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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

Original Quake using Doom 3 Technology 177

Posted by CowboyNeal from the you've-never-looked-better dept.
tc writes "Charles Hollemeersch is currently developing a source port for the original Quake that adds "stencil shadows". Stencil shadows are extremely detailed and realistic. The results are very impressive. The code is apparently based on the same algorithms used in Doom 3." Sure makes me wish Quake looked this good the first time around, but I reckon my computer wouldn't have been able to render it fast enough to play it, either.
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Original Quake using Doom 3 Technology More

Original Quake using Doom 3 Technology

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  • Not to be a dick (Score:3, Informative)

    by HimalayanRoadblock ( 601900 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @03:12AM (#4205059)
    Not to be a dick but this is a repost. Still an awesome story and a good time waster, but a repeat nonetheless.
    • Sure, I'll be I'm considered automatically redundant to the idiots modding this thread, but how is this off-topic?

      THE frickin' topic itself is off-topic by being redundant!!!

      Sad to say, but Slashdot seems to be slipping towards that sad reality where shortly the trolls will write "Slashdot is dying" and be 100% correct...

    • Well, look, it's Cowboy Neal. If he's going to be a repeat in all the Slashdot Polls, why not go to the logical conclusion?
    • I almost tried to clear my browsers cache, I thought maybe I was seeing old pages or something.

      Maybe I should anyway.

  • CowboyNeal is posting stories? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06, 2002 @03:15AM (#4205066)
    I thought that being the last poll option was a full time job.
    • Yeah, he's posted a lot of stories in the last couple days (so I've noticed). What gives?

      Roblimo posted a few too, and I usually only notice him posting once in a great while or posting interviews. Taco and Hemos planning a long vacation?
  • ...and this DUPLICATE STORY [slashdot.org] was the first result!

    seriously, the editors have stopped trying. i mean i like Slashdot, i like CowboyNeal, but they've stopped trying.

    • At least this time they got the new features right. Last time, they were touting the vis-patched transparent water, of all things! That's anything but unique to this hack, given that transparent water (with the proper vis calculations, thus the need to vis-patch pre-made maps) was a feature of the original glquake back in 1997 or so.

    • I like how the editors instantly mod down any posts complaining about duplicate posts. Nice abuse of power, guys... I guess criticism hurts most when it's true.
      • Abuse of power? Did it occur to you that you got modded down for being rude? There's a post just a few above yours where a guy said basically the same thing, only nicely, and he got modded up.

        Honestly, you can't claim to be the victim if you provoked it.

        • Re:Hey, I Searched Slashdot For "Quake".... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:27AM (#4205323)
          I'm sorry, exactly how many times do the users need to ask nicely before the editors implement some form of dupe prevention? Do you have any real suggestions on how to fix this situation? They have full time employed slashcode coders, they have full time employed editors, and they STILL won't fix it. No one. Not one of them will lift a finger and say, hey guys... lets stop this from happening.. its far too common.

          Maybe people are rude at this point because its rediculous. There is NO good reason for this to still be happening.

          The slashdot team are treating their users like crap. They're taking us for granted, and frankly, the users make the site.

          They don't even read their own site. How much more clear can it get than that? THEY don't even like their product anymore.

          But they had no problem asking for subscription money, and they were quick to implement bigger ads.

          Why is it when they want something it happens fast, but when we want one measly little feature out of them... we get no response?

          Fine. Moderate me down, maybe I'm a little sick of this. But its frustration. I don't know what to do to change this, and its beginning to get to me. I like Slashdot, its frustrating watching something I really like die for a lack of attention by the guys in charge.

          Maybe you can help me understand what I should be doing. I don't know PERL, and I have no pull in having them say... create a list of links they've posted. I don't know how to get their attention.
          • I'm sorry, exactly how many times do the users need to ask nicely before the editors implement some form of dupe prevention? Do you have any real suggestions on how to fix this situation?
            Yep, here's one: have the submittors check for dupes. Clearly the editors won't do it so it's pretty much up to us. If you want to avoid this problem then take the extra time necessary to find out if your story has already been posted. Obviously this won't stop a dupe if you submit before the first story, but it should help.

