FTE Vanilla Option

[Baker]

I think the original explosions look super silly.

I can't stand the Quake explosions if I spend time thinking about them, but they fade from scope when playing. Vore explosions fall in same category.

[r00k]

wait wait, i gotta defend my friend s_explod.spr
it was an animated sprite in the style of D00m. It had that POW comic-book look to it. It was expected all games used sprites for explosions...
to make it look better stack a few sprites overlapping randomly, use alpha blending, fullbrights, and a little rotation. 100% better.

i dont like the original particles that are the same size no matter how close or far from them they are look.

Code: Select all

		// hack a scale up to keep particles from disapearing

[Spike]

alpha blending is nasty because it wrecks havoc with depth testing
on the other hand, alpha testing rocks for 1000 sprites in a confined space, at least when you can get away with otherwise-opaque sprites (side note: alpha test doesn't exist in gles2, you need to use the discard keyword instead).
the safest way around depth/blending issues is to make the explosion fully additive (sprite+particles), then you don't need to care about the depth buffer at all, just disable depth writing (but not testing) and everything works out okay in the end even with stuff smoothly fading out.
of course, then it isn't quake...

the original particles being the same size regardless of distance is a feature! it prevents issues with excessive overdraw when the particles are close, although it often makes effects look silly far off, but again, the advantage is that you can more easily see where you hit, and if you hit something that bleeds in the process.

yeah, the vanilla explosions are not photo-realistic, but very little of vanilla actually is. with nearest sampling and square particles, they at least match everything else. they suit the world. or maybe I've just seen them far too often such that I no longer even look.

[Baker]

wait wait, i gotta defend my friend s_explod.spr

The sprite is fine, in WinQuake or GLQuake I don't like the explosion particles. I haven't actually seen a replacement for the explosion particles I liked either

At least that would work in GLQuake or WinQuake and look like it belonged.

[In contrast as an example, the particles ancient DarkPlaces 1.05ish used for rocket/grenade smoke trails fit right in with Quake.]

[mankrip]

Fair or not, there are plenty of people out there that think of Quake as the original levels and the Mission Packs and don't even know what a custom map is because they think of the game as what came on the CD and aren't all that interested in user-made content. And the more have the mindset of wanting to experience the original levels

Finally someone who understands this.