Editing Quake 2 mod with the editor Quark Army Knife

This tutorial is made by my brother and me for those who want to understand better how to use the editor Quake Army Knife and modify her/his or an existing game mod.
Visit the site and forum of Quake Army Knife (Quark) for more info and downloads :
Quake Army Knife 
Forum

Hi all. In this text, the important programs, besides the editor, are highlighted with Bold text. If i don't explain all the things, that means that either i don't know all or Quark doesn't explain it all.
Quark (Quake army knife) editor is beta and it is a good program nevertheless, so look further in their .htlm help file. Be sure to always give credit when credit is due and don't make profit from a mod.

 Look further in their help files. Get used to Ctrl + C (Copy) and Ctr + V (Paste) and clicking and holding right and then the left mouse buttons and holding them together for zooming in and out in the editor windows.
 Than, click right click again with the right mouse button, or your zoom will move forward and backward in the editor window.

 The player model, in the 3d view of the editor will not be like in your mod, it will look like the ones in Quake 2.
Doesn't matter, because in "Quark - Options - Configuration - Quake 2 - Quake 2 command-line", you put Quake2.EXE +set game CTF, for example and when you run the map in game, the player will have the mod skin + weapons and such.
 







In the above image you can see the editor configuration, game path, txqbsp, timvis and arghrad are small programs which compile the map (light, models etc.). You can get them from Quark site.Quark only gets the information from your new mod, a virtual info of your models and textures.

When you extract your models and textures with Quark (from an existing mod) or change/save the modified .qrk file, it will be saved without pause between letters or you will give a temporary name (as QuArK is trying to overwrite it, but can't since it is still in use).

 But if you want to use the editor, with your mod, get rid of the pauses ("Mymod" will be "My mod"), when you test and work with the editor further (because when the editor extracted the files from the mod and made the .qrk file, you made the mod "My mod"). When you can, choose "Save all" or save in another place.

The .qrk will have to be saved in "QuArK 6.6.0 Beta 6\addons", for example, but there should be anyway.
 When making a map you click "insert" using your keyboard, in the editor, the window with "New map items" will appear and you being able to see the extracted models and other info (like your prefabs).


You can add in this your own prefabs and/or entities. Don't worry if sometimes your textures folders will not show up sometimes by accessing "Face-view - choose texture" in Quark editor.




When you are done running your map with the editor, transform the map to bsp, with WinBSPC (if an error "parse entity", use Quark). Or better choose "Quake 2- Complete rebuild" in Quark, putting it then in a PAK file (a sort of a archive) made with Qped and running the folder of the mod with the "+set game CTF", for example, in the game shortcut.

 If you have for example pak0 and pak1, you can mod them directly, but better make a pak2 and respecting the files and folders paths like in pak0 and pak1, put the new files in pak2 and the game will use those, which are modded.

Example :pak1 contains the path "Models-animals-crow.md2, crow.pcx". You now make a new pak, which will be pak2, which has only the files and folders you want to be modified, so that the game, using the new added modified files, will choose those, over pak1. So it will be "Models-animals-crownew.md2, crownew.pcx". All pak files have the extension PAK, so, pak1.PAK.





For editing many lines for a mod or your modified or new mod (some .qrk files may be very small in KB and we will talk later about maps and bsp files lines), in "My mod".qrk, opened with Quake army knife, click "+" in "Entity forms", click a model name (but don't, for now, click its "+"). On the right you will have :"General form options", "Point entity specific", "Brush entity specific".

Always hover with your mouse over a thing in "Entity forms" and a hint will appear (in the editor too). In the editor, you enter a entity for example and hover over the little book and you will get a text or when click on it. Put a text in "Help".


When you are working in a map and adding a "light" for example, click its book icon or hover above it to get info.



Let us see what every line does, by opening "Q2Entities.qrk" from "QuArK 6.6.0 Beta 6\addons" Quark folder :"General form options".

"General form options"
Help
Put here, in your language, your little book text from Quark editor.

"Point entity specific"
Bounding box -4 -4 -4 4 4 4 4
The above line means that a blue box surrounds the model in the editor with a given "minimum X, minimum Y, minimum Z, maximum X, maximum Y, maximum Z" numbers, with a pause between the numbers. Some mods use 7 numbers instead of 6. The above number is such an example for a mod, in Quake 2 they are others. In "Bounding box", a number is formed from 2 numbers. Put a default numbers for all models, because you can't know what the developer used for every models. And than, watch in the level editor, that the model doesn't get stuck in the walls or somewhere else. Use the above numbers, which are about a quarter as the player model is.

Model
The model that you see in 3d view, in the Quark editor. Leave this blank and you will not see anything in the editor 3d view. If you give a model path in here, when you put a model in the map, you will see the model.
Example (without the quotes): "models/items/ammo/bullets/medium/tris.md2"
You will find the path in the pak (a sort of a archive with the game files) file from your mod. You can use Qped to open pak files. I know that you must modify every model path, but in other mods, the paths are not that long.

Model Skin
Example (without the quotes):"models/npcs/girl2.pcx" This is for a mod. If the model has many skins you must modify your bsp file. But we will talk again later. If the model has only one skin, leave it blank.

"Brush entity specific"
Not implemented yet.

 
Saving your work in the editor by given it a name, as a qkm file, the files will remain the same. If you save as a map, two categores in the map will appear : "Entities" and "Map structure". All your prefabs, rooms, walls etc. will turn into many "poly" inside "Map structure". So do your work in a qkm file. 

Upon doing "Complete rebuild" in Quark, the qkm or map file will be compiled as a bsp. See the windows end text in the editor to see where the bsp file has being saved. The bsp file lines can be modified further, because some texts will disappear (like skinum) when you enter the bsp file and check your entities. So, enter bsp file, do not click "Open in map editor". In the left you will see "entities" text.
Click it and modify further and than save the file. Because there, you will see other things (like skinum numbers).
   
Adding a custom model or editing an existing one :
If you have in a pak file a model that is not found and extracted by Quark, add in your Quark map, a Quake 2 target_spawner. At "target" give the path to your model from pak file (models/monsters/yourname.md2). Put any argument that you want, but fill them with something for example an argument "angles" -2.82 175.29 0 , by clicking the plus button, or the argument will dissapear (angles without quotes).

Than, rename it to your entity name, for example : monster_yourname. It will change its entity icon. Than, delete the argument "target" and "speed" if you have them. If the model has no sound, try and add some if you want in the pack file. Because if you just rename a existing monster, without using and renaming target_spawner to your model, it will lose its arguments and you will have to add them again. 

Than, click "insert" on your keyboard to bring up "new map items" window and copy and paste your monster_yourname in your existing "monster_*entities". The sign * is always put by default. Leave it that way. So, now you have a new model, mannualy helping the editor to find the model he couldn't find. If everything works okay for a model, for the next one, just rename its title. 

 If you do not see the models in the editor 3d view, that is because they are not in your mod's .qrk file. Open the your mod's .qrk file, click + Entity forms, and copy a existing entity (closely related), paste it in the list, rename it to the correct new name. 

Then, like above, write in the Bounding Box, Model with needed paths. Enjoy seeing them in the 3d view.
Be sure to ask permission and give credit to those who made the models if you work on an existing model !
 
If i helped you, just give me and my bro, credit. In the mean time, i will end for now the tutorial, stay tuned for more in the future. Depending on your mod, this may not work.
This tutorial was corrected by my bro.