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Quake Custom Engines
Discuss modified Quake engines here, I guess. What engines do you use? What are the pros/cons of existing engines? What features would you like to see implemented/removed?
Also 
This is of particular interest to me, because my next map will certainly require a custom engine; at least one with increased capacity, and preferably one with skybox support and tga sprite replacement textures.

I'd like to get a good idea of what engines most people here find acceptable. 
I Cant Run 
standard glquake properly on my setup, dont know why.

Instead I use mhquake with all 'enhancements' turned off except for model interpolation. So it looks and runs exactly like glquake would but with smoother animation.

For levels like nesp09 which need higher edict counts, I use the nehahra version of darkplaces.

Fitzquake would be my preferred engine if it had model interpolation and was capable of handling levels like nesp09. The software emulated lighting it can do is wonderful.

As for darkplaces, I liked earlier versions but havent tried it lately because I ran into big problems with it when bumpmapping was introduced, mainly due to lack of documentation to turn off stuff. 
Kinn 
For my part I'm currently mapping using FitzQuake 0.75 as a "Quake test" engine (it support colored lightning, transparent water, for example, and have a better capacity ,in term of resolution and performances than a standard WinQuake for example)
Furthermore I suppose this is the most used engine by many of us here... let me know if I'm wrong !!

Regarding custom Quake engine, I don't know if an engine like the one you required exists today... Many custom engine features are really specific to a map (or pack) and thus are developed especially for a precise project...
If you want a special custoom engine, I think you'd rather modify existing Quake C code by yourself.. or be helped by a good software "Quake" engineer ;P 
Fitzquake 
seems good, but it won't load my current map, which exceeds a number of limits. 
DarkPlaces 
Yes, darkplaces used to be very nice, but as more and more features were added, it just moved further and further from quake. It's not really a glquake replacement anymore - OK I guess if you are making a completely new TC, but that's narrowing the user base a bit IMO. 
Kinn 
Your latest map seems to be a very huge map if FitzQuake is not able to load it !! BTW, what are the number of limits you exceed ?? 
Nitin 
Fitzquake would be my preferred engine if it had model interpolation and was capable of handling levels like nesp09. The software emulated lighting it can do is wonderful.

You realise that the software-emulated lighting was first written by LordHavoc for Darkplaces and that other Quake engines are mostly using parts of his code to archieve the same? :) 
JPLambert 
Well, just edict limits really. Static entities, that sort of thing. Also, unless it has a higher tolerance for packet overflows, I'm sure it would cause chokeage in the final battle(s) too. 
AguirRe's Engines 
I'd just like to say that AguirRe's Win/GlQuake replacements are pretty much spot-on for my needs in terms of map capacity. These are a great choice if you want an ultra-conservative single-player engine, for use in huge maps. 
Nitin 
You realise that the software-emulated lighting was first written by LordHavoc for Darkplaces and that other Quake engines are mostly using parts of his code to archieve the same? :)

That may be true - LordHavoc is an extremely talented coder and I love a lot of what he's done with DarkPlaces.

The problem most people have though is with all the extraneous bloat that comes with it. 
Sorry Above Post Meant For Jago. 
I Mainly Use. 
Glxpro+ (ver 1.01). It was a hacked of a version of GL ProQuake by Trujen that cause a bit of a fuss because Trujen refused to release the source (instant GPL issue). Nice client that has all the ProQuake stuff, plus 24bit texture support and some other eyecandy stuff. This client is probably concidered old hat now, but it as good as I want it.

Anyway, lets start a list.

Quake1 Clients (excluding QW clients)
==================================...

DarkPlaces (LordHavoc) : http://icculus.org/twilight/darkpl...

FitzQuake v0.75 (John Fitzgibbons) :
http://celephais.net/fitzquake/

GLQuake v0.97 (author?) :
http://www.quaketerminus.com/nqexe...

GQ Quake v1.07 (Matthew 'Gleeb' Garnett-Frizelle) :
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.as...

ProQuake v350 (jp grossman) :
http://www.planetquake.com/proquak...

Telejano version 8.03 (Tei) :
http://telejano.berlios.de/

Tenebrae (Charles Hollemeersch?)
http://tenebrae.sourceforge.net/

TomazQuake v1.46(Tomaz) :
http://www.fileplanet.com/files/80...

XQuake v1.01 GL (Trujen) :
http://stormzero.com/rune/files/gl... 
Jago 
I dont know much about who coded what but fitzquake's implementation of it looks better on my setup than darkplaces. And it runs a lot faster.

