Hexen II and UQE - Item lighting issues

[GiSWiG]

I've been trying out Hexen II with a few engine/setups and I like UGE for Hexen II, but Items do not glow. You can actually see from the screenshot on the page: Korvin Korax - Games | Ultimate Quake Engine. You should see a pick glowing bottle on the right edge. There is also a nearby room with a tomb and you cannot see any glow from health vials in the corner. You can see these glows on FTE, Hammer of Thyrion, jsHexen (way too much) and the original Hexen II.

Is there a way to easily fix in the config or is this a bug? I actually do have an old copy of the UQE (from 2006) for HexenII and it works there.

[Spike]

sounds like an engine bug.
In hexen2 (but not quake), models with the ROTATE flag also have a varying (sine-based) absolute light level and ignore any map-based lighting.

If the code isn't too different from quake, there should be some CL_LinkEntities or CL_LinkPacketEntities or some similarly named function somewhere. Chances are that the bug is in there. But its also possible that its within the model drawing code.
I've not looked at the code, so I can't really say anything more.

[GiSWiG]

Thanks for your response. I must admit, I feel a little honored that you replied.

Sorry if I go a bit off-topic here, but I do like FTEQW and it looks great for HexenII and seems stable, but I'm not finding good documentation on it. I'm not sure where to put music at or texture packs (I was going to try combo of jsHexen's stuff and FTEQW). It seems that with the documentation I see on the Wiki, I need Quake and to run HexenII I need to have a batch that specifies the Quake dir? Kinda confusing because just running FTEQW works.

Can you point me in the right direction of a setup guide for FTEQW? Thanks,

[Spike]

well, its possible that its a config bug, but I am under the impression that UQE was still two separate compilation targets, rather than a single binary that can do either.

<offtopic>
fte doesn't have much documentation. Beware that its hexen2 support is not 100% complete.
one of the h2 mission pack maps cannot be completed (noclip is required) - there's some puzzle piece that becomes visible but remains inaccessible inside a wall. There are other omissions, but that's the only game breaker I can think of right now.

fte doesn't support midi files. The SVN version currently doesn't support ogg either (was crashing too much, I really ought to try fixing it, and prior builds require an extra dll or three which are not normally distributed with fte). In windows it should support mp3 playback out of the 'box' but this is likely not the format you use/have and is thus not useful.
Thus c:\games\whatever\hexen2\data1\sound\cdtracks\trac k001.mp3 should be accepted as part of the fake-cd-track support.

FTE is quite promiscuous when it comes to texture paths. Follow the general instructions that come with your texture pack and it should work (this generally means extracting the zip/rar/7z file into c:\games\whatever\hexen2\data1, giving you either a 'data1\textures' sub directory, or a pak file, or pk3 file).

FTE will check the working directory for the game that you're trying to play. Specifically, if you have a data1/pak0.pak file then it'll configure itself for hexen2 specifics (just game paths and cvar settings).
So it should be just a case of putting it along side your normal hexen2.exe and just run it.
If you have an exotic installation (ie: you unpacked all files then deleted the paks), you can force it with one or more of: -portals -hexen2 -basedir $PATH but this should not normally be needed.
You may also want to use -nohome to constrain it to writing files within a single location.
</offtopic>

[GiSWiG]

Thanks again.

I hope Krige sees this. His page doesn't have contact info or forums and its wrong to report bugs through Twitter or facebook

[Seven]

Hello Spike, hello GiSWiG,

I remember around 2 years ago, when I had closer contact to Spike due to Hexen 2 testing. It was the time of the huge Hexen 2 thread here at quakeone.

I really tested a lot at that time. Also beta tested with jeank his great jshexen2 improvements.

So I would like to mention, that the "glowing"-feature that GiSWiG describes is a "bloom" feature.
I quickly made some screenshots to show the differences.

First I would like to start with jshexen2.
You can adjust the amount of powerup-glowing in very small steps. It is the alpha rider in the extended sub-options-menue:

This is with very much:


This is with average (I use this setting):


This is without:


This is the menu for it:



FTE also uses a quite similar method it seems for the powerup glow:


FTE is able to use the High Res textures from inkub0 and jeank (just like Spike says):



The positive thing about jshexen2 is jeanks extended sub-menu-system. So you can adjust as good as everything with in-game options (buttons / sliders).
It has some neat new things implemented, like chrome effects, or fog, or extended water movement and reflections. Also some crazy things, which you better might turn off

His passion and workload was remarkable. It is sad, that he had to leave (due to family reasons as it seems). But his final last release is really stable and beautiful.

I hope this could help a little bit.

Best wishes,
Seven

[GiSWiG]

I do think jsHexen2 is an awesome piece of work. Thanks for that info. I thought the glowing was a bit much. I don't know much when it comes to 3D engine lighting so this points me in the right direction.

I would like to check out FTE but not sure where to put things. Could you give me a quick dir layout like...
/hexen2
__/data1
____/music/*.ogg
____/textures
(or if pk3 files can be used)

Thanks
P.S. I know we're really going off topic now so I'd like to take this info into a 'FTE Tips for HexenII' thread or such.

[Seven]

GiSWiG,

Did you read what Spike wrote, before submitting your last post ?
He already gave very detailed path instructions.

Music:

In windows it should support mp3 playback out of the 'box' but this is likely not the format you use/have and is thus not useful.
Thus c:\games\whatever\hexen2\data1\sound\cdtracks\trac k001.mp3 should be accepted as part of the fake-cd-track support.

Textures:

Follow the general instructions that come with your texture pack and it should work (this generally means extracting the zip/rar/7z file into c:\games\whatever\hexen2\data1, giving you either a 'data1\textures' sub directory, or a pak file, or pk3 file).

Spike also explained that his engine does accept pk3 files:

c:\games\whatever\hexen2\data1, giving you either a 'data1\textures' sub directory, or a pak file, or pk3 file).

And regarding "reducing the glow/bloom effect for the powerups in jshexen2", I posted the screens above with the instructions how to reduce it.

I do think jsHexen2 is an awesome piece of work. Thanks for that info. I thought the glowing was a bit much.

A moderator can change the thread title anytime.
Just send him a pm.

[GiSWiG]

And regarding "reducing the glow/bloom effect for the powerups in jshexen2", I posted the screens above with the instructions how to reduce it.

Yeah, I saw that. I was remarking how it comes "out of the box" if you will.

As far as everything Spike said, I see it. I was going on 15hrs after 3hrs of sleep (after-hours application support can really suck sometimes). Sorry about that. Thanks.

[Korax]

There was a bug actually.
Its fixed now for the latest version. Aplogies, I didn't pick that up in the previous version.