HEXEN II community work and discussion

[Seven]

Hello,

I think you misunderstood my intention.
Most probably to my bad english. I am sorry.

"The map is small and it broke the limits."
Yes, but original H2 maps are not small and they dont break the limits, right ?

That is what I meant with a"challenge", not to define every corner or stair-step with high detail.
More like it was done in the original maps or in Rino´s mission pack.

More like:
You have to be careful with your available resources and not map like there is no tomorrow, so to speak.

If you say, that you do not have enough room for good looking maps, then the available H2 maps are not good looking ?

That is all what I am trying to say.
You are maybe indulged with the "limit-free" Quake maps and forgot how to household your resources.

But hey, I am no mapper... so what do I know ?
I just wanted to encourage you to continue Mathuzzz.

Because, if you do not continue... who should ?
Hexen2 scene is even smaller than Q1 scene
So finding a new "map-standard" with open limits in all engines is more than difficult/unlikely.

OK, but now I shut up. I promise.

[Mathuzzz]

Thanks for your support Seven, but I must agree with golden_boy. His map is small, but very detailed. My map is a bit less detailed, but more larger/expansive. Unfortunately, neither of us can finish the map because of the same reason.
This limit is truly unforgiving and filling up gaps,holes and windows helps to rather small extent. I would have to delete all the details in my map to finish it, but then it will look like Doom.
I wasn´t very satisfied with most of the original Hexen 2 maps and that´s why I wanted to make maps which more resemble original Hexen and Heretic plus take advatanges of 3d engine and make them a bit nicer.

[golden_boy]

It's not directly comparable to Quake... the problem with Hexen 2 is a BSP format limit that is reached very quickly because of Hexen 2's additional clipping hulls (Quake doesn't have these).

It is a broken design because they introduced these additional clipping hulls but did not raise the corresponding limit in the BSP format (despite using their own BSP format already).

The only thing that is comparable in the world of Quake is when the RMQ team had to actually change the BSP format and come up with BSP2. Everything that was done to custom Quake engines before (AguirRe etc) was just soft limits being bumped.

This is a hard limit because the file format is the culprit, not some definitions in the engine.

As for your idea that one should just make nice oldschool maps, that's like saying "640K should be enough for everyone", sorry.

Did you look at the screenshots of my Hexen 2 map? It is small. And yet it runs into this problem.

[Seven]

Hello Mathuzzz and gb,

I can fully understand your disappointment and frustration on this map limits.
I would like to post my thoughts about this subject:

When you follow this link and read the pdf´s

The Lingering Legacy of id Software’s Quake:
A Glimpse Into Thirteen Years Of Darkness (by Tronyn, 2009)

You will see a timetravel with the development and change in Quake mapping over the years.

In the early days, Quake maps were also limited to its original boundaries.
Thank to the engine coders, these map boundaries have been opened more and more.
But even in the early days, very nice Quake maps have been made.
They had the original feel, because they "looked" like original ones.

Today we have this situation with Hexen 2 mapping.
You cannot create Hexen 2 maps like Quake´s "Day of the Lord" or similar.
But, when you look at Rino´s amazing fan-made Hexen 2 mission pack, you will see that you still can catch the original Hexen 2 vibe into new maps (keeping the limits).
I found this in his readme.txt, maybe this is useful for you:

Editor used: Hexmaker +++ 1999 +++ [email protected]

What I want to say in a summary:
Yes, unfortunately Hexen 2 mapper cannot implement all the details, ideas and visions they have into their maps today. But isnt it a "challenge" to make new maps with the "soul and heart" of the original H2 maps/style ?


Maybe in a few years, Mathuzzz will also release a

The Lingering Legacy of Hexen 2 mapping

... who knows.

Thank you for your time reading this.

Best of luck for you,
Seven

[golden_boy]

Another one bites the dust? Wake up, Hexen 2 engine coders. The BSP format needs an upgrade to a new standard.

The clip brushes that Spike describes will help, up to a point. But this is a limit that needs to be removed by engine coders unfortunately.

