General mapping information

Useful general information for mapping - generic dimensions, limits, warnings etc.

On this page

This page contains general information, limits and sizes that are useful to know when mapping for ETJump. All measurements assume pmove_fixed 1 and com_maxfps 125 unless stated otherwise.

Player sizes

Values are rounded to integers to match grid in Radiant. Actual values for clearances can be lower, as long as they are still bigger than the bbox.

  • Player model size (bbox) - 36x36x72 (XYZ)
    • This is the size of info_player_deathmatch entity.
  • Minimum horizontal clearance - 37 units
  • Minimum vertical clearance
    • Standing - 73 units
    • Crouching - 49 units
    • Proning - 41 units
    • Jumping - 121 units

Movement

Speed

Ground

Style Max speed (units/s)
Sprint 352
Run 256
Walk 129
Walk + sprint 177
Crouch 80
Prone 67
Groundstrafe 452
Wallstrafe 442

Water

If water level is < half of your height (stance dependant), you are still walking normally but your speed is clamped to 267 units/s.

Following values assume axial yaw. Non-axial yaw can provide higher speeds.

  • Swimming in water - 160 units/s
    • With 35.5 degree pitch, its possible to swim in water at 195 units/s.
  • Wallstrafing in water - 174 units/s
    • Pitch has no effect when wallstrafing.
  • Swimming on water surface - 196 units/s
    • Assuming 0 pitch, water bobbing, pitch and yaw affect this. Possible to achieve ~235 units/s.

Stepup

Stepup happens when you are moving against a vertical wall and are within 18 units (vertically) of the top surface. Stepup doesn’t happen if the wall is angled towards you from the bottom, unless the top surface is a seperate brush.

stepup_example When stepup can happen, jumping direction from left to right.

Jump height

The following heights are measured online. Offline results may vary.

  • pmove_fixed 1 - 66 units (48 units jump + 18 units stepup)
  • pmove_fixed 0 - see table below
FPS Height (excl. stepup) Height (incl. stepup)
< 125 46 64
125/250 48 66
333 54 72
500 37 55
1000 35 53

If the top of the brush you are trying to jump onto is angled, it’s possible to jump onto higher surfaces than these. The angle of the top matters; maximum values (with pmove_fixed 1 and com_maxfps 125) are 76 units for a standard jump, and 87 units for a backwards prone jump, when the top is at 45 degree angle.

Jump timing

Note: due topmove_msec 8 , all jump timings have**+/- 8ms** margin of error. The times here represent the elapsed time between jumping and landing.

  • Jump delay - 850ms
  • Flat ground jump - 712ms
  • 41 unit jump - 848ms
    • This is the minimum height difference between gamma pads.
  • 64 unit jump - 904ms

Fall damage

Fall damage is calculated from falling speed, not height. These measurements assume flat ground to flat ground with standard gravity.

Falling

Fall damage Max height
0 HP 258 units
10 HP 320 units
15 HP 386 units
25 HP 446 units
50 HP 513 units
Death >513 units

Jumping

Fall damage Max height
0 HP 209 units
10 HP 271 units
15 HP 337 units
25 HP 398 units
50 HP 464 units
Death >464 units

Note that because ETJump uses adrenaline to give unlimited sprint (if etj_nofatigue is used), all fall damage is halved & rounded down. When you take fall damage from a fall/jump, the game applies knockback event on you (slick physics). This lasts for 1000ms for every fall damage event, except for 25hp falls, where it only lasts for 250ms.

Map limits

Compiler limits

These limits are relevant when using the Q3Map2 bundled with NetRadiant-custom. Other Q3Map2 variants might have different limits.

