Couple of quick questions RE: Source Code

[Almightygir]

Hi guys,

 

I used to make characters for jka waaaaaay way back. I doubt anybody would remember anymore, but that's fine! Over the last year or so i've taught myself hlsl/cgfx/glsl shader languages, and i wanted to have a crack at seeing if i can port any of that knowledge into JKA and making it look more visually appealing.

 

So what i need to know is:

1. has anybody attempted this already? and if so, what success has there been?

2. how accessible is the source code with regards to the graphics processing side of it?

3. is anybody even interested in this?

 

cheers guys!

[Circa]

Whoa, old modders are popping up everywhere! Of course we remember you. Stick around man, it's good to see you.

 

There are many people that can answer those questions. I am not one of those people.

 

[mrwonko]

I doubt anybody would remember anymore, but that's fine!

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I remember you.

 

The main curators of the JA source are the OpenJK team. They've already separated the rendering part of the engine into a dll with an option to load a different one instead. I believe @@Xycaleth wants to make a custom renderer at some point but I don't know if he's started yet.

[Tempust85]

@@Almightygir you're one of the modding gods here so everyone who was around for 10 years in the JKA community should remember you. (there should be a user group so everyone knows who they are hehe)

 

OpenJK's code is the super cleaned, fixed up base code that Raven released which is the FULL game's source code including the renderer. eezstreet started porting ioquake3's "rend2" over to OpenJK. Xycaleth has recently taken over it (from what I can tell) and is busy getting the ghoul2 format running in it along with everything else in the baseJKA assets.

 

I know at least 2 other former JKA modelers that are very interested in this succeeding, and there's quite a few people here as well including myself.

[Xycaleth]

I remember you @@Almightygir

 

1. has anybody attempted this already? and if so, what success has there been?

Like @@DT85 said, OpenJK has separated the renderer code from the main game program so you can swap out the renderer for your own renderer. I'm currently in the progress of porting rend2 to OpenJK. Rend2 (it's one of the renderers used by ioq3) uses GLSL shaders behind the scenes to allow for some more fancy graphics, but the 'materials' are still described using a Q3-shader based system to make it simpler for artists to create them. There is some scope to add new GLSL shaders but it would require some knowledge of the renderer code as well to add them in and get them to be used.

[Almightygir]

Okay awesome, so it seems there's at least some headway being made! 

 

@@Xycaleth - Is it at all possible to predefine materials in base GLSL which the artists can call later on? 

[Sithani]

Oh my God, so many old superior modders, you guys make this site nostalgic as F

[Omicron]

I remember you, I love your Revan model!