This limit is killing new Hexen 2 singleplayer maps.

[Spike]

remove small gaps, cover detailed areas with a single CLIP brush (like circular pillars with a clipbrush cube), keep your walls axial.
Adding additional bsp trees (in the form of additional func_walls, etc) is not likely to help.

[Mathuzzz]

golden_boy, it looks like I have the same problem as you with MAX_MAP_CLIPNODES. I had to block large amount of my map with clip brush just to make my map able to start. Does changing stuff into func_wall or breakables help?

[Korax]

true that

[Spike]

And that's without having to work around all the bugs in the hexen2 gamecode.
good luck to him, it can be quite fun sometimes though.

[Korax]

I dunno. Asset conversion and rendering Hexen II is a very, very, VERY long way off from Hexen II gameplay. I've made a precise Quake 2 XNA renderer that can render Quake 2 BSP data directly from the PAK files with no conversions needed that used the full BSP/VIS logic and combined the legacy lightmapping with hardware lighting (lightmap eater) and also implemented sub-model rendering utilizing all is major flags for movement, rotations and translucency. It also rendered the MD2 models with its animation system, lightgrid and properly lit the models. It also rendered Quake 2's skybox logic minus the weird clipping junk it had and implemented it using no depth buffer complete with its rotation logic etc. It rendered everything via Shader Model 2 & 3. The rendering engine only missed two things: lightstyle rendering & particles.

...but that's still a long way from being a Quake 2 game.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I've seen way too much of these "I'm gonna re-write Quake / Hexen2 using some generic engine" projects.

In this case, unless he's got some way to use gamer-side conversion tool I'm afraid even if he succeed it'll be kinda illegal to distribute, apart from the sources and built binary.

I've actually done a project some years ago that converted START and E1M1 of Quake to the Quake 2 format, including all assets relating to those two levels... the textures, the models everything. I built a tool that took Romero's GPL source MAP files that converted the text data to be compatible with Q2 build tools. I did my own Quake texture stripper & wal converter as well as MDL to MD2 converter.

I've built a modified version of the Quake 2 engine that accommodated all the tiny things needed to make Quake 1 run in it. All was working minus game logic and other oddities like the EP vs HUB systems and probably a lot of other unknowns etc. Apart from the file formats the Quake1 and Quake 2 engine is quite similar, mostly idTech2 is a cleaned-up Quake engine.

The conversion & compilation process is just too involved to continue with the project.
Now imagine converting Quake / Hexen II (which is quite hacky) to some arbitrary/generic engine and still retain the original gaming experience.

1 word: Unlikely.

[WhiteMagicRaven]

Adolif4 who previosly created ADO-HEXEN2 source port, now works on hexen2 to port it on other engine.
Irrlicht Engine • View topic - Hexen II + Irrlicht
[For a Forum] Irrlicht + Hexen II - YouTube

[Korax]

UQE doesn't support that yet.

[Mathuzzz]

I was wondering, can I change UI stuff with external textures in UQE Hexen 2? I was trying with no luck so far.

[golden_boy]

No, by "sunlight" I meant a map compiler feature - it's lightmap related.

Some Light tools, such as hmap2 or Bengt Jardrup's tool, allow the mapper to define level-wide sunlight (strength, sun angle etc). This light is cast by all sky brushes and allows one to create natural looking sunlight without having to fake it by placing zillions of point lights.

In AguirRe's tool, the mapper simply adds a worldspawn key called _sunlight. There is also _sun_mangle to set the direction.

In hmap2, IIRC you place a point light, target it like a spotlight, and give that some special key so it is treated as a levelwide sun.

Both methods work.

It's all in the light tool, nothing to do with the engine.

This was my original reason to port AguirRe's tool to Hexen 2. Unfortunately the sunlight feature didn't work, I suspect because of something in the QBSP compiler.

[KrossX]

Something like what ioQuake3 OpenGL2 has? That sunlight with dynamic shadows.