InsideQC Forums

What is IP?

OpenQuartz was/is so damn ugly.

Intellectual Property
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Property

dm4 was easy to retexture

Bump.

Has anyone ever made fixed versions of the ID1 maps after their GPL release? With fixes like proper texture alignment, non-solid skies and the like.

Releasing binaries of the fixed versions of the registered episodes' maps could be problematic due to some of their textures being not under the GPL, but for the shareware episode this wouldn't be a problem. And the fixed registered maps could be released in source form only.

Thats an idea "in source form". Tonic released some DM maps and ExmX maps they play alot on QW. Like last week but they are flat textured. Most exmx maps dont have much replay value in SP for me.... But thats just how i play singleplayer games once then done.

No, this hasn't been done. Not least because it would be more work than it's worth - it's not "just" aligning all textures; there're also many instances of awkward brushwork and off-grid stuff/improper dimensions as well as other things that could or should be smoothed out. Moreover, even if the textures were aligned, the maps would still look dated and ugly, so in my view an additional detail pass would be needed or desirable, however subtle (a few trims and such). But so far hardly anyone has used the map sources for anything worthwhile anyway, and I doubt proper sources are going to change that.

"Some" textures not being GPL... like, all of them. And the first episode being shareware doesn't change anything in this respect. You're required to use the registered version of the game in order to play custom maps anyway. I hope this is not another of those attempts or fantasies about a "free quake"...

Non-solid skies is a compiler thing, by the way. Doesn't require and changes in the maps.

How do non-solid skies work, anyway? I've never understood that.

re free quake: I think I have to agree that a free quake just isn't possible (no matter how you slice it, any content would still be derivative, or it wouldn't be quake).

However, I'm pretty certain that doesn't mean that completely free content can't be produced to work with a quake engine: I believe that requirement went out the window (intentionally or not*) when the engine was GPLed.

*It seems to be quite intentional (bolding by me):

q1source/readme.txt wrote:All of the Quake data files remain copyrighted and licensed under the
original terms, so you cannot redistribute data from the original game, but if
you do a true total conversion, you can create a standalone game based on
this code.

taniwha wrote:How do non-solid skies work, anyway? I've never understood that.

I didn't think it was possible with standard Quake -- hitscans and projectiles use the rendering hull for collision detection but there is still a polygon there with the sky texture on it.

The functionality does exist in standard Quake. I can't explain it in technical terms, but it's something about 'free' or floating sky volumes that don't touch the outside, which are then treated similar to water volumes. There's at least one instance in stock Quake where this was used: the Q shadow in Gloom Keep. Newer compilers enabled this behavior to work for all sky brushes (front surface allows bullets to go through, back surface is solid, but removes rockets).

aye, sky is non-solid like lava or water are both non-solid.
the qc calls pointcontents and simply removes rockets etc if they impact within sky volumes.
buggy qbsps convert such sky volumes to CONTENT_SOLID instead of CONTENT_SKY. there's probably some special code to fill water/slime/lava but not sky when filling the outside of the map, but that's probably all that's needed.

It is not easily done to "just realign the textures" in the GPL maps, because the textures don't fit the brushes; it is actually easier to rebuild them from scratch with proper texture alignment, and then you basically have "remake quake" on your hands.

This was the original motivation for the Remake Quake project. It didn't work out so well.

taniwha wrote:re free quake: I think I have to agree that a free quake just isn't possible (no matter how you slice it, any content would still be derivative, or it wouldn't be quake).

a Free q2 is more possible because of the external WAL files, but getting a WAL and MD2 pipeline all set up is very troublesome.