Like I said, the newer versions of DP may have fixed all that but I stopped using it after I couldnt work out how to turn off a lot of the new features. 
More Engines 
There is also Twilight at http://twilight.sourceforge.net/in... and QuakeForge (website seems to be down). 
Nitin 
While I do have some issues with newer versions of DP (for example the Shambler lightning thing Kinn has mentioned), I have actually switched from using FitzQuake for testing my maps to DarkPlaces. I am not sure which version you were using, but the latest ones have definately much better lighting than any other NQ/QW engine I´ve seen to date. 
Nitin 
I think pretty much all of DarkPlaces' graphical "enhancements" can be controlled via cvars, but I agree, the documentation is pretty poor. What's turned me off recently though, is that I can't get any build of DarkPlaces after the 21may04 build to run properly on my system. Dunno why. Up-to-date vid drivers and all that. 
Jago 
Shambler lightning has been fixed in latest DP build I believe. The player lightning is still bolloxed though. 
Kinn 
Do you mean the player shadow with r_shadow_realtime_world "1" ? If that's what you mean, the player shadow IS in the correct place. If you don't like the player shadow (I know I don't), you can disable it, leaving on everything else. 
Small Thing, But 
I tried "The Abandon" with Darkplaces, and it skipped the grenadelauncher in "Facade".
Strange, because FitzQuake or Telejanos didn't.

Could there be a reason for it, ie. bouncing box to big for the used surounding space? 
Bloat 
One of my main design focuses in DarkPlaces is keeping down bloat, this is why all the features are integrated in the core of the engine, rather than just tutorials tacked on like some other engines, serving specific features with little consistency.

DarkPlaces was created for modders, that is its primary reason for existence, I made a promise to the quake community more than a year ago to maintain DarkPlaces to support the community for years to come, it delivers a consistent user and modding experience, rather than needing a custom engine for every mod, which was fragmenting the community (for example Tenebrae).

It's the only engine that tries to support every mod in one engine so that users don't have to deal with different hardware compatibility issues and different missing features in each mod, and that developers don't have to write their own engine for each mod.

This is why it greatly puzzles me that some modders want to use less featureful engines, often maintained by people who are less than appreciative of modding feature requests.

The worst part of this is that the released quake source is quite honestly outdated, it works (barely) on windows (for example too many GL extensions crashes glquake), not at all on Linux and MacOSX, and lacks multiplayer - nq borders on unusable for multiplayer due to incompatibility with the NAT routers most people use for broadband, combined with using too much bandwidth for dialup to be playable.

When I rewrote the networking it made all supported mods playable online, a rewrite that would not have been worth the trouble for just one mod's custom engine.

It seems many people just complain about darkplaces on forums I can't read regularly (it takes too much time to keep an eye on several forums just combing for complaints and suggestions).

Could people please email me about these things before they get upset?

P.S. What ever happened to extensions? If a minimal engine is really desired, make your own, with support for the specific extensions your mod uses, and darkplaces will have these same extensions, thus the users who can run your engine can use it instead of darkplaces if they wish. 
Jago 
Player *lightning* - note the "n" ;)

I'm talking about the lightning gun beam. 
LordHavoc - like I say, I love what you did with DarkPlaces but, well, as I've mentioned before, my system has serious problems running all versions since the 21may04 build.

I've since been checking out FitzQuake, with the intention of using this as my "engine of choice". It's a fantastic engine that emulates Quake's original look and feel, whilst still providing the most important extra features to meet the demands of modern maps. If FitzQuake would allow me to replace my sprite frames with external .tga textures, it would be the perfect engine IMHO. 
FitzQuake Again 
Does it really have increased map/entity limits? I tried FitzQuake 0.75 in my spawning test map, and it hit "no free edicts" at about the same time as standard quake. 
... 
well, if anyone cares, my ideal engine would be somewhere halfway between fitzquake and DP.

i need to try DP with sv_jump thing disabled and detail textures off though, i don't have the means to do that atm.

anyway, taking FQ as a base, i'd like to add:

-q3bsp format support
-any sized bounding box
-controllable particle effects, ie customizable TempEntity effects, not just the built in ones.
For example, TE_EXPLOSION2 has limited customizability in that you can specify the colours that it will use, but, you can't change the speed, duration, or behaviour of the particles at all.
-NOT have r_exp3.wav automatically played with explosion tempentities. sure, it makes sense, but it's also bad if you want to use the particle effects with a different explosion sound.
-Flying Monster BugFix
-TGA Sprites
-Model Interpolation
-Larger Edict Limit
-Larger BModel limit(or whatever it is) (i know this breaks compatibility for netplay, but i am talking from a purely SP pov. maybe have this setting optional via command line, so that you could still use the engine for netplay on maps that don't need the high limit, but on SP maps that require it, you turn it on)
-Stop Packet Overflows

..that's it for right now... writing this all down on the fly, so i might have missed something...

i'm starting to get the feeling that DP could be used with everything except what i'm talking about disabled... but i won't be able to tell until i can see a cvar list.

...hm, maybe the real reason people dislike DP is because there isn't any documentation to let people know that they can turn things off (like Nitin who couldn't turn off the bump mapping) 
... 
ie: when i said "any sized bounding box" what i really mean is "no hulls" 
Kinn, 
no, FQ doesn't have bumped edict limits, neither does it handle packet overflows differently from GLQ...

i find this is the major flaw of FQ atm... well, that and the skybox bug, bug that's fixed in the next version anyway. 
Yeah 
Necros, I'd probably say almost the same thing if someone asked me to describe my dream engine.

However, I'd settle for FitzQuake + increased entity limits + packet overflow reduction + tga sprites (Additive blend mode).

Q3BSP support is the holy grail of engine features for me though. I know DP has it, but I've already described the issues I have with DP. 
Necros, 
I went ahead and sent a copy of the extension list. It may be a little under documented but there is enough info there to get a grasp of the cvar settings. There is also a tutorial on Inside3d on modding for DP that can be useful as well.

