Super-Modding - "Rising Tide Lifts all boats"

[Baker]

I think MH and Spike have set the plate for this. The concept of applying changes globally to large set of engines.

My example implementation will be the availability later this week of several modified engines with Spike's WinQuake CSQC modification.

I may be injecting new features into these engines as well.

Probable super-modding target engines:

aguirRe's Enhanced GLQuake
TyrQuake (if I can get it to compile on Windows; I think it will).
JoeQuake
FitzQuake
ProQuake (an automatic, since I maintain it).
Stock GLQuake/WinQuake (most likely, but not for sure).
Possibly ... PSP and FlashQuake.

The idea of super-modding is to take an important modification and implement it "globally".

Like what this could mean is builds of several engines with CSQC support, video mode switching if they don't have it, important features standardization (AVI capture), modding extras (r_viewmodel offset, MP3 support, Half-Life map support), bug fixes (clock fix, whatever else) and SDL versions where they don't exist and *native* Mac OSX builds (I don't have Linux at the moment).

In the future this could other things like md2 or md3 support.

[Team Xlink]

That is awesome!

Its a wonderful idea!


This is setting it as a standard, which will help greatly.

[ceriux]

I think MH and Spike have set the plate for this. The concept of applying changes globally to large set of engines.

My example implementation will be the availability later this week of several modified engines with Spike's WinQuake CSQC modification.

I may be injecting new features into these engines as well.

Probable super-modding target engines:

aguirRe's Enhanced GLQuake
TyrQuake (if I can get it to compile on Windows; I think it will).
JoeQuake
FitzQuake
ProQuake (an automatic, since I maintain it).
Stock GLQuake/WinQuake (most likely, but not for sure).
Possibly ... PSP and FlashQuake.

The idea of super-modding is to take an important modification and implement it "globally".

Like what this could mean is builds of several engines with CSQC support, video mode switching if they don't have it, important features standardization (AVI capture), modding extras (r_viewmodel offset, MP3 support, Half-Life map support), bug fixes (clock fix, whatever else) and SDL versions where they don't exist and *native* Mac OSX builds (I don't have Linux at the moment).

In the future this could other things like md2 or md3 support.

what about basic half-life.mdl support? its another attachment type model and its really easy to compile.

[mh]

On this theme, I hope that my first complete Direct3D 8 port of another engine will be released this week. The - ahem - victim chosen for this honour is going to be JoeQuake, and it will be known as "DirectJoe".

"DirectFitz" should follow at some point in the near future - it's mostly done, just needs some small parts to be completed.

"DirectQRack" will also follow reasonably soon - it's about 90% to 95% done.

"DirectPlaces" may even be an option at some point.

[Baker]

In the future this could other things like md2 or md3 support.

what about basic half-life.mdl support? its another attachment type model and its really easy to compile.

How would Quake's network code animate, say, a Half-Life player model?

I'm just saying that things aren't always as automagical as just supporting a format.

"DirectPlaces" may even be an option at some point.

Hehe

[mh]

Aaaaand (drum-roll maestro): http://quakeone.com/mh/

DirectJoe is public.

By the way, Baker is downplaying his role in making this happen; he deserves massive credit for his work testing earlier incarnations of this.

[avirox]

If only someone in the quakeworld community would follow suit! I have an unfinished version of ezquake I started working on porting spike's winquake CSQC to. Unfortunately I never got past the netcode differences so I kinda gave up. Good luck with this project however!

[ceriux]

In the future this could other things like md2 or md3 support.

what about basic half-life.mdl support? its another attachment type model and its really easy to compile.

How would Quake's network code animate, say, a Half-Life player model?

I'm just saying that things aren't always as automagical as just supporting a format.

"DirectPlaces" may even be an option at some point.

Hehe

im not exactly sure, but its in a couple different engines already. maybe ask one of the people who already have it in their engine =)?

[MeTcHsteekle]

i think i saw fte have it.

[ceriux]

i know fte has it.

[Baker]

If someone can dig up the mechanics for it and how it can be supported in an engine. I'm not talking the model format per se, but how the netcode supports animating it.

I'm not saying I'm not interested in that, I'm saying I have a finite amount of time and want to clear the queue in December and right now I'm not going to be doing time consuming research.

My list of stuff I want to do this month, in order of priority.

1. CSQC-capable engines are top priority. Spike put a ton of work into it. This has to happen NOW. So barring something unforeseen it will happen this week.

2. Direct3D8 is a priority. MH invested a ton of time into that. Due to the ease of implementation (blows my mind! Thanks MH!) this isn't a time consuming.

3. CURL serverbrowser in ProQuake/Qrack. ProQuake's will happen tonight. Paves way for the possibility of eventual built-in Quake Injector-like capabilities (download, install, play). No I am not trying steal Spirit's thunder --- he'd be involved.

4. PSP engine initial revisions. Since I can compile for the PSP now, I am getting one.

I have some other stuff I want to do too. I have a "2D Easy Mapper" I am working on. Makes a simple 2 dimension map using 3 dimensional pieces.

Part of me wants to think about implementing and writing up a tutorial for a texture manager like FitzQuake and also part of me would like to see about a test combine of GLQuake and Quakeworld. I have some other strange experiments too.

[Baker]

Aaaaand (drum-roll maestro): http://quakeone.com/mh/

DirectJoe is public.

By the way, Baker is downplaying his role in making this happen; he deserves massive credit for his work testing earlier incarnations of this.

The DirectEngine series is an incredible achievement.

Who cares about credit when you can have the peace of mind knowing engines run on more machines and setups!

[metlslime]

What's the benefit of Direct3D over OpenGL, by the way? I thought the only OGL features that were broken on Card X were the things that D3D didn't support anyway, meaning, if you can write a wrapper around the feature, surely the OGL call would also work correctly?

[Baker]

What's the benefit of Direct3D over OpenGL, by the way? I thought the only OGL features that were broken on Card X were the things that D3D didn't support anyway, meaning, if you can write a wrapper around the feature, surely the OGL call would also work correctly?

If someone has bad or non-functional OpenGL drivers, often DirectX works.

In that event, instead of the person having the problem being frustrated, you can often solve the problem instantly.

Many times, they don't care "how it runs" but more that it does run.

I've used the "old" Direct3D build to help frustrated users get to play Quake maybe 25 times. No doubt it gets used far more than that because it comes in the ProQuake 4 download.

So the main benefit in my head is it provides just one more way for users to self-help and solve an annoying problem quickly.

[metlslime]

Ah, so it's a question not of the card capabilities, but the quality of the drivers. That makes sense.