Loffy with his post Just like ET, but without any weapons. Even knife is gone. has made the first step.
But it seems to importent to me so I’ve opened a new threat.
An article has come to my mind which described the usage of a game by a teacher/professor to visualize 3d mathematic surfaces (couldn’t find it by now).
I’ve noticed before that the usage of the engine + source seems not to be limited to FPS (ever thought of a stratetic kind of game like “commandos” or “age of empires” in which two “commanders” direct their troops in iso view).
I think the combination of engine + source could also be used to visualize 3d/4d-data:
Sciene: chemistry/physic/mathematic
Architecture
Art
Archeology
…
It seems that the usage is “only” limited by someones programming skills (and of course the license).
Limitations of usage of engine + source?
More than one year ago, there was a German university maths team, that posted some maps (+map files) with Mathematical Figures.
You can find some screenshots here http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/geometrie/gallery/vr/vr.shtml (in the bottom left corner you still see the stamina bars)
Most of these maps were SP maps because RTCW SP allowed for more polygons to be rendered.
I don’t think they are still using rtcw (I can’t find anything anymore on their site), and meanwhile they seem to use other software. I myself have lost the pk3’s but maybe you can find them somewhere on the web.
The use of the ET engine for educational purposes: I don’t know if that would be ideal, since there are some good GPL’d engines available on the web too (afaik) and maybe it’s better to use one of them instead of a licensed engine like the one fo ET? (like you said yourself 