Quake III Arena mod that makes gibs' physics more realistic and satisfying.
gib-directional-3.mp4
better-gibs-comparison.mp4
Namely, with this mod gibs' speed and direction depends on the direction and the amount of damage you inflicted on the poor opponent.
This mod also fixes a few gibs-related bugs,
e.g. the fact that in the original game the shotgun gibs very rarely
(namely it only gibs when you aim at the enemy's feet).
See the individual .patch files.
And yes, if you simply want MOAR GIBS,
we got you covered: \set cg_gibs 10; set cg_gibsExtraRandomVelocity 1000 (or however much you need instead of 10):
The installation steps for this mod are the same as for almost every other mod.
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Download the mod file
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For vanilla (original) Quake III Arena:
pak999-vanillaq3-baseq3-better-gibs-mod.pk3This file is also compatible with ioquake3 and engines based on it, so download this one if in doubt.
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For ioquake3 and other ioquake3-based games:
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For vanilla (original) Quake III: Team Arena:
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For ioquake3 Quake III: Team Arena:
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There is also a version of the "baseq3a" mod with the "better gibs" mod on top:
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Put the file alongside the
pak0.pk3file of your game, usually
C:\Programs (x86)\ioquake3\baseq3or
C:\Programs (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Quake 3 Arena\baseq3. For Team Arena the final folder ismissionpackinstead ofbaseq3.The directory structure will look like this:
Quake 3 Arena ├── baseq3 │ ├── pak0.pk3 │ ├── pak1.pk3 │ ├── pak2.pk3 │ ├── pak3.pk3 │ ├── pak4.pk3 │ ├── pak5.pk3 │ ├── pak6.pk3 │ ├── pak7.pk3 │ ├── pak8.pk3 │ └── pak999-baseq3-better-gibs-mod.pk3 ├── missionpack │ ├── pak0.pk3 │ └── pak999-missionpack-better-gibs-mod.pk3 └── quake3.exeAgain, if you don't have
missionpack, you don't need to create it. -
Start the game!
This mod is not compatible with mods
that modify the client-side logic of the game, i.e. vm/cgame.qvm.
Some (but not all) features of this mod
don't require it to be installed on the server,
so you can enjoy it on basically any server
(except the ones with sv_pure 1).
cg_oldGibsandg_oldGibs: set to 0 to disable most (but not all!) of this mod's featurescg_gibsis now non-binary, (acting the same ascg_gibfactorin the GibHappy mod!): set to 1.3 to launch 3 more pieces of gibs, or to 0.5 to half the amount of gibscg_gibsInheritPlayerVelocitycg_gibsKnockbackcg_gibsExtraKnockbackcg_gibsPiecesFromKnockbackcg_gibsLinearVelocityFromKnockbackcg_gibsRandomVelocityFromKnockbackcg_gibsVerticalVelocityFromKnockbackcg_gibsExtraRandomVelocitycg_gibsExtraVerticalVelocitycg_gibsPlayerSpeedFromKnockbackcg_gibsPlayerSpeedFromKnockbackMaxFractioncg_gibsDurationcg_gibsOriginalOrigincg_gibsNoLerpDelaycg_gibsStopPlayerSoundscg_gibsBounceFactorcg_gibsBounceFactorRandomnesscg_gibsRotationFactorcg_gibsBloodTrailPeriodcg_gibsFireTrailPeriodcg_gibsFireTrailDurationcg_gibsFireTrailMinKnockbackcg_gibsBetterCameraOnGibcg_marksOld CVAR, but it now controls the duration of blood and other marks, in milliseconds.cg_bounceMarksMinImpactSpeedcg_bounceSoundMinImpactSpeedg_gibsMissileDirectionKnockbackWeightAs you can tell by theg_prefix, this variable techically changes gameplay. However, this only affects the direction in which the player's camera will fly when they get gibbed.g_gibsNewEvGibPlayerProtocol: this mod technically modifies the network protocol, namely now the server creates a temp entity for EV_GIB_PLAYER instead of triggering the event by changing theeventfield on the target. This is compatible with vanilla clients. However, if some other mod does rely on vanilla server behavior, you can set this CVAR to 0 to revert this change.g_gibsDeadBodyLinearVelocityFromKnockbackg_gibsOnCollisionMinSpeedg_gibsOnCollisionBaseDamageg_gibsOnCollisionAffectLivePlayersFor fooling around (off by default).g_gibsOnCollisionInheritPlayerVelocityg_intermissionDelayg_intermissionDelaySinglePlayerOnly in Team Arena.- (maybe I've missed some: search the code for
+vmCvar_t)
Another way to (almost) restore the old behavior:
// cg_oldGibs 0
// g_oldGibs 0
set cg_gibs 1.0
set cg_gibsInheritPlayerVelocity 0
set cg_gibsExtraRandomVelocity 250
set cg_gibsRandomVelocityFromKnockback 0
set cg_gibsExtraVerticalVelocity 250
set cg_gibsBounceFactor 0.6
set cg_gibsRotationFactor 0
set cg_gibsBetterCameraOnGib 0
set g_gibsMissileDirectionKnockbackWeight 1
set g_gibsNewEvGibPlayerProtocol 0
// Can't "restore" these
// cg_bounceMarksMinImpactSpeed
// cg_bounceSoundMinImpactSpeedAdd the following to the baseq3/autoexec.cfg file,
then enter a game and press F8.
exec better-gibs-cfgs/autoexec.cfg
bind F8 "vstr gibsFunCmd"Nothing too special.
