Quake III Rally

17th March 2002

Introduction : Features : Map Entities : Console Commands : Player Models : Surface Parameters : Q3R FAQ : Credits

Player Models

Car Details

Size
The car physics assumes the car is about 103 units long and about 52 units wide. The car body is about 32 units tall, not including the wheels. The physics do not take into consideration the position of the tags on the car or the sizes of the car or wheel models so the models must be positioned in Quake III Arena so that they appear to be on the ground.

Polygons
800-900 average. This includes everything except the driver head model (which varies). It includes the wheels, interiors, spoilers, spikes, and whatever else happens to be on the model.

Tags
tag_weapon
Tags the weapons to this location for VWEP. Weapons have a forward fire arc regardless of the way the modeler orients the tag to prevent cheats or visual miscues.

tag_wheelfr
Front right wheel tag (pivot point).

tag_wheelfl
Front left wheel tag (pivot point).

tag_wheelrr
Rear right wheel tag (pivot point).

tag_wheelrl
Rear left wheel tag (pivot point).

tag_head
Drivers head (if a visible model, such as a convertible) to rotate with mlook.

tag_turbo
Turbo flame exhaust tag. When the player uses a turbo, a model of a booster rocket appears in this position.

tag_smoke
Tag for engine smoke as a damage indicator. Grey smoke for 40-21 health and black for 20 through death. If this tag is not present as a cheat, this feature will emit smoke from the center of the bounding box or other tag.

tag_plate
License plate attachment point (from center).

tag_hlite1 to tag_hlite4

tag_blite1 and tag_blite2
Brake light glow effect. Attaches an autosprite glow at this point when the player brakes.

tag_rlite1 and tag_rlite2
Reverse light glow effect. Attaches an autosprite glow at this point when the player reverses.

tag_suspcl and tag_suspcr
Left and Right suspension tags, move up and down along with the suspension. Allows the creation of tank treads.

tag_redlight, tag_bluelight and tag_yellowlight
Lights for emergency vehicles. The models gfx/flares/red_lite.md3, gfx/flares/blue_lite.md3 and gfx/flares/yellow_lite.md3 are attached to the vehicle at these points. Right now they are on all the time and if you want them to flash then that has to be done in the shader. Later we may add support for turning them on and off.

Notes
You can have less glow tags but cannot add more, meaning you can have a single brake light and reverse light like the reaper, but cannot have a third.

If you do not need a tag, do not use it, such as tag_head if you do not make an interior for your car. Cars will react as if they have 4 wheels, so leaving out tag_wheel will only affect the visual.

Wheel Tags
tag_polygonwheels
If found on a wheel model then the rim skins will not be used and the texture for the model will be used instead. This is in case you are modelling your rims in 3D and you don't want the rim skins to work with it.

Skins
Currently, the Quake III Rally cars use one 512x512 skin for the main body and sometimes, where needed, smaller texture maps for other parts. These may be reduced after multiplayer testing. The main reason for this is if you do a racing skin with logos, you cannot mirror the sides of the car like on a player model. At lower resolutions, logos and such breakdown. If cards have a hard time digesting these, people can lower the detail in their texture setting option. Being third person, this is not as noticeable, as you are farther away from the world.

It is a good idea to put the headlights and taillights on separate, smaller skins, so you can add an incandescent glow to them, without adding another 512x512 texture. We are possibly going to have dynamic shaders, so this setup nicely facilitates the addition of turning on headlights/brake lights.

Each of our team modes (Deathmatch, Racing and CTF) support four different teams so you will need red, blue, green and yellow skins for car models.

Naming Conventions
Unlike a Quake III PPM, the PPC only has one main component that doesn't animate, although the wheels are attached like the head to the torso. The car body is the root node.

body.md3 b_winsheild, b_hood, b_taillites, etc...
wheel.md3 w_tread, w_rim
head.md3 h_glasses, h_helmet, etc...

Please note that if you make a transparent rim, everything in the wheel.md3 spins, so if you made calipers, they will spin all over. Also, if you make transparent spoke rims, you will need to make your own rim skin for it, as the custom rims do not use this technique, and is doubtful it will be added.

The wheel.md3 should have its textures point to the Quake III Rally wheels directory.

The rim is a 64x64 tga, the tread is a 64x32 tga...

rim models/players/wheels/default.tga
tread models/players/wheels/tread.tga

Miscellaneous
You do not need to worry about the HUD icon. In Quake III Arena they put your head there, we use a generic cross.

Icons for the menu are still 64x64 and follow the same naming convention.


Directory Layout

PLATES
Custom plate skins go into the models\players\plates\ directory. You don't need to make custom plate models, only skins. Plate template filenames begin with usa_ or eu_ depending on whether you want to use the USA or EU plate models. They must be TGA files.

RIMS/WHEELS
Custom rim/wheel skins go into the models\players\wheels\ directory. There must be an icon file named icon_<rimname>.tga or .jpg and an accompanying <rimname>.skin. The wheel md3 stays in the players\<carname>\ directory. 

HEADS
Custom heads go into the models\players\heads\ directoy. The icon must be named icon_<headname>.tga or .jpg, the model must be <headname>.md3 and the skin <headname>.skin

CARS
Cars go into the models\players\<carname>\ directory. There must be a body.md3 and wheel.md3. Icons should be named icon_<skinname>.tga or .jpg with a <skinname>.skin

Other subdirectories in models\players\ must not contain a body.md3 or they will be used as a car directory.

 

Q3R Documentation v1.2.1 : 17th March 2002 : By Richard Smith, Jeff Garstecki and Steve Heijster