🚨 BIG Quake 3 Elite Update 🙃

The complete changelog is listed below, but words can only convey part of the update. Watch the teaser video and discover what’s new in the game! 👇

🖤 Maps & Textures

→ Fixed map shaders, textures, and banners to prevent conflicts on Arkinholm, Overgrowth, Stronghold, Zen, and Superspace. 🕳️
→ Added new HQ liquid textures for lava, water, and slime.
→ Replaced QL map XCSV textures and shaders. 🖤
→ Fixed XCSV item pickup areas to match the new textures.
→ Added new skies and skyboxes, replacing and removing older low-quality versions. 🌟
→ Fixed vanilla and new 4x1 banners. ✔️
→ Changed teleporters and modified frame portals. 🤩
→ Added new CTF jump pads and fixed launch pad arrows.

🌟 Maps
→ Added Aerowalk QC, Frantic, Ragnarok, Rustgard, Achromatic (q3gwdm1), and Endurance (q3gwdm2) to the map list.
→ Added new HQ item spawn markers. 🌟

📺 Visual Effects

→ Upgraded damage draw to 🌚OSP2-BE Stacking.
→ Updated 💀Railgun and 💀Plasma Gun cores.
→ Added a new wave sprite effect when walking through liquids. 👁
→ Restored animated emojis. ✨
→ Added new ReShade presets. 🌟

📁 Config & Files
→ Chat in new 🌚OSP2-BE window
→ Moved printUI from external files into autoexec.cfg.
→ Added more tracks to Q3Radio. ⚡️
→ Cleaned XCSV textures from the main .pk3dir and moved them into a separate .pk3. 📁
→ Slightly reorganized the file structure:
baseq3/mods
baseq3/maps/CustomMaps
→ Improved and cleaned up autoexec.cfg.

😈 Engine & Stability

→ Increased XQ3E images limit to prevent crashes caused by large numbers of emojis.
→ Unlocked r_ambientScale.
→ Locked r_vertexLight.

Sources:
🌎 YouTube → Update Video
🌎 YouTube → Starset - Ricochet
⬇️ Q3Elite → Download Link

🌟 Draw Spawns Feature in 🌚OSP2-BE

A beta version of the new Draw Spawn feature has been created. It helps you learn and check respawn locations on new maps much faster. This is especially useful for FFA, Duel, and CTF.

The feature reads spawn points directly from the local .BSP file, which means:
➡️ It may differ from the server's spawn entities (.ent file), although this is uncommon in Quake 3.
➡️ It also works in team game types, including CTF.

👇 Commands
/cg_drawTPexit 1
/cg_drawSpawns 1 → Displays a ghost player model with a shadow at each spawn point.
/cg_drawSpawns 2 → Displays a plasma marker at each spawn point.

✨ Planned Improvement
I suggested that 🌚Divoc add a +showSpawns command (hold a key to temporarily display spawn points), since on many maps and game types you don't need the feature enabled all the time.

Sources:
🌎 YouTube → Clams Casino - Crystals
🌎 YouTube → reupload

😽 Shadow Items Feature in 🌚OSP2-BE

A small follow-up to yesterday's update: ghost picked-up items, similar to Defrag. 🐇

🆘 After an item is picked up, it no longer disappears from the map. Instead, it becomes transparent ("shadowed"), making it easier to learn new map layouts and item placements.

🌚 This feature reads item data directly from the local .BSP file, so it may be inaccurate on servers that use custom entity positions.
It also supports custom item layouts based on the current gametype (FFA, TDM, CTF, etc.).

🔄 The function uses a bitmask. Type:
/behelp cg_shadowItems to see all available bitmask values. They can be combined (for example, 1 + 2 = 3).
I recommend using it together with:
/cg_itemsFX 3 - looks much smoother and synchronizes nicely with the shadow items feature.