          • Re:Hey, I Searched Slashdot For "Quake".... (Score:1, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            If you don't like it, fix it. Code up your solution to the problem and sumbit it to Taco. Remember that it has to be scalable to work on a site as big as Slashdot. Go here [slashcode.com] for details.

            This thing doesn't write itself people.
            • This is not a problem that needs a "scalable" solution to work. Serving up articles is, but the process of reviewing submitted articles for publication has absolutely zero requirement for scalability. Another non-engineer repeating buzzwords...
              • So what's the big fuckin' problem here? Can't you just keep a database or a flatfile of links with dates and check to see if the URL's match? How hard is that? Gee, on August 2nd we posted an article with links to www.myass.com/hairy/cheeks.html and today we were about to do it again but the database search reminded us.

                I realize this won't work for everything since you don't always put links in submissions, but I'd say it'd cut down on a great number of them.
          • Yes its a little annoying, but if it bothers you so much, why are you reading this? There are other slashdot articles to check out...

            Relax and give the developers a little credit... Slashdot rocks and the web would be a much more boring place without it.
            • Slashdot certainly does not "rock". It's one of the better glorified bookmark sites with usually interesting link-aways. Besides the links, the actual comments here are generally sucky, the editors are spaztics with retarded political opinions, and everyone thinks they're a genius (including me). But, you're right...the Internet would be a little more boring without it.

          • At the Slashcode BOFH, the QA session was interesting. I was working at Newsforge with Grant , Robin, etc, and we were all there. Someone mentioned duplicates, and this led to a question directed at us -- what do you use to not post duplicate stories?

            Our reply? We always search, and we try to skim the headlines to make sure that we always know what's been posted. In the few cases that we do accidently post a dupe, we had no problems hiding the story so that people had more room to read real ones.

            Of course, with Slascode, you could just add some perl to check if the URL of the target story matches a URL in a previous story body before posting, reducing all posts that point to the same website (which seems to be the common case). As for ones that point to different websites, that's where proper keyword based searching comes in.

            "The slashdot team are treating their users like crap. They're taking us for granted, and frankly, the users make the site." maybe they just don't like having users who remember well. Maybe that's leading to a bit of an inversion, because more users who don't remember previous stories are clamouring to post their duplicates. Unless this was posted JUST by CowboyNeal, some of the blame has to fall on the idiot who submitted this dupe (probably a few hundred times).

          • As a fellow site-maintenece guy (they say I'm a graphic designer, ... ha), I totally sympathize with Slashdot's crew. I work on www.ramapo.edu [ramapo.edu] and we're up to 19,000+ files in the site. All maitained by 4 people w/o content management. I say, so what if there's duplicates? Sometimes I forget to read one day, miss the first post. This is the first I've heard of Tenebrae, and I think it's very very cool. I will try it the instant I get home to a real computer. I'm sure my Radeon will chug on it (Radeon != stencil buffer performance), but it will be cool to have alongside panquake and fisheye quake. :) Thanks again Slashdot for finding another awesome, $0 quake mod... even if it is a re-post.
        • I don't think anything I said was "rude". Given the vast number of repeated stories, and the fact that I went out of my way to say "I like Slashdot, I like cowboyNeal", I don't feel my remarks were rude at all.

          I suppose it's a bit much to ask, considering that most people don't even read the link before posting, but if you'd take a moment to read my posting history you'd see that I've refrained from Slashdot-bashing in the 5 years or so I've been posting.
  • I, like, just sold CowboyNeal like, a pound of weed on Monday.
    Editors, like, smoke a LOT of weed. Or something. I think Clinton was there.

