How different is it from JK on the inside? Is it still JK engine or did they retool it in some other one?

PS. Keep in mind I've lived in a cave for the last 4 or so years.

Q3 Engine.

Both?

After a quick look at Jedi Outcast I thought it was a beefed up JK engine.

Yeah, I was about to ask something similar. What is everyone editing these days or which one is more popular to edit; JO or JA?

Jedi Outcast is based off of the Quake 3 engine. Likewise JA is based off of the JO engine.

It makes sense if you consider the fact that the developers, Raven Software, were already familiar with the engine (which they used for Elite Force/Elite Force 2).

Q3 is a brush engine, so you have to think the opposite of JK. Where in JK you make sectors and "carve out" your world, in Q3 the world is empty and you place blocks (called brushes) to define the walls, floors, ceilings... it works out alot better for the most part, as it's easier to put in little details without worrying about sector cleaves and such.

Also Q3 is shader based, so all the properties of a surface are dictated by the texture you apply to it, and not a bunch of external flags and stuff like in JK.

Mods are made by compiling source code into a DLL (JA... JO had a more limited, but still compiled, thing going on, not sure exactly what the deal was). The default game DLL is usually open source, allowing modders to easily modify it. And because it's a DLL, you can do anything you want with it. No limitations like in JK.

Just go with HL2/D3. More future proof.

You also have to remember that the source code for JA/JO SP was never realised by Raven. Thus, people had to use a scripting system named Icarus.

Q3 begat Elite Force II. Elite Force II begat Jedi Outcast. And Jedi Outcast begat Jedi Academy. And for a time, it was good.

Insteresting.

I kind of expected that from Raven. And JA looked like Quake engine. But JO seemed like it didn't have lightmaps, rather Gouraud shading, like JK. Well, may I was seeing things.



I'll see how it goes. There are lots of other things I'm doing nowadays and I haven't toched anything related to programing or gaming in good 4 years.

You can always stop by the JO/JA forum if you got questions.



JO looked dated when it came out, but it did have lightmaps. In JA, Raven decided to use more of the engine's potential.

Heh, I'll tell you why. JO's engine is combination of Raven's modifications for Elite Force and Soldier of Fortune and a few things from Soldier of Fortune II (like the GHOUL2 animation system which still kicks ***). The BSP compiler used, sof2map is well...what's the word I'm looking for...bad. It doesn't offer many improvements over the original q3map.

Randy Reddig (aka ydnar) has totally revamped the q3map compiler over the years, turning it into Q3Map2, which supports just about every Q3 based game and some Q2 based games. The lighting it produces is FAR superior and many hundreds of times faster. You can produce very fine shadows, penumbra effects, bump mapping, radiosity, just to name a few of the additions. And that's only to the lighting department. The vis process was also vastly improved providing superior results, smaller BSPs and compiling much, much faster. Oh, there's also vastly improved terrain support (including a very easy painting like method for texturing inside Radiant), axial projected decals and lots of other eye candy.

I suppose to put it into one sentence: Q3Map2 compiled maps can rival if not exceed Half-Life 2 in static image quality (read: only still pictures!). All that from the compiler.

Check out the screenshots folder on the Q3Map2 site:
http://www.shaderlab.com/q3map2/screenshots
http://www.shaderlab.com/q3map2

Please note that there are many proof of concept shots in there, most aren't meant to be polished or pretty!

Be sure to check out the "manual" directory for the modern Q3Map shader manual, which should cover many of the modern features. Sorry to rant, but I really like Q3Map2! Anyways, check it out, you'd probably find it interesting.

Edit: By the way, Raven used Q3Map2 for JA, albeit to nowhere near its full potential.

I had to quit editing JO b/c I could never manage to get SOF2map to work properly. I was able to BSP, but I could never figure out how to compile with lighting. (I was so used to Save JKL and GOB) God do I feel stupid now that I know about Q3MAP2, but its too late now. JO/JA editing is almost as abandoned as JK/MOTS is.

oh god i almost forgot about sof2map.. i remember when q3map2 came out everyone was all 'omg yay'

that's an exact quote.

everyone said it.

Hey Emon, i'm really considering getting into mapping. I was thinking of using GTKRadiant, but I should use Q3Map2 instead? Or are they two completely different programs

GtkRadiant is the building tool to make levels, Q3map2 is the compiler.

radiant comes with the latest q3map2 at the time of it's release(so check shaderlab for the absolute latest)

Alright thanks Cazor, I had fun coding for JA so mapping might be a good thing to get started on as i'm stuck on a lot of things i'm trying to implement.