Megatextures and dlls

[Danfun64]

I am no coder, nor am I planning on making any projects, but I do have a couple questions which I hope some of you can answer.
First of all, have any of the Id Tech 4 source ports made improvements to megatexture support?

Secondly, How feasible would it be to have an Id Tech 4 switch from a dll system to a qvm or PNaCl system, in order to increase portability?

Third, how feasible is it to port megatextures to other engines, like the Quake 3 based Spearmint engine?

[motorsep]

Secondly, How feasible would it be to have an Id Tech 4 switch from a dll system to a qvm or PNaCl system, in order to increase portability?

There are no DLLs to deal with if you use Doom 3 BFG engine.

[Danfun64]

This hypothetical scenario i'm referring to is a FLOSS Battlefield clone. Most FLOSS FPS games are arena shooters, so seeing a teamwork oriented FPS with vehicles that's open source would be an interesting change of pace. Hence asking about megatextures.

This hypothetical fps would need the following qualities:

Free Libre and Open Source: Self-explanitory

Multiple Architextures: It should run on any architexture as long as the mimimum system requirements are met, hence asking about replacing the dll system with something like qvm or PNaCl.

Low specs: The main goal is a Battlefield clone that can run on most modern devices. The graphics will probably be low poly cel shaded, so that the graphics look decent on newer systems yet can run on old ones.

Multiplayer: Up to 64 players.

Map Format: Must be optimized for large outdoor maps. Hence asking about Megatextures. Of course, looking at another engine, like one of the Cube engines, is an option... again, this is all hypothetical.

Physics: There will be ragdolls, things jumping off airplanes, tanks... having simple Quake 3 esque physics won't cut it.

Internal VOIP: Battlefield 2 allows for voice chat for teams, squads, and commanders talking to squad leaders. Obviously that will be needed here.

Optional-

Theme: The characters will be robots. This is done for several reasons:
1. It justifies less realistic gameplay elements like HUDs.
2. You can get away with more with robots compared to humans. For example, the robots can be broken apart with leaking oil and still have a T rating or lower. One reason for this is because none of the Battlefield games made after 1943 are rated T, but M.
3. Might be easier to model humanoid robots than actual humans.

Security: Things like a pure server system and other ways to verify that the content is the same across the board. That being said, it can't conflict with FLOSS or Portability.

Support for External VOIP: Mumble integration.

[The Happy Friar]

Alien Arena is opensource & has vehicles.  http://red.planetarena.org/


It's got a lot of the pretty things most people want.  I don't believe it supports anything like Megatexture, but it does support more open/large maps (based on Q2/Q3A tech).

[motorsep]

@Danfun64

In this hypothetical scenario, are you going to be making such game or are you looking for such FOSS game to play?

[Danfun64]

@The Happy Friar: Alien Arena is Q2 based, and as such most likely fails the Multi Architecture requirement.

Since I'm not a dev of any kind, I would much rather play a FLOSS Battlefield clone than create one

WolfET is now open source, but has fatal combination of dll+sv_pure. Unvanquished is nothing like Battlefield, but is team based. Unfortunately, it's still in alpha and very unstable. Xonotic has a vehicles mod, but it's usually used with CTF.

Just so you don't get the wrong impression, there's nothing wrong with Arena shooters IMO. I play Xonotic and Open Arena. It's just that there's nothing in the opposite end of the arcade-realism spectrum in FLOSS FPS gaming.

[argoon]

This hypothetical scenario i'm referring to is a FLOSS Battlefield clone. Most FLOSS FPS games are arena shooters, so seeing a teamwork oriented FPS with vehicles that's open source would be an interesting change of pace. Hence asking about megatextures.

Quake Wars is a idtech 4x teamwork oriented FPS with vehicles and improved megatexture tech, is not FLOSS tho.

This hypothetical fps would need the following qualities:

Free Libre and Open Source: Self-explanitory

idtech 4 is GPL so is open source but is not libre.

