At the time of writing, Custom levels are a feature of the open beta of Pogo3d's next update. You can switch to the beta by going to steam's Pogo3d Properties and selecting the Betas tab.

This guide will not teach you how to use trenchbroom, only how to install it. to learn the ropes of trenchbroom, you should look up a separate tutorial. there's plenty out there about mapping for quake, and most of that knowledge will apply to pogo3d.

There is also a youtube video that covers the same information, if you prefer video form:

You will need

• A copy of Pogo3D installed (currently needs the steam beta branch!)
  
• ericw-tools, or another Quake Map Compiling Program
  
• Trenchbroom 2023, or another Quake Mapping Tool
  
• (windows only) VCRedist 2013 & 2015 to run ericwtools and trenchbroom
  
• Notepad, or another fancier text editor

You can get ericwtools on github[github.com]. If you are on windows you will also need the listed Microsoft's Visual C++ Redistributable! Just follow the instructions on the download page.

You can get trenchbroom v2023.1 on github[github.com]. If you are on windows,you will also need the listed Microsoft's Visual C++ Redistributable! Just follow the instructions on the download page.

The versions of VCRedist might be the different in the future. see the links on the download pages above to get the right versions.

This install is portable! that means you have to find your own place for it. Just extract the .7z to the folder you want it in. I tend to put stuff like that in My Documents/Programs but just don't forget where you put it!

...oh wait its a .7z. you might need to install a tool to extract it such as 7zip or winrar :)

This install is portable! that means you need to find your own place for it. Just extract the .zip to the folder you want it in. I tend to put stuff like that in My Documents/Programs but just don't forget where you put it!

It is located in %appdata%/TrenchBroom/games, but you can see this from inside trenchbroom by pressing these buttons



It is located in <pogo3d root folder>/pogo/Trenchbroom, but you can see this from inside steam by pressing this button



Theres 2 ways to copy the files, a simple way you will need to repeat if the level design tools ever update, and a hard way that will update automatically :) Take your pick

You can just copy-paste this folder like this every time the game update


This is like making a shortcut, but a special kind of shortcut the computer can understand.

First, open command prompt. you can just type "cmd" into the top of an explorer window like this


from there you are going to type the following commands:


On my computer it looks like this:

If it worked, Pogo3d should show up in your list of games


Side Note: you can remove unused games by going to the "games" folder in your trenchbroom install directory and deleting them.

You need to set the bsp, vis and rad tools for pogo3d within trenchbroom.

Open the preferences for pogo3d like this:

Within the "bin" folder of your ericw-tools install, select

• qbsp.exe for bsp
  
• vis.exe for vis
  
• light.exe for rad

The final result should look like this

I'm not going to go into detail here about how to use trenchbroom, There's a lot of good guides out there about doing lots of cool fancy stuff. I'm just going to go over how it works for pogo3d.

You can save maps anywhere you want, but for the purposes of easily testing and uploading custom maps, you should save maps to pogo3d's appdata folder at %localappdata%low\HEDGEWIZARDS\pogo\custom\maps (you can just copy paste that into file explorer) and always inside a root folder with the same name.

here I save tutorial.map at maps\tutorial\tutorial.map


Every map needs a mapdefinition.txt file in the map's folder. this is a simple file you can write with notepad. Using the mapdefinition, you can specify the version, author name, Fog Color, Fog Thickness, and Sky Texture. All of these values are optional. feel free to leave them blank, or have no mapdefinition at all


Textures are stored in .wad files. you can create your own using a tool such as WadMaker. If you are familiar with .wad files, understand that currently pogo3d only supports the wad3 format.

Pogo3d comes with a .wad file ready-to-go called pogostock.wad. let's add it. you can find it in the pogo3d pogo/custom/wads folder, which you can get to by browsing local files like this

To add a new wad file, select the face tab and press the plus button


Then select pogostock.wad


Select the "Absolute" Path Type. for custom .wad files, you should place them in your map's folder and select "relative to map file" for convenience.


In pogo3d's Trenchbroom folder, there is a file called pogo3d.fgd. this file contains lots of information about what each entity is and how it works. I recommend you check this file out in your text editor of choice! In this screenshot I'm using visual studio code, with the Valve KeyValue Files Support mod


Checkpoints work exactly like in adventure mode. But the first numbered checkpoint works as the spawn point

A checkpoint is made up of 2 parts, an info_player_respawn, and a trigger_checkpoint.

trigger_checkpoint is a brush entity, which means you have to add it onto an existing brush. you do that using this menu option. To keep things easy-to-read, put the tool_check texture on the brush. note that this is NOT needed to create a checkpoint, and doesn't create one for you.


(White) A checkpoint is made up of 2 parts, an info_player_respawn, and a trigger_checkpoint. Make sure you always have both! Make sure the info_player_respawn is inside the trigger_checkpoint, and put the info_player_respawn above the floor!

(Blue) Each Checkpoint + Respawn Point combo needs to have a unique name! set the "target" and "targetname" values for each to the same thing! i like to name them "main1" "main2" "main3" and "side1" "side2" etc for the side routes, but feel free to name them whatever you watn!

(Red) Each Trigger_Checkpoint needs to have a unique number! So if your game has 3 checkpoints, you should number them 1 2 and 3.



Most maps have a single trigger_finish for the finish line. The game will quickly end after touching it. You can have multiple finishes, or none if you really want.

To keep things easy-to-read, put the tool_finish texture on the brush. note that this is NOT needed to create a checkpoint, and doesn't create one for you.



When working with .bsp files, you should make sure there's no way to escape the inside of the map into the void. this is needed to make some math calculations faster. If you want to have the sky appear, you can use the tool_skybox texture. it will be automatically replaced by your selected skybox texture when the game loads.



Use Run->Compile to open the compile dialog, then press "compile" to build the map. At this point, you should have a .bsp and the map should be ready to play

Maps you download on the workshop, and Maps folders saved to the appdata custom/maps folder will show up in the "Play Custom Maps" menu automatically! For your conveniece, the custom folder is at %localappdata%low\HEDGEWIZARDS\pogo\custom\ (you can paste that into file explorer)



There's either something wrong with your map, or you ran into a bug. Either way, check the Player.log.


you can find it here %localappdata%low\HEDGEWIZARDS\pogo

This might give you some advice on how to fix your map, but if you are still having trouble after that, consider joining The HEDGEWIZARDS discord[discord.gg], or making a post on the steam community forums.


Maps in your local custom folder can be uploaded to the steam workshop. Complete your checklist and click upload!