In addition to all the good mapping tutorials over the web, a good way to learn mapping is to decompile an existing map and look at how it was made.

For creating additional entities for coopordie, I have decompiled all the idsoftware maps, and it's a treasure of knowledge. You can use the "quake2 gladiator" tool for that.

There are nice moving laser in the "boss1" map.

Tried it, but you can't edit .bsp's... but there is no relevant results when I search for the gladiator tool you mention. Do you have a link please?

Look at this discussion for the Gladiator tools:
viewtopic.php?p=1459#p1459

After converted a *.bsp file to a *.map file, you can edit it and look at entities. But the brush are partially broken. The BSP compilation and optimization remove a lot of non visible part that are needed for edition.

You can't generally recompile the map, but for learning about entities, it's just perfect.

Thanks, I am super confused still and the way the levels are packed full of entities triggers and clip troubles me. Hopefully it does not require this much work to have a good map. Lasers seem to be not a brush but rather a target or trigger of some kind. I have tried google with no luck as well. Worst case I have to use a brush and imitate laser effects.

A screeny I had to share

OK, I just hit major breakthroughs in my Quake 2 mapping skills, then I discover I have summer-school to do So, there may be no work on my maps for quite a while. Maybe a month even. I'm quite sad, but when I get back, hopefully I can show you some of my new ideas.

Good luck for your summer-school Rodrigez.
I'm impatient to see your return.
CU

So... I'm back... kinda. Well I was gone, I did summer-school, tried CryEngine 2, beat Bioshock, started modding Quake Wars and a lot more. So I've come to tell you my mission pack is in limbo. I may try it again soon, don't get me wrong. But once I have the five parts of the unit done, I'm not gonna have time to run through them bug-testing and getting game-ready. So here's the deal k? I'll finish them up to the best I have time for start and finish the last level write up whats supposed to happen in each level (primary and secondary missions) then release it. The community will then have two options. Someone more skilled then me and is nice enough to lend their free time will finish it up, they can take all credit for it if they wish, or option two, you have to play it rough and unpolished. Very unpolished. I don't wanna seem the quitter, but I have little free time and even having co-op when I can find a working server is not as fun as before. Even worse, my PC hates Quake 2. It freezes, suffers from artifacts and gives the BSoD sometimes. At the moment I'm lucky if I get the Beta out for someone to package together without my PC exploding. To make it worse, I now am back in school. Anyhow. I didn't mean to be all gloomy, but I wouldn't expect too much outta me before me or my PC gives up. Really, I think summer-school wrecked my mission pack. My enthusiasm is gone and I've forgotten how to create the most basic map. But cheer up, if any of you own Quake Wars we can maybe get together and play some games

Good luck with your PC Rodrigez

For your maps, I would suggest you to release it under a creative commons license, the Attribution-Share Alike could be a good choice. I can host a zip file including all the stuff on coopordie.com if you want.

Thanks, I hope it gets better, but I think its at the end of its life. Which is sad cause it was top of the line when I bought it 8 months ago.

When I do release the maps, I guarantee everyone here that they have full rights to do anything they wish with the maps except claim them as their own. If they modify them, all I need is a spot in the credits

This weekend, I'll try and start GTK up again and finish the last two levels. Then I'll release the beta and mission-list and you guys are free to do as you like with them.