May be its a dumb question, but I and our coder still need answer. (Also im not sure about place for this topic, i hope my choice of forum section is correct).
On one stage of InstaGib mod development we maked new footstep sounds for different surface types. Currently in Trem we have only surfaceparm metalsteps flag for 'metal' sound. We decide expand ingame atmosphere with new surface types and added rock,grass,snow,mud,etc surfaces in game code. We like result, maps seems more natural this way (try last ver. of baeza port or last ver. of icetrap on our instagib server if you wanna look for live example). Now we thinking about release this code (and .pk3 with necessary sound files) as patch to lakitu server.
So thats question: Are mapmakers too lazy for add few more lines in they shader files and -custinfoparams flag to compile string or not? Because if no one interested in improving his maps this way, then we wont release such patch and gonna leave it for our own servers and maps maked for our servers.
P.S. Ye, this feature gonna work only on servers with patch, all other just gonna ignore it and use your map standart way.
P.P.S. My english poor and ugly, so thats simple example of extending your map with different surfacetypes:
zero step. Copy .pk3 file with extended surfaceparm flags into ur tremulous /base/ directory. You need to do it only once. (.pk3 size 504bytes)
1. Insert in your .shader files surfaceparm lines where you need it
// example snow shader:
textures/ig_icetrap_b2/snow-phong
{
q3map_shadeangle 155
// next line means that surface with this shader emitting 'snow' type footsteps and small snowflake clouds when you land on this surface
surfaceparm surf_snow
qer_editorimage textures/ig_icetrap_b2/snow.tga
{
map $lightmap
rgbGen identity
}
{
map textures/ig_icetrap_b2/snow.tga
blendFunc filter
}
}
2. compile your map with -custinfoparms flag during 1st -BSP phase.