Small Mod compilation

[Mugwump]

You have several options here:

• Either edit dopa´s quake.rc file (add the line to load smc_config.cfg)
• Or delete dopa´s quake.rc file completely (as it doesnt contain any important things for you).
• Or load the SMC mod after dopa like this: -game dopa -game smc

1) I have no idea what that line should be.
2) What does it contain and why is it here in the first place if it's so useless?
3) Would this work with the SMC .pk3 in \id1? I was under the impression that for multiple gamedir commands to work, mods had to be put in separate folders.

Whooow, finally someone who is using this SMC feature
It took some coding time to achieve it. I always use it and would not know what to do without it. LOL

Yeah, it always bugged me to not be able to do that, especially when there's a pickup you'd like to grab later because you're almost full, but you don't have a choice because it stands in your way. So no-one is using that? Huh!

Yes sure. Find the download link at the end of this post. Replace the shader with the other one. Sorry to hear that you are using badly positioned realtime lights.

Thanks. Well as I said before, I'm currently beta-testing some RTlights made by Blood Vengeance and DOPA is part of them. He means well but it's pretty obvious to me that he still has much more to learn before he gets as good as Inkub0 (no offense, BV). The thing is, he told me that he made these RTlights for use with lightmaps set to 0, which makes shadows pitch black if there's no other light source around. Just by looking around us everyday, we all know that pitch black shadows are not realistic, right? Light bounces on surfaces and there's bound to be some specular light to brighten the shadows.

Now I have no idea how RTlights editing is done but I'm learning to map and I know that you don't need to add light entities to a torch because its flame already has built-in light properties, and I would assume you don't need to either when editing RTlights. Which is why I'm surprised that these torches are so badly lit and cast these huge black shadows. I took a few screenshots to show you what I mean:



Note that the last one isn't too dark but its size is still weird. To expand on what I said in my previous post, it seems that I was a bit wrong. Torches aren't always lit from above like this:

Note how the side that faces up is lit but the side that faces down is not, thus creating this large shadow on the floor. Conversely, that one:

has the side facing down lit and the other side not, thus projecting a shadow on the wall behind it. The second picture above even has a shadow cast on the side! It's as if the torches are not emitting light by themselves but instead have extra light entities placed near them.

I do love nice shadows in DP. Emphasis on nice. But in real life, a lit torch has fire all around its top part, therefore it casts little to no shadow unless it is also lit by another nearby light source, which is clearly not the case here. Hence my question.

Oh by the way, in the first pic, if you look closely you can see that the backgrounds of the armor and ammo icons are not completely transparent. How do I fix this considering the HUD alpha is set to 0?

There is a saying in Germany: The customer is king.

We say that in France too, though TBH I haven't heard it in years and the practice seems a little less common than when I was a kid.

While we are at it, here are some features I am currently implementing into SMC v5.53:

Yeah about that, since "der kunde ist könig" I have some suggestions for future improvements:
- find a way to make flying replacement monsters not replace monsters inside water, and if possible not go in the water at all. Scrags are OK because they apparently have some anti-gravity power and can go anywhere, but seeing an afrit flap its wings underwater is very odd to say the least!
- by extension, not every monster fits in every environment and it would be nice to be able to select where they appear. For example, I'd like spiders to show up only in caves and outdoor areas. I have a feeling it might not be possible without extensive code modifications, though.
- add an option to have blood splatters appear on screen only when you're wearing the biosuit (and clean them when you enter a liquid): unlike the biosuit, Ranger's helmet doesn't have a visor so it's not realistic to have splatters at any time.
- add an extra particle in clean water that would simulate tiny fish or krill, with erratic moves somewhat similar to embers except in all directions (embers tend to float upwards).

Additionally, I use Capnbubs' dog exclusively. I find the SMC's new dog very ugly (sorry) but I like its new animations very much, so here's my question: would it be within the realm of possibilities to add the new animations to Capnbubs' model? I'd love to see it howl and bark. If you're not skilled enough to do that on your own, maybe we can find an animator like Dutch or Madfox willing to undertake that.

[gdiddy62]

Looking forward to the new features Seven!!

Thank you!

[talisa]

i had a random idea for an extension of two features.....

what about extending the burning-death animation feature from monsters to the player?
that if the player gets killed by fire-attacks from any monsters that the deathcam will show the player-model running around on fire for a few seconds before falling down?

just like what happens in blood when the player gets killed by fire


and maybe also extend the burning-death feature from monsters, to make it also get triggered when they get killed by fire-attacks.

