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Mapping tutorials

From Quake Wiki

A good number of tutorials are based around the old favorite WorldCraft. Many parts of Quake, Quake 2 and Half-Life tutorials are interchangeable. So here are some guides and tutorials for all three engines.

Basic and Intermediate Tutorials[edit]

Getting Started Mapping

A basic Trenchbroom tutorial by Scampie.

"The Forge"

The official site for worldcraft 1.6 It details many things involved in making your own maps for quake1 and/or quake2 using worldcraft. The site includes some sample maps to show how some of the (otherwise abstract) ideas like a switch door or "path_corners" work.

Quake Editing Tips

An older and somewhat short question and answer session with American McGee, Tim Willis, Jim Molinets and a few others. Some of this info is now well known to mappers but there may be a thing or two newer mappers don't know. The info is all very old though. The site is dated September 27, 1996

Rust - Level Design Tutorials

A collection of editing tips and tutorials for games based on a various engines. You may want to check the Quake 2, Halflife, and Generic tutorials. Some bits and pieces from other sections could be helpful as well.

JCH Headquarters Advanced Half-life editing FAQ

Aimed at halflife there are many things that are not useful to the Quake1 mapper. Some of the things are still very useful to the Quake1 mapper. Its easy to fallow "FAQ" setup will answer many of the questions mappers have.

Polygon Reduction Methods

by David Hyde, Mad Dog, and Richard Neff. This is aimed at Quake2 and it is very informative. The screenshots are taken using Quake2's gl_showtris command which Quake1 is lacking. This tutorial is in the Rust Tutorials but the concept is so important its being linked seperately here.

DETAIL VERSUS DESIGN

This is a short editorial by Dave J on when design the overal design of a map is more important then the fine details. He uses Halflife as referance... but there are some cases of detail overpowering design in Quake maps. Since details are often harder on the engine it is extra important to find the right balance for maps designed for Quake use.

Extensive Radiant Tutorial for Quake 1

An extensive radiant setup/usage tutorial. Even talks about Quoth setup/usage.