VIRTUALITY NIGHTMARE

Quake 3 levels by Devil Master

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Description These Quake 3 level are inspired by the relatively obscure Virtuality arcade game Dactyl Nightmare, released in 1991, which can be considered the first deathmatch game ever made, and its remake Dactyl Nightmare SP, released in 1994. Everything you see in these level (except for the Quake 3-specific stuff) has been based on Virtuality's Dactyl Nightmare presentation videos linked above.

How to play

The name of the levels are dm_vn_c (for the level based on Dactyl Nightmare) and dm_vn (for the level based on Dactyl Nightmare SP)
place dm_vn.pk3 in your /baseq3/ folder
start quake3
hit ~ (on Italian keyboards it is the backslash \ )
type \map
type \addbot
hit ~ again (to clear the console)

OR select dm_vn_c or dm_vn from the skirmish menu

Purpose The original Dactyl Nightmare runs on an Amiga 3000, but requires two custom video cards connected in parallel to generate the stereoscopic visuals. The remake Dactyl Nightmare SP, while running on a normal PC, equally requires a custom card that has never been emulated. So, when the last SU1000 and SU2000 machines stop working, all that will remain is a useless executable that will never run on any computer again. In order to ensure that the collective memory of the games is not lost and people can see and experience what those games might have been like, I made these levels.

Differences from the original games The only references I had to make this level was the presentation videos linked above: I never played the original games, nor did I use any asset made by Virtuality. This caused a number of differences:

The characters, weapons and gameplay are (obviously) true to Quake 3 and not to the original game.
The architecture and textures are more detailed than what the presentation videos showed, because they have been made from scratch.
The videos did not explain the purpose of those white, thin "cube+sphere" structures at the corners of the game area, so I made them railgun sniping points and added jump pads to allow players to return to the main game area.
The lighting is better (the original game had no lights at all, everything was always at full brightness).
The original Dactyl Nightmare game also featured a "dactyl" (a flying prehistoric reptile) which could grab players, lift them and drop them to their death. The dactyl is not present in this map.
I assumed that the dactyl was there to keep deathmatches short enough (in hopes that people would pop more coins into the machine) and to let them enjoy a brief view of the game area from above. That's why I did not implement the dactyl here: an entity that kills players at random would be a nuisance in a Q3A level, while a view of the game area from above can be obtained by just spectating and flying around.

Why Quake 3 Quake 3 is a very light program: it even runs fine on a Pentium 200 MMX with a Voodoo 2 card. Moreover, on August 19, 2005, it became open source and since then it has been ported to many different platforms: Linux, MorphOS, PPC and Intel-based Macs, iPhone and iPod Touch, and even Nokia and Samsung cell phones. This means that this level can virtually reach a universal audience.
On the contrary, if the SU2000 system was emulated by MAME (because it was a coin-op) or MESS (because it was based on a PC), the architecture of those emulators would slow down the original game so much it would be unplayable even on the fastest PC on Earth, which would defeat the purpose of "delivering an accurate experience" of those emulators.

Virtual reality This level can obviously be run by any machine that can run Quake 3 (after all, it's a normal Quake 3 user level), but, in order to preserve the spirit of the original virtual reality games, I suggest to play it in stereoscopic 3D by using either shutterglasses, a polarized light monitor, a head-mounted display (more models here and here) or the nVidia 3D Vision suite. This can be done in several ways.

If you have Windows 98 or ME and an nVidia card, you can install the official Windows 98 stereo 3D drivers. Make sure your regular video drivers and stereo 3D drivers match versions.
If you have Windows 2000 or XP, and an nVidia card series 7xxx or older, you can install the official Windows XP stereo 3D drivers. Make sure your regular video drivers and stereo 3D drivers match versions.
If you have Linux... follow this tutorial (mirror here) to make stereoscopic 3D work.

The other existing technologies for stereoscopic 3D only support Direct3D, but Quake 3 is based on OpenGL. For this reason, if you have one of the configurations described below, you will need to install the GLDirect wrapper into the Quake 3 directory to translate OpenGL calls to Direct3D and make stereoscopic 3D work.

If you have Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10, your video card is either an nVidia card series 8xxx or newer, and you have a Zalman monitor, you can install the Zalman stereo 3D drivers.
If you have Windows Vista 7, 8 or 10, your video card is either an nVidia card series 8xxx or newer, and you have the nVidia 3D Vision suite, you're all set.
If you have Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 (the video card does not matter), you can install the iz3D drivers and choose the license that fits best the stereoscopic 3D devices you have.
If you have Windows 7, 8 or 10 (the video card does not matter), you can install the TriDef drivers and choose the license that fits best the stereoscopic 3D devices you have.
If you have Windows 7, 8 or 10 (the video card does not matter), you can install the ReShade post-processing software, the SuperDepth3D.fx stereoscopic shader and choose the stereo mode that fits best the stereoscopic 3D devices you have.

You can get the closest approximation to the original experience by using the nVidia, iz3D or TriDef drivers in dual output mode, set the game resolution to 640x480 and view the game scene through a Visette Pro head-mounted display from Cybermind. That is the original HMD used in the Virtuality arcade machines, with a FOV of 60 degrees.

Disclaimer Devil Master is not affiliated with W Industries, Virtuality, Cybermind or Arcadian VR (though he would REALLY like to be an employee of Cybermind or Arcadian VR ;-) ). NO PROFIT is being made with this level. NO ASSET from any commercial product is being distributed with this level.

This level may be electronically distributed only at NO CHARGE to the recipient in its current state, MUST include the README file that is included in the dm_vn.zip archive, and may NOT be modified IN ANY WAY. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THIS LEVEL TO BE DISTRIBUTED ON CD-ROM OR DVD WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Most important, it is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to make people pay to play these levels.