.

also, would it be possible to add an option to enable/disable in-fighting with the afrits?
i know afrits would be very likely to cause frequent in-fighting, but imo thats one of the most awesome things about old ID-games:
the chaos that ensues when monsters turn on one another and start beating the living crap out of each other

i think its weird and feels kinda lame that the afrit as the only monster doesnt cause in-fighting and doesnt retaliate if a monster hits them either.


.

also ah yus.... the dreaded quake.rc....
i always immediately remove that file from the folders and paks from any mods/maps that i install

its a bad habit that some modders seem to have, to include this file with their maps/mods
causing your personal settings to get over-ridden and defaults getting used for settings that arent present in the quake.rc

[Seven]

when loading maps from another folder then the default ID1 folder, if no SMC_config.cfg is present in that folder it will load SMC's default internal values.

That is not correct talisa.

just simply copying your SMC_config.cfg over to the folder from which you're running the maps will solve the problem

That does not help for DOPA and is also not recommended with any other mod to keep the configs that are floating around in your Quake under control and keep their numbers small.
The custom/personally configured smc_config.cfg from SMC mod folder will always be loaded when you load the mod. Using the -nohome command will ensure that eventually existing smc_config or any other configs in your "My Games" folder will be ignored.



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

Hey Seven, I'm having some trouble running DOPA with the SMC. The episode doesn't have any progs.dat, not even inside the pak file, but it looks like it disregards my smc_config.cfg

The only reason why the smc_config.cfg is loaded from the engine at all is the tiny little quake.rc file. The mods progs.dat doesnt make the engine load the smc_config.cfg. It is the quake.rc file which is included in the SMC .pk3.
That is a very common way for loading additional config files. You can even call it bfg666_config.cfg if you want
And dopa also includes exactly such a quake.rc file, which of course doesnt load smc_config.cfg... It overrides SMC´s quake.rc and therefore a smc_config.cfg isnt loaded at all !

You have to know that the default SMC cvars are hardcoded inside the progs.dat.
That is why dopa uses SMC´s default settings and putting a smc_config.cfg in dopa´s subfolder doesnt help.

You have several options here:

• Either edit dopa´s quake.rc file (add the line to load smc_config.cfg)
• Or delete dopa´s quake.rc file completely (as it doesnt contain any important things for you).
• Or load the SMC mod after dopa like this: -game dopa -game smc

ammo/health boxes don't split their contents anymore

Whooow, finally someone who is using this SMC feature
It took some coding time to achieve it. I always use it and would not know what to do without it. LOL

On an unrelated note, is it possible to disable the shadow cast by the torch's handle? I'm using your torch-new.pk3 and the light it emits is positioned a little too high on the model. As a result, it casts a very large shadow and when I play with RTlights made for lightmaps set to 0, said shadow is pitch black and I can't see anything inside it (also because of the position of the light source, only the top of the handle is lit, not the underside, which is not realistic). So until this is fixed, I need a way to disable the handle's shadow.

Yes sure. Find the download link at the end of this post. Replace the shader with the other one.
Sorry to hear that you are using badly positioned realtime lights. Those shadows are what makes Quake spooky, no ?
This is how it will look (before / after)


I would recommend keeping the shadows but if they disturb you, you can disable them with the link below. I will add a cvar into the next SMC build that will work independent to the actual used torch model and will enable/disable shadows of all torches. That will be much easier for those who want to disable torch shadows.

I didn't request anything, I just asked how to set different transparency values for each type of liquid - but thanks anyway, this is great!

There is a saying in Germany: The customer is king.
So, the users wish is my command.




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




While we are at it, here are some features I am currently implementing into SMC v5.53:

New blood/gore effects:
I was reading in several threads that people love blood and gore.
The SMC has already a lot of extra gore. But can it ever be enough ?
To bear the bill, I added more chunks of meat that get spawned when shooting monsters as well as a special really gory blood effect when shooting them. Using more gibs as original Quake is already implemented, so that should be enough then.

Performance boost
Spike looked into Darkplaces code and found that effectinfo.txt syntax function: bounce is heavily performance hungry. Therefore SMC´s complete effectinfo.txt will be reworked on this behalf and performance will be gained. I guess that is always a plus.

Blood effects when shooting monsters with explosives
Everybody surely have noticed that original Quake explosions will NOT spawn blood from monsters/player ! Next SMC will fix this Quake missing feature.

New teleporter effect
A new very intense effect will be introdunced when traveling with teleporters.

