EntityPlus - A single player Q3 mod

[CZghost]

Okay. I've deleted corrupted shader file from baseq3/scripts dir and all works fine.
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I have other ideas to improve EP: Collaborative teamplay with bots. If you add teamplay addons to bots code with addition of TEAMMATE spawnflag or something like that, it would be nice... Why all bots have to be bad guys to shoot at? We simply forgot to team related gametypes from VQ3 and Team Arena. The teammate option for bots would make that bots standing on your side marked with that yellow triangle above their heads and when aimed at them, the crosshair should change to red striked circle meaning "Don't shoot, I'm your teammate!"... So some changes to code like teammate bots see your enemies and attack them would be great. Also, the enemies would see your teammate bots to make it more realistic. Is it possible to make something like that?

I'm preparing to remake Testing Procedures in attempt to make free continue of the level with all items found in Vanilla Q3. There would be also teamplay testing, now it's limited to enemies without weapons as they will attack you in every case whetever they're red or blue. Player will have the feature of deciding which team color he would be. Then an overlay marking player's hud with his team color will show up and teams settings (scoring) will change to fit player's option.

Next planned level, Testing Procedures III, would port the player in Team Arena basis guide. Only items codes would to be ported to EntityPlus core as the main flow of modification would be unchanged. This includes Team powerups, holdable items and TA weapons with their ammo... I don't know, how much costs Team Arena now, anyway...

[Eraser]

I'm adding some tutorials to the project site. There's only two very basic tutorials up now, but I guess EntityPlus might appear a bit daunting at first due to all the new entities and functionality, so the goal of these tutorials is to get going with the basics:

https://code.google.com/p/entityplus/wiki/Tutorials

The plan is to add more tutorials in the future and probably improve the existing two tutorials by adding in-editor screenshots and such, but the start is there

[CZghost]

A tip for future:
Based on idea of looping map, I'd suggest addition of new piece of code in Entity Plus:
Live portals (not the ones using teleporter in front of portal texture, but real portal known from the game The Portal)... Instead of looping map, it would use new entity based on brush and used in pairs. Two portals with same name would connect them together and tranfer all dynamic entities (players, projectiles) and copy them throughout... Static entities (all entities placed in map file) would be copied in each portal and no static entity would be placed in portal on map load. This feature can make interesting results like looping corridor or impossible connections like endless stairs... However the game cannot handle unlimited number of portals since it just kicks r_speeds in beyond highs and the game would then crash. I wonder about 50 maximum portals rendered in one and make a limit of maximum initial portals rendered in player's view (we know mirrors get crazy when placed two oppositely to each other). Five would be decent option... It would also solve the HOM effect in looped mirrors problem. Not sure it's the render itself problem or the maximum of portals rendered in one and in player's view can be changed by a mod...

Also, if you look in looped portal (case of looping corridor), you would see yourself from back This might also allow to shoot at yourself and hurt yourself directly by weapon (bullets count). Also if you shoot a rocket directly in looped portal and stafe away, you would see rockets flying one by one. You can stop the rocket by moving to the rocket's trail...

Portals would be dynamic, that means existing entities (like target_modify) can change the portals' destinations. Just keep the pair rule

[obsidian]

That's probably beyond what a mod like Entity Plus can do, that would require some serious engine modifications.

[D-Meat]

There is a portal mod for EntityPlus, you can check it on Youtube.

As I went through the code of the portals, I know there is a hard coded security preventing recursive mirrors inside the renderer part. I don't think you can change the render engine in a mod.

Open Arena is quite a shitty thing (visuals and sound are plain torture), but at least they can release a new version that could be portal-friendly ... But I don't know how how they plan their releases.

[Eraser]

There is a portal mod for EntityPlus, you can check it on Youtube.

If you mean this video, then that's the Excessive Plus mod, not EntityPlus
I didn't know this until recently, but apparently Excessive Plus is most commonly abbreviated as e+, so I try to avoid abbreviating EntityPlus as e+ or E+

However, as the comments of the video point out, some changes were made to the renderer to allow this functionality to work like it does. This is beyond the scope of a mod like EntityPlus.

[D-Meat]

There is a portal mod for EntityPlus, you can check it on Youtube.

If you mean this video, then that's the Excessive Plus mod, not EntityPlus

Sorry ! my fingers slipped

[fKd]

Finally started getting entplus working on my old level, got a ladder, blue card door and bots spawning! woohoo! So far so good.

[fKd]

can you set the amount of screen shake with target_earthquake? you can set the duration, but the amount is a bit too much for what i need.

[Eraser]

You can use the "intensity" key to set a value for the intensity of the shake effect. It accepts whole numbers ranging from 1 to 16.

[fKd]

Ahh much better! hahah oops, it was on the next page of the pdf

[Eraser]

Yeah I noticed. Should fix that some time (read: probably never)

[fKd]

hah fair enough

[pjw]

I didn't know this existed, and after reading the manual, this might actually get me back into Q3 mapping. Imagine that. This is really pretty cool.

(Also, the "The manual for v1.1.4" link on the google.code homepage is broken (missing a dash), although the "download the manual" link below that works.)

[Eraser]

Thanks. I fixed the link.

[Eraser]

EntityPlus has migrated to GitHub: https://github.com/TheEnginesOfCreation/EntityPlus
Google Code is closing down in a few months.

[MKJ]

orly.

[Eraser]

Yes really. It's a shame because GitHub lacks a few features that Google Code did offer, like offering a compiled, binary version of your project as a separate download.

[AEon]

While "playing around with" AEradiant... it made my head swim how much of a bitch GitHub was... it really needed an interface for dummies to not have to waste time understanding how to update / upload / download etc. code... "one click and done" should be the goal. Or did that change in the past few years?

[Eraser]

Well, in that case I suggest using a proper Git client. I'm using SourceTree, which is a free tool. It's a relatively user friendly visual tool which is way easier to use than bloody Git commandline commands.

[Fjoggs]

Git commandline masterrace!

[AEon]

Eraser, thanks... good tip.

[obsidian]

Oh hey, SourceTree has a Windows client now too (I have it on my Mac only)?

[MKJ]

Yea, I needed it for a project I was working on before.
Still.. git :/

[Eraser]

heh, I just released an update for EntityPlus. It's been only almost 2 years since the previous release, so hey why not

It fixes just two issues, one being that a map filename can't exceed 16 characters (which wasn't really a problem because no such maps exist yet, but hey!)

The other forces the game to run sv_pure 0 when starting a new game through the menu system. If sv_pure is enabled, highscore files can't be loaded because they aren't in a pk3 file. They can be written so basically you overwrite your existing highscore file with a new one containing just your most recent score. It's just something I ran into when giving a colleague of mine a quick glimpse of the mod and it annoyed me so much that i decided to fix it.

Also took the opportunity to convert all google code links in the documentation to github links.

So yeah, EntityPlus 1.1.5 can be downloaded here.