Congrats on the release. I wonder when we'll see some RTX screenshots?

I think Q2 modding/mapping is primed for a comeback with all this Nvidia jazz online. 

... Q1 wouldn’t benefit from it as well? From the rendering side, they are virtuallly identical. Once we get to find out how that works in Q2 we’re essentially ready to go with Q1 😊 

Once we get to find out how that works in Q2 we’re essentially ready to go with Q1

Not quite. The community rejects anything that visually advances the Q1 rendering nowadays. There's little reason left for anyone to implement graphical advancements in Q1.

I'm still puzzled as to why Baker disappeared, but I remember there were some pretty nasty discussions involving him.

LordHavoc is hated by several people here.

MH stopped coding Q1 engines, and the overall reason for that IIRC is that he figured out that it became impossible to please people.

I don't know, but Q1 engine coding seems to be dead. And I'm not even mentioning the people who used to work on software-rendered engines.

The only coder left with the skills to pull that off seems to be Spike, but he doesn't have a graphics card capable of handling RTX.

Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic again. 

This is from around 2012, but probably qualifies as being on the recent side for Q2SP.
http://darraghcoy.com/project_quake_2_levels.html

Here's a playthrough I did a couple years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CFeGlBxj8U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yUYHFf03QI

And a stylized playthrough by (I assume) the author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxSjQXza1PA 

I'm still puzzled as to why Baker disappeared

He drunk posted about coop (no penis mapper thread) and was attacked mercilessly as a result.

I agree right now is bad for source ports. I don't agree we NEED an RTX Quake but it is fun to look at Q2's effects in full motion. 

... I’d love to see the one (and only) thing wrong, IMO, in Q1 fixed in RTX: proper sky boxes. 

Baker started a thread directly slagging off all current mappers for a completely false and ridiculous reason, then reappeared later on the thread posting the same gibberish. So of course people are going to take the piss (hardly merciless attacking). What on Earth do you expect?? If someone posts something utterly daft, they're going to get daft replies in response.


Also, Mankrip, I'm presuming you're drunk posting with the "community rejects any graphical advances in Quake rendering these days" gibberish. Do you mean the same community that has wholeheartedly embraced coloured lighting, fog, skyboxes, particles, transparency, increased limits, props, high quality model replacements etc etc to the extent many of those are used as default, or do you mean a different community?? You're getting perilously close to the obviously falacious and transparently juvenile "quakedads" nonsense there. Just because some rendering things that look completely out of place with the rest of the game aesthetic are rejected doesn't mean that people reject advancements - just that they have a strong appreciation of enhancements that work with the game harmoniously.

As for Quake 1 RTX, that would remain to be seen how well it would work with Quake. The Q2 stuff looks a bit bright and pale to me but not bad otherwise. 

perilously close to the obviously falacious and transparently juvenile

Shambler trying to recall how the Ted Bundy film was named. 

I think the Wor ("Quake 2" never deserved the "Quake" title) - I think the Wor RTX thingy - with the old 1997 polycounts on everything - looks extremely awkward in the same way that Quake with 4K texture replacements looks extremely awkward.

Quake is supposed to be dark/mossy/dirty/murky etc. etc. and you can't make it all super bright with dazzling god rays everywhere and have it not look completely wrong.

Wor on the other hand is more of a blank slate. The levels are really just bland flat-lit concrete bunkers and the environment never really demanded a particular lighting style, it was just "Whack radiosity up to 11 and see what happens. Oh it's completely flat-lit? Nevermind - John's radiosity algorithm sure is some cool coding, let's keep it in".

Lighting was always the least important thing in the Wor environments, so it's not like they are trashing anything people should care about.

Quake on the other hand, was lit with purpose and intent. 

There's little reason left for anyone to implement graphical advancements in Q1. 

actually there's some fucking great reasons, there's so many areas that remain to be advanced harmoniously and appropriately....so many subtle careful quake-suitable tweaks that can be made

And the more people do that, rather than horse shit like shoving reflective water in stock e1m1 or clouds of volumetric blood when a stock grunt gets gibbed, the more the advancements can progress overall

Get some higher res textures that actually look good and take into account low-poly architecture, get a full revamped bestiary with the quality of the ad shambler and enforcer skins etc, get some new water that's a bit better but not out of place like shoving in unreal4 water would be, volumetric fog, soft simple item shadows, tweak weapon effects....but subtly, bit by bit
Some shader effect to make select areas of surfaces look moist

The quake scene on here should be mature enough to use stuff subtly....just like the current enhancements....no-one is pissing around with disco lights any more thankfully 

The constructive question in my comment was: How will you attract new talented engine coders?

Talented coders likes to do crazy stuff. It's a waste of their time not to do it. Programmers are fuelled more by challenges than by artistic visions. They are primarily driven to make things work, not to make things look good. Making things look good is the most boring part of their work, often being a chore because of how subjective things can get.

How do you expect programmers to feel compelled to work in Q1 engines if you keep telling them that doing crazy stuff is wrong?

