Retroquad 0.16.0 Released (Patreon)

This version features HD texture support on MD5 models.

Precompiled HD textures for most models in the game were provided as a separate download, and will eventually be integrated in a public release in the future. However, the AI upscaling used on these textures didn't work well enough on all of them, so I'm still going to rework these textures.

Since the MD5 model format stores its LMP textures in the same folder as its md5mesh files, the FQM and FQT textures for the MD5 models should be stored in the "progs" folder with them. Support for other folders (in case the MD5 models are stored somewhere else) still needs to be implemented.

The screenshot in this post is an animated GIF (I hope Patreon keeps it animated), showing:

• The original LMP textures
• FQM textures compiled from the LMP textures with 4x upscaling by Retroquad
• FQT textures compiled from external TGA files

As you can see, there's some texture swimming between them. I'll implement an algorithm to compensate for the sub-texel differences in the texture coordinates, similar to the one in the BSP renderer.

Fullbright color mapping was disabled on MD5 models in this version, but it will be restored when support for luma textures is implemented.

The dithering of the Quadricolor channels for the MD5 textures isn't optimal yet. I'm going to translate the dithering order from the BSP renderer to the mesh model renderer.

All of the FQM and FQT textures for MD5 models are being compiled with mipmaps, but the mesh model renderer still needs to support them. I'm going to implement mipmapping as well as anisotropic texturemapping.

Several other features of the BSP renderer should also be ported to the mesh model renderer, such as glass textures, better support for alphamasked textures, and interpolated texture frames.

Once this work on the MD5 model code is done, I'll work on supporting HD textures on MDL models.

Now, August was a month with some serious unexpected real life issues.

I was hoping to get the rest of the car issues fixed so I could work more in Retroquad, but after spending all of the money I had, I've found out that the car's engine is defective and would melt down if I walked with the car. I took the car to a good mechanic that examined everything, and the engine is the only thing that needs to be fixed before I can use the car again, but I simply can't afford to repair it this year. When I saw the estimated costs, I felt incredibly awful and it took me a couple weeks to get out of the depressive episode it caused on me.

There were also a couple job opportunities that I went after, but failed. I failed in one of them when the shower and the water tank in my house started giving a lot of problems and I couldn't prepare myself to try to get the job because I spent days repairing those things.

Now, this September I'm going to open a lawsuit to ask a judge to let me sell my late mother's house, so I can use my part of the money to get rid of most of my debt, maybe all of it. Me and my sister inherited that house, but my sister doesn't want to buy my part of it from me, and she also doesn't want to let me sell it, so the only way is to open a lawsuit and ask a judge to let me do it (it's more complex than that, but you get the idea). I have no idea how long that will take, but I've seen some similar cases take less than two years.