Q3Map 2.5.6 - the endless summer

(Riley_Pizt) #61

LOL! I am not whining. I am only pointing out your hypocrisy. I saw this argument coming a mile away as soon as I read the release notes on the new QMAP. Now, if the feature had been removed from qmap based on your whining, I might have started whining myself. :wink:

Say I’m making a game using the Quake 3 engine, and we just spent thousands of dollars to license the engine from ID.

You just changed the rules. You will notice that I specifically directed my comments at hobbyists. Those who license the engine for commercial use are not bound by the free use license agreement, standards or expectations. Trying to safeguard your content when your product is commercial is understandable although if you look at the history of the game industry, you will see that most of the successful companies and products have been ones which do not follow that path.

Even if your project is commercial, it is still foolhardy to think you can maintain complete control over the distribution and use of your product. Just look at the troubles the RIAA is having with its music and the MPAA with its movies.

(Osirin Ra) #62

chances are if someone rips your shit and makes a mpa out of it, it wont be a very good map anyway and noone will play it

good idea… and i agree its a self-correcting problem anyway

besides if someones going to take your time to decompile your map you should take that as a COMPLIMENT

(SCDS_reyalP) #63

You still don’t get it. ydnar and I both explained why in our previous posts.

If you have access to the engine, you can change the .bsp format so that existing versions of q3map don’t decompile it. That should be (relatively) easy, and wont by itself require any changes to your maps. You then just have to recompile your maps with your own special q3map. This is only obfuscation, it won’t stop anyone who is really motivated. It will stop people from taking ydnars q3map or an existing bspc and using it to decompile your maps.

If you don’t have access to the engine, you cannot make bsp files undecompileable by any changes to q3map. If the engine can understand it, so can q3map. Since the q3map code is avialable, and has been for ages, no protections which are built into q3map will be any help.

(Emon) #64

If someone rips something for your map, contact the sites that host it, and get it removed. As long as it’s off major mod sites, no one will play it, everyone will know the guy’s a dickhead, and everyone will hate him. End of story.

(Tigris) #65

True- can we move on now PLEASE?
I’d like to think mappers have more important things to think about than those dumbasses.

Say Ydnar- how well does this thing work for other games? Speaking eg. about JK2? I have an old version of a map I’d like to decompile (dumb me deleted the wrong version of the map- that’s what you get for having 4 versions of the same map :banghead: ).

(ydnar) #66

It works for all games that Q3Map2 supports: Q3, RTCW, EF, JK2 and SOF2.

y

(Emon) #67

Curious, will you be adding Elite Force II support? It might be too radically different from other Q3 games to make it easy. The compiler is a lot better than say, Q3Map, but yours still slaughters it.

(ydnar) #68

I’ve talked with a couple of the developers about it. The Ritual stuff has some fairly complex proprietary extensions (Tiki model system, sphere lights, terrain) that would require support, however.

If RItual (or anyone else) want to contribute code to help out, it would be much more likely.

y

(wudan) #69

Um, if you have the engine you can change whatever you like about the .bsp format, so long as you clue your .bsp compiler in on the changes (ie, make an in-house special compiler who’s source you don’t plan on sharing with the public.) You could probably have it load something other than .bsp if you wanted, like making the entire map out of models in your own custom file format, which you won’t release, etc. I think you see where I’m going.

If you had the engine, and the time, you could do whatever you want with it, which is why projects like Tenebrae are able to do awesome things with the Quake Engine, it’s a matter of Time.

Time + Applied Knowledge = Goodness

It’s a time tested formula for good stuff, like Q3Map2.

(Emon) #70

I keep trying to explain that to people. Some guys didn’t think JA would have this feature or that, because they didn’t think the engine supported it. I had to explain that if you have the engine source code, anything is possible.

(Matt) #71

Hey I’m just the texture artist and one of the environment people… I dunno about the code other than what we have the ability to do so far. I’ll tell those in the know what needs to be done.

