mh has revived and revised a tutorial he did for QuakeSrc, bringing it up to date and fixes some bugs in it. The subject concerns widescreen rendering of Quake appropriately:
If you've ever played Quake on a widescreen display, you'll have noticed that while the width is correct, the top and bottom of the 3D views is cut off. You can obviously fix this by setting the value of the fov cvar to something higher (102 worked well for me), but you shouldn't have to. You'll also have noticed that the console, status bar pictures and menus are stretched. These two tutorials will resolve all of that.
The tutorials are split into 2d and 3d (we're inside the second!) and cover any aspect ratio. Thats about it, go read the 2d tutorial and the 3d tutorial and be sure to thank mh for the time and hitting upon an oft neglected element of Quake!
mh, in his ongoing quest to code things, has created a port of Quake using Direct3d 9.0c, as he is "sick of poor quality OpenGL drivers." Though not quite complete, nor particularly feature rich, it does run quite nicely on my machine, with very impressive framerates, boot times, and quit times, making it good for a quick pop into a mod or level, or if you're just nuts about speed. I really hope to see this grow and expand, and get a few bugfixes to really round it out!
You can read more in the thread here and on mh's blog here!
Like an arch-vile, I am attempting a resurrection of the speedmodding event, with a new format. The rules are a compromise for those with too little free time, and those with plenty. We now have a 'planning phase', a week after the theme is announced to hem and haw over how to approach the situation. The following week is the actual production week to work on the mod proper.
The planning week is drawing to a close on December 16th, with the due date of December 23rd for something playable. The theme for this event is "Achievements", the potato chip of videogaming. The theme is intentionally broad to draw out creativity and participation. Go check out the thread for additional info!
The forums have been rather active lately, and sadly the front page has not mirrored that, but here I am with my Quake Quill of Journalistic Justice to inform those who don't refresh the forums every quarter hour as I do.
First off, the forums have expanded, adding the Programming Tutorials forum, in response to the overwhelming but always appreciated glut of engine tutorials submitted by many, such as Baker, and evolving courtesy of the wealth of engine knowledge in the community. It's not just the glamorous tutorials however, there are a lot of practical applications to be found. The other new section is the Modeling forum, created after a poll was created and open debate was allowed. Since there was little opposition, and enough content already existed, the section now too exists, and many subjects have been moved over there for organization's sake, with many thanks to Baker.
MauveBib has released the first two parts of his QC Tutorials for Absolute Beginners, which strangely enough, focuses on QuakeC for people who are beginning absolutely! I'm looking forward to more of these.
Chris has shared with us the handy DPModel GUI FrontEnd for those of you developing with DarkPlaces.
Batman brings us news of a new 24-bit sniper rifle for TWCTF created by Dregs. In the thread is a link for the download, and more information, along with an offhanded version.
Stealth Kill sneakily released, much to impatience's demise, the Frame Code Generator to take a bit of the pain out of QC work with frames, download is available near the bottom of the thread, courtesy of Willem!
Hopefully this satisfies the needs of the lazy lurker, and stay tuned for more Quake news, right after this frag!
Well, theres not a lot of files there yet, but Warren "Willem" Marshall of many different project's fame, has launched Quaketastic, a file repository for Quake.
Though it is a bit empty at the moment, that is where the devoted community comes in, as we can help build it into a great source for Quake files, and another bastion in the battle against bitrot!
Created in a response to the announcement that the Shub-Hub would soon be no more, Willem is working to prevent there being a void in the Quake community. May the goat whore of hell and her thousand young bless Willem with a special madness only the Elder Gods could confer. Inside3d thanks the dedication of Spirit for starting the Shub-Hub, rejoices in the continuation of Quaddicted and remains optimistic in Willem carrying the torch with Quaketastic. Feel free to thank both either on the Inside3d forums or on their respective sites for their work, in helping to preserve Quake!
The Pic of the Day Is Actually Relevant for This One
CocoT took a break from counting the world's half eaten orange slices and has released a new version of Transloquake!
With this new version he has added a wealth of new triggers such as magnetic triggers, range altering triggers, and beacon destroying triggers, plus a whole lot more. However CocoT is a greedy man, and was not pleased with merely new triggers, and thus in typical fashion for him, he has added a few new game modes:
CLOCKMODE, in which the goal is to get as many keys as possible within a limited time
RICOCHET, in which players can only translocate if their translocator beacon bounces on specific walls (see POTD), a new way to complicate the game!
CHECKPOINTS, in which players not only have to get keys, but also need to pass through specific checkpoint portals (see inset), challenging and fun!
New modes along with several maps, a few example maps and Entar's Sky Castle.
