I agree that the model that seems to succeed is where there is an acceptable fallback for engines that don't support that feature, such as entity alpha, skyboxes, fog, fence textures, lit files, external textures, etc. In all those cases the content is mostly still playable in a vanilla engine.

There are exceptions: aguirre's extended bsp limits, and the bsp2 format are two cases where there is no fallback and it still caught on and became accepted. I was going to add protocol 666 to this list, but this is not something forced on people by a map or mod, so users still have a choice of protocols that provide the raised limits. 

protocol 999 

I agree that extended BSP limits are the rare exception that tests the rule (and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't bother playing maps in bsp2 format). To my mind the key difference there is that it's about breaking limits more than visual enhancement, and there's no obvious way you can do that in a backwards-compatible way. 

I always figured the reason to do a 16-bit mdl format is so you can make monsters that would otherwise look like total trash in mdl. The thought of having a large chunk (most?) of your audience just seeing the trash version anyway because of backwards compat will probably make you design the model in a conservative way to minimise this, which itself weakens the reason for doing 16-bit in the first place, so eh I ‘unno. 

It seems elegant despite my above misgivings 

wouldn't it be simple to code into the engine a search for a md3(or md2) version of the same model name? So much like the high def textures for those who want to use them.

It would mean that so long as the person modelling had released a lower poly version of the mdl too it would be available and wouldn't break vanilla compatibility. 

you could fall back to an existing entity in the pak. If I make a new monster md3 but the engine doesn't support it, fallback to an Ogre. Have that fallback mdl definable by the mapper. 

^^^^ that's stupid 

I still don't see how it would be possible to do the amazing effects (outside of full fledged particles a'la Maya or Blender) that Preach manages to pull off with the mdl format. I'm still at a loss on how to make polygons dissappear into themselves. 

The trick is that you take each particle, and on the frames where you want it to be invisible you apply a scaling transformation with scale factor 0 (typing the value numerically is the surest way to do it). There are variations on this, like on some models I only apply the transformation on one axis, so that the particle collapses into a line rather than a point. But it's all about scaling - it's the easiest way to ensure that all the vertices align so the polygon disappears. 

and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't bother playing maps in bsp2 format

This is heartbreaking. 

Is there anything that would bring cause for a bsp3? 

I have now made an arc_ogre, but I am faced with the problem that my splines are converted into four on each clip node when converted. The result is that a q1 model with relative weight triangles is converted to two triangles in each square. I can only save them in squares, which are converted to two triangles.
If I import this to qmle, the ratio of internal triangles has almost doubled.

Would this make much difference to a model with only half of verts / tris? As long as it stays below 1000tris / 2000verts, it should make little difference. 

Sepulcher allegedly came close to hitting the upper limits, and also it did something that required a change in Quakespasm, but I don't remember what.

The 3DRealms game has some gigantic maps, but IIRC they don't use their own map format.

I suspect Bal will be the first one to break bsp2 ;-) but at that point, adopting q3bsp would probably happen first. 

Although strictly speaking some engines (e.g. unmodified GLQuake) do have a limit of 1000 triangles, the original software engines allowed 2000 triangles, and pretty much every custom engine at least restored the limit to that level. So you're probably OK to exceed 1000 if you need to. 

In my case it is not the tri limit, but the question if I should simplify a working model with relative high counts into one with less for benifit of better performance.
It's quiet a lot of work doing this in Qmle. 

Pictures, screen captures, screenshots, views of work in progress, ... come on, make us get an hard on, Quake style! 

Trying to adjust maps by the hand of the first screenshots, with no dynamic light.
Sorry for the low resolution, old quake school.

when
I
only
had
low
resolution
to
see
my
quake 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/screen_shots/mark_v_0000.png 

Hi everyone!

I've over worked my map and think its ready for release.
Hope that some of you can take a look on it and tell me if it works.

http://www.quaketastic.com/index.php?dir=files/tod/

gsh_tod.zip

best wishes
Gunny 

Below you can find my demo with comments:

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/tod/gsh_tod_esrael.zip

Having more guidance in the map was a welcome addition in this version. I also liked the little story texts. :)

I still think the map was a bit on the easy side. Especially the temple area with the yellow and red armors being so easily available, not to mention giving the player the quad damage. Maybe some of the stuff could be hidden behind secrets?

I wasn't able to exit the map this time around. I opened the map file in Trenchbroom, and it looks like the reason is because you haven't specified the next map for the changelevel trigger. You have to specify a map, or else the change level trigger won't work. (Didn't know that myself, actually. Well, the more I know, I guess.)

While having the map open in Trenchbroom I also noticed that you had used the wrong texture in the clip brushes that were supposed to prevent the player from jumping over the fence. You should use the "clip" texture, not the "trigger" texture. 

Thanks again! :)

Ahh yes I forgot the armor.
Will It change something if I change the Level to normal or hard?
The exit thing is a little bit frightening cause I entert the start map for exit and never changed it? Yes it disapeared Hmmm. I changed that again.
Do you think after that last changes this is a map for release? 

I got an idea for a map last week, and probably 50+ hours later have a working beta of it. Wanted to pass this around for testing, for anyone who is interested.

I have played it with FrikBots, but not against humans yet. Even if DM isn't your thing, I'm open to feedback on the map build itself.

IMAGE
https://imgur.com/3bqiCZm

TEST RUN VIDEO:
https://youtu.be/4SdMJEAdgqE?t=90

DOWNLOAD LINK
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/multiplayer/maps/rhoqtdm2_beta.2018.11.30.zip 

Somewhat cheery style, if one can say that. Farily brightly lit (I usually say the opposite), though of course you don't want a DM map to be too dark, either.

There's something about the layout.. so many corridors, and the upper/outside part seems to be a little bit secluded from the normal flow? Possibly a misconception on my part as I didn't actually play it properly.

The light beam effect is cool, but I wouldn't use an engine-specific effect in a DM map, because it looks bad on older/non-QS/DM-focused ports: pic

The teleporter triggers should be a few units in front of the entire structure imo, to avoid getting stuck on the sides and dropping into the lava by accident.

Mandatory suggestion: consider putting in some single player stuff once the DM portion is finished and finetuned! ;)