http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_jenkins011503.asp?p=0 

end of the second episode of doom? In doom2 they were used as a normal monster on some levels. 

cheers for your info.

Metlslime, is it possible to have no subject please? 

so goodbye maps n' this forum i suck at it anyway, ciao 

from good to bad:

amazing geometry everywhere
often very good atmosphere
some varied level designs
decent textures
better weapons than unreal 1
terrain part of the engine very simplistic and ugly
many irritating/not fun to fight AI
sub-standard gameplay (it's really boring)
a most amazingly retarded storyline for 2003 (cringe) 

given the quality of the level designers there, I was hoping for some quality level design. It seems most people tend to acknowledge the levels and the skins/models as the best part of the game.

aard,

one question, from the 2-3 terrain based screenshots I've seen, it looks pretty good though admittedly in-game can be a lot different. Could you please outline what you thought was wrong with it? 

Galactix has gotten some pretty new screenshots that show off its nearly final form. Go to http://mods.moddb.com/984/ to look at the screenshots and mod profile.

Regarding mapping (as many people have been asking about it lately), since there is little that will be changed between maps (mostly fog and skybox values, and player move speed), most of the variation will consist of cfg files. Instead of releasing a new bsp for most of the new maps, simply modify the existing one with a cfg that the player execs in addition to loading the map. The architecture never changes - it's a box with some boundaries. Only the skybox and other variables would ever change, and a cfg is much smaller and simpler to build.

For example, if you have the skybox "planet", you could make planet.cfg and include it with your skybox. The cfg would set fog to none, would set the skybox to planet, and would lower the player's speed slightly (it's a hard level). You could also modify how much points are recieved, etc.

For those of you who do wish to mess with more than that (for example, changing the distance of the background garbage that floats by or doing something creative), a new bsp would be in order and would likely work fine with any cfg modifiers that are released as well. Default variables of the map would be loaded if no cfg is present. 

you could use engine with skybox rotation (mh quake has it) for cool effect 

OUM's over here: http://www.planetquake.com/fatty/oum/index.shtm

Look under "downloads."
It's on FilePlanet, I'm afraid. 

- terrain texturing is a bit simplistic but ok
- terrains are always very small (if I remember correctly tim said it is brute force rendered in one chunk, which could explain it)
- they are very barren vegetation wise, esp from a distance they look extremely bland
- looks very monochromatic
- the shape is often smooth and not realistic/interesting. the technical term for this is "molten icecream modelling" ;)

I guess I am spoiled by our in-house landscape engine (see screenies on crytek.com), but most other games do good as well. Compared to their amazing indoors/architecture, the terrain in unreal2 is clearly a generation behind. 

interesting points, the only ones I can pick out from the screenshots are the smoothness and barreness. Textures and size are only something that can obviously looked at in-game. Interstingly, I thought the terrain in q3:TA and games based off that engine looked a bit too smooth too. I think Ritual in Fakk2 were the only ones who managed to make some non-smooth terrain but that had its own share of problems too. 

oh crap aardappel those screenies look great. 

i know this has been asked alot nowadays, but here it is again: how the fuck can i get Q1 to run under XP? must i masturbate with broom to get make it work? 

Speedy: Thanks, I'll see about that. Maybe CheapHack (the engine I'm driving at currently) can do that too.

Fatty: Thanks, I'm d/ling it now.

Quack: Have you tried the newer engines? I'm sure the dos quake won't work but the new engines (cheaphack, mhquake, darkplaces) should do ok. Hopefully. And leave the broom alone, it never did anything to you. :)

BTW, over at the inside3d forums I've been entertaining the idea of finishing Galactix mostly as is, and then distributing its full source to several people so they can make their own Galactix derivatives. We'd all release our versions at QExpo (some may even end up being stand-alone!). Someone brought up an idea I've been putting aside but now looks feasible if I do it as a different mod (having the ground move under you with turrets and tanks etc on it, as well as air enemies; like Raiden. there'd even be bosses at the end of each level, and some actual mapping oportunities).

What does everyone think of that? 

Mapping for an overhead shooter sounds interesting. Especially if the player may need to dodge some of the architecture (protruding antennea that break off when you hit them but they still cause damage to your vehicle; maybe cliffs, etc too). 

dosquake won't work on any NT, but winquake and glquake will. 

At this point, Galactix is going to split into several different mods as it is distributed to and worked on by multiple people. Everyone will release their version durring QExpo (if all goes well). The one I intend to do will involve a (probably) randomly generated terrein moving below the player, with various architecture and enemy forces strewn about, their movement and placement guided by various algorithms (curving roads, place enemies on roads and flat plains, placement of taller architecture etc).
In this sense, the taller architecture that must be dodged would sort of take the place of asteroids in the existing Galactix (something solid to dodge that randomly presents itself).

There is also the idea of just having a lateral map the player moves through. Every location of everything would be staticly defined, by the mapper, and actions would generally be scripted. However, this would add some definition and structure to the action and would beter allow the placement of bosses and powerups, etc. It would take up a lot of area though and could be tricky to implement.

I'm also considering working on Metal Slug Quake, which would operation the same idea: either have randomly generated areas the player moves through, or have a pre-built 2D world the player moves through. It wouldn't have to be lateral like Galactix though, which would help a lot.

