Maps for OpenGL2

Hmm, a few years ago I also asked myself if there are some ioquake3 maps using the opengl2 features. In those days I din’t find any ‘opengl2’ maps, I don’t know if there are some maps available today, I don’t think so.
For the sake of honesty, one has to say that mapmaking is a long lasting process, moreover it seems the more features are available the longer it lasts to finish a map, in the good old Q1 days it was easy to make a map in a few days…

Well, my personal thought is that the strength of the ioquake3 renderer 2 is that theorethically EVERY map can use the new features. Or, in less well meant words, some features where a new map format or the source file of a map is needed (the .map file) aren’t supported by the opengl2 renderer. An example: a feature many poeple mean by ‘new feature’ is the real time lightning (as you know from Doom 3 or any later game), such feature is not available with ioquake3’s renderer because the existing maps were never designd to cast real time shadows (from map lights).
I’m not the author/programmer of the renderer2 code, but I assume the reason why real time lightning is not available is because you very likely need maps that do support real-time light entities (although there have been hacks that solved this issue), or at least keep the lighs during the compile phase (like wakey already said).

Less theoretically, for some features you need new maps, the existing ones aren’t capable of features like realtime shadowing/lightning.

Anyways, the good thing is all existing features provided by ioquake3’s renderer 2 are available WITHOUT changes to the map file! You need no new maps, you need new textures/shaders.
Thats the strenght of ioquake3’s renderer 2.
The author of the code already showed some nice screenshots of retexuring existing maps here: (Re)Texturing project, anyone?

A small hint: I found out that most Xreal maps still work with ioquake3’s renderer 2. Those maps were designed with the new features in mind. Though it needs a lot of work to make those map really load all the shaders and textures again, but after all the renderer is really fast! Another strength of the ioquake3 remderer 2.

Keep in mind, even ioquake3’s renderer 2 is based on Xreal, the same is true for Unvanquished, and many many other projects. This is why I think you’ll more likely find good maps made for Xreal than for any other game that merged the Xreal code, like ioquake3 or tremulous.

Unfortunately many Xreal maps are lost, eventually search for Xreal map xdm1 and redm11, one of my favourite Xreal maps. If you are a skiled programmer you can also try to get real time lightning to work, because those maps do support realtime lightning/shadowing and are a good starting point.

There is also ET-Xreal, the basic maps also got new textures there (bump mapped etc.).
Well, Xreal started BEFORE ioqake3, so unfortunately somewhere Xreal didn’t update to ioquake3 code anymore, and finally Xreal died, and therefore it is completely outdated as far as the essential ioquake3 features are concerned (platform independency, security isues etc.).

So if you really want ‘all’ the nice rendering features use Xreal or ET Xreal and their maps. If you want to stick to ioquake3 than you can ‘simply’ retexture every map.

Here are some screenshots because pictures sometimes say more than words:

Xreal xdm1 (real time lightning/shadowing caused by dynamic lights see the armor shadow on the wall):


Xreal xdm1 (real time lightning/reflection caused by map lights, see the reflection on the floor):

Xreal redm11 (bump/parallax mapping on a cool model, the chains also cast real time shadows):

Good luck by searching for good maps, and even more luck if you ever concern making new maps for the new ioquake3 renderer!

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