FTE QW engine.

[Spike]

with fte, if your shader includes a pass then that pass will be drawn.
rtlights are technically drawn with a different shader over the top (rtworld_lightmaps 0 may simplify the base shader a little, or set lighting values to black), so the two can be configured separately.
incidentilly, I really need to sit down one day and make some proper shader+glsl examples.

[Rab_d]

Hello Guys/Gals.
This sems to be the only fourm that discusses FTEQW and has the author's input, also. Thank you.
I do not play Quake1, but I am interested in using this engine with my project.
I am producing an advanced version of our beloved Quake 2 mod, D-Day:Normandy http://ddaydev.com
It's an entirely a graphics overhaul. We do not have a coder working with us..so we are left to using what we can and making the best of it. We have been using the engine EGL and it's ability to run Q3 .bsp and .md3 models. This engine work well because it doesn't require the game code to be re-written.
The problem is it has a few bugs and is no longer in development. FTEQW certainly offers the same ability and better features along with, I hope, continued development.
I've been messing around with fteqw and have had limited success with our current q3 .bsp maps we have been making. Using fteqw64.exe FTE SVN 4605
-It won't load our .jpg and .png textures says (unsupported format)?
-some .shaders do not work(bad scripting maybe?)
-I can't load a map using "map" or "gamemap" command in console..it crashes on all attempts...but It loads all maps when you connect to a server, though. :/
-realtime lights and shadows setting is all black, only a slight glow from light emiting shader sufaces. I saw something about having a correct file. Not sure what I have to do
-"Always run" will not work. Can't change setting in options and if I change cl_run in .cfg it doesn't do anything. This is a deal breaker for engine choice.
- I get the error "map has too many planes" on some of the maps...which run fine on other q3 engines. Can this limit be increased?

Any help with these problems or advice/hints to use in making maps or other content for this engine would be greatly appreciated.

You an find discussion of my project at
D-Day Dev Central Forums • View forum - Development

[golden_boy]

Hi Rab_d, I also use FTE for my project. Let's see about your questions:

I've been messing around with fteqw and have had limited success with our current q3 .bsp maps we have been making. Using fteqw64.exe FTE SVN 4605
-It won't load our .jpg and .png textures says (unsupported format)?

I'm leaving this question for Spike; I use .tga and .dds images in my projects (TGA format is independent of any image libraries AFAIK, so should always work). I have had problems with PNG images on Ubuntu. TGA is "safe".

-some .shaders do not work(bad scripting maybe?)

FTE should support the entire Q3 shader language; there are sometimes bugs of course, but it might be good to post some examples of non-working shaders.

-realtime lights and shadows setting is all black, only a slight glow from light emiting shader sufaces. I saw something about having a correct file. Not sure what I have to do

You can enable display of your lightmaps in addition to the realtime lights with this console variable:

r_shadow_realtime_world_lightmaps 1

After this, your map should have basic lighting again.

To get realtime lights going, you have to either:

- Compile the q3bsp map with the -keeplights switch to the Light stage

or

- Install csaddon.dat and enter ca_show 1 in the console. This gives you a realtime light editor; you can insert new lights pressing I. It looks like this:



In this editor, you can add realtime lights. You might need to configure a model for the lights so you can see them: there is a cvar cg_editor_lightmodel that will load a light model for the editor (it loads a globe sprite in Quake, not sure what the Q2 default is.)

Download csaddon.dat here: Index of /moodles/csaddon

or compile it yourself from the source on FTE's SVN.

rtlights will be saved to an .rtlights file, which you should copy next to your BSP.

Any help with these problems or advice/hints to use in making maps or other content for this engine would be greatly appreciated.

There is an IRC chamnnel for FTE, irc.quakenet.org #fte but it is not very active.

You can find me at irc.anynet.org #rmq, Spike is also there often, and so is gnounc who makes mods for FTE.

I'll leave your other questions for Spike since I can't answer them.

