Transfusion: a Repurposing

General discussion relating to the Transfusion project.

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Tchernobog
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Post by Tchernobog »

Well, if you can not do id Tech 4, it probably would not be too difficult I imagine to port it over to ioquake3. This also means it would be easy to put Transfusion content on to Smokin' Guns and vice versa. I am sure Caleb would feel quite at home there. :P
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Post by DustyStyx »

Tchernobog, A good portion of the Smokin' Guns content can be ported to DarkPlaces easily as it already supports a good portion of the formats ioQ3 inherited from Q3A. You'd have to check the permissions they've granted for their media files, but technically it wouldn't be an issue.
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Post by leileilol »

Tchernobog wrote:Well, if you can not do id Tech 4, it probably would not be too difficult I imagine to port it over to ioquake3.
Why go backwards? I have a massive post about why/whynot id Tech 3. I should mention Transfusion uses Q3BSP already, apart from crash bugs from JPEG decoding with whatever JPEGs TFn uses and lack of PSK/MDL support, the data 'works' in stock Q3, as well as ioQ3 if you include OGG support.

There's some bad limits in cgame though on idtech3, you can't have a ton of blood splatter. Replicating Blood's gibs and marks led to some horrible technical difficulties.

Also, Darkplaces is just as capable as id Tech 4 if not more, save for the lack of terrain features. Even going to id Tech 4 is a step backwards!
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Post by Tchernobog »

Well, I will admit to ignorance on the technical front here. I am personally not a big fan of DarkPlaces though mostly because the games made on it really fail to impress me as a player. Transfusion is by far the best game made with it, I never got what was supposed to be so great about Nexuiz. They look worse than many of the ioquake3 games (to me at least) and tend to be less fun. The latest Transfusion beta is the best I have seen it do, and it does look nice, but if DarkPlaces does have these advanced features I have not seen them as a gamer. From a gamers perspective, I have been much more impressed by ioquake3.

However, I was not necessarily arguing for an engine change here, just adding on to Ransu comment. Currently the main goal is to just have some new development start, and everything we have been talking about here is speculative at best.

Dusty: If it is easy to take ioquake3 content and put it one Transfusion, how hard would it be to do the opposite, such as taking the Caleb model and using it in Quake III? Sorry if this is off topic, but thought I should ask.
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Post by leileilol »

Ioquake3 does not add any new graphical features stock Q3 doesn't have. The difference you're seeing is due to the budget of production teams. Nexuiz looked poor since its main artists haven't worked on it since 2004 and it's being survived by FSF-motivated hobbyist coders. Smokin' Guns on the other hand was mostly done in 2000-2001 as a Quake3 mod and had barely had anything new since.

The console Nexuiz does show off the engine in a better glory than the GPL one does, probably because the console one has an actual professional production team in it. Another Darkplaces game is Steel Storm, though its UI lacks some spackle work. Transfusion looks the 'best' because it is a direct derivation of professional work, and does it in a way in which it is not a disrespectful trainwreck.
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Post by DustyStyx »

Tchernobog, it's not to far off topic, we are discussing the technical aspects of the game. Which would help an informed decision.

DarkPlaces supports a large bulk of formats out there to some degree or another, so generally it's easier to get it working in DP than on ioQ3.

If you want to try it, you could pretty much just take the pk3 files from SGs, plug them into the basetf directory of Transfusion, and then try to run one of the map names from the ~console. (note a .pk3 is basically just a renamed .zip file if you want to look inside to see what's there.)

Assuming that the texture directories match up, the maps should load fine. Failing that, you would basically just have to unzip the SG pk3 files, rearrange the directories, and the zip it all back up. Mind, that's just for the maps. The model placement and actual game play wont work because DarkPlaces still runs the game by accessing the QuakeC program files and ioQ3 are .dlls if I remember correctly.

Most of our world models would work fine in ioQ3, because they are md3s. As for porting the Caleb and other character model to SG, that would be a little more difficult because Kazashi decided to go with the Unreal 3 model format, and while DP supports that format, I don't think ioQ3 has implemented that yet. As leileilol said, we may still have a few old quake1 mdl files left over that ioQ3 does not support. Although I think we did finish updating the old mdls to md3.
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Post by leileilol »

I know the difficulty and process of making a Q3 player model. Caleb's coat is a problem for the lower/upper split. You won't get that big coat winded back from running, unless the 'lower.md3 is also body' trick is performed, then decapitation support in certain mods will not be possible.
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Post by Bloodite »

I say we do both.

Sure the original purpose is largely gone, but most of these "faithful" projects are major deviations, either from a technological or artistic point of view. I dare say that Transfusion is still in a position to claim the closest to the originals gameplay, if only because of our initial resolve and thorough playtesting.

I say Transfusion adopts a "look to the past to see the future" approach, in which we lay the groundwork, but expand the game in a way the others still cant. The engine is still capable of much that our old strict replication policy has stymied. The Blood community has always been divided about the whole "should we keep it original or change it?" I say its time that Transfusion kept the original gameplay (as we have done) and then remake everything else.

I see alot of our brethren have fallen to time, but this is a kind of reversal, as my own pet project (Kaos Engine) has unfortunately been laid to rest, Ive suddenly got quite a bit of free time on my hands, and should we continue the project, in whatever form, you can count me in as Ive decided to buck the trend and come out of retirement.

I just hope that I can remember how to map and if there is any work for me here.
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Post by a6ela »

Nay: Finish replicating Blood.

Hi All, im new here, but have been following blood for quite some time.

I think sticking with the old, as whats the real point of starting some else new?

the whole point of this project was to bring our beloved Blood to a "Open Source Code" as we could not get our hands on the true original source code.

yes having fancy lighting and new textures would be f@#ken cool, but all i want is the original running nativity on what ever OS or gaming console i own.

Playing blood on my DingooA320 with Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, ROT & doom etc. would be the dream come true.
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Post by DustyStyx »

Welcome to the forum a6ela
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Post by Tchernobog »

a6ela wrote:the whole point of this project was to bring our beloved Blood to a "Open Source Code" as we could not get our hands on the true original source code.
That is a very good point which seems to have somehow been forgotten in this thread. Transfusion can be considered the direct successor of the Blood Source Campaign, Transfusion was supposed to step in and provide an equivalent to a Blood source code release. Has Transfusion yet reached the stage that it could be considered this? If not, how much further does it have to go?
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Post by DustyStyx »

Has Transfusion yet reached the stage that it could be considered this? If not, how much further does it have to go?

Personally, I think we have a quite a way to go emulating the game play found in Blood, and there are few people willing to work on it. The current trend is that if some one wants to do a Blood mod, it's being developed on some other engine for various reasons.

As far as code goes. It might be easier at this point to just adopt the netcode that's already developed for Nexuiz and add the Blood weapons to it for a better Bloodbath experience. But that doesn't address code needed for single player.
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Post by Blood of Nightmares »

I vote yea because eversince the invention of DosBox I don't see any point of Transfusion now and besides the project has been abandoned eversince 2007 so it's best to let it go...
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Post by a6ela »

cheers for the Welcome Dusty :evillaugh:

i guess the hardest thing to understand is, how can they f@#ken lose the original source code? like really? i work in the IT world, and everything should have a backup, at some sort of stage.

As the game was good seller, its just hard to get my head around how they could lose such a thing.

I just think its due to laziness on there end, they just cant be f#$ked looking for it as they are not making any money from it, if they really did have a brain, they would find the source code, and sell it off to the likes of XboxLive or PSN. (just like Duke3D)

Maybe we just have to sick with the DosBox emu, to play the SP game.

oh well :rip:
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Post by Slink »

AFAIK, a certain someone from the Monolith Productions of Blood's heyday has the code. The only thing that 'Lith has lost is interest.
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