The most important feature that mod introduces
is that gibs inherit player velocity (cg_gibsInheritPlayerVelocity).
And player velocity data is already available client-side.
Players velocity gets changed as the player receives damage.
More damage = more velocity.
That's it.
As was said, this mod modifies vm/cgame.qvm and vm/qagame.qvm,
and thus it cannot run alongside other mods that modify those files.
Thus, if you want to run this mod together with another mod
that modifies those files,
you must merge the source code of that mod
with the source code of this mod,
and compile the .qvm files.
To do that:
git clone https://github.com/WofWca/quake3-better-gibs-mod.git
cd my-mod-dir
git am ../quake3-better-gibs-mod/patches/*.patchThis should apply the patches to your mod's code, by creating git commits.
There might be conflicts, which should not be too hard to resolve.
Then apply the copyright notice, Copyright (C) 2025, 2026 WofWca,
wherever you have them.
However, it might be simpler to resolve the conflicts at once and not for each commit separately. To achieve that, you can apply the patches to one of the earlier commits of your mod, and then merge the resulting branch into the main branch of your mod.
Also see the ioq3 branch in this repo,
which already applied these patches on top of ioquake3.
In fact, the .patch files have been generated from that branch,
with git format-patch --output-directory=./patches --no-numbered ioquake/main..ioq3.
To build a vanillaq3-compatible version in CI,
replace COMMAND ${Q3ASM} -o ${QVM_FILE} ${ASM_FILES}
with COMMAND ${Q3ASM} -vq3 -o ${QVM_FILE} ${ASM_FILES}.
See instructions.
Some of the patches of this mod have already been integrated
into the "baseq3a" mod.
The pak8a-baseq3a-mod-with-better-gibs.pk3 file was built
from the baseq3a branch of this repo.
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Also downloadable on lvlworld.com.
GibHappy doesn't have directional gibs, but has a Gib Gun!!
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Quake 3 Movie Maker's Edition (q3mme)
You might have seen it in action while watching some Quake movies.
(As I discovered after already having made my mod), q3mme implements directional gibs, flexibly scripted with a config file.
The direction is configurable to be either the direction from the killer to the gibbed player, or the gibbed player's velocity (as in our mod).
See- https://github.com/entdark/q3mme/blob/09b42e6b69367538961b3e33ed6c5acb9263d7bd/trunk/code/cgame/cg_event.c#L1073-L1103
- https://github.com/entdark/q3mme/blob/09b42e6b69367538961b3e33ed6c5acb9263d7bd/trunk/code/cgame/cg_effects.c#L378-L392
- https://github.com/entdark/q3mme/blob/09b42e6b69367538961b3e33ed6c5acb9263d7bd/trunk/files/scripts/base_player.fx#L93-L144
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wolfcamql: quakelive/quake3 demo player
Implements Quake Live -looking "gibs" (sparks) that have directionality (but also still supports Quake 3 gibs), a bunch of
cg_gibCVARs (most of which seem to only apply to Quake Live sparks?), and it also supports q3mme scripts.
(As you can tell by the name of the project, it supports Quake Live replays, whereeventParmofEV_GIB_PLAYERis direction.)- https://github.com/brugal/wolfcamql/blob/f33dd8819efc3f837b84ade5aff849acd7503ba0/code/cgame/cg_event.c#L3723-L3786
- https://github.com/brugal/wolfcamql/blob/cdd9d29cd7c20d7d98f17a58e2bee4186ed4bcd3/code/cgame/cg_effects.c#L1091-L1185
- https://github.com/brugal/wolfcamql/blob/cdd9d29cd7c20d7d98f17a58e2bee4186ed4bcd3/code/cgame/cg_effects.c#L968-L1049
- https://github.com/brugal/wolfcamql/blob/f33dd8819efc3f837b84ade5aff849acd7503ba0/code/cgame/cg_main.c#L1387-L1407
- https://github.com/brugal/wolfcamql/blob/77c7c5752cecaeb3f1d7467e205bd2076f39ea40/package-files/wolfcam-ql/scripts/q3mme.fx#L214-L370
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Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, or ET: Legacy
Implements proper initial position of individual gibs matching the player model's parts (as we try to do in this mod), and directionality.
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Maybe you could find other id Tech 3 -based games or mods for those games that modify
CG_GibPlayer?
id Tech forks are truly innumerable...
One can start with https://github.com/search?q=%22CG_GibPlayer%22+path%3Acg_effects.c&type=code, and hide identical files.
These patches are dual-licensed under either the "QIIIA Game Source License", or the "GPL-2.0", at your option. That is, you may apply these pathes to any other project based on Quake III Arena source code, be it the GPL or pre-GPL release.
Some more about Quake III licensing here: