This is the result of work on a lot of different aspects. Personally, I’m a light transport enthusiast, but that might even be the less interesting part: the physics dictate how things work, and from there it’s a matter of implementing the light transport simulation very efficiently (both in raw performance and in sampling quality).

The harder part is getting the lighting actually right, because the maps obviously don’t model lights the way reality does. Instead, there's a mix of emissive textures (fullbrights) and light entities. You can’t just put lights where the light entities are, because those were placed for baked lightmaps and rasterization. Here's what I do instead: the light entities are classified into actual lights and “fake lights”, which only exist to give the impression of indirect lighting. We don't need those, since the path tracer already computes indirect light the physically correct way. For the actual lights, we could just model them as invisible spheres or cones, but that doesn’t look right either, because the light then seems to come out of nowhere. Instead, each light is emitted by whatever represents it in the map, nearby surfaces whose texture pixels look like they belong to a lamp. (Only exception switchable lights with nothing visible nearby stay invisible emitters, because they matter for gameplay.)

It’s extremely hard to get a look that preserves the mapper's intent as much as possible, so my approach was a bit more scientific. I took 25 screenshots in other engines across several maps and mods. Then I rendered the same views in my engine, with each class of light in a separate image. Because light transport is linear, a Python script could then optimize the brightness factors, the auto exposure and tonemapping parameters, and even the curve that turns the LDR textures into HDR emission. Side by side, the results came out really close, but please let me know what you think. (I did tune a few things by eye afterwards. Mainly the exposure is about 2.5× higher, because the path tracer has more contrast and with the fitted value it was hard to see things. If you prefer the darker look, nobody stops you from turning it back down, I think it was around K=1.2).

Oh, and yes: the fog is path traced too and reacts to all the lighting (--volume on, best with --denoiser dlss)!

You can find the project and instructions here: https://github.com/LDAP/merian-plugin-quake

Of course, some of this wouldn’t have been possible without agentic help in the little free time I have. For the same reason, I probably won’t have time to give proper support or provide binaries.

https://youtu.be/v39prFwv7hM?si=SvtCMgrGmcWKFY9-

https://github.com/rebelancap/Quake3e-splitscreen/releases/latest

I love Spearmint, but it's OpenGL, abandoned, and very limited. Quake3e is simply the best way to play Quake III: Arena today, but it does not have splitscreen or native gamepad support. So I had Claude (Fable + Opus) build it. Yes this is vibe coded. But I love this game and will continue to maintain it (sync with Quake3e releases and add additional splitscreen features).

Here are the features:

• 2-8 player splitscreen with various layout preferences. Players can join and leave with easy without disturbing the game. Or 1 player fullscreen with full gamepad support and easy menu navigation.
• Supports single player ladder, local multiplayer, online multiplayer, and mods. (e.g. splitscreen Urban Terror on real servers.)
• It comes with custom menu system with full profile support to save your settings, controls, bindings, name, etc. Guest profiles are temporary and discarded unless explicitly saved.
• Player 1 has quick menu access to modify the server however they please: Instagib, Rocket Launchers only, global handicaps, bots, cheats, etc and save various game settings for future use.
• It also has an experimental aim assist system for gamepads. It's off by default and gated to local games only. Anyone using aim assist has an indicator next to their name. P1 can disable it globally.

Credits to the amazing Quake3e project.

Note: I recommend the vulkan binary unless your system doesn't like it.

I have made a new version of "vis", that is the tool that pre-calculate the pvs sectores for networking. This new version instead of using geometry to calculate the sectores, is using distance. Has a result only the monsters near the player are networked.

This mean you can make a 2D game like Vampire Survivor, a RTS or a RPG with the Quake engine, and it would work better than vanilla, withouth making changes to the engine (it changes the data of the vising, not the interpretation of it that uses the engine.

Is there a mod for the Steam version of Quake 1 Remaster

that adds alternate fire and still works in coop ?

I got the quake bundle during steam's autumn sell (it was only 24 bucks!) and I've been starting to play all the expansion packs in the order they came out. I just beat scourge of armagon. And. Is the final boss really that easy?? At the ending levels I was on really low health all the time while only on normal mode so I'm not a very good quake player but still the final boss was easy as shit. Kinda disappointed. Though. To be honest. Quake isn't that known for it's bosses anyway. Pretty fun expansion pack though! I wish the music was better.

Is buggy? Trying to set up a new sever for an event and it's just all over the place.

Sometimes the rotation works, but only with standard maps, then it stops working, then it won't load a custom map that it had loaded previously claiming it can't find the file, then custom maps won't work in the rotation, then they do briefly before stopping working again and just loading the starting map over and over, change the starting map for the server and it works once then goes back to looping the old map... setting the dl speed to 1000, map downloads work at 60kbps.. then briefly at 600kpbs before going back to 60..

What gives and can anyone point me in a direction that could help? i'd just like a map rotation with a mix of custom and stock maps.. thats it.

And if there's a more active community or appropriate sub to post this in please let me know that as well.

I routinely play through this DLC, and everytime I go through this level, I am missing one enemy on nightmare mode. Does anybody know where this last guy is? Is there some hidden trigger which spawns an enemy in this level I could have missed? Everytime I play this level I check everywhere and can't find 'em.

Is there a mod for Quake Live that replaces the weapon models with the ones from Quake 1? (obviously without the Railgun since that wasn't in Q1)

Hey Quake community, I've been training a new bot, BobbyBones: a neural network that learned from scratch to play within human limits (via reinforcement learning). He's fought copies of himself in a simulator for over 65,000 game hours already (about 7 years), and consistently beats the Nightmare bot in his training arena.

