Quake map distribution: speed vs. legality

Tom Wheeley (tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk)
Mon, 22 Apr 96 00:36:59 GMT

Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 00:36:59 GMT
From: Tom Wheeley <tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk>
To: quake-dev@gamers.org
Subject: Quake map distribution: speed vs. legality

In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960420204910.28390A-100000@jarnsaxa.diku.dk> you write:

> * A distributable .bsp-file contains none of ids textures, but
> "_texture" entries that tell a preprocessing utility how to
> build the right .bsp-file from the distributable .bsp-file.
>
> All the surfaces that should have had one of ids textures, are assigned
> a dummy texture in the distributable .bsp-file. This assignment is
> changed by a preprocessing utility according to the
> "_texture" entries.
>
> The preprocessing utility should also be able to reverse this process,
> so you don't have to keep the distributable file as well as the
> playable one.

I wrote a similar utility to this ages ago, but you can only use id's textures
:-)

Maybe texture names in the texture list beginning with `_' would be picked
up by the pre-pro as `filenames' (perhaps in a PAK file?) of mip textures,
whereas standard names would be taken to be standard id tex. Remember that
the mip header only gives 16 chars for the name (IIRC). People could be
encouraged to keep a local .PAK file (or similar) of all their custom textures
-- an interface for this would have to be rigidly adhered to, but may prove
too difficult to manage. :(

The BSP file as it stands is a very limited structure, expansion wise.

.splitbung

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