Small Mod compilation

[Seven]

I wanted to use your FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition mod on a DP install that doesn't have SMC but didn't want to extract the .zip in my DP folder, so I downloaded PakScape to make a .pak of it according to your instructions in the readme.

Well it works but it's causing some odd glitches. In the original Quake start map for example, torches still have the polygon flame rotating inside the particle flame. And the particle flame itself has a weird shape, a bit like a feather duster. Isn't it the same effect as the one included in the SMC?

No, the FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition mod does not include the same fire effect as the SMC. I was just starting to learn QC when I did the FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition mod. That was around 10 years ago. I was still young and pretty back then...

You should have notice that the FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition fire is not made out of particles. It is made out of sprites. It is basically the dpmod fire which I extracted and put into a separate mod.

The SMC includes 3 different fire types (whichare also mentioned in the opening post as well as the smc_config.cfg):

1. polygon fire (original Quake)
2. sprite flames
3. particle flames (looks best and are default)

You can select which fire effect you want via the smc_config.cfg.



But back to your old FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition mod question:
If you do not want to see the polygon flames inside the sprites, you can simply add the torch model without the flame part itself. That is an easy edit of the torch model (QME is best to use for this). It is called flame.mdl, you will find it in your pak0.pak progs folder.

But I suggest to simply use the SMC and disable all the features that you do not like.
Yes, you can disable as good as everything, so that all you have left are the particle effects and bugfixes for Quake. Loading times will be just like original Quake and you will not notice any difference else.

Also, I've played a real map with it and it wrecked the audio: knights made zombie sounds, etc... And the sounds kept on building up and overlapping each other, like they were stuck in a sonic funnel of sorts.

The SMC is not the culprit for this. That is expected standard Quake behaviour, when you load a savegame that was saved with another progs.dat. Start any map with the SMC (or any other mod that adds additional monsters) and there will be no such issues.

I can only encourage you to play around with the SMC (yes, also in fan-made maps) and get to know its features. Many of them are subtle, but bring some new playing experience and fun into Quake.
You can also disable all of its 14 new monster types individualy if you prefer to play with only original monster types or only with the new ones that you like. A screenshot of all monsters can be seen in the opening post of this thread as well as a description of almost all SMC features/bugfixes/extensions. You can even watch a youtube clip about all features in this channel

I'm using the 20140430 build, as instructed by Talisa.

That is the build that is recommended by myself in the SMC readme and therefore is recommended by talisa, as she is using the SMC. But you should now switch to the 20160917 build, as it fixes the shadow flickering bug in Darkplaces. You surely have read about it here.
I didnt test that build thoroughly yet, but I believe its just fine. See if you like it...

Have fun with your Quake,
Seven

[gdiddy62]

Ok, I do NOT find the build you are talking about Seven on the Darkplaces website.

[Seven]

Hello gdiddy62,

The mentioned build is an autobuild.
You know that autobuilds have no time stamp in their name, so the autobuild from yesterday is lost forever because it is overwritten by the one that is created 6 hours later.

Only betas and the so called "stable" versions are stored/saved forever as they carry a time stamp in their name.

But usually a fix or a feature will not be lost in the next autobuild, so if you download the current autobuild, the fix will most probably still be there (and maybe even improved)


Anyhow, the shadow flickering bug is only affecting NVIDIA card users, as the bug does not occur for AMD users. As far as I know around 75% of the graphic cards are NVIDIA, so chances are high that you are affected as well.


Kind regards,
Seven

[Mugwump]

No, the FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition mod does not include the same fire effect as the SMC.

That's unfortunate.

You should have notice that the FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition fire is not made out of particles. It is made out of sprites.

Really? Either the sprites are very well done or I was too distracted by that polygon flame...

The SMC includes 3 different fire types

Is its particle flame available standalone, by any chance? I do use the SMC on one of my installs, I just wanted to have its nice flame in another install without it.

I suggest to simply use the SMC and disable all the features that you do not like.

Not a viable solution in this case: it is for a secondary install I made specifically for mods/maps that come with their own progs.dat. Putting the SMC in there would force me to choose between the features of the conflicting progs.dat.

You should now switch to the 20160917 build

I wasn't even aware there were new builds, I thought the project was dead since 2014...