  • Firstposters is cool (Score:4, Funny)

    by LinkDJ ( 163960 ) <linkdjNO@SPAMlinkdj.net> on Friday September 06, 2002 @03:23AM (#4205088) Homepage
    Maybe if i add to the thousands of people posting about this being a duplicate story, i'll get modded up! YEAH! That's a great idea.
  • Since Quake 1 is the greatest multiplayer FPS ever designed, it's real nice with some spicing up of the engine. ;-)

  • Dear god! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @03:28AM (#4205103)
    Leave the poor server alone! Isn't /.ing it once good enough for you people?! /me hugs the server There there, the mean people won't hurt you anymore
  • I haven't played Quake since I started playing Unreal. Is Quake still good?
    • No, it's not still good since it has decayed over the years like rotting food. Oh wait... Perhaps it was like wine - only getting better over the years.

      Seriously, what do you mean with still good? :-/
    • Indeed, many people (like myself) consider Quake to have had one of the best atmospheres in a FPS game to date.

      Even after 6-7 years after it's introduction, it's not even close to dead. A lot of QuakeWorld competition goes on in Europe, for example.

      In fact, there are actually probably more Quake1 players than Quake2 players left (while Quake3 was slowly dieing, but seems to have come back alive and kicking after QuakeCon).
    • Do You mean : "Is the Quake series still good?" In that case, I would definitly say "yes... every new release make me wanna quit my day job ;)" Is it better than unreal series ( Unreal, Tournament... ) ----> diffucult to say but I tend to go with Unreal for the story...
    • Calm down guys. I still like Quake, and played it just last year. I still prefer it, since it will work on Pentium computers, and 486s, when Unreal will hardly work on my Pentium Celeron.
  • RUG (RijksUniversiteit Gent) is on Belnet, the Belgian university backbone. You just ruined my bandwidth for the day !

  • for repost cases (Score:3, Funny)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @03:30AM (#4205110) Journal
    like this one [slashdot.org] you Slashcode developers could develop a robust action-replay mechanism to smoothly and realistically simulate the creation of discussion threads in the original posting. To make the effect more realistic, add a few "repost, kill the moderators" comments.

    Aproximating that there is around 67,000 readers who peek into this story at this hour,around 95 people who actually make a comment, 40 people who make a comment but hit the cancel button, and 140 people who try to make a comment but do not come up with anything, this simulational mechnanism could save aproximately (95 * 3 mins) + (40 * 2 mins) + (140 * 4 mins) = 3160 minutes. If one hour of work of an average slashdotted costs $100, the savings would be around $5266,67. Think about the effect on GNP!

    • uhmmm in case you started wondering, there was a little mistake in the formula, I forgot to write about the 2235 minutes saved because the more clever ones could know that it is a repost, and could read just the frontpage and not the comments ;))
      • I don't know where you work, but I think the rest of us make far less then $100 an hour.
        • > I don't know where you work, but I think the rest of us make far less then $100 an hour.

          I don't make that either - but I talked about the effect on GNP ;) GNP == "An estimate of the total money value of all the final goods and services produced in a given one-year period by the factors of production owned by a particular country's residents"

          So, in other words the sum that your company charges from it's customer for your work. Or the value that it represents to your company. Atleast here in Europe, it's "about so" that if you are worth x to the company per hour, then you can divide this by around 1.8 - 3.2 to get your salary.

          • Ahhh I miss understood.

            Well using the high number I am worth about $32.50 an hour to my company. :-(
            • When I was a contractor, I was worth about 20 dollars an hour...the company I worked for charged Compaq $80 an hour, and they in turn charged the government $115 an hour for my services.
              The sad thing was that what was supposed to be a network admin job (on NT4, yes I can hear the boos and hisses) turned out to be an endless parade of Win98 installs via Ghost in order to beat Y2K.
              During a particularly slack time a few of us had a 2 week period with nothing to do, so I introduced the other guys to the Quake 2 demo (it was all that would run on those crappy compaqs decently).
              We figured out that with the average charges of our different companies we cost taxpayers about 41,000+ dollars for our little Quake 2 break. :)
            • Ahhh I miss understood.
              You also miss pelled "misunderstood". :-)
  • The original quake had transparent water.. well, if you run a special VIS-pass over the maps and used glquake (or had the power to run a special executable which did it on the fly -- I think -- I never did that though). I played it that way all the time, and it was much fun.

    Sprites? Didn't Carmack say he only used three sprites in quake? Or was that quake 2.. no, I think it's the original quake that only had three or so sprites (waterbubbles and something and another).. ah.. I found it on google [google.com].

    We coded lots of ways for sprites to behave (allways perpendicular, pivot along Z to face origin, pivot on Z to be parallel to view plane, fixed orientation), but we wound up only having three sprites in the entire game: explosions, drowning bubble, and a gold ball light in the registered version....

    As for the doom-engine games, there's already DooM Legacy [newdoom.com] which features TCP/IP network play and split-screen two-player mode on one computer, and more.
  • and again i was wondering whats wrong with our proxycache but it was slashdot again...sadsad...
  • Why would I want stencil shadows on a 7 year old game ?

    Oh yes - because you can.

    So effectively, what we have, is the same old game, which now looks tired and primitive, with some, well, for want of a better description, shadows !

    Whoop de do

    And the kicker is, it'll only work on GeForce cards and will run slowly on anything below a GeForce2 GTS - Wonderful !

    Anyway, I'm sure I read this story somewhere before ...

    • Why would I want stencil shadows on a 7 year old game ?

      Oh yes - because you can.

      So effectively, what we have, is the same old game, which now looks tired and primitive, with some, well, for want of a better description, shadows !

      Whoop de do

      And the kicker is, it'll only work on GeForce cards and will run slowly on anything below a GeForce2 GTS - Wonderful !

      Anyway, I'm sure I read this story somewhere before ...



      Look at me! I'm using my misunderstanding of the point to appear like I'm more grounded in reality than everybody else! Whoop de do

    • Re:Why ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Osty ( 16825 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @04:22AM (#4205218)

      So effectively, what we have, is the same old game, which now looks tired and primitive, with some, well, for want of a better description, shadows !

      Or, you have a vehicle that allows you to play around with 3D graphics programming without having to go through the whole hassle of writing your own engine, creating some programmer art test data, etc. This guy could've written his own engine, but then it'd be a couple years before we'd see anything, if we ever did (not to mention, that wouldn't show up on Slashdot -- there are quite a few people that dabble in this area). He could've added it to one of the already-existing open source engines, like Crystal Space, but then he'd have to go to the trouble of generating test data (and few programmers are also artists, so it would be more difficult to impress people because they'd get hung up on the bad programmer art and not look past it to the neat effects he's made). Or, he could use the existing Quake 1 engine, leveraging the existing models, maps, textures, AI code, etc, and bolt on his enhancements. The latter is the best option if you're just playing around with some neat ideas you've read about. The first option is good if you want to learn how to write an engine. The second is probably best if your goal is to write a game.


      And the kicker is, it'll only work on GeForce cards and will run slowly on anything below a GeForce2 GTS - Wonderful !

      You complain that he's modified old software with new techniques, and then you complain that it doesn't run well on old hardware. Face it -- the anything older than the GeForce2 is old hardware. Get over it. Given a sufficiently powerful CPU (say, a p3-1GHz) and a sufficiently low screen resolution (800x600 or less), I'm sure you'd get playable speeds from this. You wouldn't want to compete online with this client, but then it's not a qw client anyway. Plus, it's still Quake, so all of your old Quake speed-related optimizations will still work.

      • I agree completely. I actually want to try this mod out, it seems like he spent a good deal of time creating.

        I am still trying to buy the original quake version, but cannot seem to find it in any stores. Anyone know of any stores still selling it?

        • I am still trying to buy the original quake version, but cannot seem to find it in any stores. Anyone know of any stores still selling it?

          Ultimate Quake [gamestop.com] includes Q1, Q2, and Q3a. Maybe it's a waste of money if you already have Q2 or Q3a separately, but $30 isn't bad, and it's the only way I've seen lately to get Q1.


