One of the neat things about Quake is that it's a true 3D game; you can jump up on things, you can have rooms on top of rooms, you can make bridges that cross over other bridges, etc. Doom was only a psuedo-3D game; you could simulate some (but certainly not all) of these things, but they never had that full 3D feeling.

So, since we're playing a 3D game, let's expand our mapping skills by allowing the player to move in the third dimension. In this lesson, we'll discover how to use moving platforms to create a lift.

You'll need a map file to have someplace to put your lifts. If you worked through all the BSP General lessons, you can you use the map we made there. If you don't have that file, or if you've played around with yours so it doesn't match mine, you can download this file and use it.

Alright, let's make a lift. First thing to understand about lifts is that you must draw them as they will look extended vertically, but Quake will start them out in the lowered position. You have to draw them that way so that they will be lit properly when Light runs. Keeping that in mind, let's draw a new 64x64 brush, 8 units tall. Center this brush on (-480, 224) in the Top View and raise it up so that the bottom of this brush sits on 128 in the Z axis. Let's apply the texture 'PLAT_TOP2' to this brush.

This brush will make the actual platform the player will ride. Now, if you wanted, we could turn this into a lift entity and our lift would work, but the platform would not have any visible support structure. That's okay, but it looks kind of unrealistic (yeah, like Quake is realistic to begin with), but I digress. To correct this, let's make a platform stem for our lift to sit on. Draw a new 16x16 brush (also centered on (-480, 224) in the Top View) which extends from the floor up to 128 on the Z axis. This will make it butt up against the bottom of our platform. Go ahead and give it the 'PLAT_STEM' texture.

Now we're ready to make our actual lift entity. Select both the platform and stem brushes. You may need to go to the 3D wireframe view to get them both selected at the same time. With both brushes selected, switch over to the Entity Window and make a 'func_plat' entity. By selecting both brushes at once, this will connect the two brushes together and make them operate as one unit. We could have selected each one individually, but then there might be times when only the stem moves or other times when only the platform moves; neither effect is desirable.

While you're in the entity window, we also want to assign 2 key/value pairs to this entity. The first one is 'height' '128'. This tells Quake that the lift will extend 128 units in the vertical direction. From the way we are drawing it, when Quake runs, it will start the lift out at floor level, which is what we want. The second key/value pair we want to add is 'sounds' '1', which will give our lift an electronic elevator-type sound.

Now these two brushes will move together when triggered and it will appear that the stem is rising out of the floor to lift the platform into the air. A little more realistic than just having a floating platform, don't you think? Believe it or not, that's all there is to making a lift. Save your map as 'Lesson6.map'. Compile it and run it in Quake to check it out. If you've done everything right, you should have a functioning lift that rises when you step on it, then lowers back to the ground when you step off.

Here is our lift, lowered on the left, and in it's raised position on the right (your map may not have the light in the corner ;-):

That's all there is to making a basic lift. Easy, eh? However, there may be times when you want a lift to start in the raised position and lower the player to a lower level. The 'func_plat' entity won't work for this, so I'll demonstrate it next.

Let's draw a new lift, in the raised position on the opposite side of the room from our first lift. Draw a 64x64 brush in the Top View, centered on (-480, -288). Make it 8 units high and set the bottom of the brush at 128 on the Z axis. Give this the 'PLAT_TOP2' texture. Now let's make a stem like we did on the other lift, but let's make it wider. Make a 48x48 brush in the Top View, also centered on (-480, -288). Give this one the 'PLAT_STEM' texture. Set the bottom of this brush on the floor and stretch the top up to 128 on the Z axis, just like we did in the last lesson.

Select both brushes and this time, instead of making the brushes a 'func_plat' entity, we need to make them a 'func_door'. That way they won't start in the lowered position like our other lift does. Remember to select both brushes at the same time so they will function together as one unit. After you click on the 'Make Entity' button, select the 'Dn' button in the angle selection area. This will make our lift move down when triggered. You might also want to add a 'sounds' '1' key/value pair to your lift to give it a sound effect when it moves.

One interesting thing to note here. If you run your map in Quake now, when you approach the new lift, it lowers, since Quake thinks it's a door and is 'opening' it. But if you stand on the lift, it never raises. Again, this is because Quake thinks it is a door. Doors don't close when you're standing in front of them. For this reason, we need to make a trigger to make our lift work the way we want. Let's add a button on the wall to make the lift lower to the floor.

Go to the Front View and draw a 32x32 brush centered on (-416, 32). Switch to the Side View and make this brush 8 units wide and drag it so that it sits against the wall next to our new lift. Switch over to the Texture Window and select '+1BASEBTN' for a texture. (You may not see this texture depending on whether or not you have animation enabled. Just select 'BASEBTN' if you see that instead.) Apply that texture to the entire brush. Now, since this button doesn't line up exactly on a 64x64 grid, we'll need to offset the X and Y textures each 16 units for the side of the button the player will see. With the same texture selected, set the X and Y offsets to 16 and apply the texture only to the side of the brush which faces out into the room. Remember how to do that? Click here if you forgot. You can check your work in the 3D textured window to see if it lines up properly. We could have offset the textures for the entire brush, but then the sides of the button would look funny. Try it if you want to see what I mean.

With your button still selected, switch to the Entity Window and make this brush into a 'func_button' entity. We also need to set the angle of our button, so Quake knows which way to move it when it is triggered. Select 270 for the angle. That will make it recess into the wall. Now apply a key/value pair of 'target' 'lift1' to this entity. Remember you can call the trigger whatever you want.

That finishes the button; now all we need to do is connect it to our lift. Select both brushes of the lift together and assign a key/value pair of 'targetname' 'lift1' to them. This will connect them with our button. Now the lift shouldn't operate unless the button is pressed. That gives us complete control over when it lowers.

Go ahead and compile your map and try it out. Notice how the button light changes colors when you press it and then changes back to red after a few seconds. Quake takes care of this automatically for you. Here's our new lift, complete with button:

There are some other properties you can control on the button if you want. You can control quite a bit about the button, including how much of a lip it leaves sticking out from the wall, how long it stays recessed and so forth. Remember, you can check out these properties by clicking the '?' in the Entity Window. One interesting flag you can set is the 'health' flag. If you assign a key/value pair of 'health' '1' to your button, then the button has to be shot in order to be triggered. Go ahead and do that now. Then when you run your level in Quake, you can't activate the button by pressing it anymore. Cool, eh?

Of course, when the player sees a button like this, he's going to try to press it. When nothing happens, he is liable to get frustrated. We can fix that. Let's have a message pop up telling him to shoot the button. It's pretty easy to do. First draw a brush from (-440, -296) to (-392, -312). Make it 64 units tall and make sure the bottom of the brush sits against the floor. Now switch over to the Entity Window and make this brush into a 'trigger_multiple' entity. Go ahead and add a key/value pair of 'message' 'You can shoot this button' and another key/value pair which reads 'sounds' '1'. Now, save your map and run it again. This time when you approach the button, you should see a message like this:

The 'trigger_multiple' insures that the message will appear every time the player approaches. (In case he forgets and tries to press the button later).

Well, that's it for this lesson. Hope you enjoyed it!