  • Maximum amount of surfaces - 131072
    • Compiler error - MAX_MAP_DRAW_SURFS (131072) exceeded
    • Any visible surface in the map counts towards this limit.
    • Soft limit - may be increased with -maxmapdrawsurfs compiler switch (common option).
  • Maximum size of VIS data - 32MB
    • Compiler error - MAX_MAP_VISIBILITY exceeded
    • Raw, uncompressed data written during compilation - the game does not care about this limit.
    • Common error with massive strafe maps. Q3Map2 creates BSP splits every 1024 units, unless worldspawn key _blocksize is adjusted. If you run into this error, start gradually adjusting _blocksize to a higher value, e.g. 2048 or 4096 (per-axis adjustments are also possible).
    • Contrary to popular belief, setting _blocksize 0 is NOT recommended to get around this. While it helps with this error, it can severely hurt collision detection performance in your map. Only do this if you know what you’re doing.
  • Maximum number of VIS portals - 131072
    • Compiler error - MAX_PORTALS
    • Reduce the complexity of your map’s VIS - badly created structural/detail brush setup is the most likely cause for this.

Engine/mod limits

  • Maximum amount of entites - 1024
    • Game crash - G_Spawn: no free entities
    • Some of these are reserved for the game.
    • The actual limit for map to be playable is 949 , but because the game creates entities on runtime (grenades, bodies, medpacks etc.) you should always leave some headroom.
  • Maximum amount of brush entities - 511
    • Game crash - MAX_SUBMODELS exceeded
    • Brush entities are stuff such as script_mover, trigger_multiple and func_static.
    • These count towards standard entity limit.
    • This used to 255, but was increased to the maximum supported by the engine in ETJump 3.3.2.
  • Maximum amount of networked shaders - 240
    • Game crash - getShaderIndex: configstring overflow - MAX_SHADER_INDEX reached (240), decrease the number of unique shaders referenced by mapscript and entities
    • This includes thing such as remapped shaders, custom shaders for func_explosive particles, func_static_client offShader etc.
    • This used to be 32 , but the limit was increased in ETJump 3.4.0
  • Maximum amount of misc_gamemodels - 1024
    • Game crash - MAX_STATIC_GAMEMODELS(1024) hit
    • This assumes static misc_gamemodels (no targetname, scriptname or spawnflags set).
    • Non-static misc_gamemodels count towards standard entity limit.
  • Maximum amount of sounds - 255
    • Game crash - G_FindConfigstringIndex: overflow
    • This is the amount of unique sounds referenced by the map.
  • Maximum number of coronas - 1024
    • Game crash - SP_Corona: MAX_STATIC_CORONAS (1024) exceeded
    • This assumes static coronas (no targetname, scriptname or spawnflags set).
    • Non-static coronas count towards standard entity limit.
    • Renderer can only render up to 32 coronas simultaneously.
  • Maximum number of dlights - 15/1024
    • Game crash - G_FindConfigstringIndex: overflow or SP_dlight: MAX_STATIC_DLIGHTS (1024) exceeded
    • 15 is the limit for networked dlights, 1024 for static dlights (no targetname, scriptname or spawnflags set).
    • Networked dlights count towards standard entity limit.
    • Renderer can only render up to 32 dlights simultaneously.
  • Maximum vertices on model - 1024
    • Game crash - R_LoadMD3/C: <modelname> has more than 1024 verts on a surface (<number of verts>)
    • Applies to mdc/md3 models spawned at runtime (misc_gamemodel, model2 key etc).

Common errors and warnings

  • *** Leaked ***
    • Your map has a hole into void. If it looks like the red line indicating the leak spot goes straight through a structural brush, make sure the shader on the brush doesn’t have surfaceparm trans.
  • Entity N, Brush N: duplicate plane
    • Happens when two faces are combined into one by edge or vertex editing. Use brush cleanup to fix.
  • Entity N, Brush N: degenerate plane
    • Happens sometimes when 2 vertices of same face are very close to each other (under 1 unit) due to usage of clipper. Use brush cleanup to fix; often deletes the brush and you have to recreate it.
  • BaseWindingForPlaneAccu: no dominant axis found because normal is too short
    • Related to degenerate plane error. Use brush cleanup to fix.
  • Entity N, Brush N: degenerate patch
    • This can often happen when capping patches. This always happens when you try to cap a cone; Radiant creates a 0x0 cap at the sharp end of the cone, which is a degenerate patch. Delete the patch by selecting it via the error window or by going to Misc -> Find brush… and entering the correct entity/brush number.
  • Backwards tree volume
    • All brushes in your map are detail brushes.
  • SV_SetBrushModel: NULL
    • Most likely cause for this is an improper usage of a special shader in an entity. For example, using an origin shader for trigger_multiple entity causes this error. Another cause is corrupted brushwork in a brush entity, which can be fixed with brush cleanup.

