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Topic Starter	Topic: book : "Focus on mod programming for Quake 3 Arena"
D-Meat Veteran Joined: 17 May 2011 Posts: 159	Posted: 03-04-2014 12:27 PM                  Hi there ! Long time no posts, it seems I lost my motivation to make games somewhere in the process ... Anyway, has anybody heard of this book : "focus on mod programming for Quake 3 Arena" by Shawn Holmes ? I'm curious of the quality of that book, and maybe I'll buy it. But maybe it's crap ! Maybe I already know everything that's in it ! Has anyone here read it ? _________________ My blog - My portfolio --------------------- MJDM2 - DmeatSP01 - DmeatSP02
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UglyFoot Commander Joined: 22 Jul 2011 Posts: 139	Posted: 03-04-2014 04:59 PM                  I haven't read it but I have found this link with a comment about it and some sources. I would add to this: - http://www.quakewiki.net/archives/code3arena/index.shtml - http://www.quake3hut.co.uk/q3coding/ The book seems good, I would buy an used one. Yes, unfortunately motivation gets lost over time but you need to know how to deal with it. One thing I do (or try ) is spending a little time everyday or two even if it's just ten or fifteen minutes so that the results will come sooner or later and some motivation as well. Last edited by UglyFoot on 03-05-2014 03:28 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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ToKu Grunt Joined: 19 Sep 2012 Posts: 74	Posted: 03-05-2014 12:22 PM                  Hi D-Meat, I bought this book ~ 10 years ago and I totally liked the book. There was a CD included, at least with the edition I bought (not sure if the CD is still included?). My personal opinion about the book: 1. It depends heavily how experienced you are already with programming Quake3 code. I was (and I am still) an amateur. Nevertheless I learned a lot by this book. If you are familiar with the source code I think there will be nothing new for you. 2. There are a lot of examples explained well in this book that you can try to implemnet (e.g: chain lightning gun). In the early days there weren't many tutorials available about modding Quake3 so the examples were really helpful. Nowadays you can find every example also on the internet. 3. Please bear in mind that the book was written when the engine code was not released. Now there is access to the engine. Well, the book is about mods and not engine changes. But some parts of the book are a bit outdated because in some chapters Shawn Holmes referes to the 'closed' engine code. 4. The book is written very structured and it is easy to understand. My english isn't the best and even I could read it with ease. If there is a technical term Shawn Holmes explains it with simple words. Personally I think the CD isn't really needed nowadays (I think there was some UI code on it and a few more tutorials, can't remember exactly). The book is only useful if you don't understand where to start coding or what are the main parts (entitystate/playerstate structs, pmove, bitflags, game/cgame module etc.) of the idtech3 code. But hey, don't forget the 'immaterial value' of this book. It's cool to see the book in your bookcase I think the price is okay, so I recommend it, ... sometimes it makes more fun to look onto paper than onto a monitor (at least for older people like me)! However, all this is really my personal opinion, I hope this helps
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Eraser Cool #9 Joined: 01 Dec 2000 Posts: 42524	Posted: 03-06-2014 12:22 AM                    Second hand for 95 cents? lol, I might actually go and pick it up for that price.
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D-Meat Veteran Joined: 17 May 2011 Posts: 159	Posted: 03-06-2014 05:06 AM                  Thanks for your feedback ! I'll try to catch a cheap copy And yeah I think paper books are stille good ... By studing (or rather decrypting) by myself the engine last year, I accumulated a 2cm thick stack of A4 paper with notes. I wrote down all the structures I needed, and some time some functions that I had trouble understanding. Maybe I should've found out about that book earlier. Well. _________________ My blog - My portfolio --------------------- MJDM2 - DmeatSP01 - DmeatSP02
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vinny Grunt Joined: 20 Feb 2011 Posts: 57	Posted: 08-25-2014 04:55 PM                  So, do you guys recommend this book? Worth buying?
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D-Meat Veteran Joined: 17 May 2011 Posts: 159	Posted: 09-12-2014 05:36 AM                  Actually, you can download it for free in some places (I don't know if it's acutally legal or not), so you can give it a try _________________ My blog - My portfolio --------------------- MJDM2 - DmeatSP01 - DmeatSP02
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Ganemi The Afflicted Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 513	Posted: 01-11-2015 09:18 PM                  I actually got the book and started going through the code. I get a funky error when messing with the seeking rocket. In the homing missile function if I don't include a line that prints anything every time the function passes through the game will crash. Really weird, and I'm not sure how to go through that.
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