On the general question; I am still using glquake/fitzquake for the next handful of levels that I'm pushing out the door because they are single map adventures (two very nearly finished, I'm just trying to improve my brush work and texturing at this point), but after that I'm going to need a custom engine and Q3 bsp capabilaties. 
Stuff 
Thanks for the nice comments on fitzquake, guys.

Jago: turns out i wrote most of fitzquake's core rendering stuff. I do have some darkplaces code in fitzquake, though it's mostly utility functions like frustum culling and vector math and that sort of thing.

Lordhavoc: darkplaces is extrememly customizable and I think it could satisfy most people if only they knew how to customize it. Lack of decent documentation is the biggest problem with darkplaces, in my opinion. 
Hey Metl ^_^ 
Would you be willing to consider bumping up some of the map limits (like aguirRe is doing with his engines) for a future FQ release?

Pretty please? ^_^ 
Kinn: 
but wouldn't that just encourage mappers to release maps that go over the limits? 
Metlslime 
That's the point. Many mappers (me included) feel that it's time to push the boundaries/limits of the Quake engine. Now if only all engine writers could agree on BY HOW MUCH they should push them. 
Darkplaces 
tried the latest version, it actully works ok on my system and looks and runs better than prvious builds. I've got most the options the way I want (it took a lot of fiddling but anyway).

Can someone tell me how to revert the blood effects back to normal and also how to get the weapon and monster effects back to normal. Right now there's a big coloured glow on things like scrag attacks, rocket explosions etc.

Also, is it me or is the player turn speed and jump speed different than normal? 
Oh 
and I'm happy that the DP software lighting now looks like fitz's. 
... 
yes, i noticed the jump speed and turn speed too... not sure if it really is different or not...

also, disabling bump mapping really speeds things up, though the hell knight now has the cpu crusher attack added to his normal attack when using dynamic lights... :P it's too bad because the dynamic lights work fine for other monsters, but because the hknight shoots 5 projectiles at the same time, it starts hurting my vidcard. :P

also, why is the jumping messed up? when i jump, then hold down the jump button while still in the air, when i hit the ground, the jump sound gets made but i don't actually move up. is that a bug? 
Bumped Engine Limits... 
... will encourage many mappers to start very huge map.. Engine limitation for sure limits mappers' creativity ;) 
Personally... 
I think limits create the necessary context for creativity. 
Metlslime Unbound 
But what if someone wants to make a FarCry clone mod using FitzQuake? It would take several applications of Terragen per map to achieve those lush landscapes. It would be a pity to deny this well, likely non-existent person. 
Metl 
why not have raised limits and then let the mapper decide whether he wants to make a humongous map or a standard map? 
Yes... 
Creativity needs huge spaces to grow... Creativity in a small space is limited, so boosting up engine limits allow mappers to create much more creative maps... Take just the example of a tree: it can grow very easily if unconstrained due to "nature exhuberant creativity". Put the same tree into a small flower-pot, and never it can grow as it should...
I think that creativity works like this... but I understand your point of view metlslime, with constraints, mappers have to "use their brain" much more than if they are unconstrained... And what about brainstorming without constraints ?? It can give very good results, isn't it ?? 
LordHavoc 
About Quake not running on Mac OSX.. do you mean the original code, or... what exactly? Because I run this port: http://macglquake.sourceforge.net/ and all I have to do is copy the ID1 dir from my PC Quake cd. 
Trees Don't Make Quake Levels! 
 
I Beg To Differ 
 
Metlslime 
but wouldn't that just encourage mappers to release maps that go over the limits?

Firstly, I'm not talking about architectural limits (like map boundaries and stuff) - just increased edict counts, stop packet overflow and stuff.

Well I suppose this is just a request to make my new map playable in FQ, I guess. Otherwise I'll have to say it's DarkPlaces only, which might not go down too well, round here. :( 
Or... 
you could make a map that's compatible with ALL engines, even if it looks better in some :) 
DarkPlaces 
Please will everyone that seems to be able to get the latest DarkPlaces running, tell me if they experience what I'm experiencing:

With all versions after the 21may04 version (inclusing the latest Oct 6th version), the screen seemingly jerks and stutters at about 2 FPS, even if the FPS counter says "60 fps". What's more it feels like really, really bad lag rather than a low rendering framerate, almost as if I'm playing online on a 56k, but not quite. (I'm never online btw.)

Btw - I have *all* dynamic lighting features turned off; even dlights like the rocket glow turn the game into a 1 FPS slideshow.

With the May 21 build, it's silky-smooth again.

My system: Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, GeForce4 440 GO.

I use this command line:

C:\QUAKE\darkplaces.exe -nocdaudio -novorbis -nojoy -noudp -noipx -noserial -nolan -sndspeed 11025 +exec bdw.cfg +skill 2 +developer 1 +map start

My vid drivers are up-to-date, and in any case, I don't feel I should have to worry about my graphics hardware just *to play Quake*.

