new Mod-Engine on Won2

[Caamora]

I'm preplanning an advanced mod for half-life, hopefully dx9.0 and Opengl 1.5 or
2.0. While looking at options (Irrlicht and IoQuake are two), I've noticed there are a
lot of specifics to some obvious uses. SDL1.2.1something looks promising, and a bit
complex. Various BSP versions are available, and I'm Googling the Tech (messy). By
the way, Irrlicht is out as one can't alter the editor without buying rights, etc. I'm
thinking design a hammer replacement, similar to the "Quark" editor.
FYI: I'm considering the Far Cry 1 "look" to be the best it'll do. And a Half-life
Uplink remake will be the first/ the practise mod.
Anyway, I'm asking about the specifications about Won2, so a mod-engine may
reliably run on it.
Source, wikis, whatever is advisable would be helpful...
Signed, Caamora

[rguest]

I'm afraid I only understood about half of what you just said. You're talking about creating a mod, but then start discussing engines (and hey, if you want to help recreate the Half-Life engine, I've got plenty of slave la--err, important coding that needs doing). You want to create a new mapping tool (the map compiling tool thingies are open source--ZHLT). And you want a detailed document describing the modding interface (no such thing exists anymore, the SDK stands alone with only scattered tutorials and open source mods floating the web).

In any case, break it down a little. What do you want to do? What do you need? Have you the skills, experience, and dedication to fill some of these tall orders alone?

[Caamora]

I thought about it and it would take a dozen pages, but just briefly...
Perspective: I'm presently worried about five different computer programming topics.
One is a Doom2 remake, practised for IoQuake grade, maybe all IoQuake code.
Second is a Quake One remake, which should be the most detailed, and I hope to
be with my own engine. The third game would be a Half-Life mod, working at a Far
Cry One grade, at best. The fourth game would be a Railroad Tycoon 4, only built
for realism. That would be DX 9.0c, muti-core processor A.I., and a LOT of help.
Fifth, I have repetitive interest in imitation_alive works. Machima comes to mind.
No "Project", just a routine curiousity.
To answer your question..."Have you the skills, experience and dedication to fill some
of these tall orders alone?" Actually, I'm sure I don't. This is why the 9.0c train item is
getting nothing but preplanning until I'm more qualified. This is why the Imitation_alive
is staying just a routine interest.
That leaves me organizing the Doom, Quake and Half-Life subjects. My present goal is
to fill in the plans to all three, and perform the development when and where ever I'm
qualified. I want Half-Life to get a better BSP mapping (I don't like blurry 256 x 256
textures), or Dynamic VertexBuffering (DX SDKs suggest it) for an example advance.
To answer..."You're talking about creating a mod but then start discussing engines...
What do you want? What do you need?..."
The SDL_General_FAQ states "SDL...is a library that allows you low level access to a
video framebuffer, audio output, mouse, keyboard and joysticks across a wide variety
of operating systems." I'm asking, does Won2 access for a wide variety of mods?
In total, I'm wondering if there are specifications for mods to fully run on Won2.
And in case you feel like I just wrote the transcript to Sunday's "Think Tank" session:
I need to know the coding interfaces to make a mod compatible with Won2. Like Half
Life One needs .mdl models, BSP 30 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wikiBSP_(file_format)],
what does Won2 need?
And lastly, what "..plenty of slave la--err, important coding..." were you talking about?
I do intend to dig into the works, and I might try sooner/then/later if you have any
suggestions in specific areas.

[rguest]

Ah. Multiple confusion.

Well, to start, Won2 is only a server network for Half-Life. Although we dabble in other fields, our main purpose is to host master servers for Half-Life and Half-Life only. A mod doesn't need to do anything special to be compatible with us; it just has to work on the Half-Life 1 engine.

That said, there is a project currently on standby that seeks to rebuild the Half-Life engine. Since Half-Life is based on Quake World (and since the source code to all but the newest Quake engines are open source), an open source Half-Life engine is not out of the question. And ours currently works too, but it's only a server, most mods crash it, and there are some physics bugs. That was what I was referring to when I said I had some coding projects I could use some assistance with, but it's a very specialized task (RE, asm, lots of mysterious code that needs deciphering). Don't worry about it. Most programmers want nothing to do with that line of work.

Doom is of course pretty well handled by Zdoom and its derivatives ;). The doom modding scene is still active; AoW2 got mechs recently. There's not really any need for a new engine there. Quake I don't really mess with.

Soooo, if you just want to learn about engines, the source code to many popular ones is available. However I would like to stress that most people do not create their own engines. They are complicated beasts and a modern one takes many man-hours. That's why almost every developer will license an engine instead, and why iD should probably stop making games and focus on supplying us with engines only :)

Lastly, mapping is not a subject I know much about. In order to improve the quality of the maps you'd have to remove both limitations in the mapping tools (which are open source, so should be relatively easy) and in the engine (which is not). And you can't break compatibility. In any case, that's not currently workable. That's the sort of thing you have to consider when you're first deciding on an engine to mod, since you can't change it.

And I *think* that's all I know on the listed subjects. In summary, if your mod works on Half-Life, it should work here. There are a few differences in the engine we use and the engine Steam uses, but in my experience you have to deliberately code a mod that won't work with both, and I don't know exactly what those differences are. I'm not entirely certain that Half-Life 1 is the engine for you though; you might want to look at other moddable engines and decide which one best fits your needs. A mod is good practice for engine work though, so if you're not sure you have what it takes to make or modify your own engine, making a mod is a good way to find out.

I wish you luck in your future endeavors. I'd appreciate you hitting the enter key a few more times if you have more queries though ;). It's kinda hard to read your posts.