TrenchBroom allows you to create and edit Quake 1 maps entirely in 3D. Many advanced features make editing geometry and entities as well as camera navigation easier than in other tools. Find out more about TrenchBroom's features by browsing this document.
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 console where TrenchBroom will print information about what is happening in the editor. The inspector on the right of the window has the following tabs:
To allow TrenchBroom to find entity models, the path to the Quake folder must be set in the preferences window. Bring up the preference window () and set the Quake path by clicking on the Choose button.
To create a new, empty map file, choose from the menu. This will create a new empty map file and open a new editor window.
You can open an existing map file by choosing from the menu. 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 . If you want to save your map with a different file name, choose .
Entity definition files and textures are loaded into TrenchBroom using the Map Properties dialog, which you can bring up by choosing from the menu.
In the upper section of the dialog, you can select one of the builtin entity definition files (such as Quake.def). You can also load an external file by selecting the Choose... option from the dropdown list. In addition, you can choose one additional mod directory from within your Quake installation which is searched for models. The pak files in the id1 directory are always searched for models, even if id1 is not selected in this dialog.
Open the Map Properties dialog by choosing from the menu. In the lower section of the dialog, you can manage texture wad files. To add a texture wad, click on the + button. To remove texture wads, first select them in the list and then click on the - button. To change the order in which textures are loaded from the wad files, use the triangle buttons to move texture wad files up and down. The textures are loaded from top to bottom, and textures overwrite previously loaded textures with the same name. For example, if both "quake.wad" and "rtz.wad" contain a texture called "trim1", the editor will use the one from "rtz.wad" because it is loaded later.
The paths to texture wads and external entity definition files can either be stored as absolute or as relative paths. A relative path can be relative to the current map file (if it has already been saved), to the application's executable or to your Quake installation. You can set this whenever you add an external entity definition file or a texture wad.