To build a Quake level from a Quake 3 .map file you will need a few things. The first is SleepwalkR's Java Map Converter (local copy here). Unpack the zip file into your d:\quake\id1\utils\mapconverter folder. The only problem with this converter is that it requires the Java Runtime Environment to be installed as well. So make sure you have installed it. This is all documented in the mapcon.txt file. Read it!

Next on the list are the compile tools. Unzip TreeQBSP (local copy), tyrlite (local copy) and visbjp (local copy) into your d:\quake\id1\utils folder. These are the tools that will compile a (Quake formated) .map file into a Quake .bsp file. TreeQBSP and visbjp are by Bengt Jardrup. Check out the authors website for more information. The downloads include the source files. I suggest that you only extract Qbsp.exe (from TreeQBSP) and Vis.exe (from visbjp). The source files for tyrlite are available here and from the authors web site.

The compile.bat is a simple batch file that makes the converting and compiling easy. Download the compile.bat to your d:\quake\id1\utils folder. Open compile.bat in Notepad and edit the BASEPATH and GAMEENGINE variables at the top of the file. Save and close the file. To use the compile.bat you will need to do the following:

1. Goto Start -> Run and type cmd (WinNT, Win2000, XP) or command (Win95, Win98).
2. Type d: (or the letter for the drive that quake is installed on)
3. Type cd quake\id1\utils
4. Type compile.bat mapfile where mapfile is the filename of the map to compile. Do not include the .map extension

As we do not have any maps at the moment, all this is kind of pointless, but at least you know how to do it now :] The compile script will also place a q1 prefix at the start of your level name. This is so you do not overwrite your master (Quake 3 format) map file. A map called test.map will become q1test.map (and test.map will remain unchanged).

NOTE: I use cygwin and a sh script to compile maps. The batch file is something quick and simple I put together for this how-to. If you use cygwin or linux/unix you are welcome to use my compile.sh script, its a lot more feature rich. (You will need to edit the default paths, thats all). If you want to send in or make improvements to compile.bat, please do!