👇 Commands
/cg_shadowItems 31 → shadow effect on all picked items, except flags
/cg_itemsFX 3 → Disables 3D items' scaling animation while respawn, fits good for synchronize with the previous function

Sources:
🌎 YouTube → skeler. - ＴＥＬ ＡＶＩＶ
🌎 YouTube → reupload

😈 SuperHUD function in 🌚OSP2-BE

⭐ SuperHUD is a powerful customization system that lets you build your own HUD with complete freedom. Every element can be positioned anywhere on the screen and customized with any size, font, or color.
It supports not only images but also shaders, allowing effects such as:
➡️ Rotating countdown timers
➡️ Animated HUD backgrounds
➡️ And many other dynamic elements

The ESC menu includes several ready-to-use HUD presets that can serve as inspiration or as a starting point for your own design.

✨ Extra HUD Features
/cg_shud_style Switches between alternative HUD styles (for example, with or without the weapon list).
/cg_exec_shud 1 Enables execution of HUD-specific binds and settings, such as:
➡️ Mini statistics table
➡️ Pressed movement keys display
➡️ Lagometer
➡️ Other optional HUD features

🔄 Creating Your First SuperHUD
The easiest way to get started is by modifying one of the existing HUD presets.
Browse the included HUD files and copy or edit the elements you want.

📁 Files are located in:
Q3/OSP/zz-osp-pak8be.pk3/hud
Q3/OSP/zz-osp-pak8be.pk3/docs/superhud_info.txt (documentation)

✔️ Create your own HUD file:
Q3/OSP/zzz-your-hud-folder.pk3dir/hud/MyHud.cfg
Q3/OSP/hud/MyHud.cfg (hud name must be unique)
Load it in-game:
/ch_file MyHud
Now simply edit MyHud.cfg in your text editor and refresh it in Quake 3 with:
/reloadHUD
No restart is required.

🙄 Notes

SuperHUD uses a 640×480 virtual grid and automatically scales to any resolution or aspect ratio.
Fonts and images look best when using a 4:3 aspect ratio. For example: fontSize 9 12; This preserves the intended proportions on the virtual HUD grid.

Sources:
🌎 YouTube → The Darkness (Mainfield Remix)
🌎 YouTube → reupload

🙃 New Quake Game?

On March 3, ZeniMax Media renewed the Quake trademark. Today, July 6, reports emerged that Bethesda will be focusing on its five core franchises — with Quake among them.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Microsoft's restructuring of Xbox will see Bethesda focusing on a handful of franchises going forward: Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. These five franchises are expected to be a priority, with at least three of them already having games in development.

Sources:
🌎 IGN → Bethesda focusing on Quake
🌎 godisageek → The Quake trademark renewal
🌟 Image

🐇 New DeFrag Launcher

Neyo has introduced the new DeFrag Racing Launcher, featuring powerful demo playback and a range of quality-of-life improvements. 🙄

➡️ Instant demo playback - click any demo and watch it right inside the launcher with your own config, YouTube-like timeline: scrub, pause, slow-mo, frame-by-frame stepping.
➡️ Compare up to 4 demos side by side - perfectly synced engines, great for studying routes.
➡️ Automatic demo backup - optional feature - every demo is automatically uploaded to defrag.racing. Never lose any demo ever again!
➡️ Render demos to YouTube straight from the demo list
➡️ Maps tab - full online live map list, instant offline play VQ3 & CPM, automatic map downloads, offline map scanning
➡️ Servers tab - live server browser, connect from the app or the website, server & map history
➡️ Records tab - live VQ3 & CPM leaderboards
➡️ Notifications synced with the website

It would be amazing to see this kind of demo playback implemented directly in the Quake 3 engine. 🫠

sources:
🌎 Defrag.Racing → Download
🌎 Discord → DeFrag Channel
🌎 YouTube → Video Guide

💀 Secret Rocket Mode on Freeze!

🎮 Q3MSK Freeze server has a hidden Rocket Mode, and it's an absolute blast.

📴 To enable it, simply type:
/callvote map Longestyard
"Polish Space Program" 😁

You can also callvote 💀Instagib or ☣️Promode physics—both are fully compatible with Rocket Mode.
I also suggested adding two more CTF Rocket maps. Since CTF maps have symmetrical team spawns, they could make for some really interesting matches. 🙄

sources:
🌎 YouTube → Da Vosk Docta - Gentrify
🌎 YouTube → Reupload

🙃 Quake 3 Champions (Bloodrun) Update

🙄 Bloodrun is a mod that ports the gameplay of Quake Champions into Quake III Arena. It features most of the well-known champions and maps, including their active abilities and passive skills. The mod also introduces several original ideas that are not present in the original game.

