News | Forum | People | FAQ | Links | Search | Register | Log in
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?
First | Previous | Next | Last
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/~chapterhonour/bug.zip

(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. 
First | Previous | Next | Last
You must be logged in to post in this thread.
Website copyright © 2002-2024 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors.