Preach - I�ll give tyrann�s skip creating program a try - don�t need to shoot through the grate so this should be perfect.

Distrans - I reckon skip�s are the way to go cos I�m using custom monsters and haven�t made one yet that flies. Also, monster jumps will mean that the grate will be a 1 way area for monsters - and my grate�s in the centre of an open gallery type room. 

Can there be any connection between having too many func_walls in a level and packet overflows?

After I think about it, the packet overflow happens mostly after firing a weapon, even if all monsters are already dead. So there are no gibs flying around when the packet overflow occures (Preach sorry for misleading you). Only corpses and heads lying. The level doesn't have too many enemies (about 90 on hard skill), but the whole area could contain more than 1/3 of them.

Tried also standard winquake -> lots of packet overflow :(

JPL: I don't have any problems with entity count. Are you sure that using the spawning method you talk about can help with reducing packet overflow?

neg!ke: thanks for your input, probably I won't use it though :) 

Func_walls are brush entites and as such add to the packer overflow limit. If the overflow is constant in an area where nothing dynamic is happening, then you've too many entities in view (typically corpses + other ents like func_walls).

Delayed spawning may not help here if there are no more monsters alive, but corpse removal will help substantially.

If you haven't already, use the r_draworder 1 command in WinQuake to see what the engines renders atm. This will especially reveal the entities in view. 

Yes, CDA's progs.dat has been provided by aguirRe, and allow to make monsters appear, and then remove them when they die... As I understood, this is the "dynamic" entity count that generates packet overflow... As progs.dat It affect entity count, and also decrease what the engine have to render, it then avoid packet overflow if well used.. Ask aguirRe for further informations ;) 

Static entities won't ever cause apacket overflow, as once they are made static the server never updates them. So wall torches are fine, and if you can change any of the func_wall ents to func_illusionary ents then they will also not have an effect. However, by my testing a func_wall shouldn't really cause a packet overflow either.

As an experiment, try putting into seperate large boxmaps 100 knights, 100 func_walls and 100 torches. You should find that the knights cause packet overflows but that the other two don't. There's no simple relationship between number of entities and whether you will get packet overflows. Things like monsters, that will be animating, changing direction and making sounds almost every frame will send lots of messages from the server to the client. A func_wall does almost nothing all the time, and will only generate a message if you trigger it to change its texture or killtarget it.

From what I've heard, it sounds like corpse removal may help you out here. I can't quite explain why a corpse seems to count towards packet overflows while something like a rocket launcher doesn't...but removing the corpses is probably the best way it fix it. 

...will only generate a message if you trigger it to change its texture...

eh? run that one by me again? 

void() func_wall_use =
{ // change to alternate textures
self.frame = 1 - self.frame;
};


I've never actually seen this work, though... 

You need to use +0 and +a textures to make this work, i believe. 

tried it once, and yes, needs to be +0 and +a sequences. will swap between the two and animate them 

Will someone explain to me the logical reasoning why, when selecting a series of files in Windows, I must select the last file first in order to have the files be listed in sequential (alphabetic, numeric, etc) order? Shouldn't new selected files be appended to the end of the list? 

Because windows is a piece of shit.

I noticed that whatever order you select, one file is always out of order. This happens when enqueing files in winamp using the windows dialogue, and pisses me off quite a bit. Normally I get the first song at the end and the last song at the start. Maybe it doesn't happen in current versions, but it definitely used to happen. I blame Windows rather than Winamp.

Actually, someone did explain this to me once, but it was probably a really boring explanation, so I've forgotton now. 

I meant to post it in General Abuse since I was generally abusing Windows.

I can usually get around the selection problem, but sometimes it's difficult when I want to play some songs that start with my favorites and then transition into a certain mood or style. Having to think backwards about it can be difficult sometimes.

The only reason I can think of to do it this way is because by now it's a standard, and it's a standard because Windows made it a standard, and you have to stick with the standard because that's what people are used to, and you can't switch boats mid-stream, even if your boat is sinking and being overtaken by crocodiles and beetles, and about to go over a giant waterfall into a rocky pool where thousands of hungry cannibals are waiting on the shore eagerly anticipating the coming feast. 

I agree.

I also agree that where is SM69 for crying out loud? 

Sorry to keep posting about this here, but if something is badly designed/coded, then a well designed replacement will be easy for people to switch to if they give it half a chance. If Windows Vista fixes it (unlikely!) then I'm sure most people that notice will think, "Thank fuck, they finally fixed it." It's basically buggy behaviour - I'm sure nobody can be such a retard to actually design it that way. 

I agree.

I also agree that have you checked your pants lately? 

Since I am (still) working on a map using Quoth ents and textures, I thought I'd ask a couple of quick questions.