          Actually, nevermind -- I just checked id's site [idsoftware.com], and you can buy Quake 1 [esellerate.net] by itself for $30 (as a download, you get no official media). At that price, you'd be better off picking up Ultimate Quake and giving away the Q2 and Q3a disks if you don't need them. For the same $30, you actually get the games on CD.

    • The lighting effects are (in general) much neater looking.

      In addition, he also implemented bumpmapping/glossmapping. Unfortunately the bumpmaps/glossmaps he's using in the demo are kind of... ugly. But the engine DOES support high-res TGA textures/bumpmaps/glossmaps. I tried downloading a few high-res textures/bumpmaps from a texture archive and slapping them into a test map - The results were... Amazing. The engine is NOWHERE close to its full potential.

      (I'd post the testmap/textures somewhere but my cable modem connection is apparently down so I can't access my home box from work.)
      • You've got to be kidding. I downloaded and installed this the FIRST time it was posted on /. Sure, the textures look a little better but the way he implemented the effects on water make the levels in the game with water almost unplayable. Plus, there's no way to increase the gamma and the game is overall too dark.

        • I said the engine *SUPPORTS* high-res textures, not that he actually *USED* such textures in his download, and that the textures included with the download are, in fact, ugly. (Low-res and the bumpmaps/glossmaps are overdone)

          I tried using some high-res textures/bumpmaps I found and the difference was amazing - MUCH better.
        • Make sure you have the water VIS patch for Q1, or the water will seriously mess up. It should look just like clear water. Without the patch, it gets a neon, swirly look to it because the engine doesnt render anything below the water surface, other than "The Void".
  • It's nice to see CBN every now and then. He's funny in the polls, he's funny on his web page, and he's even funny when he reposts Michael's story from less than 2 weeks ago! [slashdot.org] We love you all the same dude.

  • Re-Post of "Tenebrae Quake" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Domini ( 103836 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @04:07AM (#4205187) Journal
    see "Tenebrae Quake" [slashdot.org]. There is no real difference between the stories...
    • I love this site, but man there sure do seem to be a lot of reposts lately.

      Perhaps a flag could be added to stories once they are identified as reposts, and logged-in users given the option to hide such confirmed reposts?

      Just a thought.

  • ...other than a (rather pointless if you ask me) excercise in adding someone elses algorithm into someone elses game using someone elses levels?

    Why not just re-create the original quake levels using the Doom-3 Engine when level editors come out?!?

    That at least would have been at least slightly original...recreating all of the old monsters in the new 3D format etc...and I bet ID's code runs a tad faster than this guys...what a waste of time.

    • The point is not always what you think it is.

      From the author's perspective, which is really the only one that matters, the point may just have been a programming exercise, or something he thought would be cool to do. And I'd hardly call stretching one's horizons a "waste of time".

      Why not just re-create the original quake levels using the Doom-3 Engine when level editors come out?!?

      You do it, then. Then, at least, you'd have some justification to complain about the apparent pointlessness of this approach.

  • It's things like this that make me wonder if slashdot editors actually read slashdot. I mean, cmon guys, at least pretend to believe in what you're preaching :)

  • Nooooooooo, again!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by bdejong ( 312792 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @04:20AM (#4205213) Homepage
    Oh dear! Will you people stop slashdotting my university's servers!! :-D
    (yes, we belgians read slashdot too ;-) )

    - bram

  • in other slashdot.org news (Score:3, Funny)

    by zeekiorage ( 545864 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @04:29AM (#4205239)
    slashdot.org has decided to change their slogan ...

    News for Nerds, Stuff thats *reposted*.

    --zekiorage
  • http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/08/24/194525 5&mode=thread&tid=112 [slashdot.org]

    This is a dupe, postet by CowboyNeal, not even by timothy ...
  • I'm not much into quake or doom like i was a few years back, but I do read /. alot. First thing that came to mind, was "humm, i remember seeing this before."

    Personally, I don't know how slashdot is operated, but there should be some sort of system setup that prevents so much duplicate stories. I'm no programmer, but i'm sure something like that can't be that hard.

