Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with modding

Which quake engine (or other) is best to start cutting my teeth on as far as modding?

blackout — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:55:11 -0800

Which quake engine (or other) is best to start cutting my teeth on as far as modding? I'm looking to do a bit of modding of a game engine. Nothing too extreme just something to get started and learn some things as I go.
First off I'm just thinking modding how the weapons work.
With an end goal of making weapons work more true to real life. I know for example most weapons in the quake II engine are hit scan, and have no travel time (other than the rocket) [I think].

Anyway I'm looking for an engine that would be the best to start with. I've never modded a game before (done some mapping) I can program at a very amateur level, but I work with what I know, and figure out what I can't.

So what engine is gonna be the easiest for me to use, and get started modding. Something with a few tutorials as far as how to compile and run the mod would be good too.

Also what's the best FREE IDE to use, for game modding?

What's the easiest way to use my Mac to mod an xbox and install XBMC?

ranglin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:17:54 -0800

What's the easiest way to use my Mac to mod an xbox and install XBMC? I don't have access to any of the old games, and don't really want to have to buy a USB to memory card convertor for this. Suggestions? Just to clarify, I've been reading about all this for days, but the information seems a little all over the place. Things I've discovered:

1. I probably want to hotswap to mod it. I don't have access to the old games needed and I don't want to buy a USB to memory card converter anyway.

2. XBOXHDM is suggested as a good way to mod w/ a hotswap. It's basically a Linux LiveCD which is fine, but most tutes then tell you to download ndure and run the installer (windows-based) to install it into the ISO image before you burn it. This is obviously tricky for me. I have an old desktop PC, but it's not running XP and I'm not keen to install the whole OS just to run one installer!

3. Every tute I see wants you to change the dash, but from my reading I don't see WHY you'd do this. Can't you just install XBMC as an application running from the MS Dash somehow? If this is the case, do I even need to mod, or can I just get access to the HD via a hotswap and copy XBMC across somewhere.

Please help me AskMe. As you can see I am lost in a sea of forum posts, howto's and FAQ's, but nothing seems to give me an easy blow-by-blow guide to using my Mac to do this!

Thanks!

Help with cable mod

pilibeen — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:38:24 -0800

How can I modify the 360 Xbox component/analog cable so I can use the HDMI for video and the analog audio cables for the audio...at the same time? OR Which wire(s) should I cut? - pics included I have my 360 connected to my LCD monitor via a HDMI to DVI cable. This works for the video. I'm trying to use my RCA audio on the analog cables to output the audio to my computer speakers at the same time.

The problem is, when I have the component/analog cables hooked up to my 360 at the same time as my hdmi cable, the component stuff seems to override and I only get audio - no video signal (it also reboots my box when I start w/ the hdmi plugged in, and then hook up the component cables once it's started).

So after a lot of googling, I can't find anything which tells me how to fix it without buying another cable - which I don't wanna do.

I've taken apart the component/analog xbox cable, and am wondering which (if any) wires I can cut to only output the audio and solve the problem.

Using this picture, can anybody tell me which wires I would need to cut to work around this problem?

Also, if I do need to cut some wires, should I just tape them up to prevent any sort've fire?

thanks

Xbox 360 modding.

PenguinBukkake — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:11:57 -0800

Xbox360, modded. The info out there is confusing, I hope somebody here has a good online resource or good solid info, because I wonder, will modding make my console more fragile (the ring of death will come sooner? I'm told modding does not void the warranty, I wouldn't do it otherwise; also, my console's made before Jan 07). Is modding a bad idea for some other reason I don't get now? Thank you.

pimp my Razr!

lonefrontranger — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:28:10 -0800

RazrFilter: My Verizon service just provided me with a free upgrade to a Razr V3. Now what? naturally there's lots I really, really need to retire my poor beatup, falling apart, battery-barely-holding-charge-anymore Motorola V65. Fortunately I have Verizon's upgrade service and the Razr V3 recently hit my 'upgrade options' page.

