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Moving TDM to new engine?


NeonsStyle

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Indeed. Like kano pointed out, you can do so much with an open source egine, and idtech4 still has mileage. We are fortunate to have a lot of work being done under the hood right now, and thats pretty cool, keeps the engine fresh, hungry and evolving.

 

I like the focus on brush work for map making. Sure, it will never look as amazing as those 100% modeled maps done in 3d studio, but it allows for anyone, a regular guy, a hobbyist, to be able to get in there and to actually build something, be creative without having to become a pro 3d modeler beforehand.

 

I think we would benefit far more from advancing the assets and code we have, than migrating to a new engine. What would be great is if we could get a gradual revamp, if we could incorporate new models with good artistic value, gradually replace or include new characters, with more complex meshes. Revise our textures. Provide lots of those architecture modules to aid us beautifying our blocky maps. Teach people how to light spaces. How building structures work. Very important, add animations to our AI, add new behaviours. They are always evolving as well, getting smarter. But there are things missing, that could make them become more and more alive.

 

If we can get that, TDM will go on for many many years, looking beautiful and interesting in its own style.

Edited by RPGista
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The other thing not being considered is Dark Radiant. It has been custom designed from the ground up for making TDM missions. The old Radiant code base we started with was bare bones and basic. So switching to another engine also means building the editor support systems all over again. TDM is two separate projects. Grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but the best path is to keep improving idtech 4. Plenty of life left in it.

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The other thing not being considered is Dark Radiant. It has been custom designed from the ground up for making TDM missions. The old Radiant code base we started with was bare bones and basic. So switching to another engine also means building the editor support systems all over again. TDM is two separate projects. Grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but the best path is to keep improving idtech 4. Plenty of life left in it.

 

You wouldn't have to do that, as UE4 is fully developed and flexible to support many game types. Maybe you'd have to make S&Rs window, or Objectives window, but everything else is there.

 

 

I like the focus on brush work for map making. Sure, it will never look as amazing as those 100% modeled maps done in 3d studio, but it allows for anyone, a regular guy, a hobbyist, to be able to get in there and to actually build something, be creative without having to become a pro 3d modeler beforehand.

 

That has been always interesting to me, because TTLG and here are the only communities I know, that have been trying to avoid modeling. In other communities, mappers are hobbyists too, but they can make what they need: models, textures, materials etc. It's kind of natural expectation that you have to be a 3d generalist, as being just a level designer is good for working in teams or in professional companies. So in these terms, it would be interesting to see which new mappers would come to TDM. But at the same time you don't want to abandon current authors, and without sufficient amount of models it might be a problem.

 

And IMO the biggest barrier for new authors coming to TDM is the ease of use (lack thereof), and slow speed of content integration and iteration. Greebo works hard to make the editor better, but that's unfair fight, when UE4 has a dedicated team of specialists, and most engines today have material editors and realtime preview of everything, so you launch your map only to test gameplay. Same goes for documentation and help. Wikis and documentation is written by people who know how to teach, popular engines and tools have tons of how-to videos on youtube, so you can be pretty self-reliant and will solve your problems much faster. TDM is great when you know what to do, but it's a huge time sink, when you have to solve problems on your own.

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That has been always interesting to me, because TTLG and here are the only communities I know, that have been trying to avoid modeling.

There are more, like the whole Source engine community from Half-Life 2 to VTM Bloodlines. Sure there is the occassional new model, but all the maps are done with brush work! And in fact I don't know about any games having such a dedicated group of fans still making maps...

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Just to be clear. I am not suggesting we do it. nor am I suggesting a split. God forbid no. I am just curious about it. Obviously it's been discussed before,

so I was more interested in the state of play on where the devs are in terms of doing this. I know just how difficult it is; it's like starting over from scratch.

 

Any idea of creating two separate TDM's is not just silly, it's dishonourable, as it would take it away from the creators of this wonderful game.

 

My original curiosity was driving from wanting the texture painting tools of UE4.

Edited by NeonsStyle

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Just to be clear. I am not suggesting we do it. nor am I suggesting a split. God forbid no. I am just curious about it. Obviously it's been discussed before,

so I was more interested in the state of play on where the devs are in terms of doing this. I know just how difficult it is; it's like starting over from scratch.

 

Any idea of creating two separate TDM's is not just silly, it's dishonourable, as it would take it away from the creators of this wonderful game.

 

My original curiosity was driving from wanting the texture painting tools of UE4.

 

Don't worry no one will blame you if someday someone starts a UE4 thief like game, they are totally free to do so. ;D

 

About your desire for texture painting, i know what you mean that would be a very nice thing to have on DR indeed but is entirely up to Greebo if that will ever come.

 

In the meantime has a workaround you can do this, apply decals to all the surfaces that you want to texture paint, select them all and export has a .obj (for vis portal optimization don't make it very big), open that .obj in Blender do your texture painting there, bake the textures into one if necessary, export the texture make a .mtr (material) file, export the model with the material name applied and import it into DR, bingo, is not ideal but is the only thing we have for now.

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so I was more interested in the state of play on where the devs are in terms of doing this.

 

There is no state of play, and never will be. A total rewrite of the mod is never going to happen. Throwing out all of your existing work and starting from scratch is a really, really dumb thing to do, and the current team is neither masochistic nor delusional enough to attempt it.

