QuakeForge for Debian
---------------------

Well, it's finally here: 0.2!  It's just a CVS snapshot but it's stable
enough that I am comfortable releasing it into woody at least.  If you
didn't read the changelog.Debian and you want to know where quake went,
shame on you for not reading it.  =>  For completeness, here's a full list
of the binary names in 0.1.x and what they are in 0.2-d:

  qw-client-3dfx -> qw-client-3dfx	quake-3dfx -> uquake-3dfx
  qw-client-ggi  -> qw-client-ggi	quake-ggi  -> uquake-ggi
  qw-client-gl   -> qw-client-glx	quake-gl   -> uquake-glx
  qw-client-sdl  -> qw-client-sdl	quake-sdl  -> uquake-sdl
  qw-client-svga -> qw-client-svga	quake-svga -> uquake-svga
  qw-client-x11  -> qw-client-x11	quake-x11  -> uquake-x11
  qw-server      -> qw-server

In short, quake is now uquake (since that's what it was in CVS even in
0.1.x) and the -gl target has been renamed to the more appropriate -glx.

New Cvars

  Some things have been added which will make the GL renderer targets (for
  Debian these are -3dfx and -glx) look a little nicer.  Here they are:

  r_fog         - set to something like 0.0005 to have a light global fog
  r_volfog      - complicated, see below
  r_sky         - set to 1 to use skyboxes instead of sky textures
  r_skyname     - sets basename of the skybox you wanna use, see below
  gl_conspin    - set nonzero (try 1, 0.5, etc) for QER spinning console
  gl_conalpha   - defaults to 0.6, alpha consoles now actually work!
  r_waterripple - set it around 5 to 8 for water to have little waves

Skyboxes

  In order to use skyboxes, you're going to need one.  Any skybox from
  Quake2 should work nicely.  Drop the six .tga files into the gfx/env
  subdirectory under any directory where QuakeForge looks for pak files
  such as ~/.quake/base.  For this example I'm going to use a different
  directory and add -game skybox to my command line.

  First, I put my skyboxes in the appropriate directory:

  knghtbrd@trinity:~/.quake$ ls skybox/gfx/env/
  nightbk.pcx  nightlf.pcx  snow2bk.pcx  snow2lf.pcx  snowbk.pcx  snowlf.pcx
  nightbk.tga  nightlf.tga  snow2bk.tga  snow2lf.tga  snowbk.tga  snowlf.tga
  nightdn.pcx  nightrt.pcx  snow2dn.pcx  snow2rt.pcx  snowdn.pcx  snowrt.pcx
  nightdn.tga  nightrt.tga  snow2dn.tga  snow2rt.tga  snowdn.tga  snowrt.tga
  nightft.pcx  nightup.pcx  snow2ft.pcx  snow2up.pcx  snowft.pcx  snowup.pcx
  nightft.tga  nightup.tga  snow2ft.tga  snow2up.tga  snowft.tga  snowup.tga
    
  Don't worry about the pcx files, they're only used for software renderers
  and QuakeForge doesn't support them yet.  As you can see here, I have
  three choices for skyboxes: night, snow, and snow2.  Let's use snow2.

  To use it we would start the game with +r_skyname snow2 on the command
  line.  You can put that in your autoexec.cfg if you'd prefer or even set
  it from the console by hand.  It just doesn't take effect until you
  reload the current map.  BTW, when you start a map without a skybox you
  should see six warning/error messages that several sky*.tga files cannot
  be found.  The default r_skyname value is sky and the engine tries to
  load them whether you have r_sky turned on or not.  This IS a developer
  version after all.


Volumetric Fog

  Quake has no support for volfog.  In order to make real use of it, we are
  going to have to create a volfog brush.  (If you have no idea what I am
  talking about, don't worry---I don't fully understand the map-making
  aspect of QuakeForge either, I just code here!)  In the meantime, we're
  borrowing the water brush for testing purposes.  You're going to need a
  map which has been "watervis'd" (ie, you can actually see through the
  water if you set r_wateralpha to .3 or so)

  raptor suggests the settings r_wateralpha 0.3 and r_volfog 0.0009.  Note
  that the current volumetric fog implementation has a few side effects and
  uses the OpenGL stencil buffer.  Unless you have a g400 or something (I
  don't) you're going to discover quickly that volfog eats more of your CPU
  which is likely to lower your fps a bit unless you have a fast chip.
  
  We'll probably change how we render volumetric fog in the future so it
  works better for more people.  A real volfog brush is likely so map
  people can actually put areas of fog into maps sanely.


I want to reiterate that this is a development release.  If you can break
it, we'd like to know---especially if you can tell us how.  Send reports
and other comments to quake-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

  -- Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>, Wed,  8 Mar 2000 02:27:27 -0800