Sorry, I don't want to turn this thread into a DarkPlaces tech support forum, but I've had no luck solving this problem using other channels of enquiry. 
Metlslime... 
... it was a kind of comparison... I know that trees don'r make quake level... silly guy ;P 
... 
honestly, i don't understand the point of keeping limits in.
and i, personally, will make my maps regardless if they are playable in all engines or not. i try to get them to work in all of them, but if they can't i won't redesign a whole map just for that.

i think fixing edict limits is actually more for players who use your engine than for mappers. because then people will be able to use your engine instead of another one when they'd prefer to use yours. 
 
because then people will be able to use your engine instead of another one when they'd prefer to use yours.

metl, read this. A Lot. Print it out and tape it to your fridge door. Spraypaint it on the road outside your apartment building. And stop acting like such a stuck-up ass. 
Necrokinn 
i, personally, will make my maps regardless if they are playable in all engines or not. i try to get them to work in all of them, but if they can't i won't redesign a whole map just for that.

Yes. I made Bastion 2 with the idea that it will have to use a raised-edict engine. The map is basically done now, and I can't really re-design it so that it will play in standard engines sadly :( 
Necromatic-Kinn Entity And The Great Lord Of The Chaote Dimenion, 
DarkPlaces has always worked smoothly on my system, performance wise. Some Quake entities get messed up, like the telefrag sequence at the beginning of Space God's Rune. I have been meaning to report this to LordHavoc as he has requested.

If you are reading this, Good Sir, often times the mapper is relunctant to do this because he is uncertain if it is a bug or if it is just his own personal ignorance on how the engine is intended to perform if tweaked correctly (I'm absolutely shameless in my ignorance, so we have communicated a few times previously). 
DarkPlaces Problem Solved 
Turns out it was simply a matter of setting gl_finish "1", which has a huge benefit on my system (but others get more performance with gl_finish "0" apparently). Try both to see what works best with you. 
Necros - DP Blood 
In GA, you mentioned the blood-splatter stainmaps not clearing on level reload. Try setting cl_stainmapsclearonload "1". Also, you could try an alternative effect, which is decals, which I find quite cool: turn stainmaps off (cl_stainmaps "0") and use cl_decals "1". Decals fade with time as well, which I prefer.

Also, you do have limited control of stuff like this in the in-game menu, but it will be nice when all the cvars are documented ^_^ 
Metlslime 
I think limits create the necessary context for creativity

Im not sure this logic regarding limits makes sense to me. Surely it should be up to the artist[mapper] themselves to exercise their creative right to freedom to create whatever they want.

Applying your line of thought to other media, for example, we would say all books should be under 200 pages, or all films under 2 hours.
Which just seems plain wrong to me. :/ 
Creativity Also Involves Working Within Constraints 
of your medium. For example, in sculpture, you have to work with the grain of the rock or else you are not going to get anywhere.

I think Metlsime's concern may have to do with the Universality of Quake. It is hard to imagine any PC that it can't play on (maybe someone somewhere still maintains a 286/32). As long as the game that is being played is essentially Quake than it makes sense to me as well that the lower end is maintained.

The DP approach is apt for Total Conversions, as is Quake Fusion. Many mappers do not really understand what these custom engines are about and why anyone would bother with them.

For me, these engines represent a potential to reach an ambition of mine and that is to make a mod that is not dependent on the end user having to buy anything including the gaming engine. 
Metl 
I don't know how to quote things, so:

"I think limits create the necessary context for creativity."

Just wanted to say: I couldn't agree more with that. I discussed that topic so much with aardappel and headshot, and it always came down to that. I think the more freedom you have, the less creative you are. 
Creativity, Blah Blah... 
If I can just cut through all the posturing and fannying around for a minute, all I am suggesting (along with Necros, and others I'm sure) is that metlslime goes in and bumps up a few of the numbers like MAX_EDICTS and such, so that we can go ahead and make the sort of 300 monster maps which I know you guys all love ;)

In Bastion I had to resort to all manner of complicated QC "hacks" to trick the engine into loading a 300+ monster map with all the necessary pickups items etc. to dispatch said beasties. Now, I guess I could resort to doing this again in my new map, but it would be nice (and would make mapping much easier) if I didn't have to worry about this so much. 
I Think 
that modyifing an engine to support more monsters, etc. for Kinn's next map sounds like a good idea. I mean, it should be worth it. 
Thanks Zwiff 
Additionally, this would benefit a lot of existing maps; take czg07c for example - a large map, but not what you would call ridiculously large by any means - in Hard I still often reached the edict limit and crashed out of the game. 
... 
"I think limits create the necessary context for creativity."

this is irrelevant. the maps will be made regardless. this is so players who like fitzquake can play those maps on their engine of choice, not be forced to use another engine. 
Well... 
The thing i said about creativity is something i really think is true, and i hope most people realize someday. But, that isn't my actual reason for resisting these suggestions.

