TUT: Add particle effects + models + sounds into Quake via .ent files in DarkPlaces

[gdiddy62]

Hey Seven,
This worked well for an ambient "creepy" effect!

[MadGypsy]

cant you trigger any sound simply by making a trigger and knowing the name of the sound?

like make a trigger_once, give it a blank target and set the sound to the one you want. Or if a blank target breaks it just input any targetname for something that wont do anything when it was triggered (like an info_notnull).

If this wouldn't work, extending the original trigger to make a sound trigger would probably be the easiest quake mod ever (probably one line).

I made weather triggerable with just this little snippet. It simply says that if my entity does not have a targetname turn the weather on by default, otherwise wait to be triggered. Simple.

	if(!self.targetname)
		weather_use();
	else
		self.use = weather_use;

[talisa]

as seven said this would be a more appropriate place for this post, ill repost it here

took a look at seven's example start-map with lava-bursts and some haze, and decided to finish it and add lava-bursts and haze to all of the pools in teh start-map, and i came up with a nice idea for a fancy effect for the nightmare portal. and i found a little bug in sevens ent file with the rain leaking through in a part where there shouldnt be rain which i fixed.




.

and after i finished effects for that map i suddenly remembered that the end-map had a lava-portal too and a huge lava-pit, and i made an ent-file for the end-map as well, addding haze and lava-eruptions all over shubs pit
looks so awesome, the haze and eruptions add so much epic to shubs pit





DOWNLOAD EFFECTS FOR ID1 START&END MAPS

to use them, just drop them into ID1/maps folder

(sorry, only 1 version for now. might make different versions so you can choose which effects you want and which not some other time)

[Mr.Burns]

Just... wow! Well done Splitt, that looks amazing and for me at least really adds to the atmosphere of the levels. Thanks for posting the pics as it's good to see just what some engines are capable of with a little patience and effort. Love the textures too. Although I have very recently upgraded my graphics card from something awful to something slightly less awful, would I be right in thinking that there is likely to be a pretty big hit for these effects? Maybe I should give Dark Places another try as even if it's not exactly playable perhaps I could use it for squirting demos out to videos?

Keep up the good work / Ga zo door met het goede werk(?)

Kind regards

Monty

[talisa]

well yes of course they do of course come at cost of performance, but it isnt huge. i personally get a max of 7fps less with the effects on compared to when they are off.

some effects are more heavy, some less. and it also depends where in the map you are.
both the slipgate stars and the nm portal haze both just cost me 2fps, while the effects at the start of the map and the haze at episode3 hallway each cost me 7fps.






anyways... so the performance hit isnt like huge or such,
but of course there will be some performance you'll have to pay for these effects

.

either way...
its the start-map, its not like as if those few fps matter since you wont be fighting monsters there anyway

[talisa]

just tried the end-map for comparison.as expected the performance impact is a lot bigger there,
with for me personally a max of 11fps loss at some parts, like when looking out over the entire pit.

but of course thats expected, since there is a lot of haze visible cuz its such a huge pit

some screenshots so you can see it for yourself:

[Seven]

Although I have very recently upgraded my graphics card from something awful to something slightly less awful, would I be right in thinking that there is likely to be a pretty big hit for these effects? Maybe I should give Dark Places another try as even if it's not exactly playable perhaps I could use it for squirting demos out to videos?

Hello Mr. Burns,

I have seen several posts of yours about "trying" Darkplaces.
You must be careful when looking at Darkplaces screenshots. They usualy show many many extra content and blingbling included.
You will most likely not see Darkplaces screenshots with default settings and vanilla Quake.
Reason might be, that this engine is promoted as the "modders" engine. Even LH and R00k promote it this way.

But recently even Sock "tried" Darkplaces, which he didn�t do before because of all of this overdone and overcolored screenshots which are posted in forums.
Sock was surprised how Darkplaces looks/feels without extra content. Even its performance was really good in Sock�s "In the shadows" mod. Read his experience and review of Darkplaces here.
So you should have no issues as well with Darkplaces in its default look and feel.
It is "just another" engine, which can be nicely used for modders, but doesnt HAVE TO.

I think, if you then decide to try some of these replacement content, that is available all over the place, you should do it step by step.
Not all at once. Because it will most probably too much to swallow for a low end computer.

