Rendering Quake 3 maps with WebGL: Tech talk

So, I promised I would talk more about the the development side of the Quake 3 demo and I'm here to deliver. Warning! This is going to be somewhat long and technical, so steer clear if you're just here for the shiny graphics!

So first off, why Quake 3? After all, CopperLicht has already been there and done that, and I think many people won't recognize this as much of a step up from the Quake 2 demo I already did. Not to mention that along with my Doom 3 model loader this is my 3rd id-related demo in a row, which may seem a bit boring to some people.


For me it mostly comes down to what I wanted to achieve personally. Thus far each of my demos have had been the result of a specific goal on my part: My Spore demo was just to familiarize myself with WebGL. The Hellknight model was to toy around with animation and game-oriented file formats. The Quake 2 demo was a (somewhat failed) stab at large scenes that the user could navigate. I had intended next to move on to some special effects (I still want to try Megatexture-style streaming, for example), but the problems with the Quake 2 demo left me itching for some closure. So I redirected my efforts and decided that I wanted to do a project that created a "real world" game environment in WebGL. Something that looked and acted like an actual game, running at framerates that would actually be considered playable, without "dumbing it down" for the browser. Partially for the challenge, and partially to demonstrate that yes, WebGL is (or at least will be when released fully) a viable platform for game development.

Rendering Quake 3 maps with WebGL: Demo

So, after a good long delay it's finally WebGL demo time again! This one is pretty elaborate, but I feel like it was worth the effort:

WebGL Quake 3 - Q3TOURNEY2

A quick note: I've heard reports that Chrome 5 has trouble with the demo because I'm using the newer texImage2d signature. Your mileage may vary, but if you're having trouble give it a try with the Chrome dev channel.

Now, there are SOOO many things to talk about in regards to this demo: Optimizations, remaining issues, changes made to resources for web use, etc. Unfortunately I don't have the time to elaborate on them right now but I wanted to get the demo out there ASAP to get some feedback on it. Expect another post (or maybe an addendum to this one) within the next couple of days about my thoughts on Quake 3 bsp maps under WebGL.

(UPDATE: My ramblings about the demo are online now)

Have fun!

EDIT: Quick update. I've tweaked the code a little bit to reflect gero3's suggestion of combining the multiple event loops into one. It worked pretty well, and the movement in particular feels better for it (well, not the mouselook. Not much I can do there though). Not to mention the code now reflects a "traditional" game loop much more.