Questions regarding FTEQW

[Ghost_Fang]

Thinking about using FTEQW as my engine for a PC only (yea, you read that right, no PSP! ) game I'm going to do/attempt. Nothing personal LordHavoc, but I gotta have dem HLMDLs and there a few things about FTEQW that it does I like a bit better. So I have a few questions to get me started:

1. Does FTEQW have a chase_active/chase_cam, or some sort of thirdperson capability?

2. Is there a bit better documentation than or in addition to the wiki on how to use various commands and features?

3. Could somone point me towards good/proper documentation on how to use and make good use of:
a. HLMDLs?
b. Q3 BSP and its features and how-to's regarding rotating brushes and various Q3 only features

That should me started, I'm sure i'll have a few more questions once I go farther down the rabbit hole.

[Spike]

1. Not directly, most chasecam mods should work fine, just don't hack the view angles.
Alternatively you can implement a chasecam via csqc, but its more involved and there's no examples around.
I've never been keen on the idea of adding a chasecam directly into the engine as a) it breaks mods that already have chasecams. b) it can be used to see around corners or through walls in extreeme cases.

2. there's a pr_dumpplatform console command which will write out a file. Said file contains lots of builtins and things that you can link against. Its basically the equivelent of dpextensions.qc but doesn't have many... well, any... comments.
for features that are mutually supported by both fte and dp, you can just peek at the comments in dpextensions.qc to get an idea of the extension.
Or you can poke me on irc.

3a. HLMDLs have not been tested for quite some time...
With csqc and the base* and bonecontrol* fields (see pr_dumpplatform), you should be able to get animations that match those seen in halflife - separate leg/torso animations coupled with waist twisting and mouth control. What there isn't any support for is obtaining waveform information from audio files for lip syncing, but you should be able to get some mouthing working.

3b. Q3BSP objects rotate around origin brushes. Shove in an origin brush to define the object's origin and it'll rotate around that by just setting .avelocity.
Q3 shaders should generally work, although you can get extra fun stuff from creating glsl programs to go with your shaders - there's a r_dumpshaders command to dump out the built in shaders, and some distort.pk3 file on the svn that serves as an example of how to invoke it ('program foo' directive inside the shader, gives some weird distort effect for explosions).

[Baker]

2. Is there a bit better documentation than or in addition to the wiki on how to use various commands and features?

Looks at this page: http://fteqw.com/wiki/index.php?title=QuakeC_Extensions

Then open dpextensions.qc (dpextensions.qc) will tell you what half of them are.

b. Q3 BSP and its features and how-to's regarding rotating brushes and various Q3 only features

That should me started, I'm sure i'll have a few more questions once I go farther down the rabbit hole.

Google of Quake 3 mapping tutorials. Includes YouTube vids. http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=q ... 8&oe=UTF-8

I've never been keen on the idea of adding a chasecam directly into the engine as a) it breaks mods that already have chasecams.

That is annoying in particular.

[Ghost_Fang]

1. Alright I might just learn some CSQC for this, but I'll try out SSQC for as long as I can . Where or what chasecam tutorial is the "non-hacky" one, aka the proper chasecam?

2.I know it supports a ton of extensions, as seen here: http://fteqw.com/wiki/index.php?title=QuakeC_Extensions (even before baker linked it to me )

3a. Now that you mention lip syncing, I just remembered what question 4 was going to be, i drew a blank while posting this the first time.

3b. Ok good, I figured and was hoping it was origin brushes, not hipnotic rotation methods....


Question 4:
Any feature or features and/or methods to go about doing decent cut scenes? Such as camera options/settings pausing player interaction etc.

Google of Quake 3 mapping tutorials. Includes YouTube vids. http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=q ... 8&oe=UTF-8

Hahaha thanks I didn't know if anyone knew a good link off hand for a little shortcut before I hit up google

[Baker]

Question 4:
Any feature or features and/or methods to go about doing decent cut scenes? Such as camera options/settings pausing player interaction etc.

Zerstorer: QuakeC ... http://quake-1.com/quakec-gallery/zerstoerer-devkit.zip

The mod itself to see it:

http://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/zer.html (w/ download)

http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/retro ... html?p=177

[dr_mabuse]

Question 4:
Any feature or features and/or methods to go about doing decent cut scenes? Such as camera options/settings pausing player interaction etc.

My mod is using this method for creating cutscenes:

http://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/vision.html

I am not 100% sure, but i think its the same like the one from Zerstörer.