q3 engine source code

(tjw) #1

When id releases the q3 engine source code under the GPL next week what will this mean for the Wolf ET community? Will SplashDamage also release their modifications to the q3 engine or re-release the SDK under the GPL? Doing so would most certainly be welcomed by the ET community.

(kamikazee) #2

I fear it will only be the Q3A 1.29 source code, however I’m not to be considered as any reference.

(Mr.Mxyzptlk) #3

I would speculate that since SplashDamage’s ET game and the engine it runs on, and the network code it uses is heavily
based on Activision’s RTCW game/engine/network code, I would think they need permission from Activision before doing
so.

Regardless, this is still good news and a Q3 engine source code release will be welcome by many.
Maybe it will shed some light on how I might be able to monitor how full the entity array is on both the game server and clients.

(Sauron|EFG) #4

I’m pretty sure someone from SD already said it’s not up to them, but I can’t find the post right now.

Considering it also means some work (like removing PB) I wouldn’t count on anything other than the Q3 engine being released.

(EJ) #5

Has anybody researched the possibility of modding the recently released Q3A 1.32 engine to match SD’s modifications? The model formats have already been reverse-engineered right? What about the rest, or isn’t it worth the time?

(carnage) #6

isn’t it worth the time?

depends what ur gona do with it when your finished

(EJ) #7

Well, main reason for me is to run ET on Xbox (yes Q3A is already in alpha stage), in which I’m willing to invest quite some time, but before I begin it’d be nice to hear if I’m not reinventing the wheel cause a someone already started to toy with this idea (thus thinking it is worth it).

(carnage) #8

you might not have 2 bigger task, there is a lot of talk about ET running the activision enhanced engine, however the mian areas for advanclemt were supost to be the single player AI control and scripting posibilites since they werent realy used in q3a

as for the mltiplayer eninge i think the main work would be in the models suported, and game script, however beware ur not supost to be able to take the ET content to other games legaly without othours permision, You will need the authors permision to re create there game on PC or any other format even if you dont use there own contenet as its there intelectual property, and thirdly maby ET will be reases on X box and a little erner for activiosn anyway?

(SCDS_reyalP) #9

Game script is in the gamecode, so that shouldn’t be a problem. You are right that there could be a number of legal issues.

Other odds and ends off the top of my head (not a complete or researched list):

  • engine interface isn’t exactly the same (traps take different number of arguments, some added/removed)
  • possible network protocol differences
  • www redirects
  • different cdkey/guid system
  • foliage system
  • no PB support in the GPL q3, means you could never play on most servers.
  • sound scripting (unless its in gamecode, but afaik its not)
  • shader differences

If, rather than making something that was network compatible with ET, you wanted to make something that played ET gamecode maps, that would likely be quite a bit simpler.

BTW, xbox support will be quite hard, as the stock ET maps are real memory hogs. 64 megs of RAM just isn’t enough, especially shared with the GFX card. The rest of the xbox specs are pretty low for ET as well. Your chances of getting ET to perform well on Xbox are zero to slim, IMO. Better to wait for xbox 360 :moo:

The xbox port of RTCW required significant work (including significant changes to some maps), from what I understand, and RTCW had lower requirements than ET.

Q3 should be OK on xbox, as the minimum requirements are a lot less.

(Jaquboss) #10

you forget one big thing: Q3 supports only md3 and md4 models , but ET supports also mdc mds ( yes it does ) mdm/mdx
It will be lot of work…

(EJ) #11

Thanks for your replies.

Funny thing about legal issues is that Xbox apps are only released as source (binaries are linked against MS code = illegal to distribute), other people compile and release on P2P or a special FTP. So as a dev you don’t worry about the resources other people add to the package (f. example .wad files for the Doom port).

But it seems you’re right ReyalP. The 64 mb is already a bit too small for Q3, and ET does seem to use an awful lot more (you never bother when you have 1GB :)). There are some scratch partitions available though, don’t think it’ll do the framerate much good…

I still might give it a try just for the sake of having an open ET engine, perhaps for xbox360, network compatibility isn’t nescessary too given the amount of non-PB servers.