Blooming BSP!!
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Blooming BSP!!
| ||
Just thought i'd share this as i havent seen anyone try it. I Used the Blitz example BSP loader code and Bouncers Bloom filter which also includes sswift's texture bluring routine. This shot was taken at 1280x1024 32bit fullscreen with 4xAA. Hardware is a Nvidia 6600GT PCIe and A64 1.8GHz Win2k. 500+ fps with no FX, 260 fps with bloom and 170 with Bloom+4xAA. I recently read that ID software have released the source code to Q3 and Radiant. Does this mean we can distribute BSP's for free?  |
| ||
| Cool pic. |
| ||
| Does this mean we can distribute BSP's for free? You never needed to pay to distribute BSP's. What you needed to pay for was using ID's tools to do the compiling, or to find an alternative BSP compiler. So the answer would be yes if you're using a non-ID compiler, yes if they've also changed the licensing fees for their tools, and no if neither of the first two are true. Looking very nice, BTW. |
| ||
| Just pulled this off the Radiant website. Forgive my lack of experience in these matters but is it saying what i hope it is saying? id Software releases GtkRadiant source code under GPL February 17th 11:25:27 AM 2006 - Updated by [ TTimo ] "Following last summer's release of Quake III Arena source code and tools under the GPL license, id is now placing GtkRadiant and q3map2 under GPL license. We are also providing in this release a number of Quake II tools that never made it under GPL when we packaged Quake II source code........" |
| ||
Here's another one at 1024x768 bloom+4aa |
| ||
| Well bascly it seems to me (assuming the bsp compiler source is GPLed too) it may be legal now. Cause GNU means (as I understand it) you may mod the sourcecode and even sell the resulting app, as long as you release the modified sourcode. So I guess the usage of the product of a GPLed tool cannot be restricted. I may be wrong. I think only a statement of ID soft can make this clear. |
| ||
| Guy's, looks like its official :) http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/20/1329236 |
| ||
| Wow! dems some perty pics! :B Great stuff Andy UK n_n |
| ||
| I'm glad to see someone still using BSPs in Blitz - I used to love using them. In fact, I might even dig a few up and enjoy myself. |
| ||
| Well if we are free to use the tools then surely this is the way to go if you want to whip up a quick fps. An average map runs at over 500fps at standard settings and in some places 1000! So much scope to add stuff and no mucking about with portal systems, etc.. A fully fledged and now free to use map editor with all the bits and pieces, this can only breath more life into Blitz3D. |
| ||
| Yes, if the tools have been GPL'ed as well, then it looks as though you're fine. |
| ||
| I am still not sure if BSPs may be used freely. The only comment I have seen in the mentioned discussion is by a guy named "Radiant": First off, a big thanks to John Carmack for opening doors for developers... again. The most exciting thing about this release is the GPL'd version of QeRadiant included with it. Radiant is a tool that many professional level designers swear by. For the first time ever, it is now available for independents to use when creating content for their own games. Prior to this, you needed a license from Id Software in order to use it for commercial purposes. Where Carmack didn't say anything about license issues. However, I guess ID won't worry too much, knowing that anyone could mod the compiler slightly and then say it's his work. This is indeed very exiting news: q3 BSP, amost buried due to the license problem may now become a nice solution for all VIS occlusion needs. Of course this may be bad news for the publishers of map tools, but hey. I'm not very familar with the bsp format, does it allow a lightmapiing texture? Or how could this be done? |
| ||
| So what tools are needed for this? Just Q3Radiant? Does anyone have any links? |
| ||
| Guys I've posted about this several times now on here and been ignored :( now everyones acting like its a new revelation... www.qeradiant.com << can also get a GPL'd version of GTK now which is entirely seperate to ID Software and deffinatly free to use in your own stuff ftp.idsoftware.com << the official GPL'd ID tools and tool sources |
| ||
| "and been ignored :( now everyones acting like its a new revelation" No we're not. Some of us were using BSPs 3 years ago. Just wondering what the latest tools are that everyone's using. |
| ||
| John, i agree, i was also using them a long time ago but the whole licensing thing put me off. BSP's are actually very very efficient in Blitz3D and, ok, they dont support the shaders and lighting that the original engine did but who cares, with a few home made FX, it can look nice enough. The main thing here is i think is speed. I would like to see someone make a comparable type map fully textured with lightmaps and see if it runs at the kind of speeds we see with Blitz BSP's. Lets face it, quiet a few people on here concentrate on trying to make things go faster and run out of steam when it actually comes to putting it into a game. The hard work has been done, all we need to do is get creative and use it... I would prefer to spend most of my time creating the media rather than trying to find a workaround for slow performance. That said, im off to make a map. Free Texture packs :) http://simland.planetquake.gamespy.com/pages/materials.htm |
| ||
| This is probably a dumb question, but can BSP's animate? |
| ||
