Know what i would like to see?

[mh]

Just repeating for emphasis.

Using any Half-Life format is a bad idea. It doesn't matter that it's an old game, it doesn't matter that the formats are easier to work with, and it doesn't matter that they haven't yet shut down mod X for using Half-Life formats; Valve's SDK prohibits use of their tools with anything aside from Half-Life, and prohibits generation of content for anything aside from Half-Life.

Wanna use Worldcraft/Hammer to build a map for use in a Q1 engine? Tough shit, you can't. Wanna use the HL compile tools to compile that map for Q1? Tough shit, you can't. Wanna use any of the HL model or sprite tools for Q1? Tough shit, you can't. It sucks, it seems unfair, but it is still an enforcable license and Valve can shut you down if they want. If they feel there's damages in it for them, they can go for damages.

Now, let's kill the Half-Life format obsession already and think about formats that are happy to Rock in the Free World, eh?

Half-Life SDK License

[Baker]

I think people will continually think about the Half-Life map format and possibly the model formats until some sort of equivalent comes down the Q1 pipeline as a standard.

It isn't a bad thing that people think of stuff, they look at the quality of the tools and the formats created by Valve and wish something truly open source like Quake had those.

And since Quake and Half-Life aren't too dissimilar, it is the equivalent of looking out the window and seeing the neighbor's house and thinking about how to improve.

(Btw ... Worldcraft can be used legally to build Q1 maps, even 3.3. The Hammer editor prohibits it, and like you stated it really is just better to avoid all the Valve formats. What needs to happen is modification to the Q1 compile tools for a QSB 2.0 Quake map format that supports, say, rotation + multithread + your lit stuff + hint/skip/detail + independently paletted textures plus some form of modified QER or NetRadiant tailored to build maps in the new format.)

[scar3crow]

Did you mean to type Value all those times you typed Valve? That is really confusing, opinions of Valve aside.

mh, thanks for the heads up to the thread - I didn't realize Valve were even that dickish, and I already had a low opinion of them.

[Downsider]

And where does using 3rd party, open source compiling tools stand? Is the format itself considered part of the SDK?

[mh]

And where does using 3rd party, open source compiling tools stand? Is the format itself considered part of the SDK?

You'd really need to ask a lawyer about that.

[frag.machine]

And where does using 3rd party, open source compiling tools stand? Is the format itself considered part of the SDK?

To be 10% sure: if you have the steam client installed try to download the HL SDK and read the license, but it's very likely they forbid one to use their formats outside an Valve engine.

[Electro]

What about the other 90%?

Who cares, the formats aren't great anyway. Much better options are available.

[Downsider]

What about the other 90%?

Who cares, the formats aren't great anyway. Much better options are available.

I just like being able to go to FPSBanana and get some placeholder art within seconds, even though most of it is horrible.

[Baker]

Did you mean to type Value all those times you typed Valve? That is really confusing, opinions of Valve aside.

No clue how that happened. Maybe spell check or grammar check in whatever browser did that to me. I was using someone else's computer and it had a small screen. Anywho ... corrected.

And where does using 3rd party, open source compiling tools stand? Is the format itself considered part of the SDK?

Zoner tools and all the Half-Life map compiling tools may be open source, but they are bound by the Valve SDK license (it is in the readme --- the Zoner Tools are partially GPL only -- enough so that thinking of them as GPL is way wrong). Like MH said, if you want something to be really clean --- and anything in an app store should be --- you'd be wise to avoid anything associated with Valve.

Like MH said ... "Valve's SDK prohibits use of their tools with anything aside from Half-Life, and prohibits generation of content for anything aside from Half-Life."

IMHO + IANAL

Most people are using HLBSP for the additional texture palette capabilities. Since you've been through the motions to add this to your engine, you could modify the Quake compile tools for this kind of capability. Or just side step it and use replacement textures without reworking the map format at all.

[Downsider]

I don't plan on doing anything Quake-related in the AppStore at the moment, but I might in the future. I like mobile development. I wouldn't be stupid enough to use any licensed formats there, either.

[frag.machine]

What about the other 90%?

100%

[Swift]

And where does using 3rd party, open source compiling tools stand? Is the format itself considered part of the SDK?

You'd really need to ask a lawyer about that.

There is historical precedent allowing clean room back-engineering. Presumably Ender employed these methods when he released his version of the HL MDL headers and rendering code.

http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale- ... gineering/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering

Valves EULA can prohibit what-ever it likes. It wouldn't necessarily hold up. If the code is GPL'ed, then it's GPL'ed.

If the tools and model formats can be clean room reverse engineered with no infection from non-GPL'ed Valve code, then the HL formats are completely free to be used. I'm sorry MH.

Now, that said... I don't know why you would want to at all. Come on, are you retarded? 24bit textures? WAD3s are shitty, and Half-lifes SPRs look shitty.

[Spike]

if you could copyright a file format, microsoft would have done so long ago.
you can patent ways that it can be used/created though, and copyright still applies to any tools/source you(valve) provide. but the format itself is fine to reimplement, so long as you don't violate copyright when implementing it.

Using valve's content+tools generally requires violating the copyright of valve's content, sdk, etc. So it'll never be perfect. Its fun to do stuff like this for educational reasons, but at the end of the day, its pointless to do so unless you also want to write some tools as well, in which case its more practical to use md3 or whatever. q2bsp has all the advantages of hlbsp too, without any different hull size problems.

[r00k]

Hmm, interesting, so an engine supporting q2bsp > hl1bsp.
Would supporting the q2bsp be as simple to implement?
Can hl1 maps be converted to q2bsp?
Can WorldCraft be used for the conversion?

[mh]

Advantages of Q2 BSP:

• Surface flags, detail brushes, etc.
• Areaportals - doors can be vis occluders.
• Format is fully GPL-compatible.
• No fixed-sized hull crap.
• Rotation, moving textures, translucency, etc are fully native.
• Others.

Disadvantages of Q2 BSP:

• 8-bit texture format with shared palette.
• WAL files may make packing and distribution a little more complex than some would like.
• Doesn't go far enough in extending certain limits.
• Implementation in an engine may be slightly more complex than HL1 BSP.
• Others.

Right, it's not the case that "zOmg Q2 BSP iz teh rOx0r" either. It's all about return on investment for the work you do. HL1 BSP basically offers nothing that is not already a solved problem in Q1 BSP, and puts you on shaky legal grounds while doing so.

Tomaz put it better than anyone else; implementing HL1 BSP was done and dusted in many source ports 10 years ago. Where's the rash of HL1 BSP format maps? Where are all the cool releases using it? Nowhere, because that particular emperor has no clothes.

In order to be successful you have to offer mappers something that they don't already have now. Something that is of value to them, something that they all know deep down that they want and need to enable them to create cool content. HL1 BSP doesn't do that; instead it leaves them struggling with the same problems as before and makes mandatory a few things that many mappers are dubious about to begin with.