FTE QW engine.

[inkub0]

FTEQW is the best engine for now. Ask to spike, he is the coder

@splitterface i posted the rtlights in the hexenII thread

[golden_boy]

bump and gloss goodness in FTE, without rtlights.

Kudos to Spike.

[njwride1979]

FTEQW wont work with my 1.11 hexen 2 HELP ME?!

I am trying to run FTEQW with hexen2 but every time it just crashes I am using win7x64 if anyone has a solution please send me PM or reply

[Seven]

Hello njwride1979,

Spike (author of FTEQW) has all the solutions
He will surely help you soon.

Until then, you should be sure to use his moodles builds:
Index of /moodles/win64
As the last "stable" build is usualy quite old.

Spike´s engine supports several games.
He included a detection to see which game files/folders are available and therefore decides which game you most probably want to play.

Example:
If you have Hexen2 Portals file/subfolder name in your main folder, it will start portals automagically.

You can always use extensions to tell FTEQW which game you would like to run specifically:

If you want to play Hexen2 (not portals) use this shortcut extension:
-hexen2

If you want to play Hexen2 Portals use this shortcut extension:
-portals


There is a special thread about Hexen2 in this forum.
I suggest to visit that thread and maybe use "search" function there.
Maybe you will already find a solution there.


Secondly, you should always describe the issue a bit more detailed.

every time it just crashes

...is a little bit weak bug report

There are always windows or console error messages.
Which you should mention or show a screenshot.

Best of luck,
Seven

[golden_boy]

What are some of the noticeable differences between DP and FTE? I dont think i have ever tried FTE and this thread is motivating me to install it and turn up all the eye candies.

thanks,

I'm sure Spike is going to give you a detailed answer soon. A basic difference is that FTE is a bit more "in development", more bugs may pop up for this reason, but it also supports quite a few awesome exotic features.

FTE supports more games than DP, including Quake 2 and Hexen 2. You can even load Doom 3 maps into FTE, although that functionality is far from finished. It supports heightmap terrain (like in Crysis etc), add-on progs.dat files, a plugin architecture with stuff like a web browser or chat plugin, and apparently most of the Quake 3 shader language. It supports a crapton of engine extensions, including a lot of the DP ones and some of its own. It has a feature where you can have several consoles and switch between them. It contains a QC compiler so you can compile QuakeC from within the engine, and a lot more seemingly obscure features like that. It also has official (if experimental) Android and WebGL ports.

The included QC compiler supports a lot of things that are reminescent of C++ such as fully functioning classes, plus arrays and pointers.

Apart from that, it supports most of the often-used things like normal and specular maps, GLSL shaders, and custom particles, as well as CSQC (I'm not sure if FTE's CSQC is more feature rich than DP's, but I have seen things like real ragdolls and I know it supports animation blending.) A difference here is that FTE is often a lot less strict about what it accepts in QC code - DP makes a number of assumptions and will refuse to load progs.dat files it doesn't like, FTE will generally err on the side of being more lenient (and perhaps crash if you screw up.)

You really only learn all the things FTE can do when you hang out with Spike for a bit - FTE has an IRC channel.

DP is probably a more stable engine though, while FTE likes to introduce some novel features and consequently also hacks and bugs (some of which unfortunately have become long standing problems.)

DP has slightly prettier lighting too, IMO.

[Spike]

njwride1979, as seven said, make sure you're using an 'experimental' build, as the 1.0 is *really* old, and lacks many refinements and fixes introduced more recently, many of which are specific to hexen2.

clarifying *when* it crashes (initial startup? map start? after reading configs designed for another engine? mid game?), and the version/build that crashes (says on bottom-right of console, or just re-download the current experimental build each time).

Regarding FTE features, if you want a laugh and you're on windows vista upwards, try using the 'stt' command.

[nahuel]

It supports heightmap terrain

thats awesome!! how it works?

[Sza]

bump and gloss goodness in FTE, without rtlights.

Kudos to Spike.

