Note: if you've never used BSP before, I suggest that you review some of my General BSP tutorials to get a feel for using the editor. These tutorials for Quake-specific items will be geared to people who are already comfortable with BSP.

In this lesson we're going to make a slipgate (that's a teleporter to all you Doom fanatics). I've made a map for us to use. It's basically the map you end up with at the end of BSP lesson 4, if you already have it. If you don't, you can download it here. Unzip this to c:\bsp\quake\maps and load it into BSP to get started.

Slipgates are pretty easy to make, so this lesson won't be too difficult. There are basically three different types of slipgates that most people use. Number 1 is a standard teleporter - allowing quick transport of the player across large areas of the map. The second common use is as a level exit (like in the Slipgate Complex level of Quake). And the third usage of slipgates is to select the difficulty level, as in Quake's Start Map.

This lesson will only cover the teleporter-type slipgate. Later lessons will cover the other two types. The construction is similar, it's just in the entity definition that the differences occur.

Okay, let's get started. In the Top View, draw a brush from (-896, 64) to (-880, 40). Make the bottom of the brush sit on the floor and raise the top of the brush to 128. Go ahead and apply the texture 'ECOP1_1' to your new brush. Now copy and paste this brush and drag the new copy so that it stretches from (-896, -40) to (-880, -64). These will be the two sides of a frame in which our actual teleporting entity will sit.

In the Top View again, draw another brush, from (-896, 40) to (-880, -40) and give it the same texture. Drag the top of this new brush to 128 and drag the bottom of the brush to 112 on the Z axis. Copy this brush and paste it, dragging the new copy to sit on the floor, completing your frame.

Now we're ready to add the teleporter to our frame, so draw a new brush from (-892, 40) to (-884, -40). Set the top of the brush at 112 and the bottom at 16. Give this brush a texture of '*TELEPORT'. This brush won't actually be the teleporter, but the entity we will make for the teleporter is invisible, so we need this brush for visual effect.

Make a copy of this new brush and paste it back to the same location as the original. With the pasted copy still selected, switch to the Entity Window and make this brush into a 'trigger_teleport' entity. After you click on the 'Make Entity' button, enter 'target' in the key box and 't1' in the value box (don't put in the quote marks). Click on the '+' sign and your key/value pair is added. Basically, what you're doing here is creating a trigger, called 't1'. You can call this anything you like, but I like to keep them simple and easy to remember. This trigger will match up with the destination entity, which we will make next.

Now make a new brush from (-384, 8) to (-368, -8) and make it into a 'info_teleport_destination' entity. After you click 'Make Entity', click on the '180' button to assign an angle. This angle determines the direction the player is facing when he lands after teleporting. Also, we need to add a key/value pair to this entity. Enter 'targetname' in the key box and 't1' in the value box. This matches up the destination with the teleporter we made earlier.

If you've done everything right, you should see a purple arrow connecting the teleporter with the destination. This only shows up in the editor and let's you know where the teleporters go. This feature is handy later on as your map grows more complex and it becomes difficult to keep track of everything. Now, make sure this teleport destination entity is sitting on the floor and we're ready to test it out.

Save your level, compile it and run it. Here's what you should see:

When you step through the teleporter, you'll end up back near the door. Cool, huh?

You might have noticed that there were a couple of flags in the entity window you could set if you wanted. The 'Silent' flag suppresses the teleporter sound' and the 'Player_Only' flag prevents monsters from teleporting. (Nothing like re-stating the obvious...)

Well, that's all there is to it. See, I told you it was easy. Of course you can make these teleporters any shape you want. You don't even need the brush with the '*TELEPORT' texture. If you leave it out, your teleporter will be invisible (which might come in handy as a neat trick in your map).

One more thing you might want to consider. In most maps, people put some type of indicator on the floor to show where a teleporter destination is. That way in deathmatch the players know not to stand around on that spot, or they risk being telefragged. You don't need one, but I thought I'd mention it. In this map, I'm going to put one in, so I made a 32x32 brush 4 units high with a texture of 'TECH04_2' on the sides and 'TELE_TOP' on the top. I scaled the texture by 50% in each direction and made the teleport destination entity sit on it, rather than on the floor. It looks like this in Quake (don't stand here in a deathmatch!!)

That's it for this lesson. Now go forth and telefrag someone! Happy Quaking!