Quake 2 and .Plans
by Brock Ferguson · in General Discussion · 12/21/2001 (5:57 pm) · 29 replies
I have two questions for the GG community. In case some of you missed it, the Quake 2 source code was released today by John Carmack at id Software... so I downloaded it but I am not sure how to compile it in VC++ 6 so has anybody done this yet?
My second question is about .plans. How can you create a real .plan system that is able to be fingered and such? Thanks!
[Edit] ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake2.zip
My second question is about .plans. How can you create a real .plan system that is able to be fingered and such? Thanks!
[Edit] ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake2.zip
About the author
#22
Half-Life is a heavily modified version of the Quake 1 Engine, actually it uses some parts of the Quake 2 engines, but they were integrated into the quake 1 engine... at least that's what i have been told... i WAS sure it was Quake 2 too :)
12/26/2001 (2:45 pm)
no ppl... look info on the quake sites forumsHalf-Life is a heavily modified version of the Quake 1 Engine, actually it uses some parts of the Quake 2 engines, but they were integrated into the quake 1 engine... at least that's what i have been told... i WAS sure it was Quake 2 too :)
#23
In case your wondering, I know Quake AND Halflife code very very well, having done both mods and renderers for Q1, Q2, Halflife and Q3, I'm fairly knowledgable for all of the formats.
Halflife's rendering is pretty much the same as Q1 bar for the palette per texture. I used the Q1 source as reference for my halflife renderer, and it was quite helpful, certainly more helpful than a lot of other sources ended up being.
Theyre all much the same though, there's not a lot of actual difference in terms of rendering code between them all, its mainly networking or AI or other code that sets them apart.
Phil.
12/27/2001 (9:27 am)
Xavier's 100% correct. Halflife was started using Q1 source code. They got Q2 code during development, but had already gone too far in thier own modding (making it all C++) for it to be any use.In case your wondering, I know Quake AND Halflife code very very well, having done both mods and renderers for Q1, Q2, Halflife and Q3, I'm fairly knowledgable for all of the formats.
Halflife's rendering is pretty much the same as Q1 bar for the palette per texture. I used the Q1 source as reference for my halflife renderer, and it was quite helpful, certainly more helpful than a lot of other sources ended up being.
Theyre all much the same though, there's not a lot of actual difference in terms of rendering code between them all, its mainly networking or AI or other code that sets them apart.
Phil.
#24
It isnt the renderer that makes a great engine, its the tools used to produce the content. Once the tools are there, its relatively easy to write enough render code so that the world can look VERY good.
Renderer code is possibly the easiest code to write in these days of multipass multitexture VERY VERY fast video cards.
You would be far better concerning yourself with the ease of use of content production. Is it possible to add all the content you want into the engine? because thats whats important.
If I were to rate the Torque engine on a scale of 1-10, I'd say it were a 6-7 range. Its got some nice features, but the content pipeline aint great, its over scripted (IMHO) is a little slow (definitely should reduce polycounts and use a better metric for the landscape), and the lighting in the buildings is terrible :))
Its sort of a poor mans version of Unreal2 (seen shots of some U2 stuff that look very very tribes like).
But you get source, you get help, you get a great community, and if you can do better, its all there for you to knock yourself out on :))
I think its a great great deal, and a great opportunity. I'd certainly recommend it over any other engine Ive seen thus far (and I pretty much have seen em all).
Cant say fairer than that.
Phil.
12/27/2001 (9:35 am)
Just to my add my own little after thought.It isnt the renderer that makes a great engine, its the tools used to produce the content. Once the tools are there, its relatively easy to write enough render code so that the world can look VERY good.
Renderer code is possibly the easiest code to write in these days of multipass multitexture VERY VERY fast video cards.
You would be far better concerning yourself with the ease of use of content production. Is it possible to add all the content you want into the engine? because thats whats important.
If I were to rate the Torque engine on a scale of 1-10, I'd say it were a 6-7 range. Its got some nice features, but the content pipeline aint great, its over scripted (IMHO) is a little slow (definitely should reduce polycounts and use a better metric for the landscape), and the lighting in the buildings is terrible :))
Its sort of a poor mans version of Unreal2 (seen shots of some U2 stuff that look very very tribes like).
But you get source, you get help, you get a great community, and if you can do better, its all there for you to knock yourself out on :))
I think its a great great deal, and a great opportunity. I'd certainly recommend it over any other engine Ive seen thus far (and I pretty much have seen em all).
Cant say fairer than that.
Phil.
#27
any chance of more stories?
so its mainly texture size/ palette/ depth that sets q1 and hl apart? surely the radiosity process was improved a bit?
what of q2's rendering features were taken on board.
And if they are so damn similar what do programmers do all day? PLAY GAMES? :P
01/11/2002 (6:31 am)
interesting info Phil.any chance of more stories?
so its mainly texture size/ palette/ depth that sets q1 and hl apart? surely the radiosity process was improved a bit?
what of q2's rendering features were taken on board.
And if they are so damn similar what do programmers do all day? PLAY GAMES? :P
#28
any chance of more stories?
so its mainly texture size/ palette/ depth that sets q1 and hl apart? surely the radiosity process was improved a bit?
Nope, as far as I can tell, they still use the same radiosity pass as Q2, if you think about it, lighting isnt really going to change that much, they use 16x16 lightmaps in 256x256 pages, any polygons that would take up more than 16x16 in lightmap size are broken down (thats one of the worst things in doing radiosity is making sure the edges of lightmaps match when you split polies).
what of q2's rendering features were taken on board.
Pretty much everything, all halflife added were the palette per texture (so you have colour), otherwise the structures internally seem to be the same. Most of what they added was probably in the form of scripted sequences and entities (stuff like func_breakable's etc).
And if they are so damn similar what do programmers do all day? PLAY GAMES? :P
Yes! :)) actually, fairly funny story, I went over to Valve a few years back for an interview for a gig with them on TF2 (didnt get it, but thats another story), anyway, during the day I pretty much saw everyone (great guys) and some of em told me that HL was delayed a bit because they were playing Worms 2 so much!! (which is kinda funky, because Worms Armageddon was kinda delayed by halflife :))
Of course game developers play games, we are all just big kids really. :))
Phil.
01/12/2002 (3:54 am)
interesting info Phil. any chance of more stories?
so its mainly texture size/ palette/ depth that sets q1 and hl apart? surely the radiosity process was improved a bit?
Nope, as far as I can tell, they still use the same radiosity pass as Q2, if you think about it, lighting isnt really going to change that much, they use 16x16 lightmaps in 256x256 pages, any polygons that would take up more than 16x16 in lightmap size are broken down (thats one of the worst things in doing radiosity is making sure the edges of lightmaps match when you split polies).
what of q2's rendering features were taken on board.
Pretty much everything, all halflife added were the palette per texture (so you have colour), otherwise the structures internally seem to be the same. Most of what they added was probably in the form of scripted sequences and entities (stuff like func_breakable's etc).
And if they are so damn similar what do programmers do all day? PLAY GAMES? :P
Yes! :)) actually, fairly funny story, I went over to Valve a few years back for an interview for a gig with them on TF2 (didnt get it, but thats another story), anyway, during the day I pretty much saw everyone (great guys) and some of em told me that HL was delayed a bit because they were playing Worms 2 so much!! (which is kinda funky, because Worms Armageddon was kinda delayed by halflife :))
Of course game developers play games, we are all just big kids really. :))
Phil.
#29
01/12/2002 (11:12 am)
Side note, anyone poking at the Q2 source?
Mike Wuetherick
They might have started on the quake 1 engine, but that's irrelevant...how many games change engines these days...