OpenArena Message Boards

While surfing on the forum, I've seen a lot of queries about changing the engine to a newer one in order to get better graphics, with the assumption that what makes OpenArena less successful than other games is mainly because of the oldish graphics (which I don't agree to, but that's my personal opinion).

However, instead of changing to a new engine, why not changing to an older engine like idTech2 with enhanced graphics capabilities?

Also I am aware that this may change the physics a lot. Maybe someone already ported idTech3 physics to idTech2 in a patch? But if that's not the case, maybe then we could port the changes to the graphic engine to idTech3?

An example of how these engines can look like: OverDose game using idTech2 (still in development)
http://www.moddb.com/games/overdose

I don't know at all how idTech2 works and if any of those ideas may be practical, so if you have any more info please post your thoughts here.

You do realize today's Call of Duty games (bad example I know) are still built on id Tech 3 right?
That said, there's still plenty of room for improvement in the renderer/ section however a lot of that opportunity requires more hooks for cgame to use.  Going back to id tech2 (which i loathe for its terrible inprecise physics BTW) isn't necessary.

and overdose is terrible lol, Darkplaces is a better example than that as far as older id engines with huge graphical upgrades go. Darkplaces even does some experimental stuff like particle-based indirect light bouncing

I doubt this is a good idea, given that it's less about the engine but more about the artists. Won't help those few volunteers if they have to adopt to a new engine, asset pipeline etc. You'd also have to port the entire game logic, which won't happen unless you get more coders.

I think it might be easier to glue, say some fancy GLSL effects, onto existing maps. This'd give some eyecandy yet require little effort.

I have to agree, just look at the work produced by Simon O'Callaghan (http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design.htm), specifically the The Edge of Forever and Pyramid of the Magician maps and you'll the some amazing shader work being done.  Simply creating maps with that kind of texturing would add alot of appeal to Open Arena imho.

Can we try to contact that Simon O' Callahan and ask him if he would like to create a map for the second OACMP? His maps are impressive...

About eyecandy... I think that insteresting things can be done also with the classic Q3 shaders.
Take a look to the attached file, I've made a compilation of "cool" Quake 3 views (good-looking places with interesting shader effects).

OA maps may include more eyecandy, as including more
- force fields
- "living" walls, "pulsing" plants
- Shining doors with futuristic design
- Shining walls and floors
- blue illumination while underwater
- monitors with refections and/or animations
- floating spotlights
- fans
- shining glass
- control consoles
- skeletons
- cool teleporters and portals
- mirrors
- fog
- moving gears and machinery
(Of course, for OA3, following the artistic direction Fromhell will like)

More, we have optional GLSL (but it's not used in real maps yet... and there isn't a GUI option to enable it yet), flares (but I keep them off because they are distracting) and bloom (But I keep it off because it hurts performance) support.

By the way, an OpenArena map I really appreciate for its attention to eyecandy is PUL1DUEL-OA ("Five steps ahead"). That one looks really nice, IMHO. I think that having one or two more maps with such graphic style would be good.

PS: What about a "frozen" style map, like this one (http://www.simonoc.com/pages/design/mp/bastir.htm) (never tried)?