Underwater effects
That is the feature from some posts above. But with some additonal settings.


Kind regards,
Seven

[Mugwump]

Tried that, doesn't work. I started a new game and I STILL have spiders and fantasy monsters replacing base enemies.

[talisa]

when loading maps from another folder then the default ID1 folder,
if no SMC_config.cfg is present in that folder it will load SMC's default internal values.

just simply copying your SMC_config.cfg over to the folder from which you're running the maps will solve the problem

[Mugwump]

Hey Seven, I'm having some trouble running DOPA with the SMC. The episode doesn't have any progs.dat, not even inside the pak file, but it looks like it disregards my smc_config.cfg: ammo/health boxes don't split their contents anymore and the monsters get replaced by new ones even though I specified not to.

On an unrelated note, is it possible to disable the shadow cast by the torch's handle? I'm using your torch-new.pk3 and the light it emits is positioned a little too high on the model. As a result, it casts a very large shadow and when I play with RTlights made for lightmaps set to 0, said shadow is pitch black and I can't see anything inside it (also because of the position of the light source, only the top of the handle is lit, not the underside, which is not realistic). So until this is fixed, I need a way to disable the handle's shadow.

As requested by a new forum member

I didn't request anything, I just asked how to set different transparency values for each type of liquid - but thanks anyway, this is great!

[gdiddy62]

Love the tinted water and addition of dust or bubbles.!

[Seven]

Dear all,

As requested by a new forum member, I was working on improving the underwater visuals (water/slime/lava) in Quake.

Main target was to make the view inside water a little bit more realistic and exciting. That should be accomplished by 2 things:
1.) Tint the view inside liquids darker and in the color of the liquid itself.
2.) Add floating dirt particles to make it look more real. Alternatively you can also choose bubbles.

Otherwise there would be no visual difference except view-warping when player is inside water compared to outside.



All new features work with all maps (map independent):

• Added adjustable floating particles into liquids: water/slime/lava. You can choose between 2 effects: dirt/bubbles
• When moving/swimming in liquids (water/slime/lava) players view gets tinted darker (blue-ish/green-ish/redd-ish)

Updated features:

• Flashlight will automatically shine brigther underwater when cvar: "underwater_tinted_view" is enabled
• The automatic rain-effect feature: "flying_dust_type 4" will no longer spawn inside water

This clip shows the floating dirt particles:
Unfortunately there is no more option to view my clips at 720p as there used to before.
That makes the clip almost useless due to the small particles. I am sorry.
Anyway, you can of course download the update and try and see it in your Quake yourself (Download link below)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E767dc_UdCY[/ame]


This clip shows the tinted/darkened view underwater:
The clip was made in WIP status. I adjusted the color a little bit since then.
Slime and Lava have different properties now as well.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVbJkt7ZOdo[/ame]

This picture shows the underwater bubbles (surrounding the player).



DOWNLOAD


I did not want to make the visuals too intrusive by default. You can adjust their intensity to your personal likings if you want. You can have either one of the effects or both or mix them if you prefer in-game.

Have fun and best wishes,
Seven

[Mugwump]

(with my bad english)

You keep saying that. You should stop depreciating yourself. You may not be fluent but you already speak a much better english than many native english speakers.

I just sent a pm with both shader powered shotguns to you.

Thanks! I'll study those.

We do not speak about coding here. That is just a text file and a texture.

A text file that is made of code, not plain text readable by "normal" human beings.

Or you will chew more than you can swallow (if this is the correct english phrase).

Close enough. That would actually be "bite more than you can chew".

Please, we should not talk about those weapon effects in this thread anymore as they are not SMC depending and would derail this threat. If you need further assistance, please create a new threat in the "Help section" or via pm. Thank you.

Duly noted. Off-topic over.

Thanks for all your technical explanations. I don't know what n00bs like me would do without people like you.

[Seven]

I don't seem to have any shader in my weapons-equip pack, only models and textures.

Hello bfg666,

What I was trying to say (with my bad english) is, that you can add this effect to any weapon model.

Even if I could find that shader, I would still need some more explanation, as I currently have no idea how to edit shaders. Can I just open one in a text editor like a .ent file?

I just sent a pm with both shader powered shotguns to you.
Please use them as the samples I spoke about in my above post. And add a similar shader to your other weapons if you want to. Yes, .shader files are only .txt files. You can use the same cubemaps for all weapons as they are weapon independent. Only create the _reflect textures as described in above post and edit the new shader paths + file names accordingly.

