In this section, you will learn how to set the path to your Quake installation, how to create, open and save maps and how to compile and run your maps.
The above screenshot displays TrenchBroom's map document window. The main elements are the 3D view in which your map is rendered and in which you perform most of your editing with the mouse. At the bottom of the 3D view you can see the quick info bar which display information about the current camera position and direction and the currently selected objects. The inspector on the right of the window has the following tabs:
To allow TrenchBroom to find entity models and to place the compiled maps into the correct folder, the path to the Quake folder must be set in the preferences window. Bring up the preference window (TrenchBroom » Preferences or ⌘,) and set the Quake path by clicking on the Choose button.
Once you have selected the Quake folder, you can choose a Quake executable from the popup list. This is the executable that will be used when you compile and run your maps.
To create a new, empty map file, choose File » New from the menu or hit ⌘N. This will create a new empty map file and open a new editor window.
You can open an existing map file by choosing File » Open from the menu or hitting ⌘O. TrenchBroom can open standard Quake maps as well as maps in Valve's 220 map format. However, since TrenchBroom does not fully support the 220 map format, there will be misaligned textures in such maps.
To save your map file, choose File » Save or hit ⌘S. If you want to save your map under with a different file name, choose File » Save as... or hit ⇧⌘S.
To compile your maps, choose a compiler profile from the Run » Compile menu. TrenchBroom comes with a couple of predefined compiler profiles, but you can customize these in the preferences window. You can quickly invoke the last profile you ran by choosing Run » Compile <Profile name> or by hitting ⌃⌘C.
TrenchBroom comes with builtin versions of qbsp, vis and light. The builtin versions are ports of the following tools:
Once compilation is started, a console window is opened which will show the output of the compiler programs. TrenchBroom extracts the correct directory for the compiled bsp from the Quake path and the mod you are working for (mods are currently not properly configurable, so don't bother with this) and copies the bsp file to that directory.
If the map compiled successfully, you can launch a Quake executable by selecting it from the Run » Run menu. As a shortcut, you can run your preferred engine which you set in the preferences by choosing Run » Run <Engine name> or by hitting ⌃⌘R.