Configuration Utility

The following sections contain many of the more important configuration parameters and their meanings.

General

Display

Gamma correction. Use this to adjust the brightness of texture colors.

Window captions. Sets whether to color window captions.

Activate windows on. When enabled, windows are auto-activated when the mouse cursor is inside them.

If not selected and If selected. Determines whether selected icons should be displayed in blue or brown.

3D View

Select 3D viewer. If you have a 3Dfx-compatible 3D acceleration graphics card installed, QuArK will use it to speed up drawing in 3D windows. If you don't have one, you must select Software only.

Entities in 3D. Whether or not QuArK should draw entities (3D models) in the 3D windows.

"Far" distance. How deep QuArK should draw in the 3D windows. Lower values will speed up drawing.

Vertical view angle. The field of view of the perspective views, in degrees. Just as with cameras, you enter the height of the view not the width.

Frame color. This is the color of the bounding area of the 3D windows, outside the area where QuArK renders.

3Dfx card owners only

These settings apply to those users that have 3dfx videos cards.

Software drivers only.

If you have selected Software only in the 3D viewer, then here is where you can adjust how fast the software renderer should be able to draw things in the 3D window, while standing still and while walking/moving around.

Mouse sensitivity

These values control the mouse sensitivity when using a mouse to move the camera in the 3D views.

Keyboard settings

Instead of using the mouse to move around with (which can be quite difficult at times), you can either use these standard movement keys when the 3D window is active, or redefine them to suit your needs. It is highly recommended that you know how to move around in 3D window using the keys.

Keyboard movement dynamics

Change these values if you feel that moving around using the keys isn't quite fast or slow enough. You must experiment a bit to find a setting that you like using.

OpenGL

Settings in this folder are only usable if you have a true OpenGL graphics card.

3D accelerators like 3Dfx, Voodoo, Voodoo-II, and other low-priced cards are not truly OpenGL-compatible—they only emulate it through a glide driver.

Memory

Values in this settings folder control how much memory QuArK is allowed to consume and the number of undo levels it should store.

Map

Mouse

To get the most out of the Map Editor, you can specify here how the mouse should act when you do certain operations to it, like pressing a button and dragging.

It is highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with these mouse settings or redefine them if you like. But you should experiment with them in the Map Editor to get a feel of what they do.

You should be aware, however, that the Mouse Modes Tool palette sometimes will overrule the settings you've chosen in this setup folder.

Keys

Some functions in the Map Editor map views can also be accomplished by pressing keys. In this settings folder, you can see and redefine keys for the actions shown here.

Options

A lot of things in the Map Editor are controlled in this folder. A selection will be described here, but you should experiment with the settings yourself to get a knowledge of what they do and to see if you can use them for something useful.

Draw axis. Indicates whether the axis bug (the X-, Y-, and Z-axes through coordinate (0,0,0) ) should be drawn.

Show indirect 'target' links. Shows with colored arrows what a selected entity has as targets, and their targets, and their targets, and their targets, and their targets, and so on. Having this on can really slow down map drawing in the Map Editor, if you've got a lot of targets. It is recommended to only have this selected when you want to see that it's all connected.

Both red lines. Turn on a second set of red guidance lines.

Cross-like cursor. If you're doing precision work, it's better to have a cross instead of the arrow-shaped mouse cursor.

Auto adjust normal. When this box is selected, face normals are forced to the nearest multiple of 15 degrees when they are adjusted (15 is the default value and can be changed). This works just as if you were holding down the Ctrl key all the time.

Delete unused faces. Unless you know what you're doing, keep this selected at all times.

Dig in 3D views. To see what a digger or negative polyhedron will do to your level in the 3D windows, keep this selected.

Hide faces in tree. Select this if you do not want to be able to expand polyhedrons showing their faces in the Tree view. If you are working with shared faces, clear this.

Hint for map handles. Keep this selected or you will not be able to get the great flyover hint boxes on handles.

Don't write //TX# in .map. If you do not use build tools that are custom-made for QuArK, you won't be able to take advantage of the better texture alignment when compiling your map. This option must be cleared when you use TXQBSP/TXQCSG build tools.

Building

This section controls some default values that will affect your map making.

Def. brush with entities. Selects the size of a default cube you want when creating a new entity.

Wall width (for Make Hollow). The default thickness in units that the make hollow action should result in.

Force angle to (degrees). The closest minimum degree angle that a rotation should snap to.