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. 

Preach, that quake noir thingy is brilliant. I've so wanted to play quake in B&W for soooo long. Skyboxes don't get modified, so one has to call a bogus sky and revert to default but who cares.

For a awesome piece of gothic horror movie action, run noir and load gmsp3... f**king brilliant! 

Hadn't thought about skyboxes, but it's a good point! Many new engine features will break this mod, including fancy particles, .lit files and tga textures. Don't try it in darkplaces! On the other end of the spectrum winquake should work perfectly, and gl if you set gl_flashblend to 0.

Gmsp3 is, I agree, very cool in noir, been a while since I've played it too. Another nice one is Adamantine Cruelty. One thing that became apparent while playing with the mod is how hard it is to distinguish red/yellow/green armour and the gold/silver keys. Sounds obvious now, I know...If someone wanted to do this for a serious map rather than a bit of fun, it might be worth doing something about making them look distinct.

One final trick though, since the only files that are changed are colormap.lmp and palette.lmp, you can almost always just add this mod on top of an existing mod, just by throwing the gfx folder into the mod's folder. So it's not just limited to vanilla quake maps. 

When I tried it, it looked more like nearly-black-and-white-but-with-some-yellow-green Quake instead of Noir Quake. :/ 

 

It's not that I don't try, it's just that I'm useless at it.

Anyone know of a large flame sprite for use in Quake1? You know, large bonfire size one. 

 

I don't have Quake3 :-( 

lots of nice, and smooth flames in duke3d. 

try that out: http://www.planetquake.com/necros/temp/d3dflame.spr 

the flames in marcher? or was it bastion? those were big and looked good. 

sprites, nevermind. 

Good stuff, thanks necros. 

there are a few other varieties, btw. i think at least 1 more, but it is thinner/smaller.

also: the size of the flame in d3dflame.spr has been modified so each from has a ^2 size, so it works with glquake without looking bad from resampling. if you find other flames, i'd advise resizing them like that too.
and make sure you have it so that it is aligned at the bottom of the frame, and not the top. one of the frames is 64x64 instead of 64x128, so if they are aligned from the top, the flame will jump around. 

What's the inverse function of func_pwn? Does it return the input value of the original post?

Original post should have been: Nearly-black-and-white- but-with-some-yellow-and-green Quake. 

I know where RPG is coming from, and I'll say it's partially intentional, but on close inspection it could do with some fixing as well. The idea was to make the palette by changing the hue of each colour while fixing the saturation and luminocity of each colour. But just doing that uniformly might end up merging colours together frequently, so I added a bit of noise to the hue, so it varied. That was the plan anyway, and I stick by it that much.

However, some of the variations were a bit extreme, there were a few rows that preserved their original colour too much, so I've now changed that. Another problem was that some of the darker entries were altered with...less care than the brighter ones. It's not very obvious in the palette editor, but if you have the brightness high enough in quake then you can notice these pixels. These have been fixed too, so there's a version with these changes at
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapterhonour/noir.zip
I've also had a go at doing one where the palette is all one hue, and it doesn't look as bad as I expected. However, if you look carefully there are still visible colour differences, because the palette is stored as RGB not HSL. Anyway, you can also try that out and see if you prefer it:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapterhonour/noiralt.zip 

i go to place a monster (the first entity i've placed since i started the map) and as soon as i deselect it, it disappears...

i go to check in game, and the guy is indeed still there, but he doesn't appear in the map editor in any of the views, 3d preview or 3d realtime preview...

func_s appear still, and toggling the 'show entities' will make the func_s disappear, but doesn't seem to make the other entities like monsters, items and mapobjects appear at all...

i went to check in other maps i've done with entities in them, and in those maps too, monsters, items and mapobjects don't appear at all...

to make matters even wierder, in OTHER maps BESIDES the current one i'm working on, if i toggle 'show entities', func_s and lights disappear, but monsters, items and mapobjects appear! and toggling 'show entities' again, will reverse the effect!! BUT, in the current map, toggling 'show entities' does nothing except make func_s and lights disappear and reappear... o.0

anyone working on d3 maps ever encounter this? did i just hit some button or something--? because this is just wierd... and a little annoying. :P 

does he reappear if you turn off realtime lighting preview?