Hey folks! I'm a modder from ages ago. My project is gearing up to replace Entity Plus in most ways. While I'm writing code primarily to support myself, I'd be ecstatic if others could benefit from it!

Just got in touch with Phoenix not long ago, started cruising the boards today and this thread caught my eye. I don't mean to hijack the thread, and re-reading my post it does sound like an advertisement, but that wasn't my intent when I started writing it. Sorry =\. The community is so fractured now I'm not sure of the best place to post anything. So... hopefully this finds you all well .


I've got no plans for a full scale single player experience, but I've yet to see anyone taking the approach I'm following. EP is the closest one, but the mod suffers from the same willy-nilly parser/language problems most Q3 mods suffer from, and their scope is definitely more limited. I've introduced JSON definitions that are built around WYSIWYG feature toggles for everything VQ3 and beyond, with everything implemented as generically as possible (attached: samples, covers roughly 25% of features implemented so far).

Currently, two big barriers to sharing, possibly complete deal breakers:

1) Massively alters VQ3 code. VMs are gone as I'm compiling C++11/14. Pure PK3s are getting replaced with on-disk hash checks. ~10kloc of original id source has been outright deleted and replaced with functions that have a wider responsibility. I might switch to using the XREAL renderer if I can find a way to avoid having to make specialized maps. And on, and on...

2) I won't have code to download for another month or two. It's an #ifdef mess right now, and I'm not putting out the whole shebang until I have clean-ish nightly builds for at least *nix and Windows.

Currently working stuff:
- define an arbitrary number of player classes/weapons/items
- reloads everything important on the next full map load; massively speeds up development
- allows for a model's shaders to be replaced at runtime on a per-surface basis
- uses AngelScript in select places (currently just player abilities)
- physics additions like "realistic stair stepping", ledge climbing, wall kicks, QW air control, etc
- TTF fonts everywhere; monospace not required

Considering it's only taken about two weeks of effort to get this much done, motivation is high, and I fully expect to complete this beast, hopefully before the new year. I've still got these big ticket features on the radar:
- custom entity placement per map
- scriptable entity triggers via AngelScript
- game modes running via AngelScript
- arbitrary number of teams
- sound shaders
- total replacement of q3_ui, TA ui, and HUDs via AngelScript
- loading multiple BSPs into the same worldspace


I love Generations - it inspired me to make a few class based mods years ago. But I never went about implementation the "right way", i.e. generically, so this mod is an attempt to come full circle . I plan to bring in classes from my previous mods, as well as ones heavily inspired (but unique enough to pass the IP test) from Quake, Unreal, Painkiller, Tribes, Descent, StarCraft, Doom, Duke, and pretty much any other game I've fancied. Most important, the systems I leave behind should be fully moddable by amateurs, skipping the need for compiled code completely.

If any of this sounds useful, drop me a note and I'll share whatever I can . Some stuff like the physics additions can be copy/pasted, but the definition files are a complete system that wipe out huge parts of VQ3... so if there's interest in the bigger ticket items, I'd probably have to share principles rather than C files .

Looking forward to Generations 1.0! Keep up the good work and stick with it. Should be freakin' awesome!

Ahoy! Just two days after my post I hit showstopper problems with the boundaries between AngelScript/C/C++.

I had to take a big step back to refactor tonnes of stuff. Just got the engine drawing again. Attached: progress continues.

1) All of Quake3 now compiles as C++, and exceptions handle engine teardown. I can now wantonly include libraries without fear of them silently degrading & destroying the application over time. This opens up a huge number of possibilities... but I wish I could get back the week of life this exercise stole from me .

2) AngelScript everywhere: way bigger scope than I expected to achieve. It's already fully replaced q3_ui, with the basics working (text, images, input, key handling, click/hover callbacks). For cgame/game, the EV_* event pumping loops are the main entry point for scripts.

Making everything compile properly was a hell of a departure, but a source release in December still seems feasible. With any luck, I'll be back on track with writing actual features by the start of the week. I've had placeholders to override gentity_t::think screaming at me for a couple weeks and this cleanup business is getting boring ...

Hope all's well! More as it happens.

Definitely thinking about cross-platform here. AngelScript uses JIT, and has wide support for calling conventions on many platforms, all of which it wraps nicely into a black box.

It's unlikely that I'll have time/inclination to build and maintain project files. So while the sky might be the limit, I'm only building for Win x86 right now, with plans for x86/x64 Linux and Windows. I don't care enough about OSX to build for it to be quite honest, but an Android ARM option might show up assuming the Linux build isn't painful to get working.

Everything I'm using is standard c99/cpp and known to compile on many platforms without hidden OS dependencies. AngelScript supports x86, x64, MIPS, ARM, Xenon, and PPC out of the box. Other stuff I've added includes stl (C++14 level at most), freetype2 (making it required now), nlohmann JSON (header only), and my home-grown bits. I'm considering POCO and ICU for some features, but that's it for big frameworks. Certainly no boost.

And just one update: the hunk allocation strategy supplied in the ioquake3/id base blew up in my face yesterday. I'm roughly 50% of the way through moving to using a shared_ptr factory in place of malloc. Crazy? Yes. Wish me luck...