EGL Quake 2: Weapon models and FOV

[Creamy_Goodness]

> Over the past decade, I've been recording hundreds of Quake 2 deathmatch FFA games I've played online. Right now, I'm working on converting the dm2 replay files of some of my best matches into avi files. The dm2s I'm converting were recorded at an FOV of 120. Normally, the weapon model that appears in front of the player in vanilla Quake 2 is only visible when the FOV is set to 90 or less, but disappears at higher FOVs, even if the handedness is not set to "center". I'm using EGL in order to enhance the appearance of the replays, and unlike vanilla Quake 2, EGL allows the weapon models to appear in my replays.

> Now here's the problem. At an FOV of 120, some of the weapon models look weird, because the screen extends past models' edges, giving the appearance of missing polygons. This is a non-issue at a FOV of 90, because the edges of the screen would obscure the models' edges. Is there a way to move the weapon models down and to the right without changing the FOV in EGL? Doing so would not only keep the models' edges off screen, but would also make the model obscure less of the action on the screen.

[haunted]

Hope you get this worked out how you want, but one thing.. I personally wouldn't consider keeping this video at 120 fov a high priority, that is unless it's mainly for your own pleasure. If it's mainly for others i'd suggest using a more normal fov around 100. Aside from that, fov is mostly preference but not entirely.. There is definitely objective reasoning that supports a lower fov being more suitable for q2.

[Creamy_Goodness]

@haunted

> Actually, keeping the FOV at 120 is not really that important for showing off my replays, and I would certainly consider lowering it if that would fix the weapon model issue. However, as far as I know, it's impossible to change the FOVs in a Quake 2 replay. I actually tried doing just that over ten years ago with one of my older replays. I brought the dm2 file into Wordpad and changed the FOV value, but when I saved the file, I ended up corrupting it and it would no longer play in Quake 2. If there was a way to edit dm2 files without corrupting them, I'd sure like to know about it.

[haunted]

You can re-cam your demos and change the fov through keygrip2. I've never changed the fov myself, but I am familiar with kg2 and know people who are able to do so. They idle in my irc channel, #nadl on enterthegame.com .

You'd get some fast help there, if not I'll mess around with kg2 and post back here, or bring this thread to someone else's attention.

[Barton]

You should ask for Reflex or Panjoo's help. They are one of the few people who know how to use that program.

[quadz]

it's an awesome client.

nquake2 is an installer which uses q2pro for the client, right?

Elysium's installer also uses q2pro these days: http://q2s.tastyspleen.net/

[Creamy_Goodness]

> Hey guys, thanks for all your help. I'm going to check out keygrip2 and nQuake2 and see if I have any luck with them. If for some reason I have trouble adjusting the FOVs of my replays, I can always record the AVIs center handed.

[Creamy_Goodness]

> I've been trying out nQuake2, and the weapon models look good on screen, even with an FOV of 120. However, I'm having a new problem that I've never seen before. Some PPMs, such as Cow, have a tiny weapon model that is meant to be completely invisible and doesn't appear at all in vanilla Quake 2. However in nQuake2, the weapon models look like the default Quake 2 Male weapon models, and are completely misaligned so that they strangely float around the model. Is there a way to keep these weapon models invisible without effecting the VWEPs of PPMs that use their weapon models properly?

> Here's something else that's really strange. The Garfield model has a remote control for his weapon model, and this appears normally in vanilla Quake 2. However in nQuake2, the remote looks like the default Male VWEP, and is strangely floating around Garfield's head. Has anyone else noticed a problem like this?

> After tinkering with the options for a while, I found yet another problem with nQuake2. I plan to convert the dm2s into avis at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. In the video settings, I can choose a screen resolution of 640 x 480 while in full screen mode, or I can go into Windowed mode at some really high resolution. However, I can't choose 640 x 480 while in windowed mode, which is what I need to do to record at that resolution. If I can't find a way to do this in nQuake2, I'll have to switch back to EGL and settle for setting the handedness to center to make the weapon model not appear.

[Creamy_Goodness]

@Elysium

> Hey Elysium, I haven't seen you since the old days of Polycount, how's it going? Anyway, thanks for pointing out the fix. I already recorded my games with EGL, but the fix you mentioned plus the advice you gave about the windowed mode may just persuade me to give nQuake2 another shot.

> BTW, is nQuake2 the same as Q2Pro? If not, what's the difference between the two?

[Creamy_Goodness]

@Elysium

"I'm doing well, but I don't have any recollection of 'Polycount' so it's likely that you're remembering someone else."

> Sorry for the confusion. It's been about a decade since I was a regular at Polycount, and the usernames are more or less a blur to me.

 
"nQuake2 is not a client, it's the name of an installation package that happens to include the Q2PRO client."

> OK thanks, I think I understand the difference now. BTW, thanks again for the update, I'll check it out soon.

[Creamy_Goodness]

> OK, I'm finished converting the dm2s of my best Quake 2 games into avi files, and I'm very pleased at the results. Here is a recompiled version of one of my games. It looks a little grainy, but I may be able to fix that with some further tweaking. The file is a little over 80 megs, so it may take a while to download.

http://creamyg.hugelaser.com/Movies/Creamy2010_036%28Q2Pro%29.avi

> I've converted seven games in all, and I plan to upload them all to my YouTube channel eventually. I'd like to close by saying thank you all for your help, since I wouldn't have been able to get these results without you guys.