Server Tool ?

[m4$73r j14u]

Hello Mr. Server Admin, sir

i stoped playing quake2 for one year, but when i finally came back (cause 'quake2 pwns our souls')i noticed something has changed on vanilla. Very subtile to see, but my charp mind figured out what it was.
Examples: map ware1: new items to map: second rocketlauncher, grenadelauncher, teleporter to railgun
other maps: there are a lot of elevators modified so you don

[[BTF] Reflex]

Taken from  http://www.r1ch.net/forum/index.php?topic=267.msg1147#msg1147

Server-side entity replacement and map overriding support. Using this you can create "virtual" maps that exist only as a .override file on the server, but load up an existing map with a modified entity string. Example: q2dm1.bsp is your normal q2dm1. To add some excitement, you want to put a quad in the map, but don't want clients to have to download a whole new .bsp. So you edit the entity string for q2dm1 to include a quad, then generate a .override file specifying "maps/q2dm1.bsp" as the map to load with the new entity string. Then you save the .override file as 'maps/q2dm1-quad.bsp.override' and you can use 'q2dm1-quad' as if it were a valid map, eg in map rotations, 'gamemap q2dm1-quad', etc. Upon loading it, the server will change the real map back to q2dm1 and use the modified entity string specified in the .override file.

The .override file format is a proprietary R1Q2 binary format including a bitfield specifying what is present. This allows it to be extended at a later date without breaking compatibility. I've created a PHP script to generate a .override file since explaining the format here would take too long. Generate the .override file at http://r-1.ch/r1q2gen.php. If you don't know how to get an entity string from a .bsp, try entdump: http://r-1.ch/entdump.c (Win32 binary: http://r-1.ch/entdump.exe, runs from cmd prompt, eg entdump q2dm1.bsp > q2dm1.txt). Note that the server will very likely crash if you use a bad .override file so be careful! Please don't ask me about this feature if you aren't sure how to use it, it's pretty complicated and amazingly hacky but it does work. I think.

 

[Quest]

Ya, great explanation reflex It does indeed work, i have tried it out - you just have to be extremely careful when editing the entities, so you dont mess something up.

quest

[magical pig]

 

server tool = toxic monkey?

 

[m4$73r j14u]

Hey cool,
Are you three admins like the omnipresent consolE ?
Well, whatsoever - back to the plot.
And yupp here we go.

I will porbably N3v3r understand what the r1q2 server override.map tool thing is all about.
But as far as i understand you open a map in a map editor of your choice, add items to it, sace it and then somehow
create this override.file with a tool or on r1ch.net or something-right or wrong/yes or no?

  eeeEEE3333eeeetttzzz j14u

[[BTF] Reflex]

Ive never done it personally,  just read about it.     

[PANTONE 7717C]

Hi m4$73r,
well if you'd like to know how this map modification started, here's the thread http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=2012.0
A while back I read something about override files on r1ch.net and I decided to figure out how to make use of it. So to answer your question I'm responsible for the current changes of the standard maps (but lately Console has been making some adjustments too, eg. maps like fusion, arma5 etc.)
Since I've been making maps for q2 for years I thought why not use what I know to fix some of the problems in some of the standard maps, eg. slow button elevators, bad spawnpoints etc. Unfortunately the whole process is trickier than it sounds because you can't just open a compiled map and add/modify items. First a mapbsp needs to be de-compiled and converted to a .map file (use winbspc.exe for this, which comes with the Gladiator bots). Then you use Quark to open the de-compiled .map file and make the changes. The .map then need to be re-compiled to build the new .bsp (map errors like leaks can be ignored since it's just about the entities). Once you load the created .bsp in Quark again you can view the entity list as a textfile. Lastly this text is copied and pasted in rich's online 'php' generator which then generates the override file.

[m4$73r j14u]

Ah, very cool, Mister Panjoo, sir.

Unfortunately the whole process is trickier than it sounds because you can't just open a compiled map and add/modify items.

Well, i never thought it would be easy - but this is easy.

The .map then needs to be re-compiled to build the new .bsp (map errors like leaks can be ignored since it's just about the entities)

I guess that you can compile them fastbright. Otherwise i don't know how long it would take to compile a map like base1 for
example. I tried it once but after 2 hours or so (the tv-movie was over)i stoped it...maybe next time.....

So to answer your question I'm responsible for the current changes of the standard maps Wink

Nice work, it rocks
(maybe you could make the quad in the whole in the floor of lab.bsp reachable by make a wall a ladder? well, maybe two quads are too much ?!)

Gladiator bots rock and QuarK rocks, too.

http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=2012.0

This is nice.
 

[console]

(maybe you could make the quad in the whole in the floor of lab.bsp reachable by make a wall a ladder? well, maybe two quads are too much ?!)

That quad there is my fault.    I did it on purpose though.  Actually my intention was that be the ONLY quad on the map.  But I never got around to deleting the other quad(s) on the map.

Thinking about it further, I'd still like to delete the other quad(s) on the map, and add a megahealth in the hole down there with the quad.  Maybe that's too mean.  But it's easy to get out if you have the foresight to bring a grenade with you.  And there's just too much humor value in seeing a blue guy trapped by his own greed and poor planning.

 

Regards,

[[BTF]adam]

Noo! Lab with quad is great, it's fun as hell to have 10+ quad runs.

Something I don't achieve very often in TDM :<

[[BTF] Reflex]

Adam,  what is THAT signature doing on THIS frum?

I didnt know lab had quads

[PANTONE 7717C]

- I guess that you can compile them fastbright. Otherwise i don't know how long it would take to compile a map like base1 for example.

- maybe you could make the quad in the whole in the floor of lab.bsp reachable by make a wall a ladder? well, maybe two quads are too much ?!

- that's correct, there's no need for a light-compile and as a matter of fact you don't even need a vis-compile, just the bsp which usually only takes seconds.
- well you can't make a wall into a ladder because that would require editing the face-flag properties for a brush. For the same reason you can't change textures or add/remove triggers and clipbrushes (in other words no geometry changes). With this method triggers can only be disabled so they stop working and buttons can be set to show up in singleplayer mode only, that's what I did with most of the elevators.

[Whirlingdervish]

I found that if you just want to remove something from a map the process is a bit easier..
for example, you've got a spanwpad that leaves you stuck in the ground and it isn't totally needed for the map to play well:
you can open the .bsp in quark and just grab the whole entity list and paste it into notepad then save this file as a bsp override after deleting the entity entry that corresponds with that exact spawnpad.

I believe this also works if you just want to move something like ammo or an item that's already in the map.
(you'd just change the x,y,z coordinates for that entity)

I wouldn't try it on a light entity though. I think it only works this way for items,health,weapons,monsters and spawns..
any entity that requires a brush model would fall under the aforementioned "no geometry changes" condition, so those are out too. 

[[BTF]adam]

Adam,  what is THAT signature doing on THIS frum?

I didnt know lab had quads

hahah. WoW > ALL. ;>>>>>>>!

[[BTF] Reflex]

I never tried it,  other than on a map I was already working on,  but Worldcraft has an 'entities only' compile