For anyone compiling maps on a linux machine, Ken Alverson has released a linux version of wQBSP 1.65. Rejoice and stuff. Check it out in the Files section. To recap, here's what was new for wQBSP 1.65:

-autolycus

Our pal, Somberfire has made up a method of editing Hexen II levels with Worldcraft. It's a little rough, but until Raven releases the specs for Hexen II it's the way to go! :) You can find it on Worldcraft homepage

Speaking of Hexen II I was fortunate enough to to receive a promotional copy. This game really rocks; Raven has done some really awesome work. And the absolute best part - the manual. I'd get this thing just for the really cool booklet with stories and pictures of all the things in the game.. really cool.

Oh, and this showed up on Wedge's and Choryoth's page (Apparently Wedge has found new joy in a toy gun)

Locally here we've started a collection fund for the "Let's Shoot Ben" campaign. Wedge - I sure hope you got some extra ammo with that gun :)

- Loki

Going back to the land of nocomputerville. Be back sometime on monday. So...uh...don't look for many updates between now and then. It's really hot where I'm going...sun, water, mmm...be happy for me or something...

-autolycus

The patch for Worldcraft 1.5 to 1.5a, shareware and registered, has been released today. There are links to them in the files section. A whole new shareware 1.5a is also available.

Once again, if you find any bugs that haven't been addressed, send them to worldcraft@acdsystems.com.

-autolycus

Looking for a source for prefabs? Why not check out the Quake Prefab Park, run by bushboy. Almost 100 prefabs to choose from! There's also a tutorial about making wind tunnels. There's a lot of cool stuff to pick from on the site...and the prefabs are in .MAP format, so if you use (gasp!) other editors, this wont be a hindrance.

-autolycus

If you happen to be in the Melbourne, Australia area on December 6th and 7th, then this email I received may interest you. (And I'll also be jealous of you...hey, thats almost my birthday...come on...send me some plane tickets...be nice...)

Wow...Hillary Clinton is a quake-head. That explains a lot of things... :)

-autolycus

Saw news on the Worldcraft Homepage that there will be a patch for 1.5 (everybody now...) "soon" :) that should fix some of the bugs, including, hopefully, the directx 5.0 problems. Ben hopes to get it out early next week.

A reminder to those who ordered the worldcraft CD...if you have not received your 1.3 CD, email worldcraft@acdsystems.com, and let them know...include your name and emailing address, as well as any mailing info that might have changed since you sent in your order.

WCU Class? Nope.

The WCU class scheduled for sunday has been canceled...sorry 'bout that...

leet h4X0rz and |<rad w4r3zers

[RANT ON]
Lately, I have had the pleasure (?) of dealing with warez people and these leet people known as h4X0rs (hereafter known as hackers...i hate looking at that bloody fUX0red up typing). Let me put it this way, some of these people are absolute fools. In the case of warezing...I think ripping off products from the quake community, be it by people like Actura profiting from others, or people warezing or cracking quake and its many related shareware and commercial off-shoots, are breaking a trust with the Quake community, and do not deserve to be a part of it. They should not be allowed to further themselves by ripping off people who have worked to make something good, and then request a reasonable fee for it. The most frustrating part of dealing with these people is that they don't understand why people get pissed off at this.

In the case of these leet hackers, these people make me laugh. I will not be subtle here, and just say that yes, I'm talking about LevelGuy (aka Rulo, if his userid is something from *.satlink.com, its probably this loser). This guy messages me almost everytime I go on IRC...He is a big hacker, and is growing bigger, and has lots of money (??? i know, i didnt see the relation of this to anything else either). He provides much amusement, and I almost want to offer him money, as this quality of entertainment is hard to find. (however, if he was like this in real life, people would have long since killed him in some fun way)
[RANT OFF]

Whew...that feels better.

Hey, me too!

Apparently, Somberfire over at the Worldcraft homepage feels the same way I do about the above mentioned activity. Check out the news section there, if you enjoyed the above rant.

-autolycus

I was talking to Harry Teasley on IRC yesterday, and he had an excellent tip that people should be aware of when designing levels. Basically, triangles in quake are rather inefficient. Here's his explanation, as well as a possible solution:

Harry also sent along a tip about using the Plane clipping tool to see if a brush is invalid. If you have a slightly warped brush, you can use this to see how you can fix it. The "result" brush will show a fixed version of the brush, although clipping it wont do anything. Hopefully, the following two pics i made will help. I've pulled one vertex of the brush out to make it invalid. The second pic shows the plane clipping in action from all the 2D views. (Worldcraft will not detect this with the Check for Problems funtion)

Thanks for the tips Harry.

-autolycus

Time is running out on your chance to submit maps to Ritual as applications for the level design position(s?). You have until the end of this day to submit. Check out the news on the Ritual homepage, august 4th update.

st00pid people tricks

Here's an example of the wrong thing to do when you come into the #worldcraft IRC channel:

<LevelGuy> Some one send me by DCC or to zippy@buy.a.clue a crack or the registered Worldcraft!

You rool dood.

-autolycus

[TGM] Viper sent me news that he has a Danish quake editing site called The Construction Site. It has alot of Danish mapper content, as well as general editing news. Go check it out and stuff. :)

Do you have what it takes?

Check out this article on Adrenaline Vault entitled "How to get the coolest job in the world," about how to become involved in the world of circus midgets! Er...that is...level designers! :) Aaaaa, just go check it out. Saw this on blues.

Killme kill you?

There's an interview with Brandon KillMe James posted over at the Quake Workshop. Check it out, he's a former Worldcrafter who's done ok for himself. Saw this on blues too. But then, everything's on blues...

