Is there anyone interested in making prefabs?

I've seen some different attempts at a tile based Quake map editor, but no one can pull it off because the details tend to dive deep into the murky depths of Quake specifications for several different file formats.

I wrote out a process that can take a prefab .map file, convert it to tile overhead images, determine how many tiles it needs based on tile size (i.e. 64 x 64 quake units, 128 x 128, ..).

It would require some effort to assemble the full process to a complete graphical user interface process, but it might be worth it.

And then there is the issue how to connect a teleporter to a teleporter destination, and how exactly to light such maps so the environment looks nice.

(Also: Hard to tell if maps made in such a way would be any good?) 

There is a tile based Quake solution here: https://github.com/joshuaskelly/tmx2map/tree/master/examples/basic

There are a lot of videos showing it in development here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/JDSkelly/videos 

 

(Also: Hard to tell if maps made in such a way would be any good?)

It would almost certainly result in pure unfiltered arse if you are trying to make maps for regular FPS quakery.

HOWEVER, if you made maps for a top-down mod such as this:

https://youtu.be/IWF_cvh54Rg

(I hope coburn doesn't mind me posting that)

...then you might be onto something. 

I bet that id themselves would've used prefabs if they had it at the time.

Quake's ammo boxes sucks because they're always pseudo-fullbright. And I don't consider this to be a deliberate "feature", because otherwise they'd have made the rotating items fullbright too.
Some of the ammo boxes even have fullbright-colored texels, such as the red dots in the big nail/shells box, and all the bright leds in the health boxes. They were obviously intended to match the lighting of the levels.

I guess id made all those boxes into external BSP models because their editor didn't support prefabs, and manually modelling and texturing every item/explosive box dozens of times on every map would be ridiculous. 

Is there anyone interested in making prefabs?

I can do some if there's demand, but first I'd have to know which kinds of prefabs people would use. I've already released a WAD full of masked "fence" textures that nobody ever tried to use.

tile based Quake map

That's the next logical step. Sets of prefabs that could be used to assemble multi-part objects, such as ladders and rails (detailed rails, comprised of more than a couple rectangular brushes).

Support for tileable prefabs (or even tileable entities/brushgroups of any kind) in the map editors would be wonderful.

Another even more advanced step would be multi-entity prefabs, for mechanisms with complex animations, and a BSP animation editor. But that's beyond vanilla Quake. 

I guess id made all those boxes into external BSP models because their editor didn't support prefabs, and manually modelling and texturing every item/explosive box dozens of times on every map would be ridiculous.

Apparently it's just because it was faster to use external maps-as-brush-models and there were some issues texturing all six sides of a box using their model format (which makes sense given they didn't really have proper UV maps of their models, just straight-on texture projection). At least according to Romero:

We made those bsp because the engine draws that type quickly and all sides can be textured. Mdl format had some limitations. 

Comparing pickup items to prefabbed architectural features is...not really one of the strongest argument winners to be honest. 

"Is there anyone interested in making prefabs"

Me obviously :D After I posted this I felt kinda bad about asking so I made a brush model of an excavator that I would be willing to let people use, which I showed off a little on the Trenchbroom discord. Though I would prefer to release it as part of a whole pack rather than just by itself 

Oh, that's true. Their modeling tools sucked back then. However, the MDL file format itself does allow proper texturing, as seen in Skiffy's shambler.

The quick drawing Romero talked about is the zero overdraw nature of Quake's BSP renderer.

Maybe the fullbright LEDs painted in some item textures were intended for use in the MDL format, before they switched all boxes to BSP. 

I wrote a mod 12 or so years ago, for QExpo 2006, which used "tiles" to make a random map layout:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070812135352/http://qexpo.quakedev.com:80/booth.php?id=32&page=113

One of the example maps was for an imagined top-down Space Hulk style game, with dimly lit corridors. There was also a 3D cave system that was more suited for FPS navigation, and a few other experiments.

The way the mod operates is that you create a map which contains instances of all the tiles you want to use. Each time you start the map, it generates a new level from the tiles. If you like a particular layout, you can make a save file to preserve it.

One thing that's important is you need an engine that supports collision on rotated BSP entities - I think at the time darkplaces was a suitable choice so I'd recommend trying it out in that first. 

In the topic of tile based map editors dumptruck_ds posted a copy of Phase 2 on the Trenchbroom discord a week or so ago, it looks like a really old text based tile based map editor, I haven't used it yet but looking at the readme and the map format it seems kind of limited, like it would be a major hassle to make anything more than wolfenstein 3d homages lol 

Yeah, a purely tile-based map would be limited by the tileset. Which is why I prefer a mixed approach, using tiles for stuff like ladders, but not for the actual map layout. 

Some ideas from Unity:


Nesting
Greater flexibility
Previously, users were forced to choose between creating large monolithic Prefabs, like buildings, or more granular ones, like pieces of furniture, but they couldn't do both.

Now with support for nested Prefabs, a large building can be made up of many smaller room Prefabs, which in turn can be made up of multiple pieces of furniture Prefabs, and so on.

Productivity booster
This makes it easier for teams of all sizes to:
Split up Prefabs into multiple entities for greater efficiency
Reuse any content, from small to large
Work on different parts of content simultaneously

Prefab Variants
Flexible properties increase efficiency
As a default, a Prefab Variant inherits the objects and properties of the Prefab it is a variant of, but at the same time, you have the possibility to override those properties. This is similar to the concept of inheritance in object-oriented programming.

For example, if you had multiple door Prefabs, you could choose to make some of them a different color, while allowing the rest to inherit the existing Prefab color property. Any change made to the original door Prefab will affect the variants of it as well, except those properties which have been overridden.

Prefab Mode
Avoid time-consuming mistakes
A cornerstone of the new workflows, Prefab Mode enables you to edit in isolation. While this means that you will have to approach Prefab editing in a slightly different way, you can feel secure that any errors made will not have negative consequences.

In order to edit a Prefab Asset, you can open it in Prefab Mode. This allows you to view and edit the contents of the Prefab Asset separately from your Scene objects. Any changes you make in Prefab Mode affects all instances of that Prefab.
 

lmao 

I want to subvert the Quake fandom into a "mapping for grannies" community. 

A Quake tile-based editor is nearing completion.

While no level design masterpieces will come from it, there is something enjoyable about the ability to so quickly place prefabs.

A concept work. 

Can we make custom tiles for it? 

Yes! 

First dumptruck's family friendly quake mapping server and now this. Soon everybody will be forced to map using trenchbroom and prefabs. Dumptruck's tutorials will serve as part of a mandatory syllabus. Anon posting will been removed from func, the site taken over and re-branded by dumptruck and co. This is the future that awaits us. 

Nobody will be forced to map. With tileable prefabs, all future maps will be created through procedural generation. Optionally, there will be a SnapTile editor for the really hardcore users.

It's the future, slowly approaching you from behind and breathing down your neck. 

 

awww, come on, it's not like dumptruck's power grab is all bad - at least his vanity discoord server doesn't have any toxic assholes moderating it...

oh. wait. never mind.