Have fun with your Quake

Always! By the way, is there a way to use your hanging lamp as a light entity in level editors? I've recently begun mapping and I'd be interested in using it in some future maps, but I don't want to force players to use the SMC with my maps.

[gdiddy62]

Seven,
Just as an FYI the version of the darkplaces engine that does away with shadow flickering has introduced issues with some shaders in weapons packs. Talisa and I have both found them. Hopefully can be fixed soon.

[talisa]

to add to what gdiddy said, ive posted about the shader-issues here
http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-hel...tml#post169103

[Seven]

That's unfortunate.

As mentioned earlier, I always include the source so everbody can use the features they want. It is just a copy/paste, everybody should be able to do it.
If you cannot do it or want to do it yourself, then ask someone else. It is not difficult.

Is its particle flame available standalone, by any chance? I do use the SMC on one of my installs, I just wanted to have its nice flame in another install without it.

The SMC is a mod. And the particle flames is a mod.
Either way, you will have to use a mod. So what reason is there to use the particle flames mod instead of the SMC mod ?
You seem to use the SMC mod in a wrong way. You do not need to put it into the id1 folder. Use a dedicated mod folder and enable it as you wish. You can enable/disable all of its features so that you have only the particle flames for example.
There is no difference to the particle flames mod then. That is the main advantage of the SMC.

Not a viable solution in this case: it is for a secondary install I made specifically for mods/maps that come with their own progs.dat. Putting the SMC in there would force me to choose between the features of the conflicting progs.dat.

Similar answer as above:
Maps that come with their own progs.dat are ALWAYS placed in a dedicated mod folder, so it will always override/ignore other progs.dat´s (especially the one inside id1).
You will never have conflicts if you know how to handle mods.

I wasn't even aware there were new builds, I thought the project was dead since 2014...

What made you think it is dead ? Something is dead when its buried And that is not the case for this engine.
Just because its author LH is not visiting this forum every hour does not mean that he is unreachable. There are many ways to contact him if you want/need to. LH is and always will be a helpful person.

By the way, is there a way to use your hanging lamp as a light entity in level editors? I've recently begun mapping and I'd be interested in using it in some future maps, but I don't want to force players to use the SMC with my maps.

Sure, but you have to use a mod
And you do not seem to be a friend of mods by judging your answers…
A general rule for you to know is: If you want a feature that is not available in Quake 1.06, you need a mod.
And you can only use 1 mod at a time in Quake. And no, the multiple -game feature from Darkplaces does not help, because it only allows to use replacement content from different subfolders (not progs.dat´s).

As a conclusion:
Find your peace with mods and reorganize your Quake subfolders.
This way you can have particle flames in all regular maps and do NOT have any conflicts with maps that need mods (as they are not placed inside id1 nor in the smc subfolder !).


=============================

Seven,
Just as an FYI the version of the darkplaces engine that does away with shadow flickering has introduced issues with some shaders in weapons packs. Talisa and I have both found them. Hopefully can be fixed soon.

There are no issues with the weapons pack included in the SMC. If you are using a borked weapons pack you should fix it or replace it with another one.

Best wishes.

[Mugwump]

you do not seem to be a friend of mods by judging your answers…

Sorry if I look like I don't know what I'm talking about but the fact is that... I don't! I've been playing Quake on and off for the past 20 years but only stepped into the modding community very recently and it still all too often sounds like chinese arithmetics to me. Your tutorials are helpful but even with them I still feel like I'm biting more than I can chew.

Plus, I'm no coder and QuakeC could very well be klingon for that matter. The extent of my coding knowledge is limited to maybe a dozen instructions in Amstrad Basic, and that was 30 years ago!

And you can only use 1 mod at a time in Quake. And no, the multiple -game feature from Darkplaces does not help, because it only allows to use replacement content from different subfolders (not progs.dat´s).

This is very confusing. So let's say I put the SMC in a dedicated \smc folder and want to use its particle flame in Arcane Dimensions, for example. I can't run -game smc -game ad? Even though the Darkplaces readme says that I can? And if I put the SMC in a dedicated folder, do I have to put its progs.dat in \id1 for it to work?