The actual reason is, compatibility. I don't like maps that require one specific engine, websites that only work in one browser, etc. I think it's much better if maps and engines were built to a standard. That way each map could run in any engine and each engine could run any map. When a map or engine requires something extra, hopefully that extra thing is also standardized. Lit files are a good example of a standard. "More edicts" is a good example of no standard, since each engine that bumps max_edicts will pick arbitrarily what the new maximum should be.

uwf, you compare this issue to filmmakers having the freedom to make films longer than 2 hours. Well, what about the freedom to release DVDs that only work in a few, special DVD players? I think that's a closer analogy. 
I Declare... 
the standard for the edict limit is 2048.
now, everyone change your code to reflect this.
;) 
 
The actual reason is, compatibility. I don't like maps that require one specific engine, websites that only work in one browser, etc. I think it's much better if maps and engines were built to a standard.

Amen 
Necros For President! 
The man is not afraid to weld the power or grab the reins. I like his style!

Now it is time to go over QuakeSrc and Inside3D and tell them, 'listen up! The new edict limit is 2048. Now get to it!'  
The Inside3d Forums... 
appear to be down... 
Darn . . . 
I noticed a bit of a pinging problem when I checked there last week.

Quakesrc forums just came back up a few days ago. 
Well 
The actual reason is, compatibility. I don't like maps that require one specific engine, websites that only work in one browser, etc. I think it's much better if maps and engines were built to a standard.

I agree with this. I always prefer the map that doesn't require any custom engine, but there may exist some maps that are worth playing but require a custom engine. In other words I can say, I like to play large levels, I enjoy them most of all. And I don't think that everyone will make large levels when FitzQuake increases its limits.
There are only few mappers here who make maps with higher number of edicts or anything like that. And I think their maps are always worth playing and it would be good if their maps were playable in engine that most people here use. 
P.S. 
Despite my hard-liner philosophy, I did turn max_edicts into a cvar, where the default is 1024 (quake is set to 600,) and the max possible value is something like 8192. So you can play ne1sp06 or whatever that big one was with all the monsters. You know, and the lava. 
Lol, 
thanks, sir! :) 
Metlsime Sacrifices The Purity 
of his soul so the rest of us may tread further and higher. Let us not let him down. 
Metlslime 
I, for one, salute you. This is excellent news. Are static ents similarly raised? 
Uh... 
no :P 
Enhanced Version Of Win/GLQuake For Mappers 
Win/GLQuake for mappers. No idea if this is any good : http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/

This Win/GLQuake version is *not* meant for general play, although it should suffice at least for SP. It's meant to be a stable, high-capacity version of the original Win/GLQuake with some minor features added for convenience. Its main purpose is to be used when other engines fail to load a bsp.

This makes it ideal for mappers who at one time or another experience problems with their maps; there are leaks, entity overflow or other issues that prevent the map from loading in a normal engine. These problems should of course be fixed so the map can be loaded in any engine, but during development this engine can be used to help finding and fixing the problems.
 
Megazoid 
Win/GLQuake for mappers. No idea if this is any good

Lol, uh yeah, they're AquirRe's Win/GlQuake replacements, in case you were wondering. ;)

And yes, they *are* very good, as are his compile utils. 
How Hard Is It To Change These Limits? 
is it just a matter of changing a #define or two in the source?

Failing that, can anyone point me to an enhanced *non-GL* build for linux? 
Limits 
Sometimes they're just a #define away, sometimes increasing one limit will just exceed another and worst of all, sometimes you'll need to change the client/server protocol which may break a lot of interesting things ...

As for Linux non-GL build, check out TyrQuake at http://www.planetquake.com/tyrann . You might need to ask Tyrann for the executables.

Kinn: Thanks for the kind words :) 
Well, That Was Easy 
Tyr-Quake seems to work nicely. Didn't even take very long to build... thanks for the pointer.

Now I need to remember what all the huge maps I haven't been able to play yet were... some of them were by necros, I think :) 
LH 
...hm, maybe the real reason people dislike DP is because there isn't any documentation to let people know that they can turn things off

Its not just that. The problem, as with many other engines, is twofold. Sure, there's a lack of good documentation, making it hard or impossible to figure out how to turn off all the shitty graphical 'enhancements' that you don't want (and that often kill performance, too). But the real problem is that said shitty graphical effects are enabled by default, thereby requiring people to figure out how to turn it off, which they can't figure out because of the lack of adequete documentation... so they just delete it from their system and that's the end of it.

As an engine programmer I'm sure you're asking 'but how are people going to know about and see all my spankworthy new effects if they're disabled by default??'

Well the answer is to have good documentation so the user knows about, and is encouraged to try, all the new options. And put the stuff in the menu where possible.

I'd explore new engines a lot more thoroughly if my first reaction wasn't 'this looks like ass, how do I turn off all these shitty effects!' followed by 'can't figure it out, just delete the shit!' 
Yes 
what frib said! 
Yes 2 
Again, what Frib said.

Sometimes though, extra graphical effects actually fundamentally override existing effects. Take the rocket trail in DarkPlaces, for example. Now, I'm a big fan of DarkPlaces - it's Q3BSP support is what will keep me making Quake levels for years to come - however, it is not possible (at least not with the current version) to make it look exactly like (or close enough to) "Real" Quake, for many people's (including my) tastes.

