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April 19: Developer Info (Download: Zircon Beta #49 - Win64)

In the last month or so, there were new Zircon console commands that exposed shader information and other information. Those console tools were laying the foundation for "actual plan" (console commands are nice, but a graphical user interface is living the high life).

Pictured: Some very early ground-breaking activities.

Now that the DarkPlaces TrueType support more malleable for general usage in the engine code and the ability to embed data (icons, etc.), the real terraforming phase can occur.

Quite a bit of work ahead .. this where the real fun starts!

April 18: Font Battle Concluded

Adding loading pak/pk3 from memory proved to be too much work. DarkPlaces is super-hardwired for using file handles to read data. However, there is a"selfpack" feature already written. I looked at the code and wasn't able to figure out how it worked, then I took a guess and did "copy /B zircon_beta_gcc.exe + bundle.zip zircon_beta_gcc2.exe" (this concatenates a .zip file to the end of the zircon exe -- a .zip file and a .pk3 file are the same thing) and it worked, activating the self pack feature.

The desired result was achieved, but in a different way.

A Waterfall Investigation.

The work invested in TrueType fonts from memory proved to be what was needed, I am loading the fonts outside the DarkPlaces traditional font system and I don't want the data somehow cleared by a user or some DarkPlaces mod that does something I hadn't considered.

April 17: TrueType Fonts

I have been rewiring Zircon to use TrueType fonts from memory (done). Realized what I actually want is to load pak files from memory. The pak/pk3 system in DarkPlaces doesn't support that, and I didn't really want to code that.

After carefully considering the various options, coding "loading pak from memory" has enough advantages that it is worth it. "Didn't really want to code that" ---> Coding that. Such is engine coding ...

This one has a fantastic payoff though.

Investigating Spiderwebs and Waterfalls

April 15: Fixing Cvar System

The cvar system in Zircon Beta is not perfect and started with the DarkPlaces Beta version -- which at time of the origin of Zircon Beta (October) would crash on gamedir change, I had change some things to fix it and under some circumstances it can be untrustworthy. And it is overly complex for the simple thing it is doing.

No visible reward for fixing it, but gamedir switching is important and I want to fully trust it.

DarkPlaces allows cvar creation, cvar destruction and can use the fteqcc "autocvar_" feature -- amongst many other things. I'm going to see if I can get the code to collapse into simplicity, while having it do exactly the same thing.

Engine coding sometimes involves working on things with no visible results. Comes with the territory.

April 14: Console Selection In #49

I wanted to copy some text off the console and less than the what the Zircon "copy" console command does -- which is the whole console. But that wasn't a feature.

It wasn't the first time I wished Zircon had that as a feature. It was, however, the last time.

Because of the way DarkPlaces does the console -- the console in DarkPlaces is very nice but so very complex, this was crazy hard to do. Sometimes it wraps lines, many lines simply don't display because they are tagged "developer 1". There were other obstacles.

The joy of copying text from the console made this worthwhile! It selects entire rows, dodging TrueType font support variable width considerations and such.

April 13: Console Selection

Mouse highlighting/selecting/copying console text is coming in next version. DarkPlaces has a quite a few features in the console log that are great, but make this a bit complicated to code. For example, one really great feature in DarkPlaces is "developer 1" suddenly reveals previous messages, it stores a "mask level" for each line of console print.

April 12: Texture Filtering Cvar

See notes in the description, but most noticeable change is Options->Change Video Mode has texture filtering setting and it saves to config. ALT-ENTER timer limiter is removed ..

ALT-ENTER timer is removed .. in the past during map change Zircon could crash under circumstances that were not entirely clear if done during map change -- this seems to no longer happen (right? right ... ? /Is Keeping eye on that).

There are larger changes that will require a demonstration mod to see.

Rain and Sprinklers Materials Map (Download: Zircon Beta #47 Win/Linux)

GremlinForester made an incredible materials test map. He has been sharing insight on ideas on how to add some flexible options to the DarkPlaces shader system (in the coming days, I intend to be coding those). GremlinForester's notes/credits are in the download full description.

Download the map! (download: test_mat2_dp)

Put pk3 in quake\id1 folder. Type "map test_mat2_dp". Enjoy!

In Zircon, goto Options->Effects and use Level 4 or higher for full effect.