Talk:QC Commands

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This article seems to be missing some of the basic commands I see in decompiled model's QC files. I'm guessing that it only actually details commands and changes that are new in Source as compared the HL1 engine.

I found the basic QC commands detailed on Wavelength. I suspect that list not complete though. Does anyone have a FULL list of commands?

Just a few grammatical corrections --tantoedge 12:03, 13 Jul 2005 (PDT)


Question/discussion about $replacematerial: "This can be used to cause lower LODs to use a smaller version of the texture, for instance."

Isn't this totally wrong in most cases? If you have two of the models on the screen at the same time, one at a LOD level where the larger texture is used and one where the smaller texture is used - then you'd have to have both versions of the texture loaded, thus inverting the intended effect (less load on the graphic card).

Furthermore I think that even if this was not the case, caching different versions of one texture does still stress the system.

Am I correct? Should I re-write the section? In my opinion, $replacematerial is used to load a .vmt which contains less expensive shaders (e.g. eye shader or normal maps). --Vaarscha 23:05, 15 Mar 2006 (PST)

I don't even think Valve used this... but it may be useful if it removes the translucency of a texture... —ts2do 23:10, 15 Mar 2006 (PST)

Look in \src\utils\studiomdl\optimize.cpp and studiomdl.cpp for the LOD functions. --wisemx 05:34, 16 Mar 2006 (PST)
A late comment, but a comment nonetheless. Mipmaps aren't meant to lower memory usage - in fact, they increase it - but they're easier to use for the rendering algorithms. They're intended to be CPU savers, not memory savers. Besides, I think continually flushing and loading different textures takes more time than it's worth in memory usage in such a stressfull situation as a game. --Captain P 11:29, 2 Aug 2006 (PST)

$definemacro is listed twice... I never used it, can anyone who is familiar with it merge the two section? --Vaarscha 22:45, 26 Apr 2006 (PDT)

Commands left to document

I think every command should have its own page with documented excample of how that command is used, alot of people seams to find this list to undescriptive. --Wolf 07:31, 13 Oct 2007 (PDT)

Note.pngNote:List of undocumented QC commands moved to category_talk:QC Commands. Hopefully (when it's complete) the category:QC Commands can replace the QC Commands article altogether. --Beeswax 08:53, 30 Mar 2008 (PDT)

Merge with Category:QC Commands

I hope the reason for this susggestion is fairly obvious. I propose that this URL be used to #REDIRECT to category:QC Commands.

  • This page is already too big, making it difficult to edit, link to, or comment on , etc with precision.
  • I've transferred all the information from this article into a collection smaller articles, for the most part, each title being one QC command, eg $sequence. So in that respect this article is now redundant. Some QC commands not mentioned here have also been 'categorised'. There is a list of undocumented or rumoured-to-be QC commands at category_talk:QC Commands#Checklist.
  • The new structure allows this information to expand - ie we can now comment on, link to and edit $sequence much more easily.
  • Some of the commands with a lot of optional parameters are quite hefty pages in their own right. I've made no attempt to edit these signifcantly, so I would appreciate any thoughts or comments on how best to structure them. Please See also category_talk:QC Commands#QC Command Articles.

--Beeswax 07:49, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)

This is an excellent qc command cheat sheet as it were. i'd hate to loose it and be forced to go through each qc command manually. I think it should stay but the details parapharsed with the links to the proper articles. and the proper articles need better groupings like animation or colllision model commands --Angry Beaver 14:35, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)

Hmm Yeah see what you mean. For a cheatsheet, you just need the command and a single sentence description - as brief as possible, a reminder. Then for more info, follow the link? It's true that if you break up wiki info you tend to bury it. --Beeswax 16:06, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)
Part of the problem is maintaining the same information in 2 places. If we had an uptodate version of Mediawiki, this could be done more efficiently with templates. As it stands, you could create a template for each command+sentence, but that's a lot of extra work ... --Beeswax 16:06, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)
Another problem is the current cheat sheet would seem to cover about half the QC commands (see category_talk:QC Commands#Checklist). Granted this is probably the most useful 50%. --Beeswax 16:06, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)
Did you see my suggestions for QC overview articles under category_talk:QC Commands# Sub-Categories? Would a cheatsheet for "Animations, Sequences & AI Activities" be useful?, and a separate one for "Bones, Physboxes & Hitboxes", and another for "Surface Properties", etc? It seems to me that conceptually those 'categories' might hand together, but in practice I'm not 100% ;-) It might be better to call them "cheatsheets" rather than "overviews" :-) --Beeswax 16:06, 8 Apr 2008 (PDT)