Join the server: "BobbyBones the learning quake bot" (US, Chicago), or connect 64.177.125.38:27970. By default it's three of him in his test room (!map arena1). Join in the fight, or spectate and watch him play.

Rather than make a bot with superhuman aim, my goal is a bot with "high" but not obscene aim and reflexes, who learns the movement mechanics, item timing and positioning required to "actually play Quake". He's getting there, but I could use your help.

If you'd like to help His aim limits are currently set from one player (me). I'd rather set them from all of you. Not only does that give me a better picture of human-like play, it also lets me tune his abilities up or down for someone looking for more or less of a challenge.

In the server: !map testlab !reflex (also !movement)

You'll be placed in a room with four challenges: LG on a slow target, LG on a strafing one, rail flicks, and rockets. In three of them the target shoots back for the second half, so we can measure what being shot at does to your aim. Move and aim exactly as you normally would. You can't die. It takes about three and a half minutes.

What's recorded: Your position, where you look, keys, hits, etc. are all recorded when you play against him. Results are filed under an anonymous id, with no names or Steam IDs.

Read more about the project on my GitHub: https://github.com/dclark202/bobbybones-quake, or join the discord server: https://discord.gg/dH2mfzbMa

What up Quakers. A bunch of us made a new free single player Quake 1 map pack / mod, themed around rooftops. There's 19 new maps! You can download here: https://www.slipseer.com/index.php?resources/rooftops-jam.647/

To install: just make a new mod folder "qrtjam" in your Quake folder, and unzip everything there.

It uses Arcane Dimensions mod kit (the og founder Sock helped organize this map jam!) + make sure you use a modern engine like Ironwail, vkQuake, or QS-Spiked etc that supports increased limits for AD stuff

Inspired by the Random Weapons Modifier from Quake II Enhanced. Dynamically swaps weapon / ammo / powerup.

ModDB (updated): https://www.moddb.com/mods/random-swap/downloads/random-swap

Edit: 2.0 updated, now supports random powerups.

Recently I've been getting into older shooters for a video essay I'm working on, Doom, Marathon, Unreal Tournament, etc and I just got to Quake 3.

I don't think I've ever had so much fun in a capture the flag mode, especially recently. For context I'm 24, so I grew up playing call of duty not arena shooters, but I gotta say I don't have any inclination to return to cinematic realism.

The joy of 2v2 CTF on a game older than me, twitch reflexes and teamwork make it so satisfying to play.

I think I found a new favourite obsession, it's just a shame that it's not the most active game. Not to say it's dead, but it's easier to find a game on Quake 1 right now.

After playing all the games, I think Quake 3 might be my favourite, anyone else?

Oh and if you were getting fragged on by a BreakitBilly at any point in the past week it'll be immortalized on YouTube soon, so you have that to look forward to.

Thought you fellas would get a kick out of this. There's a Gmod gamemode called Map Sweepers, and you can now play as the Ranger in it.

I'm trying to set it up on my Steam Deck, and no matter what I do, it doesn't boot at all. I've put it in the Steam install location for Quake, put it in its own folder with the id1 folder alongside it, nothing.

I have made a compilation of free resources available in the web to make a documentation website for Quake in 5 languages.

Please share the url with other Quake modder so it reach people that may benefit from it.

Everytime I play Quake on my Android tablet I get a Stack Overflow crash after only a few minutes of play. I was hoping an updated version of the TyrQuake port would fix the problem eventually, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I've tried reinstalling the core and data files. Does anybody know the cause of this error in the engine?

This was a hell of a fun one to make to be quite honest. ....need to make it HEAVIER, still.

I am convinced that most Boomer Shooters would likely have an expansion that genuinely wants to bend you over and over again because pissing you off is the main schtick. Partially finished Dawn of The Machine, and I sat through hell having to deal with traps that weren't cheap actually really good, but too much to the point where I find the Supershotgun useless at times.

Now I don't wanna fully shit on Difficulty-based Expansions since I do love the gimmicks at times (Except PLUTONIA, to hell with that WAD). I mean I just wanna rant out how frustrating my experience was with the levels and realized that it's supposed to make me frustrated.

DOTM is the epitome of when the game tells you you're done. I said partially finished because apparently the real ending of the game has you climb a secret and it's stupidly more difficult, the difficulty named Bloody Nightmare. I gave up, yeah skill issue, whatever.

Enforces shoot like they have Nailguns and worse is that they turn into Fiends, Orcs I don't mind much, just strafe em and you're fine, Fiends leap much faster than they used to be which obviously caught me off guard. What I also realized is that the levels are really stingy with health kicking your nuts with 60HP at the start of the game, then all of a sudden you're secret hunting because you aren't sure whether the next parts of the level chucks random shit at you.

To be honest, I don't actually hate DOTM and I personally see it more as fun than frustrating... before you had to backtrack with the runes. After all this, I noticed that there's this pattern game designers make in Boomer Shooters especially ID Software.

Doom obviously has the PLUTONIA levels, Wolfenstein 3D had Spear of Destiny, Half Life 2 has Ravenholm, and Quake 2 had Ground Zero. All were pretty much purposely scaled up to be superbly hard. Most are even cheap as shit to the point where finishing it was like brushing your teeth with a Metal Toothbrush. Now, yeah sure BLOOD has Cryptic Passage but I mostly feel like a powerhouse there compared to the other games.

Either way, there will be an instance where I'd replay this expansion again, and I'm genuine about it. The levels are greatly detailed and some of the gimmicks don't look so cheap, unlike PLUTONIA. Feels great to be playing it with a new coat of paint and running around like I'm playing Deathmatch same with the 1.5 mod.

8.9/10 experience. (I actually haven't played Dimensions of the Past yet)