DIF Exporter : QuArk

#1 Why Quark? Use Constructor.

#2 Cool! Thanks Morrie!

#3 Yes, you should be using constructor.. but you won't have any luck making curves in any BSP editor.

#4 Is there any type of program or editor which can create a fluid curve?

#5 You could probably get away with use dts instead of difs.
I'm guessing that you weren't planning on zoning your roads.
Decals on dts objects will be difficult though.

#6 Chris! I use Blender combined with PhotoShop Pro to make decals. I make the image up in PhotoShop, and load the image in the UV Image editor of Blender to place it on my models. Curved roads are tricky though. I do have zoning on my roads so I use the aforementioned process to create them.

#7 QuArK can make fluid curves via the path duplicator. I believe Radial can do it too.

Not gonna be perfect, though. It may even look great in QuArK but not export via map2DIF properly.

#8 Yes. Quark and Radiant can use bezier curves for surfaces. Torque does not support them, however.

#9 Just to clarify: I meant a radial duplicator inside of QuArK.

Neither the radial nor the path duplicator are beziers.

#10 Good clarification. I was confused for a bit. It's pretty much my constant state.

#11 All the holes in Minigolf Mania were created using Quark.

Click here for few screen shots of holes with curved looking elements.

These holes were created using "Make Prism" from Quark's drop down Commands menu.

#12 O.K.! Another problem! I have the path to the exporter, but now it will not create the .BSP file. The Python console will not even let me copy the text log file to paste it in this post, so I must write it out.

Export 220Map/Build High Detail Dif

note : this console may not display the program output before it's terminated.

C:\Torque\QuArk files\tmpQuArk "C:\Torque\QuArk files\map2dif_DEBUG.exe" -v-h-o"./maps/"-t /
texture maps/street4(highway).map

Successfully opened map file : maps/street4(Highway).map
Parsing mapfile...
!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!_!!_!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!!-!

Build failed, because it did not create the (+BSP) file :
C:\Torque\QuArk files\tmpQuArk\.\maps\street4(Highway).BSP

What is going on? I have set all the proper parameters. Programs are properly placed. I am using previously made .Qrk files. I switched to Blender to make my .dts objects, then when I returned to QuArk,
it began to block out the previous settings. I have used QuArk quite q bit and cannot understand why suddenly it quit working properly. I did save the original setup on a disc, should I use that instead of trying to reinstall QuArk, or should I just acquire the latest version? Thanks to anyone who can help me out.

#13 I don't know that bug in particular, but I'll take a shot.

-Make sure on the opening GUI that under the "Game" menu (upper right) that "Torque" is clicked.
-Do you have the map2dif_DEBUg program at that location?
-Try renaming the file so there's no parenthesis in there.
-Try taking out whatever you're zoning with (I 'm not sure how you could properly zone a road model anyway, unless you have a bunch of buildings around it?).

I'm using 6.5b2. I haven't tried the latest but I would think it's ok.

Good luck!

#14 Eric! I am actually using an Image File named "street4", which I downloaded from the internet, and edited in PhotoshopPro. The only thing I have in the model itself is a "Cube" which I flattened, and stretched into the shape, then the Image File of the "street4". That's it! It worked just fine before I downloaded Blender 2.44. I am now using Blender 2.45, but my QuArk program began to stop creating the .BSP files for the .dif. I re-installed QuArk and now it will not work properly at all. No .dif's, no saves, just errors! The only thing I can think of is that Python Minipy 1.5, and Python 2.5.1 are conflicting. Blender works just fine. How can I get QuArk to co-exist with Blender?

#15 Uninstall all versions of Quark/Blender/Python/etc and then install them locally to the required directories and setup your toolpaths for the version that is required. It is annoying, but it will limit a number of common errors. We have to do this on our lab configs with GiMP and Pidgin because of the difference in GTK versions that they use.

#16 Thank you, David! I will do just that! I appreciate your help.

#17 David! I followed your solutions but the exporter is still not creating the .BSP file or .PRT file. When I was using QuArk 6.5.0 Beta 2.0, everything worked just fine. The problems started when I installed Blender 2.44. I had Python Minipy 1.5 running QuArk, And Python 2.5 running Blender. I upgraded Blender to 2.45 still using the Python 2.5, but QuArk began to act strangely afterwards. I started a new install of everything, then created a new model. Upon exporting it, the Python script stated that the .dif file could not be created because the .BSP and .PRT files were not created. There are also quite a few texture errors and function errors. I am thinking of returning to the earlier version of QuArk I was using, but I was wondering if re-installing Python Minipy 1.5 will conflict with Python 2.5? I have no real problems with Blender other than getting all the mapping done on each model, but QuArk is really making things hard for me. I have used it before so I would like to continue to use it, but I don't want to damage Blender. Can you or anyone out there help me? Thanks for any responses to this post.

#18 I do not believe the miniPython install with Quark will affect Python 2.5. I think (though I could be wrong) that Quark uses it locally on the system while Blender uses the global version of Python (the full 2.5 install). Have you checked the paths in Quark's config to make sure it is using miniPython and not Python 2.5? I believe you can point it to the python binary directory in case you have multiple versions of Python on your system.

#19 I don't know what the hell is up with this thing! I have installed and re-installed QuArk several times and still get the same results. :

Usage : map2dif [-v] [-p] [-s] [-l] [-h] [-g] [-e] [-n] [-q ver] [-o outputDirectory] [-t textureDirectory] .map

-p : Include a preview bitmap in the interior file
-d : Process only the detail specified on the command line
-l : Process as a low detail shape (implies -s)
-h : Process for final build (exhaustive BSP search)
-g : Generate navigation graph info
-e : Do extrusion test
-s : Don't search for textures in parent directory
-n : Noisy error/statistic reporting
-q ver : Quake map file version (2, 3)
-o dir : Directory in which to place the .dif file
-t dir : Location of textures

/maps/crockpot(reborn) l.bsp : ignored
/maps/crockpot(reborn) l.lin : ignored


What am I doing wrong here? I just can't seem to figure out what I'm missing!

#20 I'm a little lost on the blender-QuArK relationship (other than they both use Python).
I'll take another shot at this:

.bsp and .lin are always ignored.

The following two suggestions are usually already pre-setup for you in the newer versions of QuArK:

-In Options->Configuration...->Torque underneath the program executable(map2dif) is "fixed-line command arguments". Make sure you have the following:
-v -h -o ./maps -t ./textures %mapfile%

-Make sure on that same page that the Output Map Format is "Valve 220".



A successful DIF compile may look something like this:

* Number of ambiguous planes (dropped):  79
Alarm...done.
  Resorting and Packing LightMaps...done.

  STATISTICS
   - Total brushes:      997
     + structural:       802
     + detail:           180
     + portal:           15
   - Number of zones:    8
   - Number of surfaces: 3781

  Exporting to runtime...done.

 Writing Resource: persist..(./maps/cubicles_of_despair.dif) Done.


/maps/cubicles_of_despair.bsp: ignored
/maps/cubicles_of_despair.lin: ignored
Files stored in C:\Torque\tmpQuArK\
Operation finished.

I hope I haven't added to the confusion. ;)