Q3ASE ActiveX Demo and FAQ page VERSION 2.1

If you have Q3ASE 1.5 or better, using Internet Explorer with ActiveX and VBScript enabled, you should see the textures/sfx/console03 shader on the left.

It is being pulled off the net from a mini-pk3 containing just the textures and the .shader file needed for showing this effect. Thus it also works if you don't have Quake3. The goal is to allow you to replace graphics on your site with Q3-like shaders using full 3D hardware acceleration.

Images and shader courtesy of id software.

FAQ

What is this ?
The code used to render the preview in Q3ASE is wrapped in an ActiveX component, so that anybody who has Q3ASE on his PC and has ran it at least once, can see the preview in any ActiveX container such as IE. Q3ASE is a shader editor for Q3A shaders, you can find it here.
What's a shader anyway ?
A shader is a construct invented by id software for Quake 3, replacing simple textures (images) with moving, glowing, shifting special effects. A whole map- and model-making community has grown around Q3A so you can find plenty of help about shaders at Q3A sites like Quake3World or Map-Center.
How do I use this ?
To use shaders on your page, you need two things :
1. Create a .pk3 file (this is an ordinary .zip file) containing the textures and shaders you will need to display. Upload these to your webserver
2. Change your HTML to create a Q3ASE ActiveX object and add the Visual Basic Script statements to tell the control to go fetch your pk3, open a .shader file from it, grab one specific shader from that file, and put it on a piece of 2D geometry.
What's the VBScript interface ?
The following functions are available :
- PrepareSetup (no parameters) - call this before making any other setup calls
- AddZip "server address" - fetch a zip/pak file from server and use it as a resource. You can add as many paks as you want. Caching is subject to IE's caching. Example : Shader1.AddZip "http://www.bpeers.com/software/q3ase/q3asex-demopak.pk3". Returns zero in case of failure.
  - Note: you can also use a file:// syntax for offline pages (such as when making ActiveX desktop content)
- OpenShaderFile "filename" - search all added pak files for a shader file with this name, and open it. Returns the amount of parse errors, so zero is actually a success code here. Example : Shader1.OpenShaderFile "scripts/sfx.shader"
- GetShader "shadername" - search all open shader files for a shader with this name and make it the shader to be used for rendering. Returns zero if the shader is not found. Example : Shader1.GetShader "textures/sfx/console03"
- CreateRect width, height, s-repeat, t-repeat, tesselation-distance - create a 2D rectangle whose mesh will be used to render. 'width' and 'height' would typically match the Width and Height attributes you with the <OBJECT> tag. Example : Shader1.CreateRect 256, 256, 1, 1, 256
- FinishSetup - Finish up all of the above setup
You also have the following properties -- set them between calls to PrepareSetup and FinishSetup :
- Background - color used to clear the background. Format is 00RRGGBB. Example : Shader1.Background = &H00FF0000 : set to bright blue
- TimeDelta - a timeoffset used when showing the shader. Example : Shader1.TimeDelta = -1 : lag this shader one second. May be set outside Prepare/FinishSetup
For a simple demo, view the source of this very page.
Does this actually work ?
Okay, so it's a hack. It should work, if it doesn't, check the following
- Are you using Internet Explorer ? Mozilla supports ActiveX plugins but you can't script them
- Is the pakfile at the right location ? Verify that you can access it by just typing the URL in your browser
- Is the shaderfile in your pak ? Is the path right ? Take care of things like a "scripts/" prefix
- Is the shader in your shaderfile ? Again, watch out for "textures/" versus "textures/sfx" etc
- Does the shader work ? You can use Q3ASE itself to build or verify your shaders
- Is ActiveX enabled ? Check your security settings to make sure the control is allowed to run
- Is Q3ASE installed ? Did you run it ? Without the program or its registry entries, the control will not be found
Is this the same as Q3ASE ?
No -- it's a wrapper around the rendering engine of Q3ASE. You can't edit the shaders, there is no treeview, no saving, XML import/export, etc. Also, only a very limited set of the rendering part of Q3ASE is exported. Specifically, you can't load MD3s or BSPs from the pak. This may change depending on future interest.
Isn't this bandwidth intensive ?
Not really. The pakfile is an ordinary zip file, which generates minimal overhead and compresses the .shader files (which are just text files) very well. The images themselves are usually jpgs, so in all you are not transferring much more data (or maybe even slightly less) than if you would not use shaders and just show the lowest-layer jpg as a still image using <IMG> instead.

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