Q3Radiant Editor Manual

Appendix B: Entity Descriptions

Item_* Entities

Most of the properties for item entities are the same and are listed immediately below. Properties that are unique to specific entities follow those entries.

Shared Keys (for all item entities)
All the entities in this grouping can have the following keys.

team: set this to team items. Teamed items will respawn randomly after team master is picked up (see Notes).
target: picking up the item will trigger the entity this points to.
targetname: a target_give entity can point to this for respawn freebies.
notbot: when set to 1, a bot will never seek out this item.
notfree: when set to 1, entity will not spawn in "Free for all" and "Tournament" modes.
notteam: when set to 1, entity will not spawn in "Teamplay" and "CTF" modes.
notsingle: when set to 1, entity will not spawn in Single Player mode (bot play mode).

Two other keys, wait and count, do not apply to all entities and are described as they apply to individual entity types.

Check Boxes/Spawnflags
SUSPENDED: item will spawn where it was placed in map and won't drop to the floor. Bots will only be attracted to suspended entities if they are reachable by way of a jump pad or launch pad (trigger_push).

Notes
Team: Just as you would set doors to work together with the "team" key, you can do the same for item, weapon and ammo entities. Give each entity in the team the same key value (example: "team" "powerups"). The game randomly selects which team member respawns next. You can set your own wait times. You can skew the weighting towards a particular item by including multiple copies of it. Example: 1 quad and 2 hastes in a team mean a greater chance that a haste entity will appear next.

The amount of time it takes for an item in the team to respawn is determined by the "wait" value of the item that was picked up previously. So if one of the items in the team has it's "wait" key set to -1 (never respawn), the random respawning cycle of the teamed items will stop after that item is picked up.

When the random key is set, its value is used to calculate a minimum and a maximum delay. The final time delay will be a random value anywhere between the minimum and maximum values: (min delay = wait - random) (max delay = wait + random).

item_armor_body

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Red Armor - 100 points of protection. All armor can be cumulated up to a maximum of 200 points and slowly decays back to 100 points.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 25, -1 = never respawn).

item_armor_combat

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Yellow Armor - 50 points of protectiong. All armor can be cumulated up to a maximum of 200 points and slowly decays back to 100 points.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 25, -1 = never respawn).

item_armor_shard

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Green Armor Shard - 5 points of protection. All armor can be cumulated up to a maximum of 200 points and slowly decays back to 100 points.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 25, -1 = never respawn).

Item_botroam

Map Entity Color: orange
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: An invisible entity that attracts a bot to it. Used to move bots to parts of a map that might otherwise not be used.

Custom Keys
Weight: non-zero floating point value, most often in the range 0 to 400. Very low values are unlikely to attract a bot to that area, since most bots have "desires" that attract them to other game entities. (Higher values are allowed but keep in mind that the bot should also be attracted to normal items. Don't make the weight value too high.

Notes
The item_botroam entity can be used when a bot does not roam the whole level or prefers to go to only specific areas. But don't confuse these items with "way points". They are more like magnets. This (invisible) item can be placed in a map just like regular items. Nobody can actually pick up the item it's only used to attract bots to certain places of the map. The value is the weight of the roam_item is relative to the weight assigned other items in the map (each bot has its own weights). The bot character specific item weights are stored with the bot characters in the botfiles/bots/ sub-folder in the .pk3 file.

When a bot should never go for a specific item the key "notbot" with value "1" can be used for that item. This key with value can be used for every available item in Quake III Arena.

Design Tip: Wait to place these items until you've done a significant amount of live play testing on the final map against bots. Observe a bot-only match. See which parts of the map they DON'T use frequently. Use bot_roam entities to encourage the bots to follow more paths through the map. Example: In one of id's CTF maps, it was eventually observed that bots were most likely to use only one entrance when assaulting the base. Placement of item_botroam entities along the other entrance paths might have solved this.

item_enviro

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Battle Suit power-up. Lasts 30 seconds. Battle suit provides full protection against explosion radius damage, slime, and lava damage. It gives partial protection against falling, and direct rocket hits.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds that power-up will last when picked up (default 30).

item_flight

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Flight power-up. Lasts 60 seconds. Will not appear in single player games. Bots do not understand its use.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds power-up will last when picked up (default 60).

item_haste

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Speed power-up. Makes player run at double speed for 30 seconds.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds power-up will last when picked up (default 30).

item_health

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Yellow cross bubble - 25 Health. Cannot be picked up over 100 health.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 35, -1 = never respawn).
count: sets the amount of health points given to the player when item is picked up (default 25).

item_health_large

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Gold cross bubble - 50 Health. Cannot be picked up over 100 health.

item_health_mega

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Blue M bubble - 100 Health. Adds 100 health points to current health up to a maximum of 200.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 40, -1 = never respawn).
count: sets the amount of health points given to the player when item is picked up (default 100).

item_health_small

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Green cross bubble - 5 Health. Can be picked up to give over 100 health but slowly decays back to 100.

item_invis

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Invisibility power-up. Lasts 30 seconds.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds power-up will last when picked up (default 30).
team : set this to team items. Teamed items will respawn randomly after team master is picked up (see Notes).

item_quad

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Quad Damage power-up (3 times damage). Lasts 30 seconds.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds power-up will last when picked up (default 30).

item_regen

Map Entity Color: blue
Dimensions: (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
Game Function: Health Regeneration power-up. This will boost your current health by 5 points every second up to a maximum of 200. The boost continues for a period of 30 seconds. Aftewards, any health points over 100 slowly decay back to 100.

Custom Keys
wait: time in seconds before item respawns after being picked up (default 120, -1 = never respawn).
count: time in seconds power-up will last when picked up (default 30).

Light Entity

light

Map Entity Color: bright green (see Notes)
Dimensions: (-8 -8 -8) (8 8 8)
Game Function: Non-displayed light entity. The default condition emits white light in all directions at a value of 300. The apparent brightness of the light is modeled on "real world" physics, so the falloff in brightness willl be an inverse square of distance from the source. It can be colored. It can be targeted on an info_null entity to make a spotlight.

Keys
light: value of light intensity (default 300).
_color: weighted RGB value of light color (default white - 1 1 1).
target: point this to an target_position, info_null or info_notnull to create a spotlight effect.
radius: sets radius of light cone for spotlights (default 64) in game units. Radius measurement is made at the targeted entity. Light must target an info_null entity (info_nulls are only used by the compiler and need not be "remembered" by the game engine during play).

Check Boxes/Spawnflags
LINEAR: light falloff will be linear instead of inverse square of distance from source.

Notes

Linear fall off will not make much difference on low value lights. Useful on high value lights where the light travels long distances.
If the "Light drawing" preference is selected (under Preferences), the editor shows the light entities as diamond shaped pieces the color of the light they cast. If not, they are light yellow green cubes.

Coloring Lights
To quickly change the color of a light entity, use on of the following methods.

CTRL + k: With the entity window open, select a light entity in either the map or camera window. Press CTRL + k. This brings up the windows color selector. Select a color and choose "OK". The editor automatically normalizes the light colors.
Sample Texture: Select the light entity. Select a texture in either the texture window or the camera window. Hit SHIFT + middle mouse button.
Manual Entry: Type in the value for the key _color as a 3 numbers between 0 and 1 (inclusive).
Copy Existing: Select another light entity whose color value the user would like to duplicate. In the editor window, lef click on the key "_color". Now select the light entity to be colored. Hit ENTER.

Back | Home | Next