Common shaders

This list contains common shaders that are useful for ETJump mapping. This is not a comprenesive list; it only includes stuff thats relevant and actually works. Clip shaders for example have variations with different surface sounds, but they are self-explanatory and are not listed here.

Stock ET

Antiportal
Antiportal -

Combines areaportal and hint into a single shader. Difficult concept to understand (don’t understand it myself fully either). Use in conjunction with skip. Some talk about their usage here and here.

Areaportal
Areaportal -

Blocks VIS by culling everything behind it. Must be placed inside door entities to work. Use in conjunction with skip.

Caulk
Caulk -

Solid, invisible surface. Generally any surface not visible to player should be caulk.

Clip
Clip -

Invisible surface that blocks player movement but lets everything else through. Used for smoothing out movement and to block non-playable areas.

Clipmissile
Clipmissile -

Invisible surface that blocks players, projectiles and entities, but lets bullets through.

Clipweap
Clipweap -

Invisible surface that blocks everything.

Cushion
Cushion -

Solid surface that disables fall damage. Functionality can be reversed with a nofalldamage worldspawn key.

Hint
Hint -

Structural surface that creates a portal to force a split in PVS. Use in conjunction with skip.

Skip
Skip -

Structural surface that doesn’t create a split in PVS. When placing hint brushes, use this on every surface where you don’t want a portal to be created.

Hintskip
Hintskip -

Same as skip, but filters with hint in Radiant.

Ladder
Ladder -

Surface that players can grab onto and climb. Note that ladders don’t work if vertical angle is under 45 degrees.

Lightgrid
Lightgrid -

Defines the area included in lightgrid calculation. Lightgrid has a block limit; this can be used to exclude unnecessary areas from it and shrink each block.

Nodraw
Nodraw -

Invisible, nonsolid surface. Explicitly marked as a detail brush.

Nodrawnonsolid
Nodrawnonsolid -

Same as nodraw, but doesn’t explicitly make the brush detail.

Nodrawwater
Nodrawwater -

Applies water properties to a brush. Use on non-visible faces of water brushes.

Nodrop
Nodrop -

Entities inside this brush disappear when they touch the ground.

Origin
Origin -

Used to define origin point for various brush entities. The center of the brush will become the origin of the entity.

Slick
Slick -

Solid, slippery surface.

Trigger
Trigger -

Used for trigger entities.

ETJump

If you don’t see these shaders in Radiant, make sure you have the latest ETJump mapping assets, available here. nodelay, noprone, nosave, nonoclip, overbounce and portalsurface shader functionality can be altered with worldspawn keys.

Nodelay
Nodelay -

Players landing on this surface are not affected by jump delay.

Noprone
Noprone -

Players cannot prone inside this brush.

Nodrawslag
Nodrawslag -

Same as nodrawwater, except has slightly lower acceleration scale (0.3 vs 0.5). This is technically a stock shader, but it’s not shipped with Radiant.

Nonoclip
Nonoclip -

Players cannot use noclip inside this brush.

Nosave
Nosave -

Players cannot save inside this brush.

Overbounce
Overbounce -

Players cannot OB on this surface.

Portalsurface
Portalsurface -

Players cannot shoot portals on this surface.

Portalclip
Portalclip -

Players cannot shoot portals through this surface. Note: requires custinfoparms.txt to be used while compiling to function.

Slickcushion
Slickcushion -

Surface that both disables fall damage and is slippery.

Tutorial by Aciz