[Rab_d]

Thx for the post. It's helpful. What compiler are you using? I have tried every version of q3map2 and none recognize the -keeplights switch.
I don't know how to install the csaddon.
I can see some textures I added normal maps to when I use our flamethrower to light them up. It's exciting. Can't wait to figure out the realtime lighting.

Also, fte keeps referencing it's default directory...how can this be changed to referencing only where the .exe is?

[golden_boy]

I use the q3map2 that comes with NetRadiant / Xonotic.

The csaddon.dat, you might try putting it next to your game.dll.

Now that I think about it, I'm actually not sure if it works with a Q2 game. Hmm. I have never tried that.

About the home directory, try the -nohome switch on the command line?

[Spike]

quake2 support is somewhat tricky
Native gamecode means that there are certain in-memory representations that cannot be sandboxed/translated. It really would not surprise me if you were depending upon Q2 features that FTE currently does not support.
I had a look at the mod, the gamecode is crashing on a null dereference within a call to ge->SpawnEntities. Either FTE's setting stuff up in the wrong order (like creating player slots after ge->Init, which is the only one that really comes to mind), or the gamecode is checking cvars and seeing values that it wasn't tested with.
I did find some mod source, but it was dated 2011... anything more recent?

Regarding the csaddon.dat thing, I'm not sure that the csqc stuff interacts properly with Q2 network protocols. If you have problems, -noq2dll should disable enough for things to work properly.
and while we're on the subject of commandlines...
-basedir . -quake2 will force it to use the current basedir instead of trying to find a quake2 install via the registry, as well as force it to run quake2 even when the data files that it looks for to identify quake2 are missing (baseq2/pak0.pak). you can also rename the exe to fteq2 and it'll assume its quake, but still hunt through the registry for a non-standalone quake2 if it can't find that pak.

[Rab_d]

I did find some mod source, but it was dated 2011... anything more recent?

That's the latest source.

I got the csaddon working. The bumpmapping is fun. And makes my textures look crazy good.

Any idea why the "always run" cl_run will not enable?
And backpeddling makes the screen choppy. In porone position the player cannot move in all directions..it's like there's clip brush there.

I get speed hack kicked when I join a server with q2admin running. Protocol thing? or maybe a setting?

Thanks for yor help! Your engine rocks.

[golden_boy]

On a side note, you can have normal maps and specular maps working even without realtime lights (so you get bumpmapping even in places that have no rtlights):

r_deluxemapping 1 (this needs maps compiled with -deluxe -deluxemode 1 in the Light command line).

For specular,

gl_specular 1.

Append _norm and _gloss to the normal/specular textures for a surface to have FTE load them automatically.

If you use patch meshes in your maps, you might need to put clip brushes over them because FTE currently has some issues with patches.

[Rab_d]

On a side note, you can have normal maps and specular maps working even without realtime lights (so you get bumpmapping even in places that have no rtlights):

r_deluxemapping 1 (this needs maps compiled with -deluxe -deluxemode 1 in the Light command line).

For specular,

gl_specular 1.

Append _norm and _gloss to the normal/specular textures for a surface to have FTE load them automatically.

If you use patch meshes in your maps, you might need to put clip brushes over them because FTE currently has some issues with patches.

Sweet. Exactly what I was gonna ask next. For sunlight.
I haven' een abe to compile a map wit -keeplights and make any diference in realtime lighting upon running the .bsp. Maybe I am missing something.I did find a compiler that does -keeplights just no luck so far.

Some shots of wat did with this enine in a day or so. Gotta refine my normal maps...but, iam loving how much this enine brings my textures alive.

[golden_boy]

Nice.

With -keeplights, the compiler does not strip the lights from the BSP, so the engine should be able to load them... try r_editlights_reload to force the editor to reload the lights?

You have some clamping issue with your torch; the orange light seems to partly turn green there. I've had the same issue in Quake 1 maps; but I'm not sure why it happens here. I don't think this should happen with 32 bit textures. Spike would probably know.

In case it is an overbright issue, try gl_overbright 2.

