Transparent Water, the quick and easy way. document written by Ken Alverson (KenA@TSO.Cin.IX.Net) Installation: We've done our best to make this patch as easy as possible to install. Simply unzip the main patching utility (this archive) into an empty directory, along with any patch files you wish to install, available from the same location as this file. Run the batch file install.bat, which will detect whatever patch files you have placed in its directory. It will ask you a few simple questions about the directories in which your Quake files are located, and then it will patch your maps. The whole process takes under 10 minutes. The FAQ like section: Can't anyone do that? Sure, since the release of BSP2PRT, anyone with a lot of spare time can take a BSP and re-VIS it to support transparent water. The problem is that it takes an very long time to VIS maps, time most people don't want to spend. We took the most popular levels and did the VISsing for you, so you don't have to. Wouldn't you rather spend twenty minutes downloading and installing than several weeks doing full (-level 4) VIS on all these levels? We thought so. Isn't transparent water unfair to others? There is no simple answer to this question. Yes, it can give glQuakers an advantage over non-glQuakers, however, so can a t1 line. Same with a P2-300, or a fancy joystick, like the SpaceORB. No matter what, on the internet, there is no even playing field, each person has advantages over others. However, simply because a glQuaker has transparent water does not mean he can see the players under water. Unless the server is running levels designed for transparent water, the clients will have no knowledge of underwater players unless he too is underwater. How long did this take? In real time, all the VISsing took place in approximately 3 days. However, we had several computers working in parallel, two of which were P2-300s (oc'd 266s), so if the equivalent work was done on a single P-166, it would equal at least a week, probably two. We used rvis (well, at least *I* did), and that cut the compilation time nearly in half. For reference CTF3.BSP, from the CTF verison 3 pack took approximately 4 1/2 hours to compile. That's *with* RVis. Why don't we have the Rogue pack? Several reasons. First of all, we know that Rogue is doing their own patch for their mission pack. While we could release recompiled versions, we got several warnings and errors in the process, presumably because Rogue heavily modified the id utilities to make their pack. I (Ken) modified their specialized QBSP to support transparent water, and they are using that to recompile their levels, they should get much better results that way. Secondly, our patches are not officially endorsed, and they are definately not supported by the companies whose maps we have patched. I don't know if Rogue will support their patch (doubtful, considering the state of glQuake), however even in an unsupported state it would be preferrable to a third party solution, such as ours. Why all the levels? Some levels hardly have any water! For consistancy, for one thing. Even if it only affects teleporters, it prevents you from seeing the blurry effects of no vissing for transparent water. Even if there is no water, it doesn't hurt anything. With no water the speed will be identical to the original. Legality These patches do not distribute any copyrighted material. They contain no content from the original authors. These patches contain only data generated by VISPatch. Although they have been tested and work well, use them at your own risk. Credits: Ken Alverson (KenA@TSO.Cin.IX.Net) http://razor.stomped.com/ Documentation Installation batch files and utilities Organization and collection of VIS data VIS data: CTF 3 Original id levels Andy Bay (ABay@tier.com) http://members.aol.com/imarvintpa/ VISPatch - the file that does the actual extraction/insertion of the vis information, check its documentation for further details Christopher Bolin (cbolin@teleport.com) http://razor.stomped.com/ Webpage design and artwork VIS data: CTF 4 Shrak Hipnotic's Scourge of Armagon Dimensionality deathmatch pack DX Map packs Alex Moon (odin@mdn.com) BSP2PRT - the portal regeneration program, making it possible to revis the maps Antony Suter (antony@c033.aone.net.au) http://www.teamfortress.com/ RVis - cut the VIS time in half! Shaitan (shaitan@voicenet.com) VIS data: Assorted deathmatch levels: ANY32 FSDM2 FSDM3 HIPSIDE QCON1 QCON2 QCON3 QCON4 UKOOLDM1 UKOOLDM2 UKOOLDM3 UKOOLDM4 UKOOLDM5 UKOOLDM6 UKOOLDM7 ZOIDDM1 Shameless plug: Visit QuakeMUD! http://www.warzone.com/qmud or telnet:qmud.warzone.com port 3000 Not so shameless plug: Razor donated most of the processing time used to make this possible, visit their web site at: http://razor.stomped.com/