Darkplaces and Trenbroom: A frustraited newbie

[Pectabyte]

Hey guys!

Long time Quake fan, first time poster. I've been playing a lot of Darkplaces Mod for Q1 recently and decided to look into mapping for it. I'm familiar with GTKRadiant as I used to make Jedi Knight 2 and Quake 3 maps but after some googling I found Trenbroom and decided I wanted to use it.

Is it possible to use Trenchbroom to make levels for Quake 1 Darkplaces? I can't find a tutorial on how to setup Trenchbroom to do it. Does anyone have one? I keep getting the error "cannot find: (filepath)"

[Dutch]

Howdy.

DarkPlaces is simply an engine for quake, meaning that any quake1 map file (.bsp) will load into DarkPlaces just fine, just like any other engine such as quakespasm or qrack.

As far as trenchbroom is concerned, I personally do not compile through trenchbroom, I use an external compiler that links to tyrutil's qbsp, light, and vis. I think the only reason to link trenchbroom to the engine is to locate the ID1 directory so it can load the 3d models on screen in the editor. The information regarding the game logic is pulled from the quake.fgd file that should have come with trenchbroom. At any rate, you should be able to link the engine to the editor through the options (or configuration or preferences...whatever they call it).

Trenchbroom, like other editors, will produce a .map file. It is the compiler programs that convert the .map to a .bsp, which the engine can read.

There is a really handy tutorial for getting trenchbroom set up, including links to the other tools you'll need on the web somewhere. I don't remember where but I found it by googling around for trenchbroom.

[Cocerello]

Just add to Dutch's text that Darkplaces is a bit special and unique amongst Quake engines, in such that some things won't end up the same if the map is loaded with Darkplaces than when using the original or any other Quake engine, like on lighting and some entities' behaviour, so if you plan on releasing a map to the community, you should check with another Quake engine first to see how things will go for other players, just in case.

For the rest, there is no problem at all.

[MadGypsy]

You could just use FTE and experience the warm fuzzy feeling of superiority that you are using the absolute best client available.

Or you can keep using DP and get used to feeling "frustraited". There is nothing "special" about an engine that defaults to behaviors and visuals different than the game it was built to run, with no way to ever reconfigure to the 100% true state. That's really just an engine that never quite got it right and doesn't care what you expect.

There are about 7,0000,0000 posts here that tell you one reason or another why you shouldn't use DP. I've never seen a single post with a single reason why you shouldn't use FTE.

[Dutch]

@gypsy

I agree about DP. My only gripe with FTE is the lack of documentation. Would be really handy if it had a 'find cvar' feature or something...or maybe there is one and I'm being an idiot? At any rate, my complaints are derived from a modder's perspective, not so much a gamer's.

[Baker]

(FTE ... )it had a 'find cvar' feature or something

FTE does. And and so does DarkPlaces.

And the command has the stupidest name possible. It isn't even an English word, you have never heard of the word and if someone said the word aloud you would not know how to spell it.

Note: I won't say the name. It is better if the engine author does it.

/ I chose "find" because Valve and the Source engine call it the "find" command, and the Source engine is rather user friendly.

[Spike]

@Dutch:
apropos should usually do the trick (exists in both fte and dp).
(originally french for 'pertaining to' / 'with regards to', but you should also find it in english dictionaries too, because people are suckers for posh-sounding french words or something)

as a general rule though, modders should avoid cvars. cvars have global scope, which means different parts of your code would need different values for the same cvar and end up fighting with each other or the user, thus such cvars are bad. if you have some incompatibility between dp and fte then usually you'll find its because the engines have some cvar set or named differently. so yeah, cvars, boo hiss.
this mentality often results in a bit more code, but yields gains in versatility.

[Dutch]

because people are suckers for posh-sounding french words or something)

Haha. I think the same applies for Latin words...makes everything sound more legit. Thanks for the heads up, I guess I never tried that in FTE. I knew about it in DP but always wondered where the word came from.

as a general rule though, modders should avoid cvars. cvars have global scope, which means different parts of your code would need different values for the same cvar and end up fighting with each other or the user, thus such cvars are bad.