1. Are you guys still planning on releasing more content for Quoth

2. If so, do you reckon it will be ready before QExpo?

3. Is it possible for me to find out about the new content a little bit before release so that I can add any cool new stuff and fixes to my map before QExpo?

4. Do you think it is possible or desirable to increase the range from which the vore will throw fireballs? I find it occasionally annoying that they only have a range of a few hundred units or so.

By the way, my map is split into three large maps now, so I don't think I will have problems with precache models etc. I'm about 70-80% finished with the first map, and 0% on the other two, but I think I can do it before June/QExpo assuming that I don't have too much to do in my new job. 

1. Maybe
2. No
3. I dunno if you can afford our rates.
4. Well, currently all the original monsters have a max range at which they are capped at (1000 units) So they can still shoot when you are fairly far, but they have a low chance of doing so. This was probably made that way so you don't get ganked while fighting close monsters by the farther ones you can barely see.
I'm not sure if changing the firing chance at long range is really the solution.

seriously, about 1 & 3, i can't really say much on that because i haven't seen kell in a while so we haven't really discussed anything about quoth for some time now.
The only thing i'm certain of is that if there is more quoth stuff, it would definatly not be ready for the qexpo this year as there would likely be a lot of stuff, most of which hasn't even been started yet (or just briefly touched upon). 

What could be the reason for your light.exe to crash in windows xp? Too many lights in a map? Everything worked fine until yesterday when I have added some more lights and light.exe crashes now without any message (the last output is: "Using minlight value 15 from worldspawn"). Previous version of the map had 256 lights and it compiled well. Didn't have the time yesterday to make some test with removing lights and now I'm at work :) 

If you're not using the latest Light 1.42, please try that and see if it helps. Otherwise I don't know really, 256 lights are not that much.

If you send me the zipped map+wad, I'll take a look at it. 

If you're not using the latest Light 1.42, please try that and see if it helps. Otherwise I don't know really, 256 lights are not that much.

If you send me the zipped map+wad, I'll take a look at it. 

thanks. Since I have a good and working backup I will start working from this point. I have deleted all the lights I'v added recently but couldn't fix the problem. Strange. 

Maybe this is a stupid question but I have to ask it.
Let's ussume that I use textures from wad1.wad in a map. After this I extract all textures from the bsp file using Texmex and create a new wad2.wad. How is the texture quality ind wad2.wad compared to wad1.wad? In other words is there quality loss when packing/extracting textures from bsp files?
And also do the textures change anyhow if I use wad3 format instead of wad2? 

is loss-less (like bmp), so there shouldn't be any degradation. IIRC wad3 basically adds a palette for each wad instead of just assuming Q1 palette. 

I've noticed that the idGamma tool always seems to destroy the upper half of the greyscale ramp of the Q1 palette (slots 8-15). This can adversely affect textures with a lot of detail in the brighter end (e.g. in kjsp1 or Invein). I've uploaded a file http://user.tninet.se/~xir870k/idgammabjp.7z that contains my standard Q1 palette with the greyscale ramp restored and a modified version that suits kjsp1 very well.

Just put either one of the supplied paks in your id1 directory, making sure you don't overwrite any existing paks (rename to higher number as necessary).

For those using engines that can load external tga textures, here's a tip that might enhance visuals in mods that use a lot of textures in different colours, usually suffering from bad dithering effects. Just load the mod bsp(s) into TexMex and export to tga to the "textures" subdirectory of the mod. Then either use them as they are or put them through e.g. a brightening/contrast filter in an image program (e.g. IrfanView).

Especially the latter can cause interesting effects as the filter works with the full 24-bit tgas, so no palette limitations will interfere. The end result is often much richer colour tones of each texture in-game. Experiment for best results.

Another simple trick is to convert all the textures into greyscale (still 24-bit); this will let you experience Quake in a b/w setting. All entities will still have colours, though. 

make those void maps.

Noob question...

I reckon in a "coagula" style map, the whole shit is put into a giant box, which is covered in some black texture. On the inside of the box floor and sides, there are trigger_hurts for the gibbing effect.

Is that about right?

What is the best way to build the outer box, just a giant cube? Does its shape and brushcount impact r_speeds, vis time and such, or does it not matter? Should it be made of sky brushes (i.e. using some black sky texture)?

Way up in this thread, I read about the brightness of monster models being related to the brush beneath it. In the void scenario, this is pitch black. Someone suggested putting a brighter solid brush under the black sky brush so scrags in the void would be properly lit. But later someone else said that you should not have any brushes outside of the map. Who is right? Or should one just not place scrags out in the void?

hope you can bear my n00b-ness.