Ok, I understand that DarkPlaces is meant primarily as a "Total Conversion" engine, so it is assumed that modders will use so many custom models and stuff that the radically different appearance of the built-in particle effects will be irrelevant. However, I feel that nevertheless, there should always be an option to at least "emulate" Quake's classic look and feel, to cater for the purists (or pseudo-purists, I guess if you're into custom engines). 
3rd 
what frib said 
Necros 
That bunny hopping bug you reported in DarkPlaces might have its origins in QuakeWorld - check this out: http://www.inside3d.com/qip/q1/bug...

Scroll down a bit. Sounds awfully familiar doesn't it? 
meh :\
i'm so *not* surprised. 
LTH Would Disagree... 
Frib - there other people in the world, you know. People who use DP because they think it looks pretty and they *want* the custom effects to work out-of-the-box. If you cared that much, you could take LH up on his offedr and email him, instead of whining in forums that he hardly reads. 
LTH./ 
And those people should be culled, to prevent further corruption. 
New DarkPlaces Release 20041017 
http://icculus.org/twilight/darkpl...

Awesome, awesome stuff - LH has been really improving the Q3BSP stuff recently - most shaders will at least load a texture now, and the curve loading has been rewritten. To test it, I fired up Sock's POM map, and played Aard's DMSP mod in it. Seeing the quake monsters running around in that environment was pretty cool, I must say ^_^ 
Very Cool 
i just tried the same, and it looks very nice.. plants seem to glow fullbright though, but the implementation of the q3bsp format in darkplaces is very effective, judging from having loaded this level 
Great 
If I had to name one problem with Quake, it was that my Radeon 9800 gave a framerate which was too playable. 
Pushplay 
Well, in DarkPlaces, I get a consistent 60 FPS in 1024x768 (yes, in Sock's map) on my crappy 2 year old Dell laptop, with a graphics card that can barely play UT2K3, so try fiddling with the graphics options. 
turning off the bump mapping helps a lot. you won't miss it anyway.

i get ~120fps with 1000wpoly on a radeon 9600np. 
Re: New DarkPlaces Release 20041017 + POM 
did anyone else notice the clipping bugs in POM? there's a few areas where there were invisible walls and such from, what seemed to be the floor edges.

i thought using q3bsp meant no hulls = no clipping problems... apparently not... i don't remember it happening in q3 though, so what's the deal? is the collision detection somehow different from q3 then?
also, the torches were completly white and the plants were fullbright. 
DP + Pom 
Does this mean that DP can run Pom directly or do you need Q3? 
DarkPlaces 
Necros: Clipping problems - I didn't really notice any when I gave POM a thorough spanking - can you describe any specific locations where this occurs?

Of course, one would assume that the collision detection does not use the exact same algorithms as Q3, so there might be some areas where it "feels" different.

The torches, plants and some other shaders are not displayed correctly (the terrain textures don't blend together either), as complete Q3 shader support has not been added to DP (yet). This is cool for people like me who just want to make classic quake stuff, but in the Q3BSP format (and who aren't particularly fussed about spangly shader effects).

Mike: just the POM .pk3 should suffice, Although bear in mind that many shaders will not be displayed correctly. DP is NOT intended as a Q3 replacement engine - it is designed to allow Quake mappers to make classic Quake maps in the Q3BSP format.

Caveat: All of the above is pure conjecture on my part, and quite possibly a load of old bollocks - consult LordHavoc if you need proper answers to these questions. 
Game Over Man! Game Over! 
UK Teletext reports that British director Paul W. S. Anderson ("Alien vs. Predator", "Resident Evil") is to write the sixth movie in the "Alien" franchise, according to sources close to the film maker.

Newcastle-born Anderson, 39, has apparently been asked by Twentieth Century Fox to pen a new script featuring the creatures on their own (ie. no Predators). Whether that includes the return of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) however is unknown.

The offer for the moment is simply to pen the script, not to direct as such although that may happen thanks to the success of AVP
 
Er 
that shouldn tbe there, please ignore, it's meant for the Film Thread. 
Q3BSP 
There are a few reasons DP has Q3BSP support:
1. Nexuiz really wanted to use it.
2. Usually less compile errors; since detail brushes do not result in BSP errors.
3. More flexible collisions; ability to have more than just projectiles, players, and shamblers.
4. Potentially faster rendering; more triangles per surface usually, however ydnar refuses to do the additional merging I requested to make detailed walls render faster. (Technical note: it merges multiple brush surfaces but only if they are flat, all one big flat surface, I wanted him to merge non-flat surfaces in the same room)
5. Patches make curved architecture easier; although good collisions against them are a nightmare to code. (Hence the mentioned collision problems I would like to find a solution to)

I will admit it is rather fun to run around Quake3 maps (both stock and usermade) in Quake1, but this isn't the intent, only a fun toy.

The intent of the Q3BSP support is that people may use it if they wish, just like all features in a modding oriented engine.

As for the darkplaces effects, DarkPlaces is not meant to be Quake, making an engine look intentionally identical to Quake seems largely a waste of time to me.

DarkPlaces is an engine by a level designer/modder (me), for modders and level designers to enjoy, I was not satisfied with the other engines available in early 2000, and still do not see any other engines designed to add new features for modders and level designers to use, so I still see this as a necessary project in the Quake community.

