is this code refering to mirrors as reflections in quake?

[ceriux]

i was just wondering or is it something else? if anyone would mind letting me know im sure there's plenty of people who know more about this than i do.

http://www.quake-1.com/docs/quakesrc.org/96.html

[Baker]

i was just wondering or is it something else? if anyone would mind letting me know im sure there's plenty of people who know more about this than i do.

http://www.quake-1.com/docs/quakesrc.org/96.html

Load up GL ProQuake 4 or DX8 ProQuake 4 and go to the start map's easy hall. Type r_mirroralpha 0.5 in the console. There is only a single texture supported in GLQuake for the mirror effect, it's that one.



You will see the above.

IF your video card supports it. My understanding is that ATI cards don't support that at least under OpenGL.

Aside from original GLQuake, I'm not too sure what other engines support r_mirroralpha. I'm kind of sentimental about original GLQuake and was like "Wow!" at the time (1999 or so for me, maybe early 2000) and I wanted this feature in ProQuake.

/Ha! I was using DX8 ProQuake and as I was typing in the console, I didn't really know whether or not the Direct 3D 8.1 wrapper MH wrote was going to support this. MH was thorough!

[ceriux]

IF i implemented this, how would i apply the reflection to specific textures?

[Baker]

IF i implemented this, how would i apply the reflection to specific textures?

The texture name is hardcoded. I don't remember the texture name, but just look for anything "r_mirroralpha" in the source and in the vicinity you'll find where it checks for the hard-coded texture name.

And then you could change it so every texture that starts with "mirror_" uses the effect. Or however you choose to do it.

Code: Select all

if (!strncmp(texturename, "mirror_", 7)) {
          // Mirror texture
          // Do mirror stuffs!
          ....

[ceriux]

i might see if i can get reflections like this on water.

[Trickle]

this should be added to Qrack

[ceriux]

does anyone know the name of the texture that works as a mirror in id's wad?

[goldenboy]

Is it possible to have these textures somehow reflect light, too?

If you look at the RA room in dm6rq, the ceiling has these flames and angled copper plates above them - the idea behind that was that they are "medieval spotlights".

I can probably fake the effect later on, though :-/

Dunno if that sort of stuff is even possible in newer games

[Baker]

does anyone know the name of the texture that works as a mirror in id's wad?

gl_rmisc.c

Code: Select all

	mirrortexturenum = -1;
	for (i=0 ; i<cl.worldmodel->numtextures ; i++)
	{
		if (!cl.worldmodel->textures[i])
			continue;
		if (!strncmp(cl.worldmodel->textures[i]->name,"sky",3) )
			skytexturenum = i;
		if (!strncmp(cl.worldmodel->textures[i]->name,"window02_1",10) )
			mirrortexturenum = i;
 		cl.worldmodel->textures[i]->texturechain = NULL;
	}

[mh]

Be aware that Quake's mirror code is really something of a hack. Carmack himself said (in GLQuake's readme) that it's not very robust but cool to look at, and also it wasn't carried forward to Q2, so while it was a rather neat little feature for the time, it's more of a "hey, you can do this kind of thing" gimmick rather than an essential feature of the engine.

There are a lot of things you need to consider when doing any mirror support in a modern engine - the overhead of rendering everything at least twice (and from different viewpoints, so rooms the mapper has designed to be fast might suddenly become real slow), how do you resolve the problems that are going to happen when 2 (or more) mirrors are pointing at each other (try this in real life and see what I mean), properly applying the mirror texture to a heavily tesselated surface (which may have more than 1 plane) and so on.

[Wazat]

...how do you resolve the problems that are going to happen when 2 (or more) mirrors are pointing at each other (try this in real life and see what I mean)

Whenever I try that in real life, it creates an infinite loop and crashes the RLServer. I wake up the next morning and realize I've gone back in time, and have to repeat the day over again until I get it right, like in the movie Groundhog Day. Don't try it in real life!

[Baker]

Here is some code that more or less makes the above easily to single out with specific texture names on map load:

http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=20023

[Ranger366]

i was just wondering or is it something else? if anyone would mind letting me know im sure there's plenty of people who know more about this than i do.

http://www.quake-1.com/docs/quakesrc.org/96.html

Load up GL ProQuake 4 or DX8 ProQuake 4 and go to the start map's easy hall. Type r_mirroralpha 0.5 in the console. There is only a single texture supported in GLQuake for the mirror effect, it's that one.



You will see the above.

IF your video card supports it. My understanding is that ATI cards don't support that at least under OpenGL.

Aside from original GLQuake, I'm not too sure what other engines support r_mirroralpha. I'm kind of sentimental about original GLQuake and was like "Wow!" at the time (1999 or so for me, maybe early 2000) and I wanted this feature in ProQuake.

/Ha! I was using DX8 ProQuake and as I was typing in the console, I didn't really know whether or not the Direct 3D 8.1 wrapper MH wrote was going to support this. MH was thorough!

These HandSkins are awesome

[revelator]

can do it with any of the textures but the thing is hardcoded

could be interresting using some script method for setting the mirror flag on other windows.

[gnounc]

would be nice too to have the gun model be to the right for idle animation so it matches the reflection