Retroquad

[mankrip]

This is my 8-bit color software rendering engine.













Support for the QRP textures is still being worked on. Right now my focus is on the BSP renderer, so it will take a long time for things like the HUD and monsters to be improved.




Skyboxes.



Sky horizon fading.



The demo map I've shown at QExpo.



Molten texture mapping.



Procedural particles.



Soft-depth sprites.



Emitter shading, which renders the original 3D flame models in a different way. Still needs a lot of work.

[R00k]

WOW!! That looks kick ass for a software render'er!

[MadGypsy]

sweet!

[Dutch]

Well done sir!! Keep the pics/updates coming!

[NightFright]

You come up with that out of nowhere, man? xD Insane! I know there's qbism Super8 with 8-bit rendering, but it didn't use it. Maybe your approach is more to my liking. Keep going!

[Judicator]

Looks incredibly good. Keep on the good work.

[Amon26]

steve.jpg
CRIPES!! issat a nyew software renderer?!

[Seven]

Hello mankrip,

Good to see you finally here at quakeone.com as well, showcasing your engine.
You did add a lot of beautiful things since last time I have read about Retroquad at insideqc.com.

I do not fully understand your support for external textures, but I guess that is a request from the newer generation Quake players...
Anyhow, they do look very good in your engine !

Really great work mankrip.

[mankrip]

Real-time additive lumas are supported now. They can use the whole palette (i.e. they're not limited to fullbright colors).

[ATTACH]2190[/ATTACH]
CRIPES!! issat a nyew software renderer?!

Yes.

[mankrip]

I do not fully understand your support for external textures, but I guess that is a request from the newer generation Quake players...

That is actually because making paletted textures is too hard. The internal texture format created for Retroquad allows for a much higher quality conversion than any image editing program in the market could do, because it was developed with the needs of 8-bit color 3D rendering in mind.

So, support for external textures is not just for allowing higher resolutions, but also to make it easier to create new assets.

[NightFright]

You can use 32-bit textures with a port supporting 8-bit color only?

[mankrip]

Yes, because this engine compiles them into a special 8-bit format.

[NightFright]

Interesting. If that happens without noticable loss of quality, it may be a pretty neat feature!

[Mugwump]

The internal texture format created for Retroquad allows for a much higher quality conversion than any image editing program in the market could do, because it was developed with the needs of 8-bit color 3D rendering in mind.

That would be very useful for the brand new Map Jam 8! As of now, you can't use replacement textures with it (well you CAN, but they're rendered in color instead of B&W) because 24-bit textures exceed the palette.

[MadGypsy]

according to some information I just read, 8bits means 8bits per channel. That being the case it should be very easy to render any image in 8bits as long as you have access to each individual channel.

1 byte (8 bits) = 255

255 is the highest value for any given color channel.

32 bit is sort of just a hack, it uses powers of 255 to distinguish the channels.

r255, g255^2, b255^3, a255^4 (it's actually base 16 to 6 or 8(if alpha) places but this ex is close enough)

But if you access each channel individually, it's not necessary to use such a high number. There isn't a picture on this planet that can't be rendered in 8 bits if the above way I perceive it is correct. Really, the results should always be identical cause all you are doing is going a different way to get up to 255 in each channel. Whether you put those numbers in each channel yourself or let a 32 bit renderer parse out all those powers I don't see how it's any different.

I'm working on a 2 bit renderer and using 32 bits to do it ...get it?