==============


Hello Splitterface,

The performance impact of additional particle effects is HUGE. Especially when used in big amounts and areas.
You say that you only lose 7 fps. You should not forget that this means 30 - 50% less fps in your case.
Looking at your screenshots and seeing the fps counter (having your hardware specs in mind) I must say that I am quite surprised.
Having no additional particles or models (except torches) in start maps spawning point area, with only 17 fps ?? Hmmm. There seems to be something wrong…
Even without the additional particles Quake seems not fluently playable with only 30 fps average.
With haze particles enabled and only around 20 fps it gets worse…
But hey, that’s absolutely OK if you are OK with it.
That should not mean that you should stop playing around with additional effects.
Maybe also try to use new effects for new situations, rather than existing ones everywhere.
That would be the logical next step in the process and I am sure you will have big fun playing around with it.

==============


Dear all,

There is one small clip that may fit into this thread, because it uses the described features/possibilities of this threads TUT.
Some time ago I was playing with the best game beside Quake and fell in love in some of its models/effects. I guess you all know which game I mean, because it already had influenced the "small mod compilation" before.

Don�t take this clip too serious.
It only shows some ideas I had and the visuals you get by adding some new lights, particles and models.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nihukkcYxzk&list=UUbX7uVIXqMzBza0YmLJuMdw& index=1]Quake meets Legend of Grimrock crazy test - YouTube[/ame]

Click here for some more examples

Kind regards,
Seven

[talisa]

yeah i unno. i think the reason why i get so low fps at this point is cuz of using rtlights + pretty-water.

theres only a few points in the entire game which have this.

one of the points i recall immediately is the first particle-bridge in hip1m3.
and also in the big open part in the same map where the roof opens and the stairs rise, at that part i get real low fps too.

might help that im using rtlights + pretty-water + lits + Dlits. least for ID1.
for hipnotic and rogue i dun have Dlits.


but yeah i unno, that same part of the start-map has always had bad performance for me for some reason
mebbe could be something wrong with the VIS'ing of the maps there?
cuz i dont get that bad fps as at those few points anywhere else in the game
as you can also see by looking at the framerate of the other screenshots i made of the startmap

.

also those added things in your clip look nice. especially liking the different torches
dunno what it is about them, but i always love torches

[Mr.Burns]

Hello Mr. Burns,

I have seen several posts of yours about "trying" Darkplaces.
You must be careful when looking at Darkplaces screenshots. They usualy show many many extra content and blingbling included.
You will most likely not see Darkplaces screenshots with default settings and vanilla Quake.
Reason might be, that this engine is promoted as the "modders" engine. Even LH and R00k promote it this way.

But recently even Sock "tried" Darkplaces, which he didn�t do before because of all of this overdone and overcolored screenshots which are posted in forums.
Sock was surprised how Darkplaces looks/feels without extra content. Even its performance was really good in Sock�s "In the shadows" mod. Read his experience and review of Darkplaces here.
So you should have no issues as well with Darkplaces in its default look and feel.
It is "just another" engine, which can be nicely used for modders, but doesnt HAVE TO.

I think, if you then decide to try some of these replacement content, that is available all over the place, you should do it step by step.
Not all at once. Because it will most probably too much to swallow for a low end computer.

Thanks for taking the time to post Seven. I know you're a busy man
Strangely enough, I have given DP a try and I was quite impressed with the results even on my [more modest] computer. My original question was more as a failsafe measure or "backup plan" to be honest in that If, after installing darkplaces and testing it, I found that I couldn't actually play it with all the effects maxed out then could I use it just to dump prerecorded Quake demos to AVI/MPEG/etc showing all that eye candy goodness. This didn't mean that if I couldn't play maxed out then I was going to give up and wasn't going to play with it at all

One thing I did notice though was that Proquake and Qrack then failed to load quoting a "55" error. A simple reinstall of both of those engines fixed that though

Dear all,
There is one small clip that may fit into this thread, because it uses the described features/possibilities of this threads TUT.
Some time ago I was playing with the best game beside Quake and fell in love in some of its models/effects. I guess you all know which game I mean, because it already had influenced the "small mod compilation" before.