Yeah I learned that the hard way. The only time I ever modify a cvar in QC is when ALL players are expected to have it set a certain value so as not to break intended gameplay. This is few and far in-between and is typically server-side anyways (like sv_maxvelocity), at which point the cvar setting is checked against in a function that gets called in PlayerPreThink()...I imagine this is acceptable. I haven't seen anything break yet but nothing's certain until I test in an actual multiplayer environment.

Most of my need to locate cvars is to set-up a default configuration file for out-of-the-box gameplay. This way, I can (hopefully) ensure that everyone has the same mod experience by default, at which point they can go in and make modifications to the cvars on their own.

One thing I'll say, is that it is greatly appreciated that you sorted the cvars into sub-lists with the listcvar command.

Anyways, sorry for the little derailment of the thread Pectabyte. Cocerello and MadGypsy are correct, you should test-play your map on an engine that is more standard (and thus exhibits similar behavior and visuals) to most other engines. DP is not one of these engines. FTE has a great 'Faithful' setting that looks like stock Quake.

[MadGypsy]

@Dutch

There are other engines I support but, nobody can fuck with FTE. Spike didn't just build some working engine with advanced features. He took the original engine and "said" ~ "Imma dump everything in here, lose nothing and create the definitive modern quake 1 engine." ~ and then he actually did it.

He is also the ONLY engine developer here that ALWAYS has answers and solutions to problems. There is never some preconceived notion that you aren't smart enough to do what is necessary so why even bother. His help is generally high level but the answers are always in there. I have super high respect for that. I also believe that mentality is linked to success. With Spike everything is results. Whether it be his engine or his answers it's all results and his results are note-worthy. Nobody can match his approach and nobody else has his results.

There is another engine developer here that will help you by telling you not to waste your time or use words that can discourage you in order to attempt to control you away from going any further. That engine developer does not provide spike level results, ever, in anything he has ever done. It's just true. It's a shame cause I believe this person is very talented and could make a lot of positive differences in this world with a more positive mentality. Then again, maybe the negativity comes from a knowledge of what needs to be done coupled with an insecurity that he couldn't accomplish it with any proficiency so, how could it be believed that YOU can succeed when he would struggle and possibly fail. Who knows. Regardless, it's lack-luster in the nothing it accomplishes.

[Spike]

/me attempts to get back on topic...

@Pectabyte
radiant+q3map2+dp works because all 3 understand what shaders are. you can pretend that dp is just an alternative q3 engine as far as mapping is concerned, just one running a different mod (this is even more true for fte, but gah, off-topic).

on the other hand, trenchbroom does not support q3bsp at this time, it doesn't know what shaders are, and it uses texture scales that only really work well with q1 tools (although yes, you can compile your .map with q3map2 if you really want to, but it expects a different texture scale). so things are a bit different...

in order to set up trenchbroom properly, you'll need a texture wad (from eg https://www.quaddicted.com/files/wads/ ) and an actual map compiler too (eg: tyrutils-ericw ), neither come with trenchbroom2 itself. You'll need to read the docs to figure out how to set all that stuff up properly (there's some step-by-step thingie for each thing in there, so read the docs so that you don't have to wait for people on forums to stop being offtopic).
just make sure your map gets compiled to $quake/id1/maps/foo.map and then you can just load up your map with 'map foo' or whatever.

really, the only DP-specific thing here is remembering to set r_shadow_realtime_world 0. dpmod might have its own .fgd file, but from a mapping perspective it doesn't otherwise need to be any different from any other mod in any other engine.

[Baker]

There is another engine developer here that will help you by telling you not to waste your time or use words that can discourage you in order to attempt to control you away from going any further. That engine developer does not provide spike level results, ever, in anything he has ever done. It's just true. It's a shame cause I believe this person is very talented and could make a lot of positive differences in this world with a more positive mentality. Then again, maybe the negativity comes from a knowledge of what needs to be done coupled with an insecurity that he couldn't accomplish it with any proficiency so, how could it be believed that YOU can succeed when he would struggle and possibly fail. Who knows. Regardless, it's lack-luster in the nothing it accomplishes.

It's called "tough love". And that's a strength.

Often it is the best kind of help you can give someone.

Spike often helps someone on fool's errand. But that is what we love about Spike. I am not inclined to help someone on a fool's errand and may point out hardships or impossibilities or even point out skill level mismatches.