If you're interested in trying out Galactix or mapping for it (which is about as un-complex as a box-map can get), e-mail me at static _ void @ hotmail . com . 

I'm interested, but I'm really way too busy right now. Things should ease up around the middle of May, though. 

Does anybody know how to record video from quake without any special hardware ? Nongrindspire said he has a prog, but I havent heard from him for a week. If you know how to do it, mail or post here please. 

Makes more sence to me to have a team working on a single mod, to output finished, full of features, polished and tested game, rather than five guys, each making his own version with minor variations, half of which probably wont reach even beta status. 

Yea, I don't know what to do really. In all the mods I've ever worked on for myself, I have been a 1-man army. It's hard to depend on people to deliver when you're pretty sure they won't. :)

The nice thing about Galactix (and much of the quake1 programming world) is, most of the models and pictures and stuff can be found or adapted from something else, leaving mostly only programming (which can be done by a single or maybe 2-3 people at most) and maybe some mapping. I am Galactix's 1-man team, and I produced that alone in my free time, in a relatively short time period. The 'minor' variations I'm talking about would have a fairly large effect.

And besides, I would never consider having people map for a mod until it's nearing completion. Things could change durring development (rendering the map obsolete) or the whole mod could bomb out, leaving everyone hang'n. That's not very nice.
As fickle as modding is, especially in the older games where support is limited, it's nice to be able to go at it alone.

But it would be really nice to assemble a dedicated mod team. 

Galactix is completely done. All that's been done to it lately is a few enhancements (skybox on the map, couple bugfixes, new models to replace ugly ones). That's an advantage.

What we're doing is, we're taking the completed Galactix and giving it out to people, allowing them to use it as a code base for their own mods. That's how Galactix got started. I took frikac's Snowed mod and screwed it up so bad it'll never be fixed, and thus Galactix was born. ;p
From here people will make their own games with it. 

If you wrote a good and solid design treatment first, and then took the time and effort to design every aspect of your mod, breaking stuff during the development should be almost impossible. 

The Inside3D forums people and others are planning for QExpo, but we do need help. Our php coder, Horn, and CocoT, one of the people responsible for news and planning etc, have both announced that they'll have to back out due to real live obligations.

This leaves a gaping hole relating to site design. If anyone here wishes to contribute or help, or knows someone who can, please visit at the Inside3d Forums.

http://forums.inside3d.com/
The Events forum is mainly where QExpo is discussed.

A domain has already been purchaced, by FrikaC and Horn I believe. QExpo.com isn't too shabby, now is it? We do, however, need hosting.

Also, now's the time to start figuring out what you want to do for QExpo if you wish to participate. The event is planned for late June, and as soon as we get our act together exact dates will be defined (about 10 days is the lengh we've agreed upon).

If you want help for the map or mod you're developing, it would be a good idea to frequently hop between forums and look around and ask. Things like rubble, earthquakes, force fields, endless cliffs, laser gates, radars, etc are easy for a qc coder to implement, and asking them may save you some time of scrapping code together yourself. Much of it may already be written, so it couldn't hurt to ask. 

wrath didst say:
>If you wrote a good and solid design treatment first, and then took the time and effort to design every aspect of your mod, breaking stuff during the development should be almost impossible.

Because so many mods turn out either unfeasible or simply impossible, I usually start coding before I define it too much or expect promises from a team. Also, it's my wierd coding style to get the backbone of the mod completed before I go into detail. I want to make sure everything is working first, before I shoot off with all this elegant planning. This rarely gets me into trouble, and often saves the mod. Quite often if I have a mod all planned out, and then I hit a debilitating and tenacious snag, it's usually quite depressing and what I have seems very insignificant to how far I have to go.

I guess you could say I keep a little saftey buffer of ignorance in front of me in case I hit something. I can work through it single-mindedly and then continue on.

Once the mod's physics etc are working, I can then branch out and start the magic. Here and only here does the detailed planning begin. Had I not realized this was my personal style of programming soon enough, Galactix and Battle Mech and even Jeht would have never made it off the ground.

I'm an odd one, yes.

The reason Super Smash Quake has had such a sluggish start is because I took off and planned the whole thing. Then things weren't working and I couldn't even get my unit to move and I was too frusterated to continue. So I trashed it. I had a whole amazing, elegant player control system and I just abandoned it.
It was only recently that I picked it up off the cold hard ground, brushed it off, figured out its little problems, and suddenly I have an enforcer running around and jumping on a 2-dimentional level Super Smash Bros style. So, it really *did* work, except for a little bug or two. My next mountain to tackle is getting the player to be able to jump through from below and then land on the semi-solid platforms (those ones you can land on or pass thorugh from below in SSB are essential). It's working except my way of testing if the player is stuck turned out b0rked because the quake engine hates me. I may have to do an engine mod (which I've never done before), or completely change how the mapping entities are structured.

Taking it one step at a time. In a mini mod of this calibur, physics come first, then I'll get one character working with all his moves. After that, I can make all the other characters.

Also, remember that when using a game engine you didn't make yourself, and pushing its limits, bending its will in ways it wasn't supposed to be bent, you'll always hit snags. There's always a gotcha, and you have to be ready to adapt to it (which could easily break all your old plans).