🙄 Recently, the developers released a major update featuring:
→ 3 new champions,
→ balance changes,
→ map optimizations.

🤮 The Biggest Weakness
The biggest downside of Bloodrun is its online and multiplayer. 🪦
➡️ There are only three active multiplayer servers, all hosted in a single location (Moscow).
➡️ All of them are Duel-only servers, focusing on a single game mode—which, in my personal opinion, is the least enjoyable one.

✨ The Strongest Points
The maps are one of Bloodrun's biggest strengths. They are exceptionally well made, featuring:
→ high-quality visuals,
→ impressive attention to detail,
→ numerous easter eggs,
→ regular updates based on players' feedback.

👎 The mapper Obsessed uses a different lightmap compilation technique that most classic Quake 3 engines cannot handle. Currently, only DirectX 12-based engines fully support this lighting system. Because of this limitation, these maps are still unavailable on standard Quake 3 multiplayer servers, as they are incompatible with many players' configurations.

🙃 Quake III Arena has survived for more than two decades thanks to its open-source nature and thriving modding community. Deliberately dropping support for standard Quake 3 engines is a 🟥red card for the author. It creates unnecessary gatekeeping and limits access to maps.

🔞 User Interface
On the other hand, the GUI feels surprisingly unfinished.
For example:
➡️ the mod still uses the default low-resolution font from pak0.pk3 (console and frag messages),
➡️ the in-game menus remain almost completely unchanged - many configuration options still require manual console commands.
It's surprising that such a professionally developed mod lacks these basic quality-of-life improvements.

🤩 Suggestion

I also suggested creating a simple launcher. It could:
→ simplify installation,
→ verify the installed version,
→ notify players about updates,
→ display server status and player counts,
→ show player statistics,
→ browse screenshots from the game directory.
A launcher like this would significantly improve the overall user experience.

sources:
🌟 Bloodrun

😁 Meme of the Day

💀 Every self-respecting shaft enthusiast aimer plays only like this.

#Q3MSKMeme

sources:
🌟 Q3MSK

🌎 Better Quake 3 Localization?

🌚Divoc was inspired by an idea posted on the quake3e Discord and started working on a feature that allows 🙃Quake 3 to load .ttf (TrueType) font files.

🕳️ From a technical standpoint, the engine converts a TTF font into just three texture atlases at different sizes (each containing 255 glyphs at fixed positions), which Quake can then load dynamically.
Compared to the original bitmap fonts, FreeType-generated fonts look much cleaner and scale much better.

ℹ️ Another major advantage is that TTF fonts can contain far more characters, making proper localization possible. This could allow support for languages such as:
→ Polish
→ German
→ Cyrillic alphabets (Mongolian) 😁
→ Possibly Simplified Chinese
→ Maybe even Arabic. 🪦

⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️
✝️ Technical details (skip if you're not interested in programmer babbling)
Unfortunately, TTF fonts are loaded by the engine, not by the mod itself, so this feature probably won't be available in 🌚OSP2-BE unless Cyrax (the author of Quake3e) agrees to add the necessary engine support. The current alpha build only supports TTF fonts in the UI and cgame, while the console still uses the old bitmap font. 🌚Divoc asked Cyrax about adding TTF support, but there hasn't been a definitive answer yet.

🙄 How it was implemented

Inspired by your implementation, I added TTF-to-bitmap font generation to the engine for use in cgame. It turned out decent, though there is still room for improvement. I'd love to render all characters directly from the engine's renderer, but it would require too much refactoring in cgame. — 🌚Divoc

🤪 Compatibility concerns
The main downside is that players using older clients—or clients without the required font file—won't be able to see the new characters correctly.

💬 I've seen servers that use a console translator to automatically translate players' chat messages into English. A similar approach could potentially help with localization and serve as a fallback for users with outdated clients.

🌟 Useful command
/in_forceCharset 2 → Forces Quake to use the US keyboard layout, so you don't have to switch layouts every time you launch the game.

Sources:
🌎 Discord → original discussion
🌎 Streamable → video from the original author
🌎 YouTube → VØJ, Narvent - Memory Reboot
🌎 YouTube → reupload