    *shurgs* It's not like dupe stories pisses me off, it the idea that another "fresh" story could be in its place. Everytime i see a duplicate i feel like i'm missing out on a Good StoryTM because of it. :)
  • The editors are reading slashdot. I just re-submitted the same story again and it instantly got rejected (no kidding).

  • Reruns (Score:3, Funny)

    by richie2000 ( 159732 ) <rickard.olsson@gmail.com> on Friday September 06, 2002 @05:50AM (#4205375) Homepage Journal
    C'mon people, the reason for the repost is right there in the write-up!

    Sure makes me wish Quake looked this good the first time around

  • Anyone working on an OS X port?? I've played lots of original Quake of late using the OS X native client. How about porting this to OS X as well?

    Thanks.

    blakespot
  • the sad thing bout this is, that it doesnt run on a tnt2. seems like i needs at least a geforce.

    perhaps it works only with HW T&L ?
  • This is old technology and IIRC (without looking it up), Doom III uses volumetric shadows. Stencil shadows are those that Quake II uses and are not very realistic (NOTE: There are modifications to the QII source, such as those in the DPGE engine [planetquake.com], that improve the stencil shadows in the original QII engine, removing the overlapping effects, shadows from light entities, etc.). They use the stencil buffer in order to "paste" a shadow onto a surface that approximates a shadow from an object.

    Volumetric shadows use a projected volume (in simplified terms) to "cast" a shadow onto any object and surface as a real shadow would, including casting the shadow onto curves, surfaces at angles, self shadowing, and shadowing multiple objects/surfaces. Another name for this type is "shadow volumes". Both methods can employ the use of the stencil buffer.

    Since I can't actually see any of the screenshots on the referenced web page, and at times can't even get to the page, I can't decide which method is actually in use.

    Stencil shadows in the Quake I engine would be nice. Volumetric shadows would be an achievement.

    PGA
    • It uses volumetric shadows for everything, completely ditching the previous lightmap system. It also uses per-pixel lighting with bump mapping (although the bump mapping part is easy once you have the lighting). AFAIK, Doom III will be the first original game to employ all these techniques at once. But you're right - the article would have been more interesting if he'd made a point of the other technoligies which both Doom III and Tenebrae share.
      • AFAIK, Doom III will be the first original game to employ all these techniques at once.

        Unless I finish the DPGE engine and Navy SEALs: Dev. Group first. (I use light maps, bump mapping, and shadow volumes) :)

        I doubt I will though, I have to spend too much time doing work that pays my bills, and working on DPGE does not fill this need. :(

        PGA
  • I mean seriously - how hard could it be to write a filter which checks to see if the URLs in a story are identical to the URLs in a previous story? And if so, it at least WARNS the story poster (or submitter?) that what they're saying has already been posted on /.
  • maybe you guys should think, "HEY! Perhaps some missed it the first time and they get a second chance to check it out."

    Its like you complainers want a mother bitchin cookie or something just becuase you read slashdot every five minutes... probably more.
  • And now, more of "the best of slashdot"...
  • In my opinion, some of the difference is made by using a 1/r^2 radiation law instead of the 1/r in Quake. Mihai
  • Here [google.com] are the screen shots from google's cache
  • The news item was repeated once, but the number of reader comments saying it was a repost were in the dozens. There is a suggestion in the "Important Stuff" of our Post Comment screen that suggests you read other messages before posting? Is it that crucial for your voice to be part of the scene?
  • Those sharp, raytraced-looking shadows do not look realistic, they look like crappy computer generated fake shadows.
    Real shadows are soft, and become less noticeable at a distance.

    The area lighting is a big improvement, but it also removes some of the simulated radiosity that was originally part of the Quake surfaces. (look at before & after page #1)

    I also think the specular highlights have been way overdone. Every surface seems to be very shiny (and bumpy), and it really shows off the low resolution of the textures.

    Or maybe I'm just expecting too much of this brand new expensive nvidia 750xgl. I'll have to spend a few more thousand for really nice shadows.

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