JPL et al - Generally, using assets from other games is always illegal.

But - from experience it seems that ripping textures from old games for use in Quake (e.g. Hexen2, Dkt, Q3, Rune etc. etc.) is "ok" only because no-one seems to care - technically it's still illegal.

On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that ripping textures from modern games (HL2, D3, Q4) is likely to land you in a world of hurt. 

I think the reason nobody seems to care is that nobody has noticed, and if they have, the don't care because the original Quake is not a real competitor to any of these games.

id has complained about texture theft once to my knowledge, and it was when they were used blatantly in an Unreal Tournament (Q3's number one competitor at the time) map.

I don't think you are likely to be bothered by any lawyers if you release (for example) a Quake map with Quake 4 textures scaled down to 128x128, but there's always the chance, and is it worth the trouble to convert them with such an abundance of more suitable textures from older games already available and converted? 

i don't see why id should have a problem with it, since they are even encouraging modifiability. besides, using quake4 textures in a quake1 map should be even less an issue, since both are id games, and the textures stay within one series, too. also, custom maps are distributed in a non-commercial way (and credited), so what's the deal? 

Quake 1 and Quake 4 have different publishers/distributors. id Software may not even have much of a say. Or if they do, they may find out about it too late. And if they try to stop the publisher, that may set a precedent, and thus they may have to allow everyone to use the textures, etc.

Kind of a situation it's better to avoid in the first place, especially if you might use that map in a portfolio while searching for a job. Do you really want to showcase pirated material as a representative work of art? 

wasn't Daikatana somehow given away to the world or something, for whatever use seen fit. Don't remember... 

... what would be the good method to extract textures from games like Doom3, HL2, etc.., and then export them into Quake format... avoiding fullbright issues ?

PS: I discovered this afternoon that DKT2 texture set has a lot of fullbright pixels to remove in order to look cool ingame... and so a huge amount of work is already waiting for me at this time... :( ... so Doom3 and HL2 texturs will have to wait unfortunately... 

Which hold the texture files in Doom3 are just .zip files renamed. There is no special protection there, like say splitting the separate
files in to two seperate coded parts that are rebuilt during execution. I have been told that is how the Myst copy protection works. 

Id used a protection scheme like that, imagine, Marcher Fortress would have had to have been made
with textures rebuilt on snapshots. Kind of like taking a camera into the movies to make bootlegs. 

Marcher Fortress would have had to have been made with textures rebuilt on snapshots

Or even *gasp* textures made from scratch!!! 

in all fairness, not everyone is gifted at textures, as i'm learning myself... lol XD

as for extracting textures used in d3/q4... well, that could be more complex than other games, simply because they use more than just diffuse maps with small effects. for the most part, the diffuse maps alone are useless as they look shit without proper lighting with their respective bump maps.

you'd need to find a way to load up the diffuse maps and apply the bump maps to them, and then cast some light on them to get the shadows to show up and then save the result as a new texture file... a lot of work for poor results if you ask me, since those new textures will *still* be limited by the q1 palette, unless you go the external tga route. (external tgas can yield awesome results though... ne_marb looked wicked with the vivid green doom textures :) 

I've just extracted the .pak4 files... and there's not only the textures, but also the skyboxes (i.e Hell and Mars outside... ) and there are awesome..
And concerning textures, there are a lot of interesting stuffs.. but it is a serious amount of work: all textures are .tga files, and there are 500 MBytes for all the stuff (i.e skyboxes + textures..) Hey guys ! I feel suddenly alone in front of the task... and so I would need some help ;P
Anyway, I will open all these files, and see what would be cool to keep... cause after a quick fly, not all can be used in a wad file...
And concerning HL2 textures.. I need to extract the textures from the bsp files... and this is another story...
In anyway, thanks for the tips ;P 

Email me if you need help to automate pic conversions. 

Good one, Kell. 

Thanks a lot, I keep it in mind.

And now I still have to check all the tga files, to see what can be used or not. As I saw there are generally one "basis" texture, and 3 or 4 derivated from it (i.e a darker, a "UV photo" like, etc..) I guess these additional tga files are used for 3D/lights rendering ingame (I guess necros explained it better tha me in post #4957), and only basis textures would be usefull in Quake. But the task is not so simple: there is 500MB of textures, and each one is around 20kB. If I consider only around 1 on 3 will be used (according to what I said above), it's around 8330 textures to create... OMG ! So I will have to split all the stuff into separate wads... wow...
Anyway, after the "preliminary" selection, I will come back to you ;P 

I think D3 (and Q4 I guess) textures really look too plain and boring without their normal maps and proper ingame lighting, I can't imagine them looking like much in a game like Quake... 

The diffuse map (what you call a "basis" texture) alone is extremely flat and plain looking compared to what you see in quake4, and isn't really suitable as a standalone texture.

Ideally you'd use the normal map and diffusemap together to render out a texture with the sort of baked-in highlights and shadows that are used for quake textures. This could be done as a batch process if such a utility existed either alone, or as part of photoshop or maya or something. 

Well, I will make some tries before starting a full automatic process of conversion. If the textures will not look good, I will simply stop the "process".... I can easily live without Doom3 textures in Quake ! :P

However, I think it could be possible to convert at least some of them (i.e rocks, stones, etc.. that are used in Hell/Cavern level..) ... and also reduce the initial size to something more suitable for Quake... I will see this in time..

Anyway, thanks for the infos.. ;) 

I am looking at some spites in Quake.

I realise that sprites are 2D and that walking 'around' them shows the same 2D image, as opposed to a model which can show different sides.

But what are the merits of using sprites instead of models? Would it just be coding and modelling versus drawing? Are there performance considerations? 

Think about the globe - it's spherical so it would take lots of polys - it was also quick to throw it in? Prolly doom leftovers partly tho. Explosions and particles are sprites btw. 

sprites are ( unless you're making lots of really big sprites ) easier on the rendering. They're also easier to make, and not subject to the vagaries of lighting that Q1 models are.

Even Q3 uses sprites for various different visual features. Features that could be done with models and skins but simply don't need to be, cause they work fine as sprites. 

aren't lit, so they are fullbright everywhere. this can be good, but could also be bad. (explosions = yay, trees/shrubs = aww :( )

also, there are a few different ways to have sprites too, you can have them non-aligned (look the same from any angle), vertically aligned (look the same from horizontal angles, but looking down or up at it will show it's 2dness and a few other alignement options which i'm not quite sure what they do. 

While we're on the topic, FrikaC has released a new tool for editing sprites, so you don't have to use the potentially dangerous AdQuedit. Get the beta from http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=331

Already given the program a bit of a try, finishing off a mod I tried to make a few months back without success. It probably earns the distinction of being the smallest mod in existence, at only 17k. And they called it Noir Quake ; - )
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapterhonour/noir.zip
It's just a bit of fun since people mentioned it in a discussion thread. But it might have some merit for interesting future maps, altering the palette in such a way that the existing monster skins aren't broken(changed maybe, but still look alright). Perhaps the Schindler's list effect of black and white with just one colour could work well... 

nice 

what about modifying D3's textures for a map in d3? ie: change the diffuse map, but keep the other maps the same, for example.

are you allowed to modify game ressources if they are for the same game? 

called 'fair use', i.e. taping a broadcast for later viewing, loop samples of music, etc, and remixing elements in a game for the purpose of modding would certainly be an example of that.
You are on pretty safe grounds there, even though, EULA's typically have non modification clauses attached. If they were taken verbatim, there would not be any mods at all.