[Baker]

Originally Posted by Scrama

I look in future for the total conversions, not only mapping for standart Quake )

^^ Winner!

/Someone else "gets it". :d:d


Quake modding is easy and Quake mapping is even easier. And it's open source. And it's flexible.

... But NO ONE in their right mind wants stuck with a 256 color palette. Especially for mapping.

And the Half-Life map specification varies so little from Quake that any Quake mapper (and any Half-Life mapper) could easliy create maps for, say, a map format that is remarkably similar to Half-Life and Quake.

[avirox]

thanks to Baker's inside3d tutorial, I was able to get alpha support in ezquake and it looks sweet in half-life maps. However, the devs keep running away each time I try to send them my .patch. I might have to physically go over to some of them and bust some heads Anyhow, yesterday I did a playthrough of chapter 1 in Half-Life and the tutorial; I'm gonna be fixing some bugs we found and hopefully start on pre-finalizing chapter 2 next!

[golden_boy]

Like I said, it won't hurt to have it.

Just for the core of Quake mappers, it won't be an improvement - modders who make tank games, platformers, Aliens Quake etc. might enjoy the colors, yeah.

Avirox: Heh, my experience sending patches to engine coders is similar. Some are helpful though.

... But NO ONE in their right mind wants stuck with a 256 color palette. Especially for mapping.

Sorry, but that's wrong. Look at Willem's latest map. There are several classic maps which are very strongly tied to a certain set of colors - and draw their atmosphere from it. czg03, czg04, ac, Koohoo, some Zer maps... these maps wouldn't look the same with higher resolution textures and more colors.

Some artists prefer charcoal and do amazing things with it. You see? More colors != automatically better map. It's not a technical issue; art is entering the picture.

[Baker]

Originally Posted by golden_boy

Just for the core of Quake mappers, it won't be an improvement

Why spend 6 months making a map that gets played by 20 regulars?

A standardized total conversion set could easily be played by 20,000 people since there would be no distribution limitations.

RickyT23 made a couple of great maps and he's only been mapping something like a little over a year.

Do you want 20 people to play your map or 20 thousand?

Consider the fact that any open source mod could merely be tweaked to utilize newly designed media and have extended features added to them into the source code.

This stuff all leads to a great an interesting road.

[Scrama]

I've tested and uploaded an minimal set of valve hammer editor 3.5 for quake mapping.
Enthusiasts can download it here.
ZIP includes:
hammer.exe
hammer.chm - help file
maketex.exe - old tool for extracting textures from paked bsp's (You need to convert wad2 to wad3)
quake220.fgd - game definition for creating hlbsp with VHE and ZHLT

I recomend to use ZHLT 2.3 Xash build.
If you want to compile q1bsp you need compilers by Bengt Jurdrup and original quake.fgd.

Also I've updated my MapConverter and MapScaler, download here.

Enjoy )

Some of this days I'll try to create showcase for hlbasp format in quake.

[avirox]

One thing that might be nice to add to some of the opensourced quake 1 bsp editors out there would be the origin brush entity that Quake 2, Half-Life, and a number of other games use for rotating doors and entities. Basically the origin brush is a null brush that simply acts as the "hinge" for rotating objects. It's not an actual entity, but rather I believe its some sort of trick added by map creators. More info here:
http://www.superjer.com/learn/func_door_rotating.php

[golden_boy]

You can place an origin brush in any old editor. It's just a brush with the origin texture - same as clip brushes, hint brushes etc.

The map compiler (I guess) can identify such brushes (by the texture name) and do something with the origin of the rotating brush. Quake2 uses this method - Quake 1 map compilers don't support it. Thus I suggest using a point entity (info_notnull) to mark the hinge/axis, because all Quake map compilers understand these and it could be done in QC, instead of hacking map compilers and engines.

Baker: 20.000 of course. Hence why I don't make black-and-white maps :-P

You're probably right, I just said that there are no absolutes when it comes to mapping, since it's an artistic process as well as a technical one. I was nitpicking more than anything.

[avirox]

using a point entity won't work, because a rotating brush entity rotates around its' "origin" and the value of its origin is '0 0 0' be default. Setting the origin to anything else will move the physical brush. Somehow q2/hl/etc map compilers can set the .origin without moving the actual brush.

[Baker]

Originally Posted by Scrama

Also I've updated my MapConverter and MapScaler, download here.

Scrama, would you have any interest in opening up the part of the source where the .map 220 converts the texture alignment to .map format (or even better the reverse).

The reason I ask, this information might help these guys and their open source Quake editor. They are having trouble with rotating brush/texture stuff.

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60225

However, it is possible that Ben Jardrup/aguirRe's map compiler does have this formula in it. But I haven't had time to look.

Originally Posted by golden_boy

You're probably right, I just said that there are no absolutes when it comes to mapping, since it's an artistic process as well as a technical one. I was nitpicking more than anything.

I might have had a little too much zeal in my post, yet I believe the future isn't going to be "Quake" per se.

Quake is a set of rules, the behavior of the monsters, the way the weapons work. Not the "assets".

I mean, you liked playing distrans Doom3ish map probably. Yet it used few or no Quake textures. That didn't stop you from enjoying it.

Floating drones in OUM aren't Quake, much of Nehahra isn't "Quake" per se. I recently really played Forwards Compatible and it used the Rubicon texture set and had enforcer skins on the grunts.

I know what you are saying about the palette. And it is very true that it helps keep consistency. But using another map format wouldn't disallow such a thing, it would just give the creator choice.

[Baker]

Originally Posted by avirox

One thing that might be nice to add to some of the opensourced quake 1 bsp editors out there would be the origin brush entity that Quake 2, Half-Life, and a number of other games use for rotating doors and entities. Basically the origin brush is a null brush that simply acts as the "hinge" for rotating objects. It's not an actual entity, but rather I believe its some sort of trick added by map creators. More info here:
http://www.superjer.com/learn/func_door_rotating.php

Avirox, what's the deal with the glass in the Half-Life maps? I've added Half-Life map support to engine (ripped from FuhQuake) and I already have alpha transparency support and the "glass" renders solid (non-transparent). Are they using some field other than "alpha" to mark glass?

/is hoping the answer is simple