[quake3-bugzilla] [Bug 4070] New: Addition of handiness (left/right/center) to Q3

[bugzilla-daemon at icculus.org]

http://bugzilla.icculus.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4070

           Summary: Addition of handiness (left/right/center) to Q3
           Product: ioquake3
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
               URL: http://console.planetquake.gamespy.com/commands/quake_
                    2.html
        OS/Version: Windows Vista
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P3
         Component: Misc
        AssignedTo: zakk at icculus.org
        ReportedBy: monk at rq3.com
         QAContact: quake3-bugzilla at icculus.org


A command from Quake 2:

hand 
Type: Toggle

Default: 0

Description: Toggle the handedness of the player.

Values:
0 - Gun on the right and shots from the right.
1 - Gun on the left and shots from the left.
2 - No gun and shots from the center.

------------------

I assume in Q3 it would be something like cg_hand.  If this is something that's
only able to be done in mod code rather than engine code, I do have a request
that's still on the same line.

Currently our mod has a bunch of _1st models that are all right-handed.  If we
wanted to make them left-handed, we would have to either translate them to move
them left (which looks very odd) or remodel and re-rig them to be left-handed,
which is a ton of work.  In Q2, the "hand" command basically (from my
understanding) used some opengl commands to mirror the models around the center
of your viewpoint so you kind of had a poor-man's left-handed model.

It is a cheap and easy way of getting left-handedness with minimal work on the
mod creator.  However, I don't believe this is possible in the mod code where
we'd normally muck around.  Maybe add some trap for that function or some way
to expose that functionality to mod creators?

The background is that at one point someone wanted to port Dirty Quake 2 (based
on Brazen) to the Quake 3 engine.  Traditionally, DQ2 used the Action Quake 2
assets but had a different codebase entirely.  So, the person wanted to use
Reaction Quake 3 assets and port over the Brazen gameplay.  Problem was, there
was no easy way to get akimbo everything or mixed akimbo everything without
modeling it all from scratch.  You can see some screenshots showing the whole
one-gun-per-hand thing they had going on:

http://xoperations.gaminggalaxy.net/dirty/images.html

Hard to see in some pics, but it was more than just the two pistols.  They had
machine guns, knives, etc.

One of our requirements for our mod has traditionally been that it should work
in a QVM so that it's cross-platform.  So if there were some way to expose this
type of functionality so that a QVM-based mod would be able to do something
with it, I think it would bring value to the engine overall.

I know there are people who will roll their eyes at the whole left/right
handedness, but I have seen a project attempted and abandoned due to lack of
this support so I think it's would have a larger impact than just making left
handed people happy.  

If a mod team is blessed with an animator/modeler who can spend the time to
generate both right and left handed models, they can safely ignore that extra
functionality in the engine or remap "cg_hand" to load their models rather than
let the engine mirror the model.  However, for one-man coding teams, I think
it'd be very handy to have some type of ioq3-standard way to expose this
functionality.

So, please consider adding this ability in one way or another!

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