InsideQC Forums

Trick-or-Treaters!


Play some huge scary maps for Halloween in updated 8-bit graphics. qbism Super 8 engine now supports big maps! Download includes the latest engine, handy shortcuts to several great mods with big maps, and pcx format skyboxes. Hopefully I've included everything in the pak it needs to run.

UPDATE: Get the latest release at http://qbism.com

Try it with the following mods, all available at Quaddicted:
Warpspasm
SOE Indian Summer
The Marcher Fortress
A Roman Wilderness of Pain
Orlmap Series 2

Wait until you get to the 'use the lits and make colored lighting' part!

Newsed.

I'm not sure why, but this screenshot is insanely awesome to me.

hello qbism,

Just tired this out and i must say this engine is pretty spectacular.

I went through a few e1 maps and noticed one thing though; that the enemies and power ups and other models like that are translucent most of the time [sometimes they're not for a second]. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be like that [i get the feeling it's not], and I can't find how to turn it off.

Everything else seems to be fine.

lits and make colored lighting - Yez, iz 2000 and nobod will play a map w/o QSG colored static lights minimum! P.S. WinQuake is dead.
MK discussed colored light in 8bit in his blog

screen shot - Floating 'Great Pumpkins' in Warpspasm. Noclip photo shoot!

unintended transparency - I couldn't duplicate it, but my id1 folder needs cleaning. I'm trying to think of anything missing from the included pak or a .cfg setting that could cause it.

Figured out the transparency bug. Can occur when progs.dat doesn't "know" about alpha. The trick is to set default alpha to 1 unless it is intentionally set. Can take another page from FitzQ protocol here.
BTW, moving closer to FitzQ protocol but will be some deviations. For example, to support additional effects and DP_modelflags, it's required to send a long rather than a byte for the effects.

Fixed transparency issue. Updated exe and source:
UPDATE: Get the latest release at http://qbism.com

Throw some ordered dither or error diffusion on that skybox. It does downconvert the RGB TGAs on load right?

leileilol wrote:It does downconvert the RGB TGAs on load right?

This is one of those things that everyone talks about but no one has ever done, AFAIK.

And some dithering and/or noise is definitely in order.

The ideal situation would be something like:
Create a generic jpg/tga/png loader that could replace ANY texture. Throw in a few menu sliders that control dither and color adjustments. Add a command to 'bake' resulting 8-bit textures into a new pak.

qbism wrote:no one has ever done

I believe Spike did it in FTEQW when he was still beating around software (there's also md3->mdl on the fly in software but only concerns one surface and is tagless. Not the best support, though I wish Rich or Sajt could do it better for software). The software renderer is officially retired in FTEQW's development version so you'll have to steal I MEAN study 3343

it's a shame almost none of the FTEQW features have been backported to NQ software engines.

TGA texture loading is one of the things I've stopped halfway through because there are more important features to finish, and I don't think I'll finish it before the next release since it isn't a critical feature.

Basicly, Quake 2 has some code for loading TGA images, but it doesn't interface with the rest of the code like the PCX loading code does, so I'm rewriting it.

Is there a way I can make the current weapon and monsters opaque? Not being able to see monsters half of the time is a pain in the ass.

dreadlorde wrote:Is there a way I can make the current weapon and monsters opaque?

Have you install the update mentioned above?
Fixed transparency issue. Updated exe and source:
UPDATE: Get the latest release at http://qbism.com

Ok, I updated to the newest version and that does fix things. My monitor's native resolution is 1366 x 768, which is butchered in qbism, see here for what I'm talking about. I also noticed some messed up textures in e1m1, here is an example.

ps: qbism reverts to 640x480 when trying to run marcher. Any attempts to change the screen resolution.

Did you set up a custom res in windows display settings to support your monitor? 1366 doesn't sound like a native graphics card size, so I'm guessing the engine is not supporting the custom res feature.

I've also noticed those weird textures here and all over one of the Zerstorer maps. I wonder if other SW engines have same issue? Any relationship to re-vising map? (transparent water patch).

I have not observed any resolution issue with Marcher... tried copying a working config from another gamedir?