I think droptofloor requires it. Similarly, the items need it as well. 

why is FL_FLY broken?

a walking monster without FL_FLY will fail on a walkmove(0,0), but a flying monster (with FL_FLY) will pass, even if it is inside a wall. this is probably why scrags can sometimes 'noclip' through walls.

some cool shit could be done if the walkmove check functioned properly with FL_FLY. :( 

Yeah, I agree with Lardarse, it's so that the monsters actually have a distance to fall with droptofloor, even if the mapper placed them flat on the ground. I've never checked what happens if you omit it, it might be that the monster gives off the warning message for being stuck. I don't think it's such a bug risk though, because mappers have to account for it in monster placement.


setorigin does a lot of behind the scenes work which is hard to understand. One of the most transparent things you can see it do is update the absmin and absmax of the entity(including the extra size for FL_ITEM entities). The next step is to link to the PVS leafs, which I think determines where the entity is visible from(but I don't know the engine source well).

The next thing the function does is recurse down the tree of areanodes to find the first node which crosses the bounding box of the entity. It then adds the entity to the linked list of all other entities which cross that areanode. This is the important physics thing which you break if you don't use this function. When you change the origin directly, your entity will be in the wrong list of areanodes, which may mean it misses collisions.


The idea behind the walkmove(0,0) is that it returns FALSE if the monster couldn't move the entire distance in the desired direction, and TRUE if it did, which is meant to be used for detecting when a monster has just walked into a wall. If you look at the engine code which governs it, you see that actually flying and swimming monsters have almost no walkmove code in common with walking monsters. By contrast, the only difference between FL_FLY and FL_SWIM is that if the endpoint for a FL_SWIM monster would leave the water, then the fish doesn't move and FALSE is returned.

The other thing that's important to note is that other than that for FL_SWIM, the only reason the move can fail for a flyer/swimmer is if the trace_fraction from the attempted move is not equal to 1. If you're moving 0 distance, then this cannot fail. In the walking case, there's a lot more going on to check for stairs, including checking whether the trace is allsolid. The check ties into deciding whether the monster needs to step up/down, specifically whether the trace is "startsolid". Because some degree of solid tracing can occur even in a sucessful move, it's important that the case of the whole trace being solid is dealt with by returning FALSE straight off. As a side effect it spots when the monster is stuck. 

Those links don't work for me :/ Can you put the fix on shub-hub or something? 

Any love for a small Quake monster art event? Something just as simple as "Draw/sketch an original quake-themed monster" or something? 

 

if it's in the next couple weeks, or in august 

but its not going to be spectacular

do u want creature spec's also? 

Anyone have any guidelines they'd like? Like ... have a piece of art in by a certain deadline (say like next Friday?) Any theme we're going after, "New Ogre Boss" or something, or just whatever we feel like coming up with? Ideas! 

Be a pretty good reference. I've got a few Quake artwork images that have surfaced on the net over time and by various artists - good for inspiration. 

Well I'll just post this as tentative right now:

When: Due by Saturday, June 20th, 2009
What: "Original Quake Monster" art - come up with a monster that you feel fits in the Quake universe!
Who: I suppose right now send them to me, but I'll have to find some place to upload them, unless anyone wants to volunteer to host magnificent, original Quake art.
Where: Wherever you can.
How: Pens, pencils, paper, 3d models, clay models, 2d digital art, whatever. 

I need to get a scanner :-/ 

Quaketastic loves you. 

Count me in for sure! 

I havent drawn anything for years.... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOXvdfcct8g 

That everyone submits a piece of art - can I expect something like 4-5 drawrings by Saturday?

As a side note, I will probably be gone 20th, but will be back late on Sunday. So unless Spirit wants you to send them directly to him, my email is ZwiffleOwnsU@gmail.com. Use something like "this here is quake art" for the subject so I don't just delete it (which I might just do anyway.) 

Here's my take on a variant Quake bad guy: http://biff.quaddicted.com/art/scrag_ass.jpg
Isn't he precious? 

 

Well a couple of drawings so far...

Biff: That looks awesome! Like a land-scrag or something.....

Is the submission date 20th June? 

