Lets assume that you have taken the calm pool from the previous chapter and turned it into a nasty pit of lava, say the lavahell texture. Now want this texture to cause the player harm when they touch it so we need to create a trigger object. Trigger objects are used for a number of things, including jump pads which we will look at later. However to make the lava hurt we need to cover it in a trigger brush. Draw another brush exactly the same size as the lava brush but place it directly on top of the lava itself (the new brush shouldn't come over the top of the pool walls though). Apply the trigger texture to this new brush. With the brush still highlighted click on it with the right mouse button in the Plan view. Select trigger and then trigger_hurt. Press N to call up the entity editor (you should see trigger_hurt selected in the list). In the key field type dmg and in the value field type 40. This will cause the player to lose 40pts of health every second they are on the trigger brush (and hence the lava). Press N again to dismiss the menu, recompile the map and try it out in Quake. This technique can also be used for causing instant death in space maps or in deep pits e.t.c.
We can also use trigger textures to help build jump pads. However our room is getting a little crowded at the moment and we have little space to jump to so let's start by raising the roof a little bit.
Select the roof of the room (shift and left mouse button) and using the Z-Axis window move it up to about twice its current height. Deselect the roof and then select the four walls and drag their edges in the Z-Axis window to match the ceiling. Now we need to build a new brush for a ledge we can jump. So draw a thin ledge and select a texture to cover it (say metalfloor_wall_11, position the brush about halfway up a wall and deselect it.
Now we need to add the jump pad, so draw another brush, make it square and just above floor level. Load in the sfx set of textures from the Textures dropdown menu and choose bounce_concrete to apply a jump pad image to the brush. If you need to align the texture properly with the edges of the brush you can hit S to call up the surface inspector window. This window has entries you can alter to scale the size of the texture and move it around the brush surface until it fits. Once you are happy with the pad press escape to deselect it. Now as we did with the lava, create another brush that sits just on top of the jump pad brush and selest the trigger texture for it.
Click using the right mouse button over the new brush and select trigger and then trigger_push. Now you have added the trigger to the brush press N to bring up the entity editor window (you must have the brush still selected). You should see that the entity has trigger_push selected. In the key field enter the word target and in the value field enter the phrase jump1. The second value is unique to this jump pad so you can specify the effect of each jump pad individually. Next deselect the trigger brush and right click in the Plan view where you want the jump pad to throw the player to (So just above and in front of the ledge). From the menu select target and then target_position, a small box should appear to show the destination of the jump. Press N to bring up the entity editor again and enter targetname in the key field and jump1 in the value field. We are specifying the unique phrase we had earleir entered for the jump pad trigger, this is so that Radiant make the correct link between them. You should see a green line connecting the two entities.
Now save, recompile and run the map in Quake3. You may need to repositioon the target brush to get the best jump path. Note that the player will continue forward slightly after the target is reached, so it is often best to place the target brush slightly above and before the ledge you wish to land on. (This avoids players getting stuck or colliding with the ceiling)
Next we see how to make connections between rooms
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