I noticed some discussion about DZIP in Willem's map release and felt the need to rant, but as I haven't gotten round to playing the map yet I figured it would be rude to do so in that thread.

Why does everybody bother with DZIP? The advantage over more commonly used compression programs is pretty minimal in this day and age [with super fast internet connections and huge hard disks] so it bothers me that people bother to install DZIP at all, especially as it doesn't work on macs or 64x versions of Windows [at least, without reporting a nasty virus in the latter].

Seriously, what's the point? Is it not making an already nich� community even more inaccessible? 

I don't watch any demos anymore because I refuse to download and install the absolutely worthless DZip. 

Does anybody have this damn thing mirrored anywhere? czg is pretty shit about keeping websites running (or caring about the people that read them more likely) and I hate having to spend twenty minutes grepping the internet every time someone in #tf wants to make a circle.

I made this in the meantime for pocket reference.
http://lunaran.com/pics/curves1.png 

don't ever build spiral stairs this way:
http://www.katsbits.com/htm/tutorials/editing_tip_spiral_stairs.htm#2 

about uploading 12 MB of worthless first-play demos. I feel a little less self-conscious uploading 1 MB of worthless first-play demos. If I had known you couldn't open .dz files, Text_Fish, I would have provided .zip archives before.

I shall keep the lack of portability of .dz files in mind in the future. 

So I think it's a bit hard for it to suddenly be making the community more inaccessible (and it also works on a mac, though command line only).

I agree it's probably a bit pointless in this day and age. 

What wrong with that way of building stairs Lunaran? As far as I'm aware that's the only way to build spirals that have equidistant steps units. 

mwh - nearly as long as quake. I respect what they do, but don't find it useful. Those who play Q1SP but don't know how to manage the formats basically don't exist. Much.

Lunaran - :| but no. Why is lunsp3 takign so long?

kat - that's probably the worst way of building stairs, trust me on this. Off-grid horrors that will compile, but never how you want. You'll be looking at brushes all over the place that you can't fix in the editor.

dzip is a waste of time for me. It makes things easier in alot of engines, but I prefer to pack dems in 7zip because I'm a cunt. And the filesize is smaller.

Posting drunk after a national holiday. That's not an apology. 

@ ijed: Ah, sounds like your talking about that in relation to *structual* brushwork which it will feck up. I've never had any issues so long as its *detail* flagged which things like that should be for Q3 editing. And "trust me", I know about non-axial brushwork, floating point errors and sparklies thereof ;) 

Hah, that tutorial is brilliant. 

So I'll post a more constructive reply.

Yeah what ijed said, even if you make it detail, it's far from being optimal and will be cut up pretty randomly and in some engines you have no detail brushes (like quake1) so can't get away with such sloppy brushwork.

For spiral staircases, try starting out with a cylinder with a specific ammount of sides (usually something logical, divisble by 4), snap those sides to the grid, then align brushes along it to create your steps (you can use a second smaller cylinder with the same ammount of sides as a central wall too for larger stairs). Edge edit is your friend. 

ZIP would be my preference.

czg's curves are here: http://www.quaddicted.com/stuff/curv_tut.htm 

Eyeballing edge manipulations like that to use as a 'template' has it's own inherant problems especially when using cylinders with more then a dozen or so sides. If you want steps to be *exact* then you have to duplicate and rotate by calculated values. 

"(and it also works on a mac, though command line only). "

It actually doesn't. It's a classic application (aka OS9) and modern Macs won't run it.

I'd love it if we could start using regular ZIP. The demos that guys delivered for Evil Exhumed in ZIP form were awesome and compressed just as well. 

If you work with a small enough grid the steps don't have to be exact, you won't see a difference visually, and the result will be much cleaner.
I've done plenty of pretty complex (much more than 12 sided cylinders) spiral staircases this way, and they compile fine even in quake1. I can tell you that you're stairs would just make q1 qbsp kneel down and start cying in most common cases.

In the end your tutorial is for quake3, so yeah it'll work fine, it's just not very clean. 

Ummm someone remind me, what do I use to zip so I don;t have to use the trial version of Winzip that reminds me I've exceeded the trial limit by 8 decades?? 

12 and 24 sided cylinders are pretty nice and with his ingenious clip-stretch-shear method you can curve very complex geometry. 

7zip is your friend: http://www.7-zip.org/ 

Dzip does work on OS X, because I compiled it, and gave Nolan the executable for the dzip page (that's a PPC binary though), and use it all the time.

So, er, nyah? 

mwh

OK, well, it didn't work for me. So I dunno. Can we not just use standard ZIP files? 

Clean? It's horses for courses Bal, if you're throwing brushwork around to do some interesting designs with stairs (other than a tube with stairs and openings top and bottom) the chances are you're going to cut across a spiral and create nasty floaters at compile time anyway, and that's regardless as to how you made them. So it really is a completely moot point to say that; even using smaller grids isn't a cure-all as it has a tendency to introduce precision errors as you know.

Every method has it's problems, just use whatever you think suits what you're working with and trying to do and how quickly you want it done. Having said that the tute wasn't intended to be read in the context of Q1 level design.

I've updated the tute regardless to take into account what's been discussed here. 

I don't watch any demos anymore because I refuse to download and install the absolutely worthless DZip.

Lame excuse, aguirRe's current engines and (iirc) JoeQuake can playback Dzips like demo files, as long as dzipname = demoname. Place the demo files in ID1 and do playdemo demoname as usual.

(yes it's necessary to rtfm sometimes, but it's worth it as SDA keeps pumping out awesome demos like Stubgaard's fairly recent e3m4_120: http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/demos/NH/e3m4_120.dz )

Also, aguirRe's 3.09 (current beta) will have even more useful features regarding demo playback.

7zip is good because it's free/stable and the compression rate with large demos is indeed better, but 'installing' Dzip is a matter of 10 seconds... 

"Lame excuse, aguirRe's current engines and (iirc) JoeQuake can playback Dzips like demo files, as long as dzipname = demoname."

Plz add to FitzQuake, kthx! :) 

are on a minimum grid of 4 at the smallest. They were easier to work with, line up with the curve patches for the trim a lot more cleanly, plus the compile-side benefits. I'd post a grid shot but I'm at work.

http://www.lunaran.com/images/maps/lun3dm3_2.jpg

ijed:
Why is lunsp3 takign so long?

because lunsp2 isn't done yet. 

Sorry, moot points again, those are all 'attributes' that can and have been argued for and by proponents of every method there is to make spirals, Quake 3 and beyond.