It killed me man! Is it supporting Q2? I am asking because i do bump maps as standard for my mod. Every texture have own high map!... but i have some small problems... may be you or madgypsy can help me. My textures will kill every q2 gfx mod!... if it supporting q2...

@Spike AWESOME ENGINE!

BTW: Is it support own specular maps?

Spike, no homo but i love you!

[golden_boy]

thats awesome!! how it works?

You add terrain to a level by putting the following in worldspawn:

"_segmentsize" "1024"
"_maxxsegment" "8"
"_maxysegment" "8"
"_minysegment" "-8"
"_minxsegment" "-8"

As an example. This creates terrain segments of 1024x1024 quake units each, and the min/max x/y values define how many tiles there are in the positive and negative X and Y direction, starting from the map's origin. 8 tiles each in this example, giving you a 16k x 16k terrain size. There is no practical limit to the terrain size AFAIK, except the fact that it doesn't have level-of-detail and such. You can make absolutely HUGE outdoor maps with this. Here is an image of the result after sculpting and texturing (16,000 x 16,000 quake units):



So much for the map side.

For the engine side, you have to install FTE's csaddon.dat alongside your progs.dat/csprogs.dat. This is the piece of code that does all the wondrous stuff (also rtlights / particles.) You can probably get this from the FTE page, or just bug Spike for it.

Then in the game, lower the console and type ca_show 1. You should get this interface:



Click on "Terrain". You should be able to sculpt terrain by raising/lowering it. You can also texture the terrain with up to 4 textures (they will blend). The terrain sculpting works just like in Crysis Sandbox, if you've ever used that.

Oh yeah, you can also punch holes into terrain by removing certain sections; the fortress above extends below the terrain. The brushes simply pass through the hole in the terrain, which is masked by the fortress itself. In this way you can build cellars or bunkers that extend underneath the terrain. Very similar to how Enemy Territory: Quake Wars can combine BSP objects with the megatexture, if you've ever used the ETQW SDK you might be familiar with that...

I'm sorry, I cannot write a full tutorial about that right now because it would be a lengthy explanation. I might write one later though.

Terrain can not be lightmapped because the compiler never sees it. It is thus probably vertex lit, I'm not entirely sure. Also, rtlights on terrain are currently horribly broken. All this means that trees etc. will not cast shadows onto heightmap terrain. This is the main reason why Scout's Journey uses Quake 3 terrain models in some maps now (also the ability to sculpt terrain in Blender.)

It is possible to place models onto the terrain in the csaddon editor; this is also a very cool feature.

Needless to say, you will still require a BSP box around the entire thing so the map will not leak.

There is an extra skybox when terrain is used (and sometimes it appears and craps out when there is no terrain), which does something similar to fog-of-war. In other words, this "inner skybox" moves with the player. The distance can be adjusted IIRC.

Go ask Spike, until I get enough "wubs" to write a full tutorial

You guys should REALLY come to IRC because that's where information can be had.

irc.quakenet.org #fte

irc.anynet.org #rmq

[Sza]

alter, q2 support? ah voll der mongo so easy? http://www.fteqw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Quake2

[golden_boy]

alter, q2 support? ah voll der mongo so easy? Quake2 - FTE

Yeah, FTE runs Quake 2, usually. Just drop the binary in the Q2 directory and try.

Voll der Mongo?

[Sza]

thx is there any build-in light/level editor?

[golden_boy]

thx is there any build-in light/level editor?

There is an editor for rtlights contained in the csaddon.dat (ca_show 1).

There is no built-in level editor.

[Sza]

awesome! i will make some tests!

Update: I have the exe inside my q2 folder i can chose options, everything but when i start the exe crasches. May be i need the last q2 patch? it showing the animated q2e menu too! I have started the exe from the q2e folder awesome! i make one screen.

[golden_boy]

It is a good idea to post the exact error message. If there is no error message, start FTE from a DOS prompt if your OS has something like that. You might get a better error message then.

And yes, you need Quake 2 3.20 which is simply the latest patch that exists for Quake 2. You can check the Quake 2 version number in most engines by opening the console.