Show HN: Q3Edit – Edit and play Quake 3 maps in the browser(q3edit.com)
82 pointsby drdator16 hours ago13 comments
  • raymond_goo32 minutes ago
    Loading q3dm17sample.map seems to work fine.

    However trying to Quick Play the map gives me:

    === Stage 1: BSP ===

    Q3Map v1.0s (c) 1999 Id Software Inc.

    ---- q3map ----

    verbose = true

    qdir: /quake/

    gamedir: /quake/baseq3/

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/shaderlist.txt

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/acc.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/ammo.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/beams.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/cf_models.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/clown.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/clown2.shader

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/common.shader

    Unknown surfaceparm: "antiportal"

    Unknown surfaceparm: "lightgrid"

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/cosmoflash.shader

    ...

    entering /quake/baseq3/scripts/weapon_shotgun.shader

    1411 shaderInfo

    --- LoadMapFile ---

    Loading map file /quake/baseq3/maps/compile.map

    entering /quake/baseq3/maps/compile.map

    ****** ERROR ****** LoadTGA: Only type 2 (RGB), 3 (gray), and 10 (RGB) TGA images supported

  • bishopdynamics14 hours ago
    This is awesome! Great work! I love playing around with these older game engines that have source available, its really neat to explore how they work, and fiddle around with it.

    If you haven’t already, Fabien’s write ups of the various ID engines are a joy to read: https://fabiensanglard.net/quake3/index.php

    Shameless plug: I also like to play around with old game engines: https://github.com/bishopdynamics/Continuum

  • voidfunc10 hours ago
    Oh man this takes me back to map making days with q3radiant and gtkradiant.

    I miss the days of shooters with strong community run servers.

    • naikrovek7 hours ago
      Even just games that included map editors. I miss those a lot.
  • jacobgold12 hours ago
    Very cool. It's impossible to explain how cool the GPU rendered preview window looked when we first saw it in the early map editors.
  • gregjwan hour ago
    is the community still here for this kind of project? like people actively seeking out more Quake 3?
    • drdator37 minutes ago
      No idea, honestly :) I built it just for the fun of it. I mapped back in the Radiant days and wanted to see if I could make something similar that would run in a browser. Sharing it was an afterthought.
  • spikk13 hours ago
    This can actually accidentally become the best debugging tool for map files, ngl you should cook
  • vivzkestrel3 hours ago
    - can someone with expertise shed some light on how do you go about figuring out how a game like quake 3 works

    - now i know someone would say "just read the source code bro" but i am not a 3d game dev

    - as a beginner, how do you wrap your head around a codebase as complicated as quake or something?

    • raymond_gooan hour ago
      Download the source code, open it in Visual Studio Code (free), use AI tools like claude code and copilot to learn about it.
  • valorzard11 hours ago
    When trying to do quick play on Windows 11 Firefox, I got an error saying it couldn't capture my mouse
    • drdatoran hour ago
      Thanks for the bug report, I will look into it
  • SaltyAstronaut14 hours ago
    Very cool! Would love a way to implement and play on the browser as well. Fingers crossed for that one..such a good game and very nostalgic.
  • oldquakedays14 hours ago
    back when I was in high school, my friend and I used Quiver [0] to make quake maps on macos - it was very fun. to think that quake networking worked under those old school modem conditions/latency is kind of wild. id3 truly were miraculous developers.

    I remember asking someone who worked at my high school for a map of the school and remember thinking it would be fun to recreate the school... in quake... and probably model my least favorite teacher as a monster I could chase...

    it's somewhat scary to think back about this - especially since Columbine happened the same year. there was no risk from me (absolutely no way or interest to access guns - we were teenage dweebs in a country with strict gun laws) but thinking back I'm glad I never finished my maps or shared them.

    [0] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/6370-quiver-1-2-quake-ed...

    • drdator42 minutes ago
      Thanks for the nostalgia trip :) I was a big fan of Quiver back in the day. I even ported q3map to classic Mac OS at one point (I was 14 i think) so I could build maps in Quiver and run them in Q3 without leaving my Mac. Which I guess makes the WASM build in Q3Edit the second time I've ported q3map somewhere it was never meant to run.
    • mmh000011 hours ago
      You may enjoy this:

      Quake 3 Source Code Review: Network Model (Part 3 of 5)

      https://fabiensanglard.net/quake3/network.php

  • popalchemist12 hours ago
    Unbelievably cool!
  • phendrenad213 hours ago
    Very cool. Are you compiling the maps with q3map2?
    • drdatoran hour ago
      Thank you! No, it's the original q3map from the GPL source release compiled to WASM, not q3map2. Will at some point look into q3map2.
  • lizoenn8 hours ago
    [flagged]