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a little confused


slavatrumpevitch

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what's the difference between Dark Radiant, and The Dark Mod? dark radiant is an altered form of D3ed, yes? I know that anyone can get a new release of Dark Radiant, but only beta mappers can start using TDM editor. what is the difference in functionalilty between these two? with dark radiant, could i start creating all the geometry, and texturing it and moving around in it in game mode? does dark radiant have the same vibe as TDM, or is it more doomlike, and less thieflike? i know this is probably a completely stupid question, but i've just never been clear on the difference between TDM, and dark radiant.

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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The Dark Mod is a total modification of the actual Doom 3 game, which means that the gameplay code and all of the assets are custom. When we refer to the Dark Mod, we speak of the actual game.

 

DarkRadiant is the specialised editor, which is branched off GtkRadiant 1.5 (not D3Ed, which is based on Q3Ed). You can use DarkRadiant to create maps for both Doom 3 and The Dark Mod. Codewise, there is no relation between the editor and the mod. You can run DarkRadiant perfectly without having the Dark Mod installed. Hence DarkRadiant doesn't have a vibe, it's just the tool to create the maps.

 

Everyone can download and install DarkRadiant for testing. Only Beta Mappers get access to the Dark Mod (i.e. the gameplay code and the mod assets).

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Dark Radiant - game editor. The Dark Mod - the mod itself.

At this moment you can download Dark Radiant and make maps for Doom3, I mean, using only vanilla D3 assets. For TDM assets you have to wait another while...

 

edit: oh, again somebody was quicker than me...

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what's the difference between Dark Radiant, and The Dark Mod? dark radiant is an altered form of D3ed, yes? I know that anyone can get a new release of Dark Radiant, but only beta mappers can start using TDM editor.

 

You can already use the editor, but of course you wont have access to the TDM specific assets. Otherwise you can use it just the same as DoomEd.

 

does dark radiant have the same vibe as TDM, or is it more doomlike, and less thieflike?

 

DarkRadiant ist just as much thieflike as Dromed and with the same relationship. :) It's a geometry editor, nothing more and nothing less.

Gerhard

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DarkRadiant ist just as much thieflike as Dromed and with the same relationship. It's a geometry editor, nothing more and nothing less.

 

what do you mean by nothing more, nothing less? DromEd had a gameplay mode, which maybe is an inherrent part of being a geometry editor, but i don't believe so. if not, then DromEd was certainly more than just a geomtry editor b/c it allowed you to play your creations as actual thief levels.

 

does dark radiant have a gameplay mode?

 

and, what of the textures? would they be thiefish textures? or doom3 textures?

 

which assets are TDM specifically? (don't list all of them, as i'm sure there are a lot) but, of these:

 

-thieflike textures

-thieflike AI (even if only rudimentary)

-thieflike objects

-game mode (complete with crouching, jumping and mantling abilities)

-invisibility gem

 

are all of those specific to TDM? or would i find some of those in Dark Radiant?

Milestones approaching:

Recital: 3-24-12

ToughMudder: 4-15-12

Release first FM: ?-?-20??

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Gameplay mode? So you mean you could actually jump into the game directly, like in cryengine sandbox? This is definitely not possible with any Radiant. You can't even render it within the editor, like you could in T3ED. (Or have you guys changed something about that in your fork?)

 

I guess, since it's a public beta release of the editor, you'll only get the basic editor and nothing else like textures and/or models, so you'd have to create your own stuff for now, if you woun't sign up as a betamapper...

Edited by STiFU
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are all of those specific to TDM? or would i find some of those in Dark Radiant?

 

 

This seems to cause a lot of confusion with folks. I'll do my best to clarify.

 

The Dark Mod and Dark Radiant are two completely separate entities.

 

The Dark Mod is ..well...the mod. It's the modified doom 3 game engine, and it contains all the mod sounds, textures, models and AI.

 

Dark Radiant is simply a tool we're working on to let people build their levels with those assets. If you download Dark Radiant, you won't get any assets with it. It's a stand alone editor. You can actually use it for 'vanilla' doom 3 level editing..but you won't be able to use stim/response or anything specific to Dark Mod.

 

The doom 3 engine comes with a built in editor called D3Ed, but it was not suitable for our needs since there is no open code provided to make alterations. That's why we chose to build our own editor interface, so we could code our own Stim / Response interface, sound interface, model viewer and a host of other improvements for the editor.

 

Dromed didn't provide the game by itself, it interfaced with the Thief engine to allow that preview mode. D3Ed is integrated with the doom 3 engine this way. The closest we can likely come to this is to have an icon on the Dark Radiant toolbar that will pass a command to the doom3 exe and open doom 3 in a small window.

 

Pressing F2 in D3Ed opens an instance of Doom 3 in a small window. If you play around with the doom 3 editor you'll know what I'm talking about.

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Dromed did have a VERY handy gamemode I agree. One of the quickest I've ever used to get in game (depending on if you had already portalized changes, rendered lighting, ect... Sometimes those things could take alot of time)

 

But hitting Alt-G to go in game, Alt-E to go back to editor was nice.

 

With DarkRadiant you need to save the map. Open Darkmod or Doom and type a command in console (~ brings up console)

dmap mymapname

 

that compiles everything, takes a little while...

 

map mymapname then takes you into the level.

 

I haven't messed with it alot, but you can keep a seperate Darkmod window open and Alt-Tab between editor and game. Make changes in editor then save the map, go to game and type console commands as needed.

You can add a light or object and not recompile, but if you change terrain you have to recompile.

 

I think it compiles faster than Dromed. However I have only done small tests whereas I built a few very larger levels in Dromed, those could take 1/2 hour or more to 'compile'

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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With DarkRadiant you need to save the map. Open Darkmod or Doom and type a command in console (~ brings up console)

dmap mymapname

 

that compiles everything, takes a little while...

Dram was saying earlier that dmap while running the game is actually slower than running D3Ed and dmapping from the Doom editor. He's compiled some huge maps, so I'm inclined to believe him. :)

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slavatrumpevitch: Although you get no Dark Mod assets with Dark Radiant, if you want to start mapping in the Thiefy style you can get your own textures and make a start with a thiefy map. Once you reach a certain stage why not submit it to the team and if reasonable I'm sure they will provide you with the DM assets to become a beta mapper. You can then adapt your map and progress.

 

Notes:

 

TDM features: You won't have TDM equipment like rope arrows but you don't need anything just to get going for a month or two and produce some nice terrain.

 

Models: You won't have DM models etc but can just build terrain and maybe put in the odd Doom AI and chair etc. to get an idea of scale. I'm not sure but I think there were some flaming torches with doom?

 

Texture: Here you can do one of at least three things:

 

You can build in caulk texture and texture properly later.

 

You can use the nearest Doom textures as holding textures but still build in the 'shape' that you would for Thief (eg, build a medieval castle rather than a space base)

 

You can get a few free thiefish textures from the internet (I can give you a ton of links) and create the necessary material files (see wiki and you