Which one is that? _gloss? Besides the actual "real" textures, I have _bump, _gloss and _norm textures in my pack.

The diffuse texture is the "real" texture as you call them

By the way, don't bumps and norms basically do the same thing? I thought norms were better looking bumps, I don't see why both would be used at the same time.

.bump textures are simple height textures. while .norm textures have additional information like alpha channel. If both textures are present, .bump texture will be skipped by the engine !

Perhaps, and I understand and fully support the philosophy behind "teaching someone to fish vs. giving him a fish"

That is exactly correct. You have zero benefit when someone says: "I do this for you, just because I can". In the end you didnt learn anything. Learning from samples is the exact best way and most effectiv. That is why I sent you the pm.
Please, we should not talk about those weapon effects in this thread anymore as they are not SMC depending and would derail this threat. If you need further assistance, please create a new threat in the "Help section" or via pm. Thank you.

especially when it comes to coding with that weird alien syntax full of {s and other cryptic symbols... I've just spent all of yesterday afternoon configuring my SMC, I would never have taken that time if I wasn't currently unemployed.

We do not speak about coding here. That is just a text file and a texture.

But regarding the smc_config.cfg:
I think that you did this for v5.30 smc_config.cfg. But now you want to update to v5.41. ---> You do NOT need to go through this all agin. There is a much better solution for you. I explained it here. Please read it carefully.
And do not jump from v5.30 to v5.50 beta3 directly. First you have to settle v5.41.
Once this is done, move one to v5.50 beta 3. Or you will chew more than you can swallow (if this is the correct english phrase).

Most important that you have a correct v5.41 smc_config.cfg, edited to your personal liking. Then we talk again.

Best wishes,
Seven

[Mugwump]

Yes, sure.

I don't seem to have any shader in my weapons-equip pack, only models and textures.

The weapon you see in the clip is Ruohis supershotgun.

Yeah, I noticed it looked identical, just with some extra shininess.

Everybody can do this, as it is just a copy/paste work for ALL weapon models.

Even if I could find that shader, I would still need some more explanation, as I currently have no idea how to edit shaders. Can I just open one in a text editor like a .ent file?

Just take the diffuse texture

Which one is that? _gloss? Besides the actual "real" textures, I have _bump, _gloss and _norm textures in my pack. By the way, don't bumps and norms basically do the same thing? I thought norms were better looking bumps, I don't see why both would be used at the same time.

You know, modding is incredibly easy when you have a sample in front of you.

Perhaps, and I understand and fully support the philosophy behind "teaching someone to fish vs. giving him a fish", but people don't always have the time it takes to learn, especially when it comes to coding with that weird alien syntax full of {s and other cryptic symbols... I've just spent all of yesterday afternoon configuring my SMC, I would never have taken that time if I wasn't currently unemployed.

[Seven]

everyone else who are using weapon packs with dpreflectcube shaders together with current darkplaces builds.

Does that include Ruohi's?

Yes, sure.

The weapon you see in the clip is Ruohis supershotgun.
I also made the same for Ruohis shotgun at that time.
Click this youtube link to see both of them in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J9QI0MPK10

Everybody can do this, as it is just a copy/paste work for ALL weapon models.
The shader is independent to the actual weapon model.

You only need 1 additional _reflect texture. That is all.
And this _reflect texture is even very easy to create. Just take the diffuse texture and delete (= black out) all parts that should not have the reflect effect. Save, done.


You know, modding is incredibly easy when you have a sample in front of you. A sample of something is all you need to produce variations of it.
Creating the first sample is a hundred times harder, as you have to invent/develop something new.

So, if you want this effect on your weapons as well, just do it. It is just copy/paste...

Best wishes,
Seven

[Mugwump]

no none of the available weapon-packs include such shaders.

Thanks. So I can safely update, then. I think I remember reading about said rampage.

[talisa]

everyone else who are using weapon packs with dpreflectcube shaders together with current darkplaces builds

Does that include Ruohis'?

no none of the available weapon-packs include such shaders.

the only weapon-pack thats affected is one by someone who i wont mention,
who long ago went on a rampage and removed all links to anything he created.

to prevent the person from coming back to rage about re-posting "his creations",
i havent made any mirrors to the stuff he made and shared

.

so dont worry, you wont have any issues with weapons in the 2016 DP builds


.

I like the stupid barrel test! Lol

yeah me too, thats why i also added reflect to the SSG that i collaborated on with BloodShot
and why i also added reflect to plague's SNG myself

its a basic effect which doesnt cause any performance-drop but it looks so fancy and adds so much