-fixaas ...

[DaEngineer]

I meant the purple brushes on the left. But you are right, there are clip brushes and I have no idea what he did with them. It looks like they are enclosed areas with two doors, each made of one clusterportal brush.

[DaEngineer]

Looks like I need some more help. I tried to get this fixaas stuff working, but neither Sock's tutorial nor a13n's description work for me. The compiled aas's are always invalid. That's what I did:

1. I ran this batch file:

• @echo off
  @set Q3_PATH="D:/Quake III Arena/"
  @set Q3MAP2_PATH="C:\Programme\GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe"
  @set MAP_PATH="D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/modeltest_bot.map"
  @set BSPC_PATH="C:\Programme\GtkRadiant 1.5.0/bspc.exe"
  @set GEN_OPTIONS=-fs_basepath %Q3_PATH%
  
  %Q3MAP2_PATH% -meta %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_PATH%
  %BSPC_PATH% -forcesidesvisible -bsp2aas %MAP_PATH%

That's the simplified map I want to merge with the complex map

2. I renamed the created modeltest_bot.aas to modeltest.aas - the same name, the complex map has

3. I ran this batch file:

• @echo off
  @set Q3_PATH="D:/Quake III Arena/"
  @set Q3MAP2_PATH="C:\Programme\GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe"
  @set MAP_PATH="D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/modeltest.map"
  @set BSPC_PATH="C:\Programme\GtkRadiant 1.5.0/bspc.exe"
  @set GEN_OPTIONS=-fs_basepath %Q3_PATH%
  
  %Q3MAP2_PATH% -fixaas %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_PATH%
  %Q3MAP2_PATH% -meta %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_PATH%
  %Q3MAP2_PATH% -vis %GEN_OPTIONS% %MAP_PATH%
  
  %BSPC% -optimize -reach %MAP_PATH%

That's the complex map


This is exactly what Sock wrote here in his article about the bots for Pyramid of the Magician. The only differences are the names used for @set and the left out light phase.

I use the most recent version of q3map2 (2.5.16) and don't understand what I'm doing wrong and why this doesn't work. Any ideas?

[dONKEY]

Are you doing the hex edit of the aas file?
I never got this process to work without doing that.
Either Sock did something different to the process I went through or I don't know why he missed that out; but for me every time I used -fixaas I've had to edit the first four entries in my aas file back to 45 41 41 53 before I can complete the process.

[DaEngineer]

You know about the "You made my day" award? You just won it. Finally I can get some sleep tonight. Sock didn't include the hex editing part indeed.
I'll sum the whole process up for those who stumble across this thread, have the same problem and don't now what do do with all this fragmentary information. I'll write a German version somewhere else too, I guess a lot of people will be interested in this.


A quick fixaas tutorial
1. Let's pretend your map is called "q3level". This is the final map you want to play later on. Create a second version of it, with all unnecessary details removed. You can remove lights and sound effects too, bots don't need them. Keep it as simple as possible. Let's call this second version "q3level_botversion". This is the map that will be used to create an optimized aas file for bots.

2. Compile q3level_botversion with the -meta switch and run a BSPC compile with the switches -forcesidesvisible and -bsp2aas. You can use the following batch file to do so. Don't forget to change the paths to fit your own folder structure.

• "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -meta "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.map"
  "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -meta "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level_botversion.map"
  "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/bspc.exe" -forcesidesvisible -bsp2aas "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level_botversion.map"

3. Rename the compiled aas file (q3level_botversion.aas) to "q3level.aas"

4. Now the .aas file needs to be connected to the q3level.bsp, because solely renaming it won't do the trick. First, q3map2 needs to fix the .aas. Then, you'll need to recompile your q3level.map. You should do the final compile for your q3level.map at this point, because you won't be able to do so later. You can use this batch file:

• "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -fixaas "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.map"
  "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -meta "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.map"
  "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -vis "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.map"
  "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/q3map2.exe" -light [add your own light parameters] "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.map"

5. Once the compiler is done you'll need a hex editor. Don't panic, there are free ones available. Open the q3level.aas with the hex editor and change the first 8 digits to "45 41 41 53". Save the edited file.

6 Just one last compile left. We'll need to optimize the aas and recompile reachability with the commands -optimize and -reach. The batch looks like this:

• "C:/Program Files/GtkRadiant 1.5.0/bspc.exe" -optimize -reach "D:/Quake III Arena/baseq3/maps/q3level.aas"

And that's it. Have fun with your new simplified aas!