-autolycus

I've had a few submissions lately. And I realized I may have not been too clear when I said we welcome submissions. Basically, if we don't have a section covering it, then we wont have anywhere to post it. Please don't email me any large maps. We may have a Map section sometime in the future, but we will be linking to maps from cdrom.com. So basically, you're best bet is to upload your complete maps there, as they will get a very large circulation.

I will accept example maps, but there are a few rules to follow when submitting example maps:

• Keep the maps small. Don't cover more than one "idea" at a time...if you want to cover several things, submit them as individual maps.
  
• Please please please include some sort of text file with information about how things are done if the map is anywhere near complicated (ie: for making an end sequence, etc).
  
• Keep in mind that I will reserve the right to modify any of the example maps i receive before posting them, if I feel I can make the example more clear.

With that said, I'm looking to expand the Prefab section. If you have good prefabs, send them to me so I can check em out. I'm looking for good themed prefabs, not a prefab collection of 101 things (including a kitchen sink).

Also, if you have questions for the gurus, send em to me! Note that the Guru section has been expanded to include articles, interviews, and questions, from anyone in the industry. I figure, if they got hired by one of the big gaming companies, they gotta know "stuff". So if you have a question about "how'd they do that", let me know.

More More Worldcraft 1.5 tutorial

OK, i'm done. Check out the finished Worldcraft 1.5 tutorial. I think its fairly complete, but if you have comments or suggestions, please email me.

-autolycus

The Worldcraft 1.5 tutorial is nearing completion. New tonight is the excellent Visgroup II tutorial by Imaginos, the bug list/faq from the Worldcraft homepage, by Somberfire (with a bunch of my notes thrown in), and an html'ized version of the Whatsnew.txt, very informative by itself.

Worldcraft Homepage

The Worldcraft homepage has received a major facelift, along with a new domain (note, its now at www.worldcraft.com). Check it out and email Somberfire about how cool it is and stuff! :) Here's the first section of news from the site:

-autolycus

Our Swedish pals over at Absolute Quake (nice site, by the way) have a few tutorials up on new Worldcraft features. Cool stuff, check it out. (Oh yeah, update the Worldcraft section, its 1.5 now, by golly!) :) (thanks Preacher)

Where is the ^$%&$ command???

Feeling a tad...overwhelmed...by the abundance of worldcraft key commands? The Man at the Quake Editor's Reference Guide, Zaphod, has printed up this template for you then. I thought, cool. I printed it out, and wow, it fits perfectly, and there you have it -- all of Worldcraft 1.5's key commands laid out before you like corn. (dont ask) It's like those word processor templates, but actually useful! Just print it out and cut on the dotted lines. Those feeling especially hyperactive may want to laminate as well. :)

-autolycus

Check out http://www.directengine.com/. It appears MicroSoft realized that there's some money in this new fangled thing they call the 3D market. Check out the screenshots of the DirectEditor. Terrain mapping? Colored lighting? cool stuff. (thanks Casey)

Ben Morris Interview

Check out Jaspur's Half-Life (not just a cool name, its also the best source for Half-Life information on the net). He's posted an interview with some Ben Morris guy. Ben does stuff apparently. (Oh, of course, he made Worldcraft! :)

-autolycus

I've written up a review of Worldcraft 1.5, which goes over alot of its features. I'm also working on a small tutorial that will cover all of the new features, enhancements, and bug fixes. This will be posted shortly. Check out the first two sections, Vertex Manipulation, and Plane Clipping.

Wanna see my pipe?

There are some problems with old prefabs working with version 1.5 (this has been fixed, im told). I've updated my prefab Pipes, which now includes two different sizes, plus connectors. If there's any problems with it, or you have suggestions, let me know. The new Pipes pipes are posted in the Prefabs section.

-autolycus

Sebastien Carriot has set up a french Worldcraft site. It's found at http://www.atinternet.com/qi.

Worldcraft 1.2???

Due to an oversight, there are a bunch of people who cannot upgrade their version of worldcraft because they never received a 1.3 CD. There should be a patch available soon to patch version 1.2 up to version 1.5. Doh, sorry for the inconvenience.

Worldcraft, European sites

Thanks goes out to Phil Mansell, who sent me these European links for the new version of Worldcraft. Most international users should find this is a very fast link.

Shareware:

• http://www.vsystem.demon.co.uk/worldcraft/wc15.zip

Registered Patch: (1.3 to 1.5)

• http://www.vsystem.demon.co.uk/worldcraft/wc13-15r.zip

-autolycus

Some people are reporting problems with Worldcraft 1.5 crashing under DirectX 5.0. One solution is to re-install DirectX 3.0, which is still available in the Forge Files.

Worldcraft 1.5 Download sites

Yay...its here! Worldcraft version 1.5 shareware and registered patch can now be downloaded from the following sites:

Shareware:

• ftp://ftp.stomped.com/pub/redwood/editors/wc15.zip
  
• ftp://ftp.quakecentral.com/wc15.zip
  
• http://www.quakecentral.com/wc15.zip

Registered Patch:

• ftp://ftp.acdsystems.com/pub/worldcraft/wc13-15r.zip
  
• ftp://ftp.islandnet.com/acd/worldcraft/wc13-15r.zip

The links in the Files section are now also active. If the registered patch comes up as unavailable, it should be on cdrom.com within 30 minutes or so.

-autolycus

Valve Software has announced that the new version of Worldcraft will be released this Friday! To get ready we will all be getting together on 3dNET #worldcraft at 8pm EDT (5 PDT). Me, autolycus, ben and maybe some of the guys from Valve software should be there. Make sure you don't miss it!

Version 1.5 is the biggest update yet. This version will include vertex manipulation, clip planes, texture locking, visgroups have been totally redone, multiple cameras and tonnes of other stuff. A whole new shareware release will happen, as well as an upgrade for registered users!

Hope to see ya there!

-Loki