The 3D text is actually a model. Can a model in the menu be animated? For example, when you hover the mouse across the object, can you zoom in on the model or change it's angle, trigger a change in shader properties or something else?

Is there any way of actually lighting a model in the menu screen? I think models in menus typically have their vertex values set to 1.

I've begun early stages of implementing some generic scoring system. So far it's really simple and each point of damage dealt to an enemy is counted as a single point for your score, but I'd like to have something more interesting in there. Any ideas for this?

If the damage the player has dealt equals the score he gets, then playing on lower difficulties yields less score points than on higher difficulties. If that is not what you want, giving a set amount of points for killed enemies might be better. This could be done via botspawn keys and values, but would cause some extra work compared to the "score for hits" solution.

Personally I like the score for hits idea. It's fully automated and doesn't need any further maintenance by the mapper.

The only problem: if a player kills all enemies (and you usually do that) he'll always have the same score.

I think some other variables for giving points could look like this:

- amount of death's (subtracts points)
- amount of ammo, health and armor left (adds points)
- secrets found (adds points)

I guess these numbers, as well as the amount of damage dealt, should be multiplied or divided by different numbers to normalize the points. For example, multiply the score you get for hits by 2, the amount of deaths by 25 or 50, keep health and armor as they are and divide ammo by 2. Round up odd numbers to the next higher figure. Secrets could add 500 points.

The logic behind it: you get awarded for dying as little as possible, aiming as good as possible and to find all secrets.

The question is: will there be other awards (useful awards - not this stupid achievement stuff) for making a lot of points? I thought of Spyro 2, where you get some additional epilogue screens when finding all hidden things in the game. Or Stranglehold, where pictures and videos can be unlocked with points you have earned before. The game could really benefit from this. Imagine making-of sections with pictures and videos, bonus levels or different versions of levels that include this cool developer commentary style you used in ermap4.

Player's could be rewarded in-game when reaching a certain amount of points too. Items (e.g. a holdable medikit, holdable haste or holdable quad) could be given to them, or events could be triggered (secret doors...). This could be done with a new entity. It can target other entities and is activated when a set amount of points is reached.

Another topic: the mod will need the possibility to put levels in a certain order and make them inaccessible as long as the previous level is not yet completed. Quake 3 already did this and unlocked the next tier after fighting all arenas. I just needed to be changed to one level instead of four. I think hiding (and not just shading) all levels that are not yet available would be nice. I hate knowing when the game's going to end.

Actually, no it doesn't. Bots don't have less health at lower difficulty settings. I have been toying with the idea of doing this though, but I'd have to see how that works out.

Yes I'm thinking the same thing. And even if enemies at a lower difficulty have less health, then a lower skill setting would yield a lower score, yes, but maybe that's a good thing, so playing at a higher skill level rewards you with a higher score.

Yesterday I meditated on a campaign I wanted to do with the mod. I'd need an entity that can access commands that are usually only addressable by the console. To be specific, I want to toggle the HUD and God-mode. Is such an entity feasible?

And for the level transitions: can they be faded (to black or white) in and out? Ideally on top of the screen and all its elements, to make the HUD fade too.

Actually, yes it already is. The target_mapchange entity has a SCRIPT spawnflag. When this spawnflag is set, then the value you enter as the mapname key will be executed with the exec command. So for instance, if you put "myscript.cfg" as mapname there, then when the entity is triggered, it'll perform the command

I'll see what I can do for you.

This is an update of the soundpack for Eraser's Entity Plus mod.
Included are three sounds:

-keycard_01.wav
-keycard_03.wav

-objective_update_01.wav

What's new:

-keycard_01 was shortened a bit
-keycard_03, a new file combining the main elements of keycard_02 with
the bass sound of the old keycard_01, was added
-objective_update_01 was shortened to sound firm

All files are in 16bit mono again for Quake 3 Arena compatibility

I'm getting a page cannot be displayed error when I click the download link on mediafire.com

Unfortunately I can't remove the cheat protection. r_lodscale is defined in the engine, not the mod SDK so I can't change that AFAIK.

Oh I see. What I've done is that I've added a cg_lodScale cvar which, when changed, immediately overwrites the value of r_lodScale. So basically you can use cg_lodScale instead of r_lodScale.
Not sure if this is the most attractive solution, but it works for now.

DaEngineer, do you need a build of the mod with this change in it so you can test if it works out for you?