What do i need to code engines?

[machi]

Hello!

I wanted to know what do i need to code quake engines, what programs, source, etc
i dont have any experience on C, just coded quakec.
anywhere where i could find some tuts nice the ones here but for quake engines?

[Entar]

Quake Standards Group -- http://www.quakesrc.org
Very handy place, includes tutorials, forums, and more

As for what you'll need...
MSVC++6.0 is what I use, but I hear it's possible with other compilers. Then you're going to need a code base (Cleansrc isn't bad, if you're starting at square one, but if you want to start from an existing engine, try QMB, DarkPlaces and Telejano) - and of course, you're going to need Quake1, but seeing as you've done some QC coding, I'll assume you have that already...

[Spike]

what you need to code quake engines.

1: a logical mind.
2: a C compiler
3: an idea of what you want to do with it
4: knoledge of the engine in question
5: a good starting point.

1 I can do nothing to help with.
2 can be solved for free with mingw (though you'll need to figure out how to use it first). Some engines compile with dev-cpp which is nice and free. msvc6 is the compiler of choice, though some loonys use msvc.net (of various sorts)
3 coding without direction takes far longer to get anywhere with.
4 you need to know what to change before you change it. the people on quakesrc.org are better than this place for engine stuff.
5 pick a nice, clean engine that doesn't have (much) convoluted meaningless, pointless or buggy code. It's much easier to code things if you don't have to fix other peoples bugs first.

[Sajt]

I suggest starting with stock WinQuake/GLQuake... Because they have things you can optimize/make better as practice and to gain familiarity with the engine. For example today in a project of mine I optimized the funny-bad software Draw_Fill function and made software Draw_Pic and Draw_TransPic able to draw half-off the screen without crashing. I also added support for multiple .wad loading, so i could do variable-width fonts which are each in their own .wad file (which I did). Also made it so you can draw strings with these fonts in any colour.

I even managed to break the GL build somehow (I am working on a machine without a 3D card, so I just floppy-disked it over to one that had one just to test, but it didn't work, it crashes before even getting to the console at startup ) (Any chance this could have something to do with the GL 'scrap'? And the fact that I have wads with about 100 tiny images in them? I don't know much about GL and haven't looked at the GL code much)

Sorry about going off, but I did 2 things, give you an example of how to start, and asked for desperate help!!

[machi]

thanks a lot to everyone! ill try to get started form what you said sajt, but it stills does look a bit advacend to me. does anyone know if there is someting like the QC manual, where i can get familiarized with the engine ? thanks!

[Entar]

You might want to take a look at the Quake Wiki - it has some interesting information on Quake stuff, including engine modding...

http://wiki.quakesrc.org

[FrikaC]

You might want to take a look at the Quake Wiki - it has some interesting information on Quake stuff, including engine modding...

http://wiki.quakesrc.org

It needs more. Write some.

[Entar]

One of these days I'm just going to take a half-hour or something and put as much into that wiki as possible...