Baker was one of the most amazing coders here because he did lots of crazy stuff. There's lots of stuff in his work I don't agree with, like hacking the QC code behavior to shoehorn the fish count fix through the engine. But despite not agreeing with his methods, lots of stuff can be learned from them. He contributed a lot.

Yeah, his drunk posting habit was bad, but I usually ignored that.

People hates Darkplaces because it does lots of crazy stuff. But that's exactly why it's one of the best engines for any Quake modder who wants to make wholly new games: almost any crazy shit you throw at it will work. Engine coders doesn't think only of the mappers, they also tries to improve things to 2D artists, modelers, texture artists, musicians, gameplay programmers, and so on.

How do you expect engine programmers to enjoy working in Quake engines?

Mankrip, I'm presuming you're drunk posting with the "community rejects any graphical advances in Quake rendering these days" gibberish.

Years ago the community was more receptive. Nowadays, it isn't.

Just because some rendering things that look completely out of place with the rest of the game aesthetic are rejected doesn't mean that people reject advancements

Some maps in some map jams are very poor, yet people don't reject maps jams because of them. Nobody says "this jam is bad because of that map", but they say "this engine is bad because of that feature". It's sad to see lots of good work being ignored because of small stuff.

The quake scene on here should be mature enough to use stuff subtly... [...] And the more people do that, [...] the more the advancements can progress overall

there's so many areas that remain to be advanced harmoniously and appropriately...

Guess what, the skills to do such things comes from the same place of "pissing around with disco lights". Programming is not art direction. If you want a good programmer, you must let him exercise his programming skills, instead of forcing him to develop artistic skills.

The question remains: How to make engine coders enjoy working with the Quake engine? 

Can you start a new thread about that please?? Sorta generalised "how to attract coders to Quake scene" thing. I think it could be useful and you're phrasing the question pretty well. 

It's been well over 20 years since quake was released. We're the faithfuls, the ones that stuck around because we like quake for what it is, rather than what crazy stuff you can do with the engine, and anyway, there are so many better starting points for "crazy stuff" that the quake engine.

The people who want to turn quake into a "Disney's Pocahontas"-themed dating-sim slash 2D-fighter with QWOP controls are long gone. They left for the Q2 engine when Q2 (sorry, Wor) came out, then left for the Q3 engine when Q3 came out, and so on. Now they just cock about in the latest Unreal or Unity oh shit the engine just updated for the twelfth time this week and broke all my boob animation physics and nipple-erection blend shapes.

All of the designers here have made tons of posts in the past where they state what things they would like in the engine. There has NOT been a lack of communication in this regard. The programmers only do the bits that they personally like the sound of, and feel are worth doing, and I guess they don't really want to spend their time just working through the bullet-points of some random mapper's wish list.

From a selfish-mapper point of view, I wouldn't be coming at this from a "how do I make a programmer enjoy working with the quake engine" angle, but more of a "how do I make a programmer implement this very specific set of features that I want to build a mod around (a mod that may or may not ever be finished and released)". You can see why they probably wouldn't be queuing up at my door, unless the exchange of money is involved. 

If you want programmers to help you with what you want, you have to let them do what THEY want so they come to enjoy the engine. There's plenty of shit that is out there that's just ignored because it doesn't fit with the vision certain people think the engine should be. That's never been how this shit works.

Programmers come in because they like a certain something about what they see. It's like a hook for them to put their skills to the test. It's a challenge that they're looking for. That does benefit everyone else if it can be used in the future/built off of. Things get easier if you don't have to build from scratch.

When people say there's a lack of communication, they mean there's a lack of LISTENING. If you just talk at each other, nothing will get done. Rejecting everything out of hand also leads to alienation. That helps nobody.

I know I harp on this when this topic comes up but look at the Doom modding community and all the things they've done. It's vibrant and alive partly because there's a strong programming base. They do their own thing which helps make things better for mappers in the long run.

This isn't a business; things are going to have to evolve naturally to open new roads. Otherwise, there won't be a community worth calling it in 20 years more than likely. 

... I’m getting a certain Romero vs. Carmack vibe in this very room.
History repeats itself, I guess 😊 

MH stopped coding Q1 engines, and the overall reason for that IIRC is that he figured out that it became impossible to please people.

That and a certain level of toxicity in the Q1 communities. I didn't actually stop coding though; I just stopped releasing. 

I'd love to see the shit you've come up with! It's your choice though what you want to do. 

mh Quake was great stuff way back when. Sign me up. 

... I’d love to see the one (and only) thing wrong, IMO, in Q1 fixed in RTX: proper sky boxes.
RTX doesn't fix that. It's a poor man's few paths ray tracing with machine learning for noise reduction. This is much worse in quality than GPU-accelerated cone tracing unreal engine does or what IMG did before RT accelerator was put on hold.

But I digress.

Ray tracing doesn't do anything to skyboxes. Sky boxes are about Rayleigh and Mie scattering and, if you want phenomenons like clouds, fluid dynamics (or any hack that's useful for cloud-like medium). RT doesn't help in anything that's even remotely related to sky boxes. Sure, you can run any skybox-related algorithm on RTX card but that has nothing to do with its USP.