Adding EliteForce compatibility

[Thilo Schulz]

Hello,

I am a great fan of the EliteForce game using the quake3 engine. The game is 
pretty old (the binaries are from something like 2001 - but there are active 
players still!) and the program is split into two .exe binaries, one for 
multiplayer, one for single player. Unfortunately, support for it of course 
ceased, and there never was a Linux client version.
I have started trying to alter the q3 source code, so that the eliteforce vms 
can be loaded (the source code for them is available) - I successfully 
compiled them using gcc to .so files on my Linux system already and can do 
full debugging on them. The User Interface mostly works (with a few glitches 
still), see http://thilo.kickchat.com/ef-quake3.png. I was able to load a map 
after doing a few dirty hacks for a quick Proof of Concept.

I think, Raven has not performed big changes in the engine and I'd like to try 
adapting the codebase. My question now is: would you be willing to accept my 
patches for these modifications, if I make the changes completely seperable 
by using #ifdefs and stuff like that? I really like the idea of the icculus 
codebase - and would also like to see IPv6 support in future versions of EF.

What needs to be done?
 - I must add non-existing functions to the API that the eliteforce vms expect
 - I must add mp3 support, as many sounds are only available in mp3 format.
 - I must add a few EF specific shader options - nothing big I think, though.
 - I must add support for raven's way of handling models. This will probably
   be the toughest task for me, and the point most likely for me to fail. I
   haven't had a good look at their model formats yet.

Why adapt the quake3 source, and not the vm code of EF itself?
Well, there are two reasons:
Much stuff, like mp3 format, shaders, player models are not quite what quake3 
expects. Either support for that has to be added, or all the EF specific 
stuff must be converted, which would probably be much more work.
Secondly, if I want to retain compatibility to existing servers and unchanged 
windows clients, I guess I'll have to make sure that all the original data is 
being used for the game.

-- 
Thilo Schulz
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