QuMa

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QuMa is an editor for Quake made in 1996 by Ben Williams. Made during the length of time between the promotion and release of THRED on Aftershock for Quake, it suffered from relative obscurity.

This editor was designed to run with Windows 95. Unlike most other editors, QuMa does not like modern operating systems as it needs "d3drm.dll" to function. Downloading the .dll just eliminates the error, the program still fails to start. It is possible that the file itself is corrupt; an installation of Windows 95 is still unable to run the program.

QuMa is relatively similar to other editors of the time, containing a toolbar for quick functions and a menu bar for more specific needs. The editor can import and export .MAP files.

This level editor also requires DirectX 2.0, which is included with installations of Windows 95, as the 3D camera view is hardware accelerated. The map can be viewed with and without lighting, as a wireframe or solid, and can easily allow for brushes to be selected in the 3d mode by holding down shift. The designer can move and turn as necessary to navigate in the 3D camera view, but also has the three standard 2D views for more accurate design. This 3D camera does have a limit on the amount of polygons that can be visible at one time, extremely large maps will crash the program. The 3D camera also has issues with weirdly shaped brushes, cubes work great but 4 sided pyramids would cause a lot of issues.

The world works on a grid and features snapping to prevent anomalous sizes. This grid can be resized as needed in the event that more detailed brushes are desired. Buttons, Doors, and Movable Walls can be tagged with a specific number to trigger the change in their behavior when the trigger is activated.

Brushes can be resized by dragging the planes or by clipping to another plane. Rotating and scaling are both supported. To make a hole in the wall, the designer specifies the brush as a subtraction type, which removes the solid area inside the brush. It is recommended to use subtraction brushes before rotating, the other way around can result in anomalies which cause the 3D view to have issues.

Furthermore, the designer can easily cut/copy anything in one .MAP file and paste it into either the same file or another .MAP file. Brushes can be saved as separate files to be used later, allowing for reusable structures. Shapes are included with the program to make instant staircases, rooms (using any shape, not just cubes), and ramps. It is recommended to save frequently, there is no undo function.

Entities are shown by their bounding boxes, making it clear where they will be placed. They have modifiable parameters, or flags, which change based on the entity selected. The software also supports the importation of custom entities, extending the list as needed. Besides classname, comments can be added to describe the function of the entity in clearer terms.

Textures are viewable in the editor via a texture browser, though it does require a WAD2 file and a Quake palette, neither of which are included. When included, 8-bit color can be limited, resulting in it failing to display the proper palette. 16-bit color is fully functional.

Included in the menu bar are QBSP, Light, and Vis. Depending on the version used and where the files are located, this can be more or less finicky.

Levels

 * Altar of Pain
 * Are you ready to RUMBLE?
 * Chaos
 * Clogged, Version 1.1
 * Close Quarters