Multiple Architextures: It should run on any architexture as long as the mimimum system requirements are met, hence asking about replacing the dll system with something like qvm or PNaCl.

idtech 4 runs on x86/x64, MACOS and Android (for android you need the ported engine not the original one tho).

Low specs: The main goal is a Battlefield clone that can run on most modern devices. The graphics will probably be low poly cel shaded, so that the graphics look decent on newer systems yet can run on old ones.

original idtech 4 not BFG can run just fine in directX 7/8 type hardware that is very old.

Multiplayer: Up to 64 players.

Afaik not possible without changing the vanilla multiplayer code but i'm not sure.

Map Format: Must be optimized for large outdoor maps. Hence asking about Megatextures. Of course, looking at another engine, like one of the Cube engines, is an option... again, this is all hypothetical.

idtech 4 is not optimized for large outdoor maps, they are possible but making them is very hard, the editor doesn't even have a terrain tool, nor a way to easily "plant" objects in the terrain surface, and optimizing them is very hard as well, vanilla idtech 4 lacks even a simple LOD system and terrain streaming plus vegetation rendering is very basic and imo ugly, is no Cryengine that's for sure.

Physics: There will be ragdolls, things jumping off airplanes, tanks... having simple Quake 3 esque physics won't cut it.

idtech 4 physics are surprisingly very advanced not Havok or PhysX like but much better than the Quake 3, ragdolls and vehicles are perfectly possible without changing the physics code.

Internal VOIP: Battlefield 2 allows for voice chat for teams, squads, and commanders talking to squad leaders. Obviously that will be needed here.

Afaik doom 3 has voip but i never tried it.

Theme: The characters will be robots. This is done for several reasons:

Robots are perfect for idtech4 the normal maping tech plus the in_game GUI surfaces makes for very complex and fun robots, human charactgers is where vanilla idtech 4 lacks but for cellshading is fine, you need a cellshading ARB shader tho.

[bitterman]

idtech 4 is GPL so is open source but is not libre.

Can you explaine more, please? What I can't do with this code?

[Danfun64]

Please explain how GPL isn't "libre". I always thought it qualified in that category.

I already know about Quake Wars. It's closed source...and even if the source was opened, it still uses the dll system instead of something that supports multiple architectures.

[The Happy Friar]

@The Happy Friar: Alien Arena is Q2 based, and as such most likely fails the Multi Architecture requirement.

I've learned over the years that if you can compile for Q3A multi-platform you should have no issue compiling for different platforms.  There's nothing stopping anyone from adding Q3A's QVM compiling code to CRX.  That would be less effort I'd figure then adding everything else to an engine that doesn't support that stuff.

[argoon]

Please explain how GPL isn't "libre". I always thought it qualified in that category.

I already know about Quake Wars. It's closed source...and even if the source was opened, it still uses the dll system instead of something that supports multiple architectures.

Yes is closed source and i said that, but in gameplay is all you want.

idtech 4 is GPL so is open source but is not libre.

Can you explaine more, please? What I can't do with this code?

I said it wrong is not libre i should have said but is not "free" because i meant more " is not free in free beer, you can't do with it what the hell you want there's rules to follow"

I do not claim full knowledge on this stuff i know only the basics, but imo GPL is also not libre in the way that MIT or BSD licences are for example, GPL demands that you release all your modifications under the same licence terms for example, contrary to MIT that for example lets you use a MIT licenced software and then release your modifications under GPL licence.
Like i said above is also not free in the way that you can do with it what the hell you want, you can't take the idtech 4 source code and claim it as your own nor can you make derivatives of the source and sell it as totally new commercial engine, you can sell commercial games with GPL but it also demands that you release the original source code plus all the modifications you did to it free of charge, yes is libre but is not totally free.

The GPL slogan is even "FREE as in Freedom" not as free beer.