Your beach maps would probably be perfect showcases for FTE's heightmap terrain.

[Rab_d]

Lights still won't load. Does the light editor recognize light emitting .shader surfaces? Most of my lights are prefab models that use a light emitting material. Like the filament of a lightbulb model would be the light source. Maybe these are not processed?

[golden_boy]

Yeah, I think it only loads entity lights.

You'll have to go through and do the rtlights manually then.

Once you have a few rtlights, you can simply clone them by selecting one and pressing I to insert a new one at the mouse cursor - the new light will be a copy of the previously selected one. This way it's pretty easy to do reocurring lights such as torches.

[Spike]

regarding autorun: QuakeWorld and thus FTE has no 'cl_run' cvar. autorun is directly baked into the cl_forwardspeed/etc cvars. If the server overrides those via stuffcmds, then the menu settings are overriden too.

regarding backpedal bugging out, again this is a Quake vs Quake2 difference. Quake has both cl_forwardspeed and cl_backspeed cvars. Quake2 only has a cl_forwardspeed cvar that applies for both. The player is trying to move backwards at a speed of 400, the gamecode then clamps that to something low like 160, and the client prediction gets broken.

q2admin doesn't actually detect speed cheats. it only detects cvar settings which permit speed cheats ('cmd clcvar $timescale' or something). When that cvar comes back empty (instead of 1, on account of the cvar being stupid and thus not existing), the client gets kicked.
Just 'set timescale 1' and you shouldn't get kicked because of it.

as gb says, realtime lights only work from point lights. lights generated based upon surface texture choice will not become a realtime light.

if you bake a heightmap into your normalmaps and enable the r_glsl_offsetmapping cvar, you should get some slightly nicer surfaces, especially with bumpy surfaces like bricks+rocks.

[Rab_d]

Thanks for working a bit on that forwardspeed. I noticed it was diferent in the last build.
I'm trying to set up an fte dedicated server, but I am having problems with it not loading our game dll. And I can't seem to connect to it. Any command line variables I need?

Also, I had the csaddon working..but, now it won't load. Any idea why it would be temperamental?

I want to customize the particle fx like rocket trails, blood, sparks, explosions, etc...where/how are these images handled?

-My .md3 static models no not exhibit the deluxemapping unless there is dynamic light(our flamethrower)
-Player and weapon models do no load the associated _norm maps.
-.md3 replacements do not load their skins. This might have to do with the fact our game dll assigns the skin depending upon what class the player chooses.
-When running our original q2 .bsp maps...I can't get replacement textures to load. Do they need to be in a .pak file?
Thanks!

side note: This forum lags like hell...takes me forever o type anything...misses letters...having to continuously re-type my text. I think it's that annoying add at top right.

[Spike]

fte is primarily a quakeworld server, its default port thus favours that, so try connecting to localhost:27500 or so instead, or use +sv_port 27910 if you want to use quake2's normal port. The status command will show which addresses+ports its currently listening on.

no idea why csaddon would no longer be working. I'd be surprised if you could get it to work while the client was acting as a q2 client, but hey.

particles can be changed by modifying the r_particledesc cvar (add 'foo' in there or something), and then make a particles/foo.cfg file. You can find examples here: FTE QuakeWorld / Code / [r4611] /trunk/engine/partcfgs
A vauge and poor description of the various directives can be found here: FTE QuakeWorld / Code / [r4611] /trunk/specs/particles.txt

deluxemapping requires pre-built lighting directions, which isn't possible when its a dynamic object moving through the world. deluxemapping also does not work with rtlights. its static only.
custom player skins are always going to be awkward... md3 files are especially problematic as they often use more than a single texture. there is no 'proper' support for .skin files right now - q3 works by loading *every* skin and then internally selecting the .skin file via skin index rather than file name.
I don't remember the details of replacement textures on q2bsps, though I do remember needing to read the .wal files just to get the size of the texture. Make sure gl_load24bit is set, I guess.