| Not sure what you mean. A BSP map is usually static. If need to animate something it would be better adding it as a separate mesh in Blitz. You cant control anything that is part of the BSP including the textures and light although the BSP does respond to spot lights. Taken from the docs; Loads a BSP model and returns its handle. Some points about Blitz3D's BSP support: * Shaders are *not* supported! * BSP's cannot be painted, textured, colored, faded etc. in Blitz. * A BSP model is just an entity. Use the standard entity commands to scale, rotate and position the BSP, and the standard collision commands to setup collisions with the BSP. * BSP models are not lit by either 'normal' AmbientLight, or by any directional lighting. This allows you to setup lighting for in-game models without affecting the BSP lighting. However, BSP models *will* be lit by point or spot lights. * Textures for the BSP model must be in the same directory as the BSP file itself. The optional parent parameter allows you to specify a parent entity for the BSP so that when the parent is moved the child BSP will move with it. However, this relationship is one way; applying movement commands to the child will not affect the parent. Specifying a parent entity will still result in the BSP being created at position 0,0,0 rather than at the parent entity's position. |
| ||
| Where abouts would I get bouncers bloom code? |
| ||
| So, are BSP's always faster? Say I just want a cube, would it be better to use a BSP cube or a mesh cube? |
| ||
| You need Quake3 installed to run GtkRadiant, don't you? Anybody with experience know how easy it is to NOT mod Quake3 (ie build totally stand-alone bsp's for one's own apps) with the program? Please tell me it's straightforward! |
| ||
| I was wondering, how do you make a BSP? I thought I had seen BSP in the export section of milkshape, but I just looked and I guess I was wrong. Anyway, do you have to make BSP's in a special program, or can you convert other meshes into BSP's? I use Blender and Milkshape for modeling, any way to do it with those or another program (preferably free)? |
| ||
| www.qeradiant.com Go here to get the map editor and BSP compiler tools. You may need to have Quake 3 installed as the editor needs some textures but i may be wrong. If in doubt, download the Quake 3 arena demo ~100mb and install it. That should give you pretty much all the tools you need, oh and get "Wally" http://www.telefragged.com/wally/ a free texture package that allows you to add your own textures to the map editor. |
| ||
| Oh I've got Quake3, I just didn't want to spend the rest of the night battling the editor because I wanted to do something unrelated to that game. Seems fairly straightforward as it happens - you can add custom texture directories directly into the zipped .pk3 files (although making an additional pk3 works better as it takes a whle to add/delete to/from big zips). How did you know which textures to extract for the maps in your screenshots, by the way? Or did you just pull out the lot? |
| ||
| The first map came with the Quake3Arena demo so i extracted all the textures to a directory. The second shot is a 3rd party map i found on the net that i assume uses a combination of the default textures plus whatever they had inside the BSP. I just have one huge folder with all the textures in it, cant go wrong but the file size is pretty big. Obviously when creating a new map from scratch your best bet is to create a new PK3 containing the textures your map needs. Im sure there is an app out there that can tell you the texture dependencies of a BSP but i havent really search as i wont need it. |
| ||
| The first map came with the Quake3Arena demo Ah - shoulda known! |
| ||
| John Blackledge you missed the point of what I was saying... I made 2 posts here when the quake 3 source went GPL about the change in licence and no one replied to either of them when I last checked... |
| ||
| LOL and reading this post since my last reply... FFS people am I invisible? I posted 2 links to get it and people still ask... Its also possible to create your own custom game settings for qeradiant and you don't need quake 3 installed however as no one is likely to bother reading what I'm saying I'm not gonna link to the templates I made for this if you want them your gonna have to ask. |
| ||
| inferiority-complex? |
| ||
| No need to make it personal... I have made several posts here in the past which seem to have been ignored, I don't want to put the time and effort into useful (imo) contribution if its just going to dropped by the way side. |
| ||
| lol..... ......Where abouts would I get bouncers bloom code? |
| ||
| He has a direct link to it in his sig http://www.bonebroke.com/downloads/bloomfilter.zip |
| ||
| Rroff - I must have missed it. I'd surely have answered. Or maybe I simply didn't realize what this means for the whole VIS occlusion dilemma of Blitz3D. I have the Quake 3 Arena CD here, but your template would be highly useful. These useful things (and I am sure you don't need other peoples opinions to know what's good and what's not) should be sticky in some way, eg. by posting them in the code archives or toolbox, depending on what kind of matter it is. |
| ||
| Heya....where can I find Bouncer's Bloom filter? I'd like to tinker around with it. =) EDIT: nm...I found it...now this is gonna be interesting for the light cycle game. /evil grin |
| ||
| Andy UK, I'm guessing you've modified the Bloom filter code somewhat. When I try to utilise it, everything gets all bright and glowing. I've messed with the 2 settings and put the first down to about .05 and second setting left at 50. Can you steer me in the right direction? |
| ||
| I am using "renderglow(0.1,2,2,9)" I must admit i am a bit of a noob programmer when it comes to these things and it will take me a long tme to produce anything worth playing, if i get there but i can see potential with this system. Im sure other FX can be created to further enhance image quality. |
| ||
| I must have an old version because I'm getting a "too many parameters" error. =( |
   |