Now that the RMQ project has split up, what's happening with the BSP2 format? Will it still be updated? Do any engines other than the RMQ Engine support it yet?

Also, is anyone willing to do some coding for new boss monsters? PM is currently cleaning up and debugging Drake, but doesn't want to spend time adding entirely new monsters/features/etc. I totally understand this POV but it'd be nice if Drake had a unique final boss of some sort.

Looks like eyes to me. Now the Shambler, on the other hand... 

With no eyes? This is horrible. 

Glases are fine, horns another question.

http://members.home.nl/gimli/gdemon.jpg 

maybe I'm just tired, but that was hilarious. :D 

Since I was linked here from IRC, I might as well answer to Tronyn:

FTE and Darkplaces (and Hmap2) support BSP2, but DP's version is slightly different.

I would guess that DirectQ also supports it, and Baker and Rook's engines might as well.

I have switched to Warsow's FBSP for my project, so BSP2 will get no updates from me. The Schism team would probably be the ones to maintain it now. Perhaps ask at their forum.

You should talk to MH, Spike and Lordhavoc to get the BSP2 support in those engines harmonised.

Quakespasm did not want to support BSP2 when I asked.

I don't normally read this forum anymore, but I'm willing to help where I can. Poke me per mail or IRC if someone wants to talk to me. 

http://necros.slipgateconstruct.com/temp/objdrawing.jpg

Thanks to preach for his pcx loading code in the md3tomdl converter. The runlength encoding stuff was confusing the crap out of me.
Also, I had to flip the pcx data on the x axis AND reverse the pixel array order after loading it... is that normal? If it's not then I must have messed up the UVs on the OBJ... 

actually, flipping x axis and reversing the order is basically just flipping y axis right? :P 

looks like it's a thing with obj... just flipped v component when loading the obj instead of goofing with the pcx. 

There is an issue to be aware of with "intuitive" coordinates and storage of data. The natural order of storing skin/image data (at least the one taken in the mdl format) comes about I think from their usual representation as a string (in the purest array of numbers sense). Since we are used to text flowing from left-to-right then step down a line and repeat (for english-speakers) we extend that idea to the order pixels should be stored in the skin.

The place where this begins to cause a conflict is when we start thinking about cartesian co-ordinates on the skin. The standard mathematical axes on a graph has the y value increase as you move upwards. So if you have something that wants to put the origin of the coordinates in the bottom-left of the skin, you need to reflect the skin in y to compensate.

Having said that, if you're actually going to render the 2d skin somewhere, you really ought to apply the reflection to the skin vertices rather than the image file itself. Otherwise you will cause a lot of confusion for the user who has an expectation on what their skin looked like. 

Having said that, if you're actually going to render the 2d skin somewhere, you really ought to apply the reflection to the skin vertices rather than the image file itself. Otherwise you will cause a lot of confusion for the user who has an expectation on what their skin looked like.

Yes, this is what I ended up doing. I want to be able to display the skin either for drawing on (probably not) or changing UV coordinates, so having the thing upside down is not an option.

Turns out that this is a common thing with the OBJ format as many of the loading examples I read had a bit of code involving flipping the v component of the texture coordinates. 

OBJ -> MDL perfectly functional! FUCK YEAH.
Still can't import more than 1 frame, but I don't think that's going to be a big deal. 

Suppose that we have the following functions:

is_first_player: returns true if self is the first player in the server

is_last_player: returns true if self is the last player in the server

toggle_func_playerclips: finds all func_playerclip entities in the map and toggles them between SOLID_BSP and SOLID_NOT.

Your task: comment and critique the following scheme for implementing func_playerclip entities:
1) add
if(is_first_player())
    toggle_func_playerclips();
to PlayerPreThink.
2) add
if(is_last_player())
    toggle_func_playerclips();
to PlayerPostThink.

The main question for consideration: is there any way for a player to become 'stuck'? Extra credit for considering the implications if is_first_player and is_last_player are not available. 

Forgot to preview so the entities weren't encoded...

Your task: comment and critique the following scheme for implementing func_playerclip entities:
1) add
if(is_first_player())
����toggle_func_playerclips();
to PlayerPreThink.
2) add
if(is_last_player())
����toggle_func_playerclips();
to PlayerPostThink. 

You might not be able to change .solid like that without setting model.
Might be safer to do the func_togglewall trick where you translate the clipmodel far away when 'off' and put it back into place when 'on'.

Beyond that, at first glance, seems like it would work? 

Hey, thanks for the response - helpful stuff. What's your email / how can I contact you? PS all the stuff on your blog looks amazing. Cheers. 

You might not be able to change .solid like that without setting model.
Might be safer to do the func_togglewall trick where you translate the clipmodel far away when 'off' and put it back into place when 'on'.