This way you can have particle flames in all regular maps and do NOT have any conflicts with maps that need mods

If I understand this correctly, then if I put the SMC in a dedicated folder I have to run all regular maps with -game smc in the command line for the particle flames to work, right? And what should I do if I want them in AD like mentioned above?

As for needing a mod in order to use your hanging lamp in the maps I'll create without forcing the player to install the SMC, what mod are you talking about? What would I need to do and how should I proceed?

What made you think it is dead ?

Maybe the fact that the last time I went to Icculus, the latest beta available was two years old?

Anyway, thanks for your help. And your patience.

[nahuel]

If I understand this correctly, then if I put the SMC in a dedicated folder I have to run all regular maps with -game smc in the command line for the particle flames to work, right? And what should I do if I want them in AD like mentioned above?

I do not know how AD particles work. This is for all mods

Actually particles can be done using ent.files.

-If you have the ssqc source (progs.dat) you can copy paste, recompile and add it (there is a tutorial wrote by seven)

- If you do not have the source you can use pure csqc, writing static vectors as origin

[talisa]

no you cant use SMC's particle-flames for maps that use their own progs.dat
because only ONE progs.dat can be loaded at the same time.

unlike doom which allows soft-modding and allows multiple mods to be loaded at once, quake only allows hard-modding.
this means that one single file holds ALL of the game's code and only ONE of these can be loaded at the same time.

if you attempt to load two or more folders in order, only the progs.dat found in the last folder will get loaded

.

so short answer:

no, you cannot load FootstepsPlusNewfirePlusNailposition and arcane dimensions both at the same time,
you can only load only one OR the other


.


long answer:

if you want to have the SMC's particle-flames in arcane dimensions,
you would have to merge the QC from particle-flames into the arcane dimensions mod.

the QC-source from arcane dimensions is included in the 'my_progs' folder from AD,
and seven also includes the QC-source with his 'Small Mod Compilation' mod.

[Mugwump]

@Nahuel AD was just an example. I could have said Insomnia or Jam7 instead. Also:

Plus, I'm no coder and QuakeC could very well be klingon for that matter. The extent of my coding knowledge is limited to maybe a dozen instructions in Amstrad Basic, and that was 30 years ago!

[nahuel]

because only ONE progs.dat can be loaded at the same time.

EDIT: FTEQCC can "crossover" multiple progs.dat without any decompilation.

@Spike "I've now got a local version of fteqcc that can read in an existing progs.dat, and can then compile additional qc functions directly into it, without needing to decompile it.
I need to work some more on the wrapping syntax, but I already have a version of frikbot that can be statically applied to existing mods (if it wasn't for me getting it to use spawnclient etc, it would work in any engine), without needing access to the original code (assuming its still close enough to vanilla anyway)."

[talisa]

maybe this could be an incentive to delve into QC? *hint hint*

[Mugwump]

if you want to have the SMC's particle-flames in arcane dimensions, you would have to merge the QC from particle-flames into the arcane dimensions mod.

That's what I feared. Well, looks like I'm screwed, at least for the time being...

I'm already currently trying to wrap my head around mapping, let's take it one step at a time.

[Spike]

@nehuel

#merge "orig_progs.dat" //make a copy for sanity...
#output "progs.dat" //the output
//now lots of qc code, as if it was added onto the end of the original progs.src
//except that the types of the previous defs are no longer properly known, unfortunately.

void(string) print = #339; //avoid messing around with the developer cvar.
wrap void() worldspawn =
{
print("I'm in your world, messing up your spawns\n");
prior();
print("Okay, I'm all done now\n");
};

a '__wrap' function will replace a prior version of the same function. It'll complain if you forget to use the 'prior' function, but you can just add a (void)prior; line, and the compiler will be happy, and the original function will be completely replaced rather than wrapped.
a '__weak' function will be ignored if the function already exists, and be replaced if followed by a non-weak function
a '__weak __wrap' function will also be ignored if the function was not previously defined, or wrap the previous one if it was actually defined.
(if you used the #merge thing, then the keywords are automatically (fully) enabled and the underscores become optional)

with these, it should be possible to write more code for either closed source mods, or (preferably) easily-integrated code for open-source ones.
eg adding misc_model or particle emitter stuff or whatever for existing mods.