSP (level editor)]
| Windows
| sort
| 1996
| 9/2020 ([http://www.bspquakeeditor.com/downloads.php 97q2])
|-
| [[CraFTEr]]
| In engine (FTEQW)
| toneddu2000
| 2017
| 2017 (alpha)
|-
| [[GTKRadiant]]
|-
| [[NetRadiant-custom]]
| Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
| Divverent, Spog and Niger
| 2015
| 2018
|-
| [[QERadiant]]
|-
| [http://www.yossman.net/~mmilley/qe5/ QE5]
| Windows
| MMilley
| 1997
| 2002 ([http://www.yossman.net/~mmilley/qe5/binaries/QE5.2.4.zip v5.2.4])
|-
| [[QuakeEd]]
| NeXTSTEP
| id Software
| 1996
| 1996 (???)
|-
| [[QuArK]]
| Windows
| Armin Rigo, QuArK team
| 1996
| 2013 (6.6.0 beta 6)
|-
| [[Quest]]
| DOS, Linux, Windows
| Chris Carollo, Trey Harrison and Alexander Malmberg
| 1996
| 2002 (2.4)
|-
| [[Qoole]]
| Windows
| Pablo Zurita
| ???
| ??? (99 0.98)
|-
| [[Quiver]]
| Mac OS9
| Scott Kevill
| 1997
| 1999 (1.2)
|-
| [[QuMa]]
| Windows
| [http://www.negativeeddy.com Ben Williams / Negative Eddy Software]
| 1996
| 1998 (1.6)
|-
| [[Standard 3D]]
| Linux
| [https://www.cinfinity.info Mark Skinner]
| 2020
| 2024 (0.1)
|-
| [[ToeTag]]
| Mac OSX
| Warren Marshall
| 2008
| 2008 (2.30)
|-
| [[Thred]]
| Windows
| Jim Lowell
| 1996
| 1996 (0.9b)
|-
| [[Tread3D]]
| Windows
| Joe Riedel
| 1999
| 2009 (3.0 Alpha 3)
|-
| [[TrenchBroom]]
| Linux, Mac OSX, Windows
| Kristian Duske
| 2012
| [https://github.com/TrenchBroom/TrenchBroom/releases 2/2021] ([https://github.com/TrenchBroom/TrenchBroom/releases/tag/v2021.1 2021.1])
|-
| [[Worldcraft]]
| Windows
| Ben Morris / Valve Software
| 1996
| 1998 (1.6a)
|}

<!--
* [http://www.bspquakeeditor.com/ BSP]
* [http://quark.sourceforge.net/ QuArK]
* [http://quest-ed.sourceforge.net/ Quest]
* [http://www.volved.com/qsr/download.shtml Qoole]
* [http://wantonhubris.com/toetag/ ToeTag]
* [http://www.joecodegood.net/tread/ Tread3D]
* [http://hosted.planetquake.gamespy.com/worldcraft/index2.shtm WorldCraft]
-->
{{todo|user=[[Hectate]]|todo=The list of editors would look and function better as a table that detailed things like OS, engine compatibility, etc.}}
{{todo|user=[[Than]]|todo=I moved the list to a table, but left the old links here (edit page to see as it's commented out), since I think we should create a small page for all the editors. It's possible to get information about all of them using internet archive etc.}}

===Terrain Generators===
These programs are specialized to generate terrain-like geometry out of brushes, but have no general-purpose editing capabilities.  They generate map files that can then be imported into the general purpose level editors.

* [http://www.surfacegroup.org/tutorials/easygen/ EasyGen]
* [http://tarot.telefragged.com/gensurf/ Gensurf]
* [http://entar.quakedev.com/wiki/index.php/TerrainGen TerrainGen]

==Map Converters==
A number of games based on [[id Software]]'s technology use map files as their level source format, but these files differ in format from game to game.  Map converters are used to convert map files from one format to another, so that mappers can use a level editor that does not natively support Quake.  Commonly supported game formats include Quake 2, Quake III Arena, and Half-Life.

* SleepwalkR's mapconv
* Ericwa's [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ ericw-tools]
* [https://github.com/Garux/netradiant-custom NetRadiant-custom]

ericw-tools converts: quake, quake2, valve, bp (brush primitives). Conversions to "quake" or "quake2" format may not be able to match the texture alignment in the source map, other conversions are lossless.

NetRadiant-custom allows copying and pasting (automatic conversion) between all map formats; handling Quake 1, 2, 3 and related games.

===Model-to-Map Converters===
These are programs that can be used to convert geometry of another file type, especially files exported by modelling software, into map files.

{{todo}}

==Map Compiling Tools==
Tools to use for [[Map_compiling|map compiling]], a process that turns a map file into a bsp file.

===QBSP, Light and Vis===
* Bengt Jardrup's [http://web.comhem.se/bjp/ enhanced versions of TxQBSP/TreeQBSP, RVis, Light]
* Ericwa's [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ ericw-tools] - Map compile tools for Quake and Hexen 2 based off of Tyrann's quake 1 tools tyrutils. These feature BSP2 support, a variety of detail brushes, and a focus on adding lighting features. Source available as well as binaries for Linux, Mac and windows on it's [https://github.com/ericwa/ericw-tools GitHub].
* [http://voidspark.net/projects/bjptools_xt/ Jury-Rigged BJP Tools], modified version of Bengt Jardrup's tools with BSP2 support, details brushes and several other improvements.
* LordHavoc's [http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/download.html Hmap2]
* Tyrann's [http://disenchant.net/utils TyrUtils] - Windows and Mac OS X binaries, plus Linux/Unix supported via source.

===Skip Removal===
Skip removal tools are standalone programs that can process a [[Quake_BSP_Format|bsp file]] to remove all surfaces textured with a [[Textures#Skip|skip texture]], so that those surfaces are not rendered in-game. This is really no longer needed since the most widely used map compilers do this automatically for quite a few years without the need for an external tool.

* Ericwa's [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools ericw-tools] qbsp includes skip surface removal. 
* Tyrann's [http://disenchant.net/utils TyrUtils] qbsp includes skip surface removal (since version 0.6)
* metlslime's [http://www.celephais.net/board.php?id=60088 newskip]

==Map Decompilers==
These are programs that can reverse-compile a bsp file back into a map file, with varying results.

* bsp2map - This program generates a map file by creating brushes for every surface in the level. Large walls are split up into multiple brushes according to bsp polys.
* winbspc - This program generates a map file by more closely trying to match texture/brush volumes. It has several options for decompiling a bsp file and usually produces far more usuable results than bsp2map.

==Other Tools==
Miscellaneous tools.

*[http://ftp.mancubus.net/pub/idgames2/utils/bsp_pak_tools/bsp2prt10.zip bsp2prt] can generate a [[prt file]] from a bsp file without needing to rebuild it from scratch using QBSP.

* [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ bspinfo] part of [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ ericw-tools], it can print basic information about a Quake BSP file. 

* [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ bsputil] part of [https://ericwa.github.io/ericw-tools/ ericw-tools], this utility has some useful feature dealing with Quake BSP files. It can run a basic set of tests to check that all internal data structures are self-consistent, can extract textures from a BSP to create a texture WAD, and extract entities to a text file with the .ent file extension.

* Scrama's MapConverter [ [[image:MapConverter.zip]] ] can perform scaling and convert map formats from Half-Life to Quake, Quake 2 and Quake 3

* Quake CLI Tools [https://joshua.itch.io/quake-tools] Quake CLI Tools are a collection of custom GNU style command line tools for working with Quake files.

==See Also==
* [[Quake tools]]