The following error messages may be encountered by mappers using the Quake III engine. If you want to add an error that's not listed, or even correct and elaborate on the cause and cure of a certain error, please e-mail me. 

Map Won’t Load

There are a number of reasons why a map won't load. The 4 most common are:

1. You need to type /sv_pure 0 <ENTER> just before typing your /devmap command
2. There's something wrong with a custom shader script
3. The map isn't compiled properly
4. There's no player spawn point

AAS_MAX_PLANES=n

Extremely high walls cause this problem for some reason. Apparently, there was a version of bspc that caused that problem but was fixed with an update.

ERROR: MAX_SURFACE_VERTS

VERTS (VERTICES), means you've got a lot of patches and curves. If this is the case, try deleting some of them and go for a less ambitious design.

ERROR MAX_MAP_LIGHTGRID

You have too many lights in your map. In the worldspawn enter key lightgrid and for the value, 64 64 64. Infinite brushes can also cause this error.

Fatal: empty .aas link Heap

You have a very complex structure in your map that is causing problems for the bots.

ERROR: MAX_FACETS during vlight (maxfacets >= 65XXX)

You’ve got too many spheres and/or cones in your map. The maximum number of facets allowed is 65,535.

WARNING : Couldn't find image for shader noshader

This error is harmless and can be ignored.

ERROR: MAX_PATCH_PLANES

The visible brush face is being split too many times. Extra vertex points are created by q3map on visible face edges, where they are split by other visible face points (corners, or vertices). So if you have too many visible face points touching the edges of another face, that particular face will be split many times and have many vertex points.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_BRUSHSIDES

You have a brush that is too complex.

ERROR: WindingFromDrawSurf failed: MAX_POINTS_ON_WINDING exceeded 

There are too many vertices repeating themselves along a single axis. It can also mean you have a "brush side polygon" somewhere with more than 64 corner points.

Leaf has too many portals

A leaf is a leaf-node, one of the leaves in the BSP tree that is used to store your map. Each leaf-node is a small convex volume of space within the player-space inside the map's outer hull. Each leaf-node in the tree has a set of faces, which are flat (planar) surfaces which form portals where they meet the faces of other Leaf-Nodes in the map.

This error is results when one of the leaf-nodes in your map meets too many other leaf-nodes, and therefore has too many portals. To fix it you can split the offending leaf-node up, or reduce the number of leaf-node it meets.

Leaf-Nodes are created at the first q3map compile stage when the BSP Tree is generated. Put simply, the compiler arbitrarily splits the inside space of the map up into convex sections, using the faces of the brushes in the map to split along. 

To reduce the number of splits made you can simplify the brushes in the map. You can also make the compiler ignore certain brushes by tagging them as "detail" (Ctrl+M with selected brushes).

To force a split in the map, you can use a Hint brush, which is an invisible nonsolid brush which only q3map can see and use (Hint brush = axial brush with all faces common/hint). (Courtesy SmallPileofGibs)

WARNING: Node without a volume / node has 0 tiny portals

An infinite brush. Delete it. The latest build of GtkRadiant has a debug tool that can help the mapper track down infinite brushes. Go to the BSP menu and select No_Vis (No light). After the compile process, a window will open up--assuming you've got bad brushes--and the first brush in the list will be selected and visible in the Z-Window. Merely press Backspace to delete this brush and repeat the No_Vis process. Or, you can use the Find Brush command (Misc menu) to find and then delete those bad brushes.

Textures/dirpath/texturename had odd vertex count autosprite2 shader

You’re implementing a shader script that uses vertex deformations that are greater than the size of the brush you’re using it on.

LoadTGA: Only type 2 (RGB), 3 (gray), and 10 (RGB) TGA images supported

You’re trying to use a .jpg in a shader script. All shader scripts call for .TGA textures, even though the actual texture may, in fact, be a .jpg. If the shader script is correct and you're still getting the error, then it means that you have saved the textures as progressive .jpgs. You've seen these on some web sites, where the picture is downloaded in phases, showing increasingly detailed versions of the entire image. The Q3 rendering engine cannot render these textures. You must save the .jpgs as baseline optimized. (Courtesy Markus Kuhn.)

Bad PointToPolygonFormFactor

You’ve got a mesh too close to the sky box.

SetQdirFromPath: no 'quake' in G:/Q3A/baseq3/maps/mymap.map

The word ‘quake’ is not in the path. Change the dir name from ‘Q3A’ to ‘quake’.

ERROR: RE_LoadWorldMap: maps/test.bsp not found

Quake3 defaults to PURE SERVER mode, and will not let the client game see anything not in a .pk3 file that has been CRC checked against the server's copy of the same .pk3 file. When you load a map with \map or \devmap in Q3, you are running both the client and the server. If you're running in PURE mode, and the map you're trying to load does not exist in a .pk3 file in your baseq3 folder, the game will think it is not there at all. (Courtesy SmallPileofGibs)

FloatPlane:bad normal

Caused by faulty vertex manipulation. You'll know it when you're trying to move a vertex and the brush suddenly "disappears." Hit undo if this happens. Delete the brush from the map if you've already run into the error during the compile process..

ERROR: SV_SetBrushModel: NULL

The map has some brush ents which are only one unit thick (paper thin). I'm not sure what the minimum thickness is supposed to be, but it apparently needs to be thicker than one unit.

You may also get this error when you have a brush model entity which does not have any valid brushes, i.e. a func_rotating with nothing but a common/origin brush. This could also be caused by a func_areaportal with a common/areaportal brush.

ERROR: DispatchBSPCommand failed with a COM exception

This is a Q3Build/GtkBuild error.  The .dll must be put in the plugins directory, and you must be using a version of xxBuild that is compatible with the editor.

I downloaded some textures but Q3R won't display them properly and instead displays a little red & black icon that says "shader image missing."

1. Put the textures either in a pak or a dir at the level of /baseq3/textures/yourdir

2. Extract the /baseq3/scripts dir from the pak0.pk3 (Although this should have been done when you installed Q3Radiant)

3. Move the *.shader file to /baseq3/scripts and add it to the /baseq3/scripts/shaderlist.txt

MatchToken( "(" ) failed at line xxx

You have an error in a custom shader. Most likely you forgot to close out a final shader stage or you have two brackets instead of one.

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