I redid the particle effects because I thought they could be improved, and to improve benchmarks, I feel I succeeded at both of these, some disagree. (Note: as mentioned later the rest of the darkplaces renderer is still slower than Quake however)

My biggest disappointments in darkplaces are currently:

Speed - it pales in comparison to Twilight (which benchmarks over 2x faster than glquake with its skillful design that I have not yet managed to match in darkplaces despite years of optimization, it is very hard to adapt to the Twilight design while preserving the full feature set modders and users have come to expect).

Features - There is so much more to do.

Enhancement criticism - some people rant against all Quake enhancements, I assume they want to play all mods in stock WinQuake even though WinQuake is not capable of the designers' artistic vision. I guess this is similar to wanting a watercolor version of the Mona Lisa because you don't like oil paintings. 
Best Engine For Screenshots? 
I'm going to be redoing my website here in the next few months and would like to actually offer screenshots of my maps. Is there a particular engine that gives the best image quality? I'm not looking for any of the advanced engine lighting ones really as none of my maps take advantage of those features.

Also do any of the engines offer higher DPI? I don't even know if thats possible to up the DPI in a game. But if one of them were able to give higher dpi then 72 that would be nice as I'm also working on a photoshop collage for my lame art class and i was going to use some shots as backgrounds to it.

Anyways, thanks for any advice you guys might have 
ProdigyXL 
Go with a GL engine with overbrighting and 32bit colour depth (FitzQuake, DarkPlaces are two examples). I'm not sure of the maximum screen resolutions for these engines, but they're pretty high I'm sure. You'll also probably want .tga screenshot output for maximum quality.

Of course, you'll want to do a bit of post-processing in Photoshop (I find a simple curves correction ussually suffices). 
Havoc: 
...making an engine look intentionally identical to Quake seems largely a waste of time to me.

I think most engine coders would agree with you, which is why I had to make Fitzquake. We all have our niche, I guess. 
"Artistic Vision" 
I assume they want to play all mods in stock WinQuake even though WinQuake is not capable of the designers' artistic vision. I guess this is similar to wanting a watercolor version of the Mona Lisa because you don't like oil paintings.

Well, if I'm making a new Quake level, not a Total Conversion, I think it is important that graphically, it looks as close to Quake as possible (and by that I don't just mean WinQuake - I'd consider FitzQuake as a better Quake "renderer", whilst GlQuake is not).

Then again, DarkPlaces excites me, because it's Q3BSP support is just too cool for words.

I guess I have to find the balance between using DarkPlaces' powerful engine features, whilst still keeping it "Quakey". 
Well, 
i imagine you could just have a cfg file that gets exec'd on startup which switches off all the extra effects stuff. 
Check It Out 
That 
looks so bad it's not even funny 
I Represent 
The Federation of Newbie Mappers Guild, and behalf of our members, I would just like to say fuck you Jago! 
But.... 
...thank you, thank you! 
Humm.. 
In the long run I think will win DarkPlaces, because is rendered is simply better, is redone and use existing 3d cards features that glquake ignore.

Also glquake whas the "Hello world" test for carmack, not a serius implementation. Theres lots of enhancements to be made, and DP has that enhancements.

Even if you DONT really want a new engine, you sould use DP because will give you smoooother FPS.

So, Imho, you sould use DP by default and change to Telejano if you like it, or Fritzquake for whatever reason people like Fritzquake, but imho DP is fritzquake enough to dont need FQ. 
That Would Be "FitzQuake" 
:teaching101: 
Counterpoint 
Darplaces isn't fitzquake enough for me, because it's just too unreliable. The qexpo version did this to me:

http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...

(to replicate, just stand still while in contact with the enforcer, and the projectiles all get stuck until you move. It can also be done by other monsters if they infight with an enforcer at point blank)

Now don't get me wrong, I love all the extensions that DP has. If I'm making a fun mod for myself it's the first choice as it frees up most of the restrictions of moding for quake. But time and again the added features create problems for playing through the original quake.

Fitzquake on the other hand has never messed with the original game dynamics, and as long as it doesn't, it'll be my engine of choice for playing maps for the original quake. It's got the same kind of rendering enhancements DP has(which made hacking motion interpolation into it a real pain....) but none of the extra baggage. And that's why we need it. 
To Me 
DP just seems like a futile exercise in excess. It follows the rather amateurish philosophy of "chuck as many features in as possible and it's got to be good!" that most newbie designers seem to follow. Now I know DP is no newbie project, but the final result just comes across that way to me. 
Well... 
from what i know, darkplaces is pretty well-designed. The problem comes when all these features are enabled by default, becuase many of them are ugly unless the game arwork is designed to support them. In a stock id map or most custom maps, the arwork is NOT. there is no bumpmap, and the auto-generated one sucks. There is no appropriate detail map, so the default detail map makes every texture look like it was painted on sandstone. And so on.

Yes, this is partly a problem of lack of documentation -- if users could easily configure their DP into "normal quake" mode, then they could enjoy quake with DP's rendering benefits, like real-time visibility culling, faster opengl pipeline, etc.

But the extra problem is the misconception that all users want the same thing, or that all engines should provide it.

