The open source Zircon engine ("DarkPlaces Mark V") has 36 new enhancements. Should be available to download within 24 hours. Writing up the feature list and documenting it has taken quite some time, more than intended.
Zircon now has a full mouse driven menu in all menus (the keyboard navigation is unchanged). Select text/cut/copy/paste in the console. Undo in the console. Zircon now has "tool_inspector 1" to see entity information in the 3D view. It also autocompletes many things like even skyboxes.
There are several subtle options to obtain a "1996 look" if you prefer that. Better looking crisp console text options. The .txt file in the download has a complete list.
It is hoped that eventually some/most/all of the features in Zircon will find their way into official DarkPlaces. The Zircon engine seeks to keep 100% compatibility with DarkPlaces for maps and mods to be able to use either engine interchangeably.
The Q3 map format has variations made after the release of Q3. DarkPlaces is one of the engines that takes advantage of these enhanced Q3 capabilities added in the years after as the Q3 toolset evolved.
The Q3 map format was designed exclusively for hardware accelerated rendering. The same geometry compiled in Q3 versus a previous bsp version, you can feel the difference in responsiveness during rendering. The same geometry uses so many fewer triangles, a huge wall might be 2 triangles per face in Q3.
There is no fixed limit to texture resolution. And no color palette. No .wad middle man to remove colors and remove resolution.
Zircon makes it easy to get the original authentic 1996 look if you want that. They are right there in the main menu.
DarkPlaces offers the opportunity to create some truly sophisticated works while using the same tools already used like TrenchBroom and J.A.C.K.
DarkPlaces using default settings on 2012 Intel Integrated Video on a Q3 map compiled in J.A.C.K:
This open source map used the main atrium from the beautiful map Afterslime in Xonotic as a lab room in this level.
The actual Xonotic map Afterslime looks even better than this.
The Zircon engine lets you inspect things. Perhaps you want to see how something works in a map. Perhaps you have something not working you want to inspect.
DarkPlaces has a very nice predictive and bandwidth friendly protocol (DP7). It is well suited for any game mode. Cooperative style play (PvE) is going to be a focus.
DarkPlaces has been used by Xonotic for years on numerous servers.
The small things that make life a little more convenient is a friend to a mapper or someone working on some code for monsters or such. Anything small that came up was addressed. Like "folder" to take you to the current gamedir.
Another example is "pos". It shows your position and angles. It also copies those to the clipboard.
There are 3 higher resolution replacements that are pk3 files in the Zircon engine download. If you wish to use them, place any you want in the quake\id1 folder. They appear crisper in general. If you don't wish to use them, the "Help" menu is the the "Maps" menu.
As the Zircon engine progresses, other builds like SDL versions tweaking the source to compile in Linux will ultimately occur. The current priority getting the engine squared away.
As a long time DP user i am very interested in this new fork.
I am currently working on a "base game" for DarkPlaces, so total conversion developers would no longer need quake nor it's qc as starting point.
Might consider moving to zircon, if there the benefits would weigh out the drawbacks.
So naturally some questions come to mind:
On what version of DarkPlaces is Zircon based on?
Will existing features like ODE support, Gecko qc extensions and so forth maintaint/fixed?
Do you plan on creating new qc extensions?
Edit:
Does it still support menuqc?
Any plans on csqc?
It is based on Xonotic 0.8.2 DarkPlaces (2017).
There are no feature removals of any kind, anything DarkPlaces did before it still does.
So it does menuqc, csqc and all other DarkPlaces features that exist in Xonotic 0.8.2.
I'm not familiar with what is broken with ODE, and I don't know of a free mod that uses it, so there is not a test subject mod. I assume it worked at one point, knowing a version of DarkPlaces that where it did work right is something that would need to be known.
Since you have some very technical questions, I would recommend future questions be asked at celephais.net/board where the development is occurring because it possible that other DarkPlaces modders or general engine developers (we have quite the haul of them there) might have something to contribute to the discussion.
I tested zircon with my total conversion base game, unfortunately it seems that my QC code which works in the 2014 build of DP, seems to be partwise incompatible with Zircon.
I also found out the physics_ode cvar which is needed to enable ODE is not available, i guess it was removed by the Xonotic devs back then, even though it is available in the Git version of DP.
As to in what version of DP ODE did work: the May 13 2014 build which is also used by Wrath and a bunch of other Games.
As for a mod that uses ODE, the one i do is exactly meant for that: Appart from beeing a starter kit to built upon, it is also meant to provide a demo to show features of the engine (like ODE, warpzones/portals, skeletal animation, shader scripts and so on).
I exactly want implement such things in the qc of my project for the reason, that then there would finally be at least one known project to use those
features, other projects might pick it up as well and there would finally be a reason to maintain such features and maybe even implement new ones.
If i have other technical questions, i will of course ask them at func_msgboard ;-)
I can add the cvar back in. I thought this version was compatible with May 2014 DarkPlaces, I will have examine what changed.
If you know how warpzones work in QuakeC, you definitely have my thumbs up.
ODE physics will be available in the next version. It is likely the next version is within 24 hours.
To say that i know how Warpzones work in qc would be a outright lie, but...
after some investigation someone was able to point me to a mod that makes use of them: Nepenthe.
Its qc contains a whole folder called "warpzonelib".
My intention for the future would be to analyze this code and write an analogue to it, if my qc skills will ever evolve that far.
From the description of Nepenthe it sounds as it has some overlapping goals as qBase (the thing i am working on), a bummer that it seems to be so little known:
Quakewiki.net
Zircon Engine Initial Alpha Release 13 is available.
I pushed this out with fewer changes so you could have ODE available. It sounds like you have some high minded goals and do experimental work that intends to help others.
Not going to lie, this fork actually intrigued me since I had some issues over my personal experiences from the 2014 build for DarkPlaces a long time ago. As a modder, I want to give it a try since I'm more interested to make my Wolfenstein TC mod in there but still remained unsure where to get it started in all honesty.