Yeah, I explained myself badly. The plan was to only describe abstract functions, so you could assume they were correct without getting bogged down. I leaked too many implementation details...

There's still one case I can think of where it breaks down though - the trick is to work out when the player moves other than within the player physics code. There's also a more philosophical quandary with pointcontents I meant to bring up in the first post.

I'm glad you mentioned togglewalls, because although they seem quite hackish with the far-away trick, it has some hidden advantages. The prime one is avoiding ever toggling solid status within a touch function - which can be a fatal error. Building a monsterclip with the same broad outline would now become feasible.

You do have to bind the toggling to calls to walkmove and movetogoal, because monsters don't have the simple physics-wrapping functions that players do. This means that the monsterclip is imperfect in a way that the playerclip is not: falling or jumping monsters will pass through monsterclip. Still, better than a kick in the teeth. 

You do have to bind the toggling to calls to walkmove and movetogoal, because monsters don't have the simple physics-wrapping functions that players do.

This is what I do right now. To avoid toggling every monster clip, I bind specific clips to specific monsters via a target->targetname style link, that way if a monster has no monsterclips associated with it, it doesn't toggle anything otherwise, it's only toggling a single monsterclip.
I suppose you could just make one giant monster clip entity for the entire map, but I'm not sure if that's bad having an entity with collision cover such a huge area so I've left it as localized clips. 

I think I got a little side-tracked...

There's still one case I can think of where it breaks down though - the trick is to work out when the player moves other than within the player physics code. There's also a more philosophical quandary with pointcontents I meant to bring up in the first post.

Why would it move outside of engine physics? Feeding .velocity in still has to wait for the engine to process it.
Unless you mean setorigin()? But I think it's safe to assume using setorigin is always going to break collision.

Hm.. well, unless you are doing some funny trickery where you are using a proxy to move the player... 

But I think it's safe to assume using setorigin is always going to break collision.

Yeah, agreed.

Why would it move outside of engine physics?

Still inside engine physics, but outside of the player's physics pass. 

hm... Maybe when you're standing on a bmodel that's moving? ie: train or lift 

Maybe when you're standing on a bmodel that's moving? ie: train or lift

Bingo. Probably not a big deal once you know about it, because usually those things are put in for the benefit of the player and you're unlikely to intentionally clip off their route, just something that users of the entity would have to be aware of. 

The whole player movement on other bmodels thing is kind of fuzzy for me. It's not true movement because the minute you jump, you loose the bmodel's velocity and just get your own personal velocity back.
It's too bad because it stops things like throwing the player off a fast moving object or launching them through the air from a catapult. 

I want to calculate the height and speed to make a monster jump a certain distance. I know the origin of both the start and finish points but I don't know how to calculate the speed and velocity in QC.

I know there is 'trigger_monsterjump' but you have to specify or just guess the right amounts until it is right. is there a way I can do a quick QC formula to get rid of the guess work? 

Start by picking a velocity upwards, call that v_z. Let d_z be the height of the end point minus the height of the start point.

Once your monster launches, the only thing affecting it is gravity, which accelerates at 800 units per second per second(*). We will appeal to one of the standard equations of motion (with constant acceleration)

s = ut + �at�

Where s is the distance travelled, u is the initial velocity, t is time and a is the acceleration. Substituting the values from above and rearranging:

400 t� - v_z * t + d_z = 0

with solution t = (v_z + sqrt(v_z� - 1600 d_z) )/800

On level ground this simplifies to:

t = v_z / 400

Now that we have the time t it takes to fall to the correct height, we need only divide the horizontal distance between the start and end points by t to get the required horizontal velocity. Sum the horizontal and vertical velocity vectors and you are done.

We seem to have complete freedom on how to choose v_z, but there are two things to think about. Firstly flight time is roughly proportional to v_z, so vary it according to how long you'd like the jump to last. Secondly in the case that d_z is positive (the end point is above the start point), there is a minimum requirement to v_z. The value inside the square root must be positive for the equation to work, so take care.

Please also remember that although we have solved the equations exactly, the simulation of the motion in the engine will not be exact, and in any case rounding errors will occur. Do not rely on any method to give you 100% accuracy - the landing point may even vary a small amount depending on framerate.

The really interesting case is the one where you have a fixed total velocity and still want to try and land on a particular point, but no space for that right now.

(*) 800 is the default, but in reality you should use the value of sv_gravity. It should be easy to replace the constant, but the explanation focuses on the important variables for clarity. 

check if some mods with "z-aware ogres" (one of the worst quake gameplay changes people like to call a bugfix) are open-source and allow copying, maybe you can use the calculation from their aim.