NEWS for the QuakeForge project ------------------------------- Changes from 0.3.0 o General enhancements. * NQ (quake1, single player, NetQuake, WinQuake) is back. * Video (driver and renderer), audio, gamecode (progs), console, model loading and general utility code shared in common libs between NQ and QW * Plugin system for sound and cd drivers. * Ogg Vorbis compression for sound effect samples (streamed ogg support is planned). * Menu system re-written in QuakeC/Ruamoko * Curses console for servers in *nix. o Progs engine enhancements. * Fully modular. Mod/Server-independant, allowing for stand-alone QuakeC interpreter and client-side code. * The engine is no longer dependent on progdefs.h. This makes QuakeForge have trouble with QuakeC compilers that strip symbol names -- but those can be repaired using the new "qfdefs" tool. * New basic types, and instructions for using them, for version 0.fff.002 progs (Quake's Version 6 is still supported). * Better dynamic string handling. Dynamic strings are garbage-collected. * Object-oriented runtime system, in the style of Objective-C. * Runtime fixups of built-in functions whose builtin number is zero. If a built-in function is available to the engine, with the same name given in the source code (e.g. "void (void) coredump = #0;"), the engine will set the value to the actual number used by the engine. * Debugging support (needs compiler support, which qfcc provides), including line-number information. Can display the line of text in the source on which an error occurred, if the new Cvar "pr_source_path" is set correctly. * Instruction-level code dumps are now formatted in an easier-to-read "assembly-code" format. o QuakeForge Code Compiler, qfcc -- a replacement for qcc. * Uses libQFutil for general utility functions such as hash tables, file access (incomplete), and pak files. * Uses libQFgamecode for progs information, such as opcode tables, enums, types, etc.) * Uses a lex/yacc (actually, Flex and Bison) scanner/parser architecture, like a "real" compiler does. * Drastically reduces the number of global defs needed for a given progs, by reusing temporary globals when possible. * All functions use the same block of defs for their local variables (compatible with all known servers), which further reduces the number of global defs needed. * Nested/chained function calls work properly. * Simple expressions, such as "a = b + c", compile to a single instruction instead of two, and do not use a temporary variable. * Local variables can be initialized to known values, as in "local float foo = 0.1;". * Uses the C preprocessor, so header files are now possible and useful. * The compiler checks for uninitialized and unused variables in functions, to help in finding errors. * The compiler can generate and use object files, for separate compilation (you don't have to compile all of your source all the time, only the parts that have changed). Normally, object files have a .qfo extension. * The compiler can link libraries, which are implemented as .qfo files inside pak archives. * The compiler implements stricter type checking, to assist in finding and fixing code errors. * The C language's "for", "do...while", and "switch" control structures have been adopted to provide a richer set of structures for programmers to use. * Additional functionality is given for progs that are to be used with QuakeForge's more advanced progs engine: x IMPORTANT: The order of operations is slightly different in "native" mode. The evaluation of "!foo & bar" is no longer "!(foo & bar)", but rather "(!foo) & bar". The new order of operations rules is more correct, but is different from how QCC evaluated. If you give the --traditional switch to qfcc's command-line, the old behavior is used. x The compiler now allows you to create your own functions that can accept a variable number of arguments, using the special "..." notation. The special constants "@argc" and "@argv" help with this. @argc contains the number of arguments, and @argv contains a list of those arguments. The handling of this is an improvement on C's vararg function handling, in our opinion, made possible by how the Quake system works. x New basic types: integer, pointer, enum, and id. x You can create new complex types, like arrays, structures, and unions, and allocate them at runtime. x String operators. You can add strings together to concatenate them, and you can compare their contents using the <=, <, >, >= operators. x The integer type has the full array of C operations available to it. x QFCC and QuakeForge now contain an object-oriented programming system, in the style of Objective-C and Smalltalk. It's *very* powerful, and can be used to create lots of interesting new things with rather little effort. If you don't wish to use the new system, you can safely ignore it with no danger to your code. :) x Special support for using the "self" special variable inside OO methods as well as the entity of the same name. If you use OO support for entities and want to assign a method as a touch/think/etc. function, "self" always refers to the object that "owns" the method being executed. The special variable "@self" was created to refer to the self entity. "@this" refers to the object. o Enhanced console scripting - GIB (GIB Isn't Bash) * New language derived from the quake console. * Functions with arguments and return values. * Looping (while, for) and branching (if) commands. * Local and global variables as well as access to cvars. Supports Python-like slicing of variables. * A basic math interpreter that respects order of operations and provides most arithmetic and logic operators. * Non-preemptive threading and callbacks to GIB functions in response to game events (limited but functional at the moment) * File reading, writing, and searching. * Integrates with console -- GIB functions can be exported as console commands to be used at the console or in binds. * See gib.html in doc for more information. o Enhanced time cheat ("speed cheat") protection * Time cheats only work for a split-second before protection kicks in. * Players moving with wrong timings are sped up/slowed down to the correct speed. * Delay before protection activates means that lag and normal network latency won't affect protection. * People who aren't really trying to cheat won't be kicked :) o Rendering enhancements * Experimental 32 bit software renderer. * Dynamic lights don't shine through walls. * Colored alias model lighting for GL. * Vertex Array use for sprites, particles and text. No fallbacks yet, so QF wont work with old or broken GL drivers. * Switchable particle styles: r_particles_style 0 for Id. Default is 1, for lower particle count, larger texture particle effects. * 16 bit vertex alias model format. * Improved software gamma that more closely resembles hardware gamma. * Countless speed improvements.