 

That's not to say that someone else won't appear and decide that they're going to remake the mod in UE4 or some other engine. Perhaps one of those nutters who would occasionally pop up on TTLG and announce that they were making a 15-mission campaign in 3 weeks, which was definitely achievable for them because they were a Super Genius that nobody should ever doubt. Of course they would disappear without trace as soon as the deadline arrived.

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Throwing out all of your existing work and starting from scratch is a really, really dumb thing to do, and the current team is neither masochistic nor delusional enough to attempt it.

 

Define "from scratch". The way i understand programming, and modelling/artwork design, you never start "from scratch". And there are loads of examples out there where games were ported to a new engine, or of remakes and reboots. Sometimes, it's an absolute necessity to port your stuff to a new environment. So, i wouldn't say that the statement that it is a "dumb, dumb thing to do" can be generally made for something like this.

 

Doesn't have to do with the topic in general, though, of course. And i very well understand the reasons why this isn't ported.

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Don't worry no one will blame you if someday someone starts a UE4 thief like game, they are totally free to do so. ;D

 

About your desire for texture painting, i know what you mean that would be a very nice thing to have on DR indeed but is entirely up to Greebo if that will ever come.

 

In the meantime has a workaround you can do this, apply decals to all the surfaces that you want to texture paint, select them all and export has a .obj (for vis portal optimization don't make it very big), open that .obj in Blender do your texture painting there, bake the textures into one if necessary, export the texture make a .mtr (material) file, export the model with the material name applied and import it into DR, bingo, is not ideal but is the only thing we have for now.

 

Could you do a video tutorial on doing that please? PM me the link if you do.

 

Orbweaver, I said it was a dumb thing to do lol. Methinx you are misreading me. :)

Edited by NeonsStyle

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Define "from scratch". The way i understand programming, and modelling/artwork design, you never start "from scratch". And there are loads of examples out there where games were ported to a new engine, or of remakes and reboots. Sometimes, it's an absolute necessity to port your stuff to a new environment. So, i wouldn't say that the statement that it is a "dumb, dumb thing to do" can be generally made for something like this.

 

You're right that it's not exactly the same as a true rewrite from scratch: models and textures, for example, would not necessarily need to be rebuilt, but could be exported into different formats or converted in some way. Perhaps some parts of the code could be retained as well, such as AI logic that is not tightly bound to Doom 3's codebase. But large amounts of code still would need to be almost totally rewritten, which is essentially a rewrite from scratch of those particular subsystems, at which point all of the problems raised in the Joel Spolsky article would apply: years and years of bugfixes are thrown away, which means those bugs (and new bugs) will re-appear and have to be fixed all over again, by a very small team which barely includes any of the original developers.

 

Remakes and reboots are a different thing entirely. A remake or reboot is when a totally new project is created (probably by a different team, maybe even a different company) that uses the same intellectual property but probably none of the original code or artistic assets. The only connection between Thief 3 and Thief 1/2, for example, is the name, idea and characters. I doubt there is a single line of Dark Engine code or a single model or texture from Thief 1 or 2 in the Thief 3 game implementation.

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Orbweaver, I said it was a dumb thing to do lol. Methinx you are misreading me. :)

 

I guess I must be, because I can't understand the line of questioning at all. You want to know if the team is considering doing something that both the team, and you yourself, already know is completely impractical? Unless the team is suffering from some kind of mass psychosis, I don't see how the answer to such a question could ever be anything other than "No, of course not!".

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Has Godot or the Armory engine been mentioned. Both are open-source and under active development. Relatively simple to use and utilize modern tech.

When I saw this demo I instantly thought of Thief. (Absolutely not saying a port should be done, but one can't help but think of the possibilities).

 

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Could you do a video tutorial on doing that please? PM me the link if you do.

 

Orbweaver, I said it was a dumb thing to do lol. Methinx you are misreading me. :)

 

Would love too but please don't take this bad, I don't think there's a need for me to make a video tutorial for that, .

 

I assume you know how to select decal/patch's in DR and export the selection has a .obj?

I also assume you know how to import models into blender?

I also assume you know how to make TDM materials and copy paste the material name (for example textures/texturefoldername/materialname) into the material name in blender and export models out of Blender into DR/TDM?

 

If so only remains knowing how to texture paint in blender, for that this video is very helpful and imo i wouldn't make better.

 

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Sadly, that doesn't help a lot, as it's more painting an object than painting multiple HD textures onto it. Thanks any way HMart.

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Sadly, that doesn't help a lot, as it's more painting an object than painting multiple HD textures onto it. Thanks any way HMart.

 

There is no such concept (in the D3 engine) as "painting textures onto an object". You have to paint vertex colors (black and white) onto the object, and the use the MTR file to blend between two or more textures using the black/white vertex colors as the blend value. Therefore the technique shown in the video is correct, even though you don't directly see the textures on the object in Blender.

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  • 1 month later...

Just stumbled upon this and thought it was neat. Light detection in UE4:

https://youtu.be/P1j7lwvGRWk

 

Here's the page I saw the link on. They said they were inspired by Dark Mod :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/9ieroj/github_light_detection_method_inspired_by_the/

 

Wasn't sure if it'd been posted before.

Edited by Darkness_Falls
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Everything is possible and all that feelgood nonsense, but doing that is something of unreasonable size for a project like TDM, not to mention that this would sacrifice the freedom and adaptability that TDM has. Besides that, as previously stated you can really push a lot out of a open source engine.

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