Engine into parts?

[daemonicky]

[Baker]

Won't comment on breaking the engine into pieces, but to make Quake development more popular in any sort of way that matters would require:

1. Premier Projects. Foremost, a successful example mod or 2 that attracts interest. I would firmly put that in the FAIL category. Kurok did a great job, Nexuiz did a great job. Quoth attracted mappers for a while. Without a premier project that showcases capabilities, any idea of re-popularizing Quake modding will not happen.

As Kurok and Quoth were closed source and Nexuiz and DarkPlaces are way too complicated from a code standpoint, Kurok was only successful in showcasing what a Quake engine could do on a PSP, any use of Quoth was solely restricted to mapping (got new monster idea or need a slight QuakeC modification --- forget it).

Nexuiz is complicated enough a guy like Div was the only one able to maintain the QuakeC. And DarkPlaces, while well written and organized, is poorly documented with a feature set that is both deep and well -- undocumented. That isn't LordHavoc's fault --- he certainly isn't 20 people. Thinks like that, MH's blog, some of the discussion at Inside3D and things like that I think are exposing people to more and more information.

2. Documentation A well-organized Wiki with some newbie like examples and some videos. Doesn't seem likely to happen, for various reasons.

3. Decent and Easy To Use Tools. I'm not really sure what map editor you'd recommend to someone that has the right feature set, ease of use and is modern. A lot of people hate GTK Radiant 1.5 (versus 1.4). Worldcraft 1.6 is ancient. Worldcraft 3.3 is ancient. Anything except a Radiant fork will eventually die an ugly closed source death of non-updates.

And what modelling program do you use? And what model format?

Now, I am actually an optimist but I think the above problems are an accurate description of severe problems.

The reason I am optimist is kind of weird. I used to think the "driving force" was widespread knowledge accessibility. But it is probably more about the depth of knowledge in the most active "people that do stuff". One example would be the interesting effect that Seven and Ooppee had last year with DarkPlaces modelling and texturing.

[daemonicky]

[Baker]

[goldenboy]

[Baker]

[goldenboy]

[Baker]

[goldenboy]

[mh]

[Baker]

Any interface changes would be optional. I'm a believer in user preferences. You can have it both ways, you know.

[Kinda how I like maintain a conservative engine and a non-conservative one. There is a never "one-way" that presentation or interface has to be done.]

[daemonicky]

[Baker]

[qbism]