However that is not all, CocoT is a living conundrum, both greedy for features, but generous with games, as he is featuring another Transloquake mapping contest! To quote our chocolate flavored friend:
The rules haven’t changed much. To enter the competition, all you need to do is to create a map for my mod TRANSLOQUAKE, upload it (and its source) somewhere before the 1st of March 2009, at 10pm Central European Time, and post at least one screenshot of it on this thread, along with your name and contact email. You have the right to submit as many entries as you want. After the closure of the competition, and during a full week, all the members from Quake1-related forums (Inside3D, Func_Msgboard, QuakeOne and QuakeDev – voters will need to have become members before November 18, 2008) will be invited to cast their votes (only one vote per members across all forums) on which map they like best. The author of the best map will get to choose from the list above one game, which will then be sent to them. If maps “tie” for first and/or second place, a second round of votes will take place.
There are oodles of poodles of more information, such as what games you could win, and many more exciting font colors, available in the thread here! So go try the demo, and then try your brush working skills at helping a great mod and maybe getting yourself a free game!
This joke is soon going to go round Robin (told you) but Batman of ZFA just made a post in the forums announcing Thunderwalker Smackdown Extravaganza VI!
For those not in the know, Thunderwalker is a CTF mod which seems to have sprung back into life the past few years, and Batman has been quite the evangelist for it. The thread has multiple handy links such as their new user guide, a list of the top 10 maps being played, and six U.S. servers running TWCTF (and the stratification of these servers is quite nice, if you're in the continental U.S., Canada or Mexico ping should not be a problem).
The whole event is going down this Saturday 10pm EST/7pm PST. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, but I hope to hear about a great turn out, and the glory of many a flag cap and last minute retrievals from many of you!
Okay, so its not exactly Halloween yet, but Halloween is very soon, and what better way to get into the ghastly spirit than with some jarring Quake mods?
First off is the release of the mod Wee2, by Chillo! It is a simple mod with its own map, and a new enemy. The experience is primarily silent, aside from 'that sound...' which is very simple and almost innocent, yet unnerving. Wee has strong tones of /x/'s creepypasta, but is inherently interactive. There is little to say about it other than it is a short but very enjoyable play, though not perfectly executed. I hope to see more in this vein from Chillo, as this installment is a huge advancement from the original Wee. Perfect to supplement the isolated paranormal mood for this Halloween! Go check out the thread http://forums.inside3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=1219 and get the download courtesy of the Shub-Hub http://www.shub-hub.com/files/mods_singleplayer/wee2.rar!
In the not quite as new release pile is Kleshik by Dresk, a co-op mod which is the first Inside3d Spotlight feature, which you can read here. Kleshik is a very dense mod, with intense action, gore galore, a menagerie of monsters and enough guns to mutually ensure destruction. Pile on top of that a host of DarkPlaces features, frightening ambiance and some outright scare tactics, and you've got quite a lot of gameplay!
Baker has four new threads in the Engine Programming forum which might interest many of you, whoever you anonymous voyeurs may be!
The first is straight and simple, a rar of the QuakeSrc.org Tutorials which were not present on the forums. The thread contains a download link of all he was able to retrieve from the bowels of internet's past!
The second is a challenge to a long-standing problem in stock Quake, the dreaded z-fighting texture errors. If you're seriously into glPolygonOffset, then feel free to check out Killing z-fighting in a stock Quake engine, jam packed with Code pastes, and discussion between Baker, r00k, LordHavoc and a guest appearance from Wazat!
Thirdly we have a thread for Deconstructing Sleepwalker's FitzQuake_SDL, which covers the changes made in the SDL port of FitzQuake, bringing a greater diversity to the multi-platform engine scene.
Last and far from least is a large tutorial on compiling DarkPlaces, FitzQuake, and Fruitz of Dojo on a Mac. He covers it pretty thoroughly for each, over multiple posts, and with some handy dandy screenshots, along with links for all your needs. If you're interested in just what is involved in starting on your own Mac port, you might want to give this thread a look!
If you've ever marveled at the collision skill of a twig, then you will be blown away by Urre's stick physics project!
Based off of Thomas Jakobsens article, Urre has taken this concept and brought it to Quake with the assistance of LordHavoc.
However, sadly, not all as well, as it is also a call for assistance in completing the project (which is already impressive, as you can see by the video to the right).
If this is accomplished, it could become an outright physics package right in QC for DarkPlaces, which not only would enhance modding, but also all standalone projects using DarkPlaces. Urre has a nice thread about it here, which though it may appear daunting, is worth the read, and quite interesting.
Besides, he supplies you with a download of the stick physics in a playable form as it is now! Go check it out, and lets get physical!
