For a level editor, there are several ones you could pick.

Ogier
Ogier is a pretty decent editor which has support for Quake 1 maps. Just be sure to get the files it requires to make quake maps. Also, if you use this one, be sure not to use any of the advanced features like NURBS surfaces or any of the nice curved surface support it has.

Worldcraft
I'm partial to worldcraft because it's the first level editor I actually enjoyed working with. Everything seemed fairly intuitive in it. I was working with one called Qed before... you'd do good to stay away from that one.

And you've all ready found Quark. There are a few others to mention, like Radiant, but I'm unsure of their support for Quake 1 at this time.

Most of things you'll learn from making levels for Quake 1 are applicable in more modern games, so don't feel that your time will be wasted working with such an old game. Probably the biggest changes in recent games I've seen are the use of high-poly models imported into the editor from modeling packages like 3d Studio or Maya and the integration of scripting into levels. Other than that, the fundamentals are still pretty much the same: flow of the level, item placement, enemy placement, difficulty-to-health-item-placement ratio, height/width ratio, etc. Most importantly though, be sure to have fun doing it.

Since level editing tutorials are pretty specific to the editor your working with, you'll need to find some decent tutorials for Quark. For that, just Google it .

-Jojo

actually, I was just thinking about buying quake arena 3(is that ok?) and is quake really that hard to mod? well, I got worldcraft and made a small level. however, when I run the level from worldcradt, quake says it cant find the level. perhaps this has something to do with the fact that you cant mod the shareware? oh, and im talking about the quake 1 source, not quake II. sorry if I wasnt clear. and the object d_draw is actually missing. the compiler cant find it.

If my memory serves me correctly, compiled maps for Quake 1 need to be placed in the Quake\Id1\maps\ directory. Then from the console it's: map [mapname]. Or it could be because the shareware version doesn't allow editing? It's been a long time since I actively modded any games, especially Quake. I've had a myriad of mental and physical health issues for a while that have prevented me from doing a hell of a lot. And now that I'm doing better I'm in college and don't have much time for these things. Doesn't that figure? :)

Level editing for Quake 1 isn't too difficult because you are somewhat limited in the complexity of the level geometry. Things will look blocky, but that's okay. It doesn't really have any support for importing models into it other than actual game entities. As far as scripting goes, the most you can do is tinker around in QuakeC to produce a desired effect or just get creative with the provided game entities. You can do some relatively impressive things in it if you know how to use the tools provided. Well, impressive for Quake at least.

Q3A is good to start with as well. It has more modern features such as curved surfaces and texture shaders (read: not pixel shaders). You would probably do better to start with Q3A, but really anything you pick is going to teach you the basics. As I said, wether you're doing levels for Gauntlet or Doom 3 the fundamentals of good map design are still pretty much the same.

-Jojo

ok. thanks. perhaps ill just go buy quake 3 then. as far as quake go's, I dont think it cant find the level because its the shareware. it displases a message that it cant load shareware levles if I manually load it from the command prompt like you said. oh well.