Know what i would like to see?

[Ranger366]

This is damn serious, im Quake modder for some time now, im modding Half-Life for like 2 years. You must know im a very young guy which loves to modify games and likes to play them.

When you make mods for Half-Life, everything is clean and easy, you can make Maps with Hammer, you can make models with Milkshape 3D - listen, im not a Milkshape FanBoy, im not using it all day and NOT FOR MY MODS, but it was created for Half-Life and is perfect low-poly models.
The Half-Life Formats are MUCH better than Quake ones, everyone knows that, im working with the Model Viewer all day. using HL Formats is not only easier, it looks better because textures dont use one f*cking global palette.
Every Quake mod look like Quake! (palette changing is damn time wasting) And the Maplight has only ONE damn color!
Half-Life formats like BSP30, HL MDL, SPR32 would MATCH PERFECTLY to Quake, Xash3D (GoldSrc Engine built "from Scratch" by Uncle Mike) got every Format right to work. im just freaking ask me why after 10 years no one thought of to make an engine with all those Filetype supports. We would have better mods. Make this thing happen guys.
Well, dont misunderstand me, i can do stuff by my own, i just wanna know here what do you think of it, i never saw HL MDL working correctly in Quake.

[mh]

Number of reasons.

Valve's licensing terms ain't exactly too friendly, and projects (like the old open source CS clone on QER) have been C&D'ed in the past. This on it's own is enough to kill any such plans stone dead, but there are a few others that are worth discussing too.

The formats aren't exactly that good. Take HL BSP 30 - most everything it's capable of has already been replicated in Q1 engine ports, but the one real jump ahead that's needed (switching unsigned short types to unsigned int in the format and thereby removing limits) doesn't exist. Neither do essential features for easing the map making burden like areaportals or (AFAIK) detail brushes. I don't know much about the HL MDL format, but what I do know is that comments about it being disgusting to code for have been made in the past.

Mod support. Baker has made a great point elsewhere that engines don't drive forward standards; mods do. Until a major mod comes out that's using (and is committed to using) HL formats all the way through the content pipeline, there is absolutely no way we're going to see HL formats getting any kinda widespread uptake.

I can't speak for everyone else, but another thought I have on this is that HL formats aren't nearly ambitious enough. I've touched on this a coupla paras back, but the point is worth bringing out on it's own. HL formats don't offer enough extra to justify the work investment required to build support for them. This is critical. Just because some of the formats are relatively close to Q1 formats doesn't mean that they're automatically easier to implement or a better choice.

I've said this last one before elsewhere myself. If you wanted to pick new "standard formats" to go forward with, then my belief is that you're better off picking the Q2 formats. We already have a GPL working reference example of an engine for loading and using these formats: the Quake II engine. We have GPL tools for building them. Overall they're a more sensible "next level up" than HL formats.

[Ranger366]

Quake 2 Formats arent supported in every Engine, most important thing is that the animations still suck up with this glibber effect. The important thing on half-Life MDL is that it uses Skeleton based Sequences and attachments for the muzzleflash, as example. The chrome effect on some textures arent really important - ah yes, multiple textures, MD3 has the same too, but this format is rarely supported, it also fix the animations. Funny thing on telejano Quake is that MD3 is totally useless, try it by yourself...

Quake 2 BSP? Never worked with that, i know that you can do with WorldCraft maps for it, but the map textures arent that good... (.wal, can be changed to TGA but this is one other chapter in the story of my problems)

[ceriux]

i think i have to agree with him not on a coders standpoint but as a content creator. making a half-life 1 .mdl is much easier than quake or any other format iv ever compiled/made. on top of that it uses groups, where each group (like attachments) can be changed and have different sub groups, not only that each having their own texture if you choose.

Half-life bsp, has a much nicer version of worldcraft that he mentioned is called hammer. with the latest version you can view your models that you place in a map directly with in the editor before its compiled and its much easier to use than any other world editor. so easy that i have taken the time to learn others and have failed miserably.

so for someone who creates content, these formats are much nicer and easier to use and make content for.

i would have to agree that it would be a benefit to have them in an engine together. its always been something iv wanted . but im no engine coder so i could never accomplish it on my own.

personally my favorite features would have to be things such as this :

- HL.bsp
- HL.mdl
- frik_file
- csqc
- any special limitation fixes and extensions

after those things. i could care less what was in the engine, as long as it was net quake =).

[Ranger366]

[Spike]

[frag.machine]

[ceriux]

[revelator]

id support asking valve for the hl1 source

also gives me a chance to pester them about hl2 episode 3

[mh]

[Rich]

[mh]

[Rich]

[Boss429]

[Urre]