How easy is it to make a stand alone game using Darkplaces?

[SpecialBomb]

I have been thinking about it for a while, and I may want to use it in the future. I have these questions:

Would I have to change the source code?

How would I keep Quake clients from connecting?

[Baker]

Clean QC 1.01 by gnounc and goldenboy is GPL and full legal via id Software (I am not a lawyer).

[If you use that, your mod has to be open source, I'm sure as a Linux user your fine with that].

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-hel...qc-gnounc.html

[SpecialBomb]

Clean QC 1.01 by gnounc and goldenboy is GPL and full legal via id Software (I am not a lawyer).

[If you use that, your mod has to be open source, I'm sure as a Linux user your fine with that].

http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-hel...qc-gnounc.html

I'm not referring to that.

You make too many assumptions baker.

Anyway, I am referring to using the darkplaces source code, not quakec 1.01. I am talking about using darkplaces as a game engine, not a quake engine.

[nahuel]

I have been thinking about it for a while, and I may want to use it in the future. I have these questions:

Would I have to change the source code?

well if you are speaking about darkplaces... the answer for the question is YES. Because even if you do not need a new feature, Darkplaces depends of id1 folder, you can not place the content of your game in Id1 folder because id1 is used by quake (the client will have troubles if he already play quake with darkplaces, because windows for example will save the cfgs inthe same place).
With a dark place I didnt change the darkplaces source because i am using a launcher similar to basic unity-indie-games. But i need to change some things like the excessive splash with the collisions of te_particlerain.

[Adam]

Quake based DarkPlaces is, in my opinion, an awesome place to start game development.
If you have a design document and you want to try out some ideas, then it is a great engine to build proof of concept type projects.
There are some limitations to what it can do and how you go about it, but because of its age it also has a ton of documentation and a lot of people around who you can talk to and bounce ideas off of.

I produced the three projects listed in my sig using Quake and DarkPlaces, with coding from the wonderfully talented nahuel (for Hazard) and coding from the equally amazing PrimalLove (for Diver).

Pls feel free to download and mess around with them, the source is included.

I was supposed to move onto Unity with my next prototypes but I just can't let go.
So there are two more DP/Q projects in the pipeline before I will probably move on.

To be honest tho', if you aren't really in love with Quake (obviously you like it or you wouldn't be on here) and haven't made maps or done a bit of modding before, then you might want to start on a more modern engine, like Unity or UE4.

[nahuel]

and coding from the equally amazing PrimalLove (for Diver).

PL is better coder by fast... !!! i am not good coder, i just write ugly hacky things and after i compile!

[MadGypsy]

I could tell you how to up your program game instantly. It's simple. Write descriptive comments. When you start struggling to explain what something does in super simple terms it means you aren't doing it right. Also, go back and read your comments like a book. You will find many spots where whatever you are doing seems silly. Fix all that stuff and cement it in your brain that your fix is how you should always do it.

I do it all the time.

Just yesterday while I was creating workers (multi-threading) I found myself writing all kinds of stupid comments to describe what things are doing. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it cause flash was forcing me to do ridiculous things due to it's own design for this feature.

[Phenom]

/* First Response - Paragraph start */
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Programming in general is one of the easiest things to do as long as you

"comment everything as if a big angry drunken guy is going to have to debug it" - R00k

when everything starts breaking right out of the gate.

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[Julius]

You can perfectly well make a standalone game using Darkplaces or FTEQW only using the build in scripting language QuakeC. No need to edit and compile the engine source code.

If you start a new game I recommend looking at FTEQW though (you can follow some progress I made here: http://quakeone.com/forums/quake-hel...x-modding.html ).

Most of the documentation for Darkplaces or Quake in general works with FTEQW, but there are some differences (that the main developer Spike is happy to explain if you pester him on IRC ).

Yes overall Darkplaces is the better documented and mature engine, but FTEQW has some really great additional features and is still under active development. It also has a well working Vulkan renderer and an Android port developed by the original author (the one for Darkplaces somewhat works but is more or less abandoned). Last but not least, it comes with a working client side menu framework, that makes things somewhat easier to start using CSQC.

[Julius]

To be honest tho', if you aren't really in love with Quake (obviously you like it or you wouldn't be on here) and haven't made maps or done a bit of modding before, then you might want to start on a more modern engine, like Unity or UE4.

I kind of disagree with this one. For one there is the open-source argument (no UE4 is only shared source :p ), but quake is also just a really good engine to do multiplayer FPS or similar games with. To get to the same level Quake lets you start out with for these genres, other engines need a lot of extra work or external frameworks.

In addition there is plenty of (old, but thus easier to understand) sample code floating around for Quake and the asset tool-set (while also horribly ageing) is proven to work well.

[SpecialBomb]

Okay, so I don't necessarily have to change the DP source to create a game with it, that's good news to me.

I guess what I need to really ask is how you can change the actual way darkplaces interprets things, like the gui. I have heard that csqc is an option to change how darkplaces does things like that, so does anyone have any idea where I can learn to do that?

[SpecialBomb]

Thinking about it again:

What I want to do is fully have control over the quake engine, such as changing menus, options, and the like. I don't really know if you can do that in qc, so I don't know where to start...

For the most part, everything else is fine, it's just that I can't control what I can do with the engine.

[Spike]

on windows, you need to somehow hack the exe if you want to change the icon. There are numerous icon changes around the 'net that can do this.
However there's some other branding things like console prints, but the biggest issue with not changing the exe is gamedirs - like id1, DP will by default use both id1 and a home directory, which means standalone mods have a nasty habit of conflicting with quake/one another.
With FTE, you can create some default.fmf file that overrides all the branding(except icons)+gamedirs giving proper isolation without changing engine source.
fteqccgui now also has an option to embed one into the exe itself (and change the icon) too, which also makes fteqw act as an installer for your mod if its run without your gamedata in the working directory, although tbh that needs more polish.

but yeah, both engines can potentially run without any gamedata at all. quite frankly that's always been the easy bit. the hard bit is getting all the gamecode, models, sounds, maps, etc made... and then polished enough so that they don't look/sound like turds.
the nice thing about quake engines vs eg ue4 is that you+others will probably have lower expectations, and this in itself makes it muuuuch nicer to work on.
the down side is that the way you should be doing things isn't really documented, meaning you'll probably opt for the crappy way and never get around to fixing it when you do learn enough about the various 'secret' apis etc that you ought to be using...

[Spike]

If you want new menus, start eg here: http://triptohell.info/moodles/csaddon/menusys_src.zip
Its intended for FTE, but has some workarounds for DP so should be mostly usable for both engines, you'd probably want to strip the fte-specifics and provide better alternatives though. its just a starting point, or just treat it as an example of what you can do. no warrenty. :s

[MadGypsy]

@and an Android port developed by the original author

love spike, love fte... fte for android is total bullshit though. It's almost the entire reason I decided to make my own engine from scratch. It doesn't seem like anybody can make a decent quake engine for droid with some visible on-screen controls. Not everbody has a gamepad for their droid device and numerous droid devices don't even suppot game controllers.