Don�t take this clip too serious.
It only shows some ideas I had and the visuals you get by adding some new lights, particles and models.

Quake meets Legend of Grimrock crazy test - YouTube

Click here for some more examples

Kind regards,
Seven

I've not played the Legend of Grimrock game so I probably can't appreciate all the little nuances but I love what you're doing with the experimentation. Keep up the good work my friend

Kind regards

Monty

[Frost R17]

I've been trying to figure out how to place items (power ups, health, ammo, armor) onto certain locations. Because a couple of levels, r1m2 and r1m5, are missing items and I'm trying to use this to fix it, but I have know knowledge of this but I'm trying to understand this.

for example, in r1m2, Dread Portal, is missing a Red armor and small rocket box in one of the secrets. It is found when you use the platform (which crushes you if pushed the wrong button) by standing under the hole and jumping on.

However, I am trying to see if I can do this. It is not an neccessity as long if the engine makes it still playable with fixes.

it is in a 2013 of darkplaces, and the bug fix works well in this one without problems, including the new nailgun fix for rogue.

[Seven]

Hello Frost R17,

First of all, Thank you for your interest.
But in your special case (secret of R1M2), the solution is simplier.
You do not need to manipulate or add items into a map.
It is just a DarkPlaces cvar setting, that will help you with this specific issue.

Please continue to read here

Regards,
Seven

[JDSTONE]

my grandma always told me to never to go anywhere that my guardian angel would not go. thanks to seven i now have my angels in quake:



i pulled the anglstat.mdl from drake and put him in my progs folder in my ID1
and add this to my start.ent

{			// this is OUR new block
"classname" "place_model"
"origin" "692 720 -60"		// represents coordination
"model" "progs/anglstat.mdl"		// file path
"alpha" "1"			// represents transparency (0= max,  1= min)
"count" "1.1"			// represents scale/size (bigger value = bigger size)
"angles" "0 180 0"	// represents angle (X Y Z)
"sold" "1"			// model is solid (=1) or non-solid (=0)
"sizemin" "-32 -32 -24"		// represents min bbox size
"sizemax" "32 32 80"		// represents max bbox size
}

{			// this is OUR new block
"classname" "place_model"
"origin" "396 720 -60"		// represents coordination
"model" "progs/anglstat.mdl"		// file path
"alpha" "1"			// represents transparency (0= max,  1= min)
"count" "1.1"			// represents scale/size (bigger value = bigger size)
"angles" "0 0 0"	// represents angle (X Y Z)
"sold" "1"			// model is solid (=1) or non-solid (=0)
"sizemin" "-32 -32 -24"		// represents min bbox size
"sizemax" "32 32 80"		// represents max bbox size
}

Thank you seven for all your posts teaching me things when ever i have a question.

[Seven]

Hello JDSTONER,

The angelstatue model has been "borrowed" from Hexen 2, they were not made for Drake.

But yes, once you stepped into this and "tasted blood", there are endless possibilties to "modify" your maps
Good that you had the time and try it.


I also had a similar idea for the entrance to episode 2:
I used the Dawn of Darkness Goyle for this.

You can even use different model animation frames for your additional models (if your model has different frames):
Add this line into your .ent box declaration:

"frame" "2" // uses the corresponding model frame

Your screenshot shows, that you are using a DP build > 20130301.
You should then switch your "darkplaces_build" cvar to "1".

set darkplaces_build 1

Otherwise, if you are using the additional particle effects feature for maps, your particle count is much too small.
Please read the description of this cvar for more details.

And one more important thing:
Always listen to your grandma !

Thank you JDSTONER for playing around with this.
Seven

[JDSTONE]

I will try the set darkplaces_build 1 but it may not work for me due to my poor computing power.

the "frame" "2" i know i will use.
i still have not been able to plant my garden but im still working on that.

i knew my angel was from somewhere elce but i did not know where. remind me never to fight you Seven cose it looks as if your angel could rip mine apart. lol

what are some of the members of the quake family that i can find models from to use in quake?

i have been looking at the free models list from i3d but it seems every time i see something i like it has no skin. but i will learn all that in time. im back to playing with qc now

[gdiddy62]

Thanks for sharing about the use of animation frames in "posing" models!!