Version 0.6 of q3ase has greatly simplified the process of saving shaders and allows the invaluable option of opening pre-existing shader files.

Opening

It couldn’t be simpler.  Click on the File menu and select Open….  You are presented with a dialogue box listing all the shader files available to you.  If you can’t find the shader file you’re looking for in here then you may need to use the Edit pakfiles… option, also under the File menu.

Let’s select the base_floor.shader file.  And press OK.  The file opens but we’re presented with a warning dialogue box.  This can usually be ignored but provides useful information for debugging.  Press OK.  Once we expand the tree view we can see all the shaders in the base_floor group for us to edit and learn from at our leisure.  You can have as many shader files open at one time as you like.

Saving

We’re going to cover how to save a shader and how to make it show up in q3r.  First make the shader on the right.

You should see a blue fuzz through a hole in the floor.  If you have any problems getting that then refer back to earlier sections of this tutorial.

The surfaceparm and the qer_editorimage were added by right clicking on General Keywords.

Note the name (added by right-clicking).  It’s important to include a path from the baseq3 directory in the name.  This will cause the shader to show up in the tutorial folder in q3r.  If a shader doesn’t show up in q3r, the first thing to check is that you have not just typed a name but that you have typed a pathname.

To save the shader right-click where it says File: and choose Save As… and then save the file as normal with a Windows document.  You should, of course, save it in your baseq3/scripts folder.  For the purposes of this tutorial name the new file tutorial.shader.

You’ll be prompted to save a lightmap stage.  Click Yes.

Our shader has now been saved.

If you are working with a file that already exists (ie one opened from the File menu) then you can use the Save option rather than the Save As…. The id shader files that shipped with the game are write-protected by the editor.  You can only save them as a new file.

Before we can use the shader in q3radiant there are a couple of things we must do.

1. In the baseq3/scripts folder, open shaderlist.txt and add the word tutorial to the list.  Make sure you keep the last line of this file blank – it seems to be important.

3.  Now go to your baseq3/textures folder and create a new folder called tutorial.  When you’re making your own shaders then any custom textures would go in here.  We’re going to leave it empty – but it’s important that we create it anyway because the name of our shader is going to include the path to this directory and if it doesn’t exist then the shader won’t show up in q3radiant.

Obviously you will name all these files and folders something different when you’re working on a map and not the tutorial (something like l33tdm24.shader?).

Comparing the Tree View and the Shader script

Let’s see what our shader really looks like.  Open up tutorial.shader using a text editor.

You should see something like this…

textures/tutorial/testshader

{

      qer_editorimage textures/base_floor/clangdark_ow3.tga

      surfaceparm metalsteps

      {

            map textures/sfx/proto_zzztblu2.tga

            rgbGen identity

            tcMod turb 0 0.5 0 9.6

            tcMod scale 2 2

            tcMod scroll 9 5

      }

      {

            map textures/base_floor/clangdark_ow3.tga

            blendfunc blend

            rgbGen identity

      }

      {

            map $lightmap

            rgbGen identity

            blendfunc filter

      }

}

The similarity to the Tree View in q3ase is obvious.  But there are a couple of things to note.

1.  A lightmap stage has been added at the end.  Generally, as I said earlier, this is fine.

2.  An rgbGen identity has been added to every stage.

A comparison with the original id shader.

This shader is an exact copy of an id shader, so let’s compare our shader with id’s.

textures/base_floor/clangdark_ow3

{   

     surfaceparm  metalsteps    

     // This makes a noise like running on metal

        {

            map textures/sfx/proto_zzztblu2.tga

            tcMod turb 0 .5 0 9.6

            tcmod scale 2 2

            tcmod scroll 9 5

            blendFunc GL_ONE GL_ZERO

            rgbGen identity

      }

        {

            map textures/base_floor/clangdark_ow3.tga

            blendFunc GL_SRC_ALPHA GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA

            rgbGen identity

      }

        {

            map $lightmap

            blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ONE_MINUS_DST_ALPHA

            rgbGen identity

      }

}

Note the following:

1.The id shader has no qer_editorimage keyword.  This is because the name of the texture has an exact equivalent texture and it will use this in the editor.  However this can cause problems with texture robbing and I would advise you to use a qer_editorimage keyword.

2. In the first stage, id has a blendFunc GL_ONE GL_ZERO which we don’t have.  It’s not necessary – it simply means make the texture opaque, which it is anyway.

3. The blendFuncs are different in stages 2 and 3.  They are equivalent.  Refer to the Shader Manual (Section 7.2)
for further details.

4. The rgbGen identity keyword is in a different place.  It’s not important where this appears within the stage.

5. There is a comment.  Actually there isn’t in the original shader script, but I added it to make a point.  Anything after // on a line
will be ignored.