I opted for this model not necessarily because it's 'hip' and popular but more because I like the Motorola interface, it reminds me a lot of my late, lamented StarTAC, it's a fully metal assembly and I'd prefer something that at least looks like it might survive an unplanned 20+ mph ejection off a moving bike. I'm an unrepentant cell phone abuser, so it didn't take much more than a couple weeks for my V65 to look like it'd been run thru a shredder.

So, I did a search for stuff to do with my new V3. Unfortunately it looks like the sites referenced in the last 2 AskMes related to this topic are Windows based, so if you can tell me some amazing stuff I can do with / to this phone as a Mac user, that's a big bonus.

I do have bootcamp installed on my macbook, so if I (deep sigh) HAVE TO, I'll mod it thru the XP partition, but I'd really love to find good modding sites / toys available to OSX users.

I'm also curious about what headsets people like to use with this model - I'm not entirely sold on a bluetooth headset (zomg! expensive! battery suckage!), and I know the V3 doesn't come with a 2.5mm jack, so what are my options?

oh and before you even start? I've had Motorolas forever and the highly common "address book grouping" complaint is so not understandable to me! do people NOT get how to use the 'MORE' option when entering contacts in the address book?

Motherboard Slot Extention?

Kensational — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:13:29 -0800

Modder question: I am looking to build a very thin case-mod and wonder/cant find if a MB (PCI/Graphics/RAM) slot extention cable exists? In my thin case-mod I do not have enough room (height) to have video and sound cards sticking up out of the motherboard. Is there such a thing as a PCI or Graphic Slot or RAM slot extention; that is, a male insert for the slot connected to a ribbon with a female end for the component?

Where can I find a summer intern to do some 3d game engine hacking?

chos — Tue, 09 May 2006 11:06:47 -0800

Where can I find a summer intern to do some 3d game engine hacking? This question is a followup to my post here asking about a 3d game engine project. The company I work for is now actively searching for a summer intern to help out on this effort. Considering that this job involves getting paid to play with game engines and similar stuff, I imagined that it would be easy to find undergrads or other hacker types who would be interested in such a position. So far, we haven't had much luck.

I'm looking for online forums and other sites where I might be able to find people like this. Hopefully this doesn't violate the AskMe guidelines - I got a very good response to my previous question so I hoped there might be people on here with some ideas about where to look.

Can I use a 3D FPS game engine to render and control virtual scenes in real-time?

chos — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 09:30:40 -0800

Can I use a 3D FPS game engine (i.e. Half-Life 2 or the like) to render and control virtual scenes in real-time? Game modders, is what I want to do possible? I'll preface this question by saying that I'm not a gamer and have little experience with FPS (first person shooter) games, let alone modding them. There seems to be a large community of people who do this, and quite a few tools, both official and third-party, that let you modify things like game appearance, character behavior, in-game physics, etc. I'm also somewhat familiar with machinima and have seen a few videos produced using game engines (Red vs. Blue, WOW videos, etc.) I have a project that overlaps with this somewhat but I don't know if what I want to do is possible.

First, I'd like to create a custom map, very simple, with known geometry. This seems doable from what I've read. Then, I'd like to control what computer-controlled characters are in the scene, and how and when they move. This also seems doable.

I'd like to be able to set up a camera at some known point with some known orientation, and just watch the scene and the characters as they move (I don't care about actually "playing" the game). I'd like to be able to control the camera in some manner I want (for example, panning or zooming) and capture the video that this camera would see. I assume that this all is doable, judging from machinima videos I've seen.

The big question I have is - can I do this LIVE? Is it possible to programatically interact with the "game" as all of this is going on? In other words, could I have the game running, and in real-time control the camera position and orientation, as if I were directing? Could I do this programatically, either through some hooks in the developer SDK or by writing custom code? And finally, could I also get access to the final video output in real-time as well? Think of what I want to do as a virtual camera, where controlling it in real-time would produce real-time changes in the output video.