Title: The Future of Quake II Evolved
Mills McDougle - March 7, 2005 12:38 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
| Quoted from the Quake II Evolved website >>Well, its that time again. Many people are asking what's going on, with the March release now looking unlikely. But why? Quake II Evolved has hit a major milestone. Its no longer the old source mod you thought it was. Its got some HEAVY changes, and these changes are what's keeping the media under wraps. Let me take you on a tour of what's been done, what's going be done, and the future of us. DONE - Doom 3 Shader System - We have ripped out the old shader system, and replaced it with a Doom 3 style version. This new shader system is so much better than the last, and it's aimed at one thing really; Per Pixel Lighting. In Progress - Per Pixel Lighting - The renderer has already been stripped from Quake II Evolved, and a "working" Per Pixel Lighting engine using Vertex and Fragment programs is there in its place. Once we have this nailed down, we will work on older paths for older hardware, but for the moment in time you will need a VP/FP capable card. Oh, and when I say Per Pixel Lighting, I mean full Per Pixel, not "some things". EVERYTHING will be done, ala doom 3. Normal Map, Specular, Height Map etc - These were, to some degree, already present in Quake II Evolved. However with the current shader change and the new PPL renderer, we have re-done these to look much better and work to their fullest. Re-Lighting Maps - Lets get this point over first. QUAKE 2 LIGHTING SUCKS angry beaver. Even more so than the original Quake. So, we have to do a little hack of the .bsp file to get the original .map file out of it, then we remove all entities and re-place lights around the map where light sources would actually be. If an area of the map is too dark (no visible light sources) we have to hack in a map model that looks like original Quake 2 geometry, and then place a light there. Looks cool, and is a smart way to get around the darkness (Although we will be adding a cvar enabled flashlight). NOTE: No modified .bsp or .map files will be released. We have our own program that extracts the lights, models and particle effect coordinates from a .map file, and makes its own file. We will never release original Quake 2 media modified in this way, its not needed. To Come - I'm not going to go to much into what's to come, but you can expect to see a scriptable particle system as well as scriptable UI system. Mod's are now GONE, at last, which means we have our own netcode and our own rules to play by. This means all of the stupid "features" Quake 2 had can now be fixed, at last. We are looking into improved physics on models, such as Rag Doll, and also a new model format, possibly md5, depending on how we feel the project is going. For the moment, however, we are just working on getting PPL in place and looking good. For those that doubt Team Blur on this, or for those that think this is the wrong move; Don't. We have PPL in place and its showing promise at such an early stage in development. If you feel breaking mod's was a bad choice, then come on, you don't REALLY play mod's with Q2E any way, do you? IT SUCKS. Try out Quake 2 Max, its always rocked the boat with mod's and is much more friendly to them in that regard. We hope we are not pissing in anybodies cornflakes with these new decisions, but if you do have any questions, please feel free to post about them in our forums. Thanks all! |
EDIT: ...angry beaver? Where'd that come from? Who says that?!
LOL Anyway, tell me what you think. :)
Mills McDougle - March 11, 2005 12:27 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE |
| odium from the Q2E forums Ok guys, you wanted it, you have it. This is, so fat at least, what we have come up with. Berserk has been coding like a god this past month and he really has come up with the goods. This video is work in progress code, with work in progress media. In fact, the reason the media looks so bad is because i made it blind a while back, and that’s why the specular looks so wrong and the normals are inverted in places, lol. Also take note of the nice md2 models and their vertex compression, doesn't that like good! Anyways, here it is. Ignore what I said and concentrate on the fact that Quake II Evolved now has a full Per Pixel renderer, and post all feedback here. Thanks guys. |
Mills McDougle - July 12, 2005 04:11 PM (GMT)
NOTE: IMAGE-HEAVY POST! 56KERS BEWARE...
NOTE: This is all courtesy of Quake II Evolved and it's community, and everything I post comes from those sources. Don't claim any of it. :yes:
Anyway, on to the fun stuff!
The future is almost here, people.
The great people there have been hard at work recreating our favorite game(lol). The renderer is finally playable, and will be released soon, though only people with DX9 compliant cards will be able to use per-pixel lighting(though word is the coder has gotten original code in so DX9-less people will still be able to enjoy this mod).
Some community members have been at work creating models to replace the old ones, which is a great thing. Here's the link to the Retexture/Remodel forums. A few pics as well from the finished ones(all they need is normal mapping now, I believe...)
Grenade Launcher (WIP):
Soldier (WIP):
Weapons for the Soldier models:
This is Quake 2 here, not Doom 3. This is also a techmap, so this will be released seperately. Also note that Quake 2 was NOT released with proper lighting, so all of the levels have to be relit before you can use them with the default levels. The mod community is thriving with things to try it on, though, so give it a run when it releases. :)
Tech map shots:
Tell me how you think progress is going. :D
NOTE: This is all courtesy of Quake II Evolved and it's community, and everything I post comes from those sources. Don't claim any of it. :yes:
Anyway, on to the fun stuff!
The future is almost here, people.
The great people there have been hard at work recreating our favorite game(lol). The renderer is finally playable, and will be released soon, though only people with DX9 compliant cards will be able to use per-pixel lighting(though word is the coder has gotten original code in so DX9-less people will still be able to enjoy this mod).
Some community members have been at work creating models to replace the old ones, which is a great thing. Here's the link to the Retexture/Remodel forums. A few pics as well from the finished ones(all they need is normal mapping now, I believe...)
Grenade Launcher (WIP):
Soldier (WIP):
Weapons for the Soldier models:
This is Quake 2 here, not Doom 3. This is also a techmap, so this will be released seperately. Also note that Quake 2 was NOT released with proper lighting, so all of the levels have to be relit before you can use them with the default levels. The mod community is thriving with things to try it on, though, so give it a run when it releases. :)
Tech map shots:
Tell me how you think progress is going. :D
Dark Rabbit 87 - July 13, 2005 10:06 PM (GMT)
You know, they make the graphics look better in screenshots like these. But when you play the game, it doesn't look as good. Even with the kind of computer I have, the graphics are somewhat questionable with all the settings turned up.
Mills McDougle - July 13, 2005 11:47 PM (GMT)
Eh?
Who is this 'they' you're referring to? The mod community? So you're telling me it's not possible to have graphics like these because it's a mod? How can they touch it up so it looks better in the screenshots? It's freshly taken from the in-game engine. Note that no anti-aliasing is going on, so that's not the way they'd touch it up.
Hell, even before this, the mod was very good-looking, especially for a game as old as this. And what you just said has never been a problem for me. Perhaps it's your computer that's giving you this sort of feedback...
To be blunt, I completely disagree with what you said, and find it to be a naive statement, AND doubt that you've even played an engine mod before. Check the facts, man. And download a few of these engine mods while you're at it. :rolleyes:
Who is this 'they' you're referring to? The mod community? So you're telling me it's not possible to have graphics like these because it's a mod? How can they touch it up so it looks better in the screenshots? It's freshly taken from the in-game engine. Note that no anti-aliasing is going on, so that's not the way they'd touch it up.
Hell, even before this, the mod was very good-looking, especially for a game as old as this. And what you just said has never been a problem for me. Perhaps it's your computer that's giving you this sort of feedback...
To be blunt, I completely disagree with what you said, and find it to be a naive statement, AND doubt that you've even played an engine mod before. Check the facts, man. And download a few of these engine mods while you're at it. :rolleyes: