Hello JDSTONER,

It is great to see your interest in playing around with QC.
Your idea to learn QC by using tutorials from inside3d is exactly right.
I did the very same thing and it is exciting and fun to see the results in-game.
IŽd like to recommend this tutorial to you, because you will learn more than you might think from it. The topic does not sound interesting, but you will learn basic and important things simply from reading it.

The topic (nail position) you are talking about is perfect to learn the different coordinates in a 3D world like Quake.

The original 'launch_spike' call uses fixed world coordinate values:
self.origin + '0 0 16'
Wherever you are and whatever direction you are looking, the nails are always spawned 16 quake-units above your point of origin.
'0 0 16' (X Y Z)
This will result in the nails spawning out of your head/eyes when looking straight upwards. Try it and you will see.

You need to take the players view into account to prevent this behaviour. This will result in approx. the same spawn position when looking straight forward, but will always stay correct no matter in which direction you aim:
self.origin + self.view_ofs + v_up * -8


Next is the issue with the "left" and "right" position of the nails.
"Left" and "right" is not possible in a 3D world, at least with usage of world coordinates.
Because left will become right when you turn 180 degree, right ?
So you cannot simply use:
'5 0 16'
to move the nail to the "right". Because "right" would only be right, when you are looking parallel to the world coordinate.

You *could* use:
self.origin + self.view_ofs + v_up * -8 + v_right * 5
to spawn something always on the right side of the player/entity.
But QuakeŽs original nailgun nail code works differently !

QuakeŽs nailgun nail position code uses a special/fixed offset float (= value), that handles/declares their left/right position:
In player.qc the alternating functions: player_nail1 and player_nail2 set these offset values.
Originally the value is 4 and -4
These values are forwarded through the code until it ends in the launch_spike function, which then spawns the nail and sets their origin to that vectors value.

Change the values 4 / -4 to 3 / -3 to get them nearer to the mouth of your gun.


There are only vectors for up, right and forward. Use negative values if you want down, left and backwards.
Be sure to call 'makevectors' for the entitiy that you want to use these 3 vectors for. They will then face/match the entities angles.


Have fun with playing around with QC and try several inside3d tutorials.
It does not matter if you "only" copy/paste the code. Just be sure to think and try to understand what you just changed.
Reading code is important. Read much and you will understand much

Good luck,
Seven