[VGAce]

MH Could you please add a 256 color (or lookalike) mode that makes directq look exactly like software quake? i hate how in 16bit+ gl/d3d there is no real darkness it has an "surfaces with light shun onto" look rather than software quakes rough style where everything seems to be one picture and it has real darkness plus the limited lightmap shades make everything look more detailed in 256 color software
hard to explain but obvious if you compare the two. i dont know if this is possible but would be great

[VGAce]

it should never display any other color than the ones specified in the original palette.lmp (directq doesnt make use of the palette.lmp in pak0.pak at all which can lead to problems with mods btw)

[MH]

It does actually load palette.lmp, but the code is hidden in the WAD loader. Doesn't touch colormap.lmp though. (There is also a hard-coded Q2 palette in the texture loader for .wal files, which may lead to some confusion.)

Doing an exact software-Quake-alike is possible but it's a lot of work and would need a total rewrite of some code. What you're actually talking about here is megatexture, which software Quake's surface cache is the direct ancestor of. The way it would work is to create a really big texture, then eval the colours to draw from colormap.lmp (using the exact same surface cache code as software Quake uses) and write them into the really big texture. It would have all of the benefits and drawbacks of megatexture, of course.

[VGAce]

Ah, i see interesting with the megatextures though. maybe in the future

As for the palette.lmp: when i exchange it with a custom palette directq color is not affected just looks the same
how can i make directq use a custom palette ? (the one from pak0.pak i exchanged)
i have no difficulties getting the custom palette to work in fitz,gl and software/winquake

[monoz]

is there a changelog?

[MH]

Just tested it with a custom palette myself; it worked fine.

Can you describe how you're replacing the palette in more detail? Is it in the filesystem, in a pak file, etc? There is a difference in how DirectQ handles files here that may be the cause. Also - are you using a different game dir or putting it in ID1?

Otherwise the palette loader just goes through the exact same file loader as anything else in the game, so if you can load any file you can load a palette.

Is there a changelog? Not for a long time - I've been remiss in keeping one. Most changes are just documented as they happen on my blog.

[VGAce]

To exchange the palette i create a palette.lmp from a jasc format .pal file with palette converter v1.2 for quake (old dos tool but works fine) i then open pak0.pak in ID1 with pak explorer,delete the file before pasting in my new one (pak allows same name files so it needs to be deleted first)

then i start winquake,gl quake or whatever and see the colors changed to the new palette but when i start directq it just looks as if i didnt replace it

edit: tried adding it to a new pak in a folder used with -game but it doesnt work with directq either

[MH]

Just did that and it worked.

Did you take a copy of your old pak file first? DirectQ is able to load pak files with any name (not just the pak-.pak naming convention) but loads pak0.pak to pak9.pak first, then the rest in alphabetical order. If you've got a "Copy of pak0.pak" in there it will load that and the palette in it will take priority.

Also double-check that you definitely don't have a "gfx" folder under ID1 with a file called "palette.lmp" in it.

[VGAce]

Ha! thanks. that was it, i made a backup of the pak before i inserted the new palette and it was loaded by directq so the changes didnt take effect

[MH]

Originally Posted by VGAce

Ha! thanks. that was it, i made a backup of the pak before i inserted the new palette and it was loaded by directq so the changes didnt take effect

Cool.

You want me to add a check for pak files beginning with "Copy of" before I load them? (I wonder is there a way of getting this text from Windows itself, so as to support multiple languages...)