"#224 posted by Zwiffle [66.170.5.18] on 2009/06/11 20:16:55
Well I'll just post this as tentative right now:

When: Due by Saturday, June 20th, 2009
What: "Original Quake Monster" art - come up with a monster that you feel fits in the Quake universe!
Who: I suppose right now send them to me, but I'll have to find some place to upload them, unless anyone wants to volunteer to host magnificent, original Quake art.
Where: Wherever you can.
How: Pens, pencils, paper, 3d models, clay models, 2d digital art, whatever." 

I'm going out of town on Friday night and won't be back until some time Sunday, so I'm changing deadline to some day on Sunday, if anyone else besides Biff and myself want to participate. Whenever I get home and scan my shit is what I consider the cut off, unless you just send me a thing telling me to wait. 

nice and quick and sloppy, but i think you'll get the idea on what it is :D http://metchsteekle.deviantart.com/art/NeitherFly-126432952

i know its crap, that's what i was aiming for >:} 

1. Voreling -- visually perfect for quake, also adds variety (Quake lacks any really small creatures) and most mappers actually use them well. I only wish a single shot from the SSG would kill them, but i realize this would make them almost too easy and not enough of a bother. But the way they look and sound, i do expect that to kill them. Memorable and unique.

2. Drole -- not my favorite skin, but combat is unique and fun, good panic inducers, without being unfair.

3. Eddie -- a good solid fight without being cheap, good sounds, good model. Fits into the miniboss category like a shambler, but moves and attacks differently enough to be unique. A bit on the techy side, which might not feel right in the more lovecraftian settings, but feels good in the medieval / steampunk / base / industrial maps.

4. Rocketeer -- Slow homing rockets work well. Effective long-range, which is rare. Good balance of damage potential and health. The "recolored enforcer" syndrome is still going on with the bright red uniform, but at least the gun is remodelled and I like custom details like the crazy goggles.

5. Defender? Yeah, i guess he goes at #5. A solid threat in close quarters, AI is suprising enough that you can't easily predict his attack.

There are a few monsters i don't feel i've fought enough to judge yet, such as the hell knight variants. The flying lightning guys can be annoying, but i like the sound effect, plus they do fit into a needed category (somewhat tough flying monsters.) Haven't gotten enough of a feel for their combat yet. 

i agree that the voreling feels like it should be much weaker. his effective health is even higher because his small size and erratic movement usually means you miss a few times (and a DBS from range will be 50% or less damage because of the spread).

i really dislike the drole these days. i wish i could remake his death animation to something that's just *normal*. he was the first model i animated and i made the death animation way too elaborate. honestly, he should just fall over quickly.
i also find him way too strong. he's too fast and his run + melee attack is downright annoying. the original intent of that was to stop 'shambler dancing', but it also makes it retarded when you're just trying to back away. instead of run + melee, he should have had a standing melee attack and just break out of melee animation and go to run if the player moves away. it basically means you can never use these guys unless you have a room bigger than 512-768 or a long hallway to back down.

Edie was the last monster i animated and i'm very pleased with him. i also learned many lessons after the gug and drole, and i find edie to be a fun monster to fight. 10 edies is nowhere near as annoying as 5 droles.

one thing i wish we had done was something akin to the doom/doom2 baron a hell.
the baron of hell is essentially a turret. it moves extremely slowly and the player can pretty much run circles around it, easily dodging it's attacks. the death lord kind of fits this profile, but it has too many unique gameplay mechanics to really be a true turret monster.
turret monsters are great because they can be used in packs of other monsters. high health + low risk means the player can ignore them until last but it also means they have to keep moving even if they are facing only melee monsters.
Edie can fit in this category, but unfortunately, non-base monster set has nothing to compare. Droles are too fast, gugs are too powerful (and must be a primary target) and shambler lightning can't be dodged and vores tend to piss off other monsters easily because you can train their voreballs into whoever you want.

also, on the subject of gugs: why i never put more thought into the ramifications of endless gug-quakes (and attenuationless quake sound) is beyond me. they are essentially useless unless you can guarantee it is dead before the player moves on.

defenders ai is ok, but i foolishly decided they should have SSG blasts as good as the player. i've been nearly one-shotted by these assholes without armor on. nothing fills me with as much fear as hearing their shotgun cocking right next to me. suddenly the new top priority is gtfo and this is completely *wrong* for such a low-level monster. i don't jump out of the water when i hear rotfish.

just some stuff i've learnt after using these monsters for a few maps now.