What are the benefits of mapping for Darkplaces instead of normal Quake?

[hardcore_gamer]

I know that Darkplaces has things like improved graphics, but is there anything that gives modders a good reason to map for it even it if means throwing away compatibility with vanilla Quake?

What are the things darkplaces can do that vanilla Quake can't do in terms of modding and designing levels?

The reason I am asking is because it appears that most people who buy the game via STEAM install the "ultimate Quake patch" which install Darkplaces anyways, so few people are likely to play vanilla Quake in the first place.

[damage_inc]

I did read the link, was pretty involving for what I usually take for granted as... "easy"! So when you stated FBSP was like regular lightstyle Quakery well, that's why I asked

And dude, that link with the FTE sdl version WORKED! Awesome, thanks.

[golden_boy]

to my knowledge, yeah, DP doesn't run FBSP. You can get an equivalent effect though by using q3bsp with lightstyles and external lightmaps.

For FBSP, you add -game qfusion to all your q3map2 compile lines. You will need either FTE or QFusion (warsow engine) for this (for qfusion, I think there exists an implementation of QC in angelscript, but this is probably only worth it if you're makng a standalone game.)

To enable lightstyles in q3bsp for DP, you probably should read that lightstyle part in the q3map2 manual I linked. It uses some shader hackery, but it should work.

For higher-resolution external lightmaps with q3bsp, you add -external and -lightmapsize 512 to the Light command line. You can go higher than 512, but it'll increase compile time and memory requirements. 512 is what FBSP uses by default. 1024 should be doable, anything larger IMO is overkill... especially if you also use shadowmaps.

FTE doesn't run on your Linux? That's strange, have you tried the binaries from here Index of /moodles

?

[damage_inc]

I just setup everything up following your Q3bsp for quake tutorial! How do you switch to FBSP, grrrrr... hehehe And is this even better than Q3bsp? Oh, and another question, it's probably NOT DP compatible huh?

I usually run DP as for some reason, beyond my comprehension, FTE will not run under my Linux distro And my "wine" usage only spits out video, no audio, even though it used to?! I've stated before, I don't really know Linux I just use it

P.S. In terminal it fteqw.gl spits out "error while loading shared libraries: libXxf86dga.so.1: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64", it used to spit out a different jpg lib062'ish error but I tried sudo apt installing something to fix it and instead borked it differently...

[golden_boy]

I haven't seen this mentioned before but could be quite a drawback no:

Q3BSP doesn't support lightstyles; you'll need BSP format changes and engine mods for this. - MH

As I have been researching things a bit more, there's a lot of info to be had...

This is incomplete information.

VANILLA q3bsp supported no lightstyles.

Today, with the q3map2 compiler, I'm pretty sure it does:

http://q3map2.robotrenegade.com/docs...ghtstyles.html

And FBSP solves that problem anyway. In FBSP (which is what SJ uses) you can just use the same lightstyles as in Quake, in the same way.

DP or FTE are prime choices for a multiplayer mod

Singleplayer even more so, I'd say. You can get DP to look just like vanilla Quake, even with low res textures. All the horsepower is under the hood.

Not using these engines because of some sort of technophobia is madness IMHO.

[R00k]

DP or FTE are prime choices for a multiplayer mod, simply because they have extended network protocols and prediction of entities.

Sure netQuake protocol 15 works for me at least on fiber...
but for the majority >50 ping and its unbalanced.

[damage_inc]

I haven't seen this mentioned before but could be quite a drawback no:

Q3BSP doesn't support lightstyles; you'll need BSP format changes and engine mods for this. - MH

As I have been researching things a bit more, there's a lot of info to be had...

[bluntz]

DarkPlaces has support for much higher texture resolutions.Unless you want to mod with the old low res,low poly look of vanilla quake ,it is pretty much a no brainer.Mod for DP.
The overlooked benefit is you will have gained more experience for more modern mapping with IdTech.

[MadGypsy]

I was just about to say that it looks right but, I'm not really knowledgeable of Q3 compiling. I could tell you just about anything you want to know about radiant in a Q1 sense, though.

random FYI: modeltypes, sets the models extensions that you can see in radiant while editing. In order to take advantage of this you have to add a model="path/to/model.mdl" attribute in the point tag for that entity definition. To use a model type not included - just include it

<point name="some_name" box="mins/maxs" model="path/to/model">
</point>

modeltypes = "ase md2 md3 mdl obj"

texturetypes is very similar, except you don't have to change the ent in any way, just include the new extension.

texturetypes="tga jpg png bmp mip hlw"

archive types is just like texturetypes but for archived data

archivetypes="pak pk3 wad"

All of these have nothing to do with anything, other than what you will see and can use in Radiant

---

I know you didn't ask about any of that but, Imma learn ya anyway. Understanding what all of this stuff does makes customizing your radiant very easy. There also isn't an astronomical amount to learn - 2 or 3 lil text files about wraps it up.