DP is a great modding engine. Fitzquake is not -- it's main goal is to let players enjoy regular quake and regular quake maps as much as possible. Joequake, proquake, fuhquake, and aquirre's engine are all in similar situations -- they each satisfy certain kinds of user. This is why each community has a different favorite engine, becuase each community has different needs. 
Um... 
is "Fritzquake" the german version of Fitzquake?

sorry, couldnt resist. 
Fitzelquake 
Jewish version? 
.. 
for me the ideal choice of engine is fitzquake and aquire's engine (maybe it's time to call it bengtquake?) because they both look classic but work better. Everything's simple.

btw uwf lol 
I Dont Know What Crazy Version You Guys Have... 
...darkplaces never defaulted to having bumpmapping on for me in any version, i have to turn on bumpmapping, bloom, real time lights, and so on... granted it doesnt look exactly like Quake, but it still feels Quake to me and i enjoy it. it runs fine and runs only slightly slower than FitzQuake (which i only use when specified to use basically because i really do enjoy frame interpolation) while still having the potential of looking awesome (rtlights on dlights makes those multi-ogre battles quite dramatic).

i dunno, ive never had any confusion in using DP aside from when i tried to edit the real time lights in game (as in selecting an entity, and adjusting various fields of it within the console). its straightforward, supports so much, looks good to me, and is the third fastest engine ive tried. that and i can use it for multiplayer as well because it plays the same on nq and qw servers which i like - so to me the difference doesnt exist, its all just servers. i like that level of unity. 
Interpolation 
If all you miss in fitzquake is model interpolation then you can try my unofficial attempt to hack it in : - )
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/~ajd70...
Just don't use r_shadows 1, the wonder of an unofficial release. 
Preach 
does it break anything else ? 
Breakages 
Not to my knowledge, I've been using it regularly since I wrote it and not encountered anything else. I only changed one other bit of code, and that was just adding the monsterclip thing(which isn't required now thanks to the trick Than found which works the same in all engines). So it should be fine. Maybe I should go back and fix the shadows code, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard... 
Preach 
you sir, rock! 
No Need For A New Thread 
For anyone who has trouble compiling for example TyrQuake in Linux for this error:
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lGL

First try running ldconfig as root.
If that didn't help check what is your "real" libGL.so.something in /usr/lib
ls -l | grep libGL.so

For me this looks like this:
18 2007-09-19 10:17 libGL.so.1 -> libGL.so.100.14.11
608400 2007-08-23 11:43 libGL.so.100.14.11
386460 2007-08-28 12:41 libGL.so.1.2


The libGL.so.100.14.11 is my "real" one. The -> implies a symlink from libGL.so.1 to it. What is missing though is a LibGL.so which is needed for compiling. Create a new symlink that points LibGL.so -> libGL.so.100.14.11:
ln libGL.so.100.14.11 libGL.so

Now make again. :) 
I Am Adding Engines To Quaddicted 
Please help me finding what should be listed about them:
http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtop... 
A New Tyrquake Is Out, 0.6.0 
Metl And Other Engine Coders 
Join the interesting discussion A new standardised protocol?
http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtop... 
YEAH YEAH 
Tyrquake, fuck that, where's a new Tyrmap??!? 
Daylight Assault! 
plz 
Hats Off To Spirit 
If anything comes of his idea.

The 2 protocols that would be the best are:

1. DarkPlaces protocol 7, so coop play without lag is possible without an expensive dedicated server. (yeah, I know about ZQuake and FTEQW).

2. aguirRe's default protocol with the near infinite limits support. 
 
aguirRe's with qrack and joequake eyescandy

:p

and same menus to demos and stuff...

that whould take me out of joequake i think... 
Linux Engines 
I just stumbled onto a bunch of Linux engines and their sources:
http://icculus.org/~ravage/quake/ 
I Like Joequake 
I always disable all graphic effects. But i can't turn off the green lightning of the scrags. XD
Not too fond of qrack, it think it's not that stable, but the packet overflow seems to be fixed. 
Pcx Woes 
Is the screenshot function broken in tyr-quake 0.60 (sw, on Linux)? The PCX files I get from it look like this in GIMP:
http://s1.image.gd/o/4e/4ec35adfea... 
 
I have the same problem, I think it is the bit depth of the X server though (or of the framebuffer, or both). Didn't get it to work yet. Most sw renderers do that.

Tyrann seems to be MIA, so maybe we should ask sezero to fix that. I also have a heap of patches for tyrquake that I don't have anyone to contact about :-/ and a manpage O_o

Even for Joequake I have to start the X server in 8 bit mode to get proper screenies O_o

FTE does working screenies in software, though. Sometimes >:-) 
Sounds Like 
stable and mature software alright 
 
ah yeah please, bring it on. No, then again, don't.

Thing is, not many people even cared about Linux Quake in the last 13 years. Maybe 0.1 % did. Similar for software. So we have kind of a, umm, steep hill facing us.

Doing only Windows Quake sure was easier. It's 1999, man!11!1 
 
also, X11 and the GUIs have been rapidly changing. Unlike Windows.

Of course, that created other problems for Windows. :)

People just can live with no change much better than with change. It's easier.

Finally, someone could report a bug. O_o

:O 
Gb 
There's always Fitzquake SDL... 
 
Yeah, thankfully :) 
 
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