(RabidCow) #72

Well, heh, my first reaction was I didn’t like the idea…then I tried it…we have a very popular map in our mod that appears “broken” in our latest release. The mapper has gone to a “real” life, in his case, a doctor :). We have not been able to contact him and would hate to see the map removed, as it is one of our favorites. I decompiled it today and rebuilt the terrain entity etc and have a map that may be fixed soon :). Technically, no one can deny that q3map2.5.6 it is a fine achievment. Used properly, as a tool to help mappers, I think it is fine. We are faced with an ethical issue, however. Just as “copywrite violations” have become a day to day issue with VCR’s and other, more modern, digital copying media. Anyone can copy anything and we will have to get used to that, all of us. We have been isolated by the lack of good tools (although they have been available) from the effects of digital copying, but now we will have to deal with it. We will either enjoy the limelight of being copied or we will be frustrated…that’s about the size of it. I think ultimately that the freedom of expression provided by putting the tools for digital distribution, etc, in the hands of the many will outweight any loss of IP. We will all survive and our artistic pursuits will florish because of the internet and digital distribution, etc. It just requires us to look at it differently…

BTW, etc would include decompiling maps :slight_smile:
RC

(ydnar) #73

Somewhat OT, though amazingly prescient letter regarding software patents, circa 1991, via Slashdot:

http://philsalin.com/patents.html

y

(SCDS_reyalP) #74

I can’t resist adding a John Carmack patent rant here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/erps-list@lists.erps.org/msg02945.html
:bash: :banghead: :bash:

(Phantomas) #75

I´m not realy worried about this function because it dont harm myself personaly. Whenever i try to develope something I try to top myself in many different ways. Imo “insipration” is very very important for every project i plan and getting it together by hours of brainstorming and nonstop mapping is a feeling just to great. A feeling which you simply dont get by ripping out stuff. So the fooled is the one who rips stuff out who doesnt get the sense of insipration/ which is for me there to improve things on and on.

Hmm…does that makes sense :drink:

greetz

(metalien) #76

Does it work with Jedi Knight 2 ? I tried to decompile my map and here what i got:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>E:\Jeux\GtkRadiant\q3map2.exe -convert -format map E:\jumppractice.bsp
2.5.7
1 threads
Q3Map - v1.0r © 1999 Id Software Inc.
Q3Map (ydnar) - v2.5.7
GtkRadiant - v1.3.12-beta Aug 31 2003 09:42:02
Ghettotech, electrophunk, it’s not the 80s baby
VFS Init: …//baseq3/

Loading E:\jumppractice.bsp
************ ERROR ************
E:\jumppractice.bsp is not a IBSP file

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

What is a IBSP file? Does it mean my map was compiled with an incompatible version of Q3MAP2? I a noob and not one of those “acomplished mappers”. But I had a megacrash on my system and I lost the source of 2 unfinished alpha versions of my maps. I only have the bsp files. If I could decompile them. even if it’s not perfect, it would give me a basis to redo them.

Someone said it was always possible to decompile with BSPC. I know this utility since the Q2 time. But can it decompile patches (aka curves)? I have an interesting patch work in one of my map and its the major reason why i want to decompile it.

Someone can help me?

(ydnar) #77

You still must specify the game.

Add -game jk2 to the commandline.

y

(zbeta) #78

[quote=“Section11”]

100% agree

congratulations for the most stupid q3map2 feature ever :frowning:

I really love your q3map2 but this was a wrong decision.[/quote]

Human Knowledge Belong To The World

(ydnar) #79

Saying something, zbeta? Put it outside the quotes… :slight_smile:

y

(Loffy) #80

I think he said those words in bold, at the very bottom, as a comment to the rest.
Personally, decompiling is ok. It is not bad as is. It is a tool for having a look at the inner trics and trades of other (better) mappers. I would love to have a look at the radar dish and stuff in radar. But I have not (yet) learned how to use the compiler for this.
// L.