[damage_inc]

MEH! Disregard ALL of that, grrrrrr...

I think the light values are jus' a wee bit different, duh, editing wise!!! I retested unnamed.map with more lights and at higher values, all is setup correctly

[damage_inc]

Completely dark level after compiling?

Maybe 'Gypsy or gb can riddle me this...

I finally got around to following gb's tutorial for editing Quake for Q3bsp. MY Quake directory is located at:

/home/dano/quake

My netradiant directory is this:

/home/dano/netradiant-q3

The gb shader pack is correctly installed at:

/home/dano/quake/id1
-----------------------------/scripts
-----------------------------/gfx
-----------------------------/textures/common
-----------------------------/map01 (etc)

Including QRP textures at:

----------------------------/textures/qrp

And my darkplaces.game file(/home/dano/netradiant-q3/games) reads like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" standalone="yes"?>
<!-- generated by Radiant setup, modify at your own risks -->
<game
type="darkplaces"
index="1"
name="Darkplaces"
enginepath_win32="C:/Quake/"
enginepath_linux="/home/dano/quake/"
enginepath_macos="/Applications/DarkPlaces/"
engine_win32="darkplaces-sdl.exe"
engine_linux="darkplaces-linux-x86_64-sdl"
engine_macos="Darkplaces.app"
prefix=".darkplaces"
basegame="id1"
basegamename="Quake"
unknowngamename="Custom Quake modification"
shaderpath="scripts"
archivetypes="pak pk3"
texturetypes="tga jpg png"
modeltypes="ase md3 mdl md2"
maptypes="mapq3"
shaders="quake3"
entityclass="quake3"
entityclasstype="def xml"
entities="quake3"
brushtypes="quake3"
patchtypes="quake3"
/>

And last but not least, there is an entity definition file located at:

/home/dano/netradiant-q3/darkplaces.game/id1/entities.ent

Now, the gb shaders show up in the editor, along with the QRP textures and I can place Quake entities BUT...

when I run:

"./q3map2.x86_64 unnamed.map"
"./q3map2.x86_64 -vis unnamed.bsp"
"./q3map2.x86_64 -light unnamed.bsp"

I get a completely BLACK map with no rocket launcher???

I made a small rectangular room with an info_player_start, rocket launcher and one standard "light" source with a value of 300...

As I'm just messing around with my free time, I wouldn't advise replying with anything more than a simple answer if there is an easy solution

I was jus' curious to try out gb's Quake editing with Q3bsp in mind Editing fascinates me even though I'll never be able to create anything, cards we're dealt and all, grrrr... hehehe

Thanks in advance,
- damage_

[JDSTONE]

Something Wicked IS BSP2 i was just reading about it the other day. the best thing about making a mod for darkplaces IMO is that i already have it installed

[MadGypsy]

Scouts Journey

oops: your question was where to find examples...idk

[damage_inc]

Q3bsp support. Support for some Q3 shader features. Replacement asset support. Skeletal model support. Physics support. Tons of QC extensions to program new features with, including client side QC. GLSL shaders. Realtime lighting.

Lots of stuff that is interesting for modders. But for mapping, mostly the q3bsp support.

Where can I find maps/levels that use and take advantage of Q3BSP and Q3 shader features? I want to see it in action.

Something Wicked? Honey? Name a few if you will

[MadGypsy]

I like the messed up stuff sometimes. The first version of engineX screwed up all the textures right where there was a secret. I thought that was great! Not because it helped me cheat. Believe it or not I already knew where 90% of the secrets were. I liked it cause it had personality.

"Hey,...you. Wanna know a secret? See that huge, out of place copper texture on that stone? Shoot it."

---

I know proquake, qrack etc are not pure vanilla Quake. I didn't mean to insinuate otherwise. I meant that they aren't designed to be something other than Quake (primarily). I actually use Qrack for SP, all the time and in the last day of me playing freeze-tag I'm pretty sure I was using Qrack. So, I like other engines and I wasn't trying to imply anything negative about any of them.