Quake III Arena Code Port to Unreal Engine

This project is an educational effort to port parts of Quake III Arena's code, originally written in C, into Unreal Engine. The goal is to integrate certain gameplay systems and mechanics from Quake III into Unreal, with a focus on movement and core game features.

The original source code for Quake III Arena can be found on id Software's GitHub:
https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-III-Arena

Project Overview

This project consists of a plugin that can be integrated into any Unreal Engine project. Please note that the code is not in a fully usable state yet. It is currently in the process of being ported, and additional work will be needed to make it functional and ready for production use.

Modifications to Quake III source code

At least for my initial pass, I plan to modify Quake III's source code as little as possible to get something functional working and to avoid confusion when comparing against the original source code. If this project gets far enough, I may consider refactoring certain elements of it to better align with best practices with Unreal Engine. My various edits to the source code are commented with the designation "UnrealQuake:" in various comments throughout the code base, along with minor explanations of changes that I have made.

Anyone familiar with the Quake codebase will notice that minimal changes have been made so far. Currently, I’m still using types like vec3_t instead of FVector and qbool instead of bool. This approach allows for faster progress, but in the future, a more substantial refactor may be necessary to better integrate with Unreal Engine and improve maintainability. Since C++ is largely compatible with C, major changes are not required at this stage. There's a certain elegance in C’s simplicity that I appreciate, but as the project evolves, adapting to Unreal’s conventions may be a higher priority.

Plan

The plan for porting the Quake III Arena code to Unreal Engine will evolve over time, but here is the general approach I am currently following:

1. Add Quake III Source Code: Integrate the Quake III Arena game source code directly into the plugin.
2. Resolve Compilation Issues: Address compilation errors caused by:
   • Over 25 years of time passing since the original code was written.
   • Converting the code from C to C++.
   • Compatibility issues with Unreal Engine's environment and APIs.
3. Expose Key Elements to Unreal: Once the game code is ported and compiling, I plan to expose gameplay oriented features to Unreal classes so that they can be accessed and utilized in Unreal projects.
4. Port Movement Code: As an initial step, my focus will be on porting the movement system (especially Quake-style movement) into a base pawn class in Unreal. This will serve as a foundation for future features and gameplay systems.

Future Goals

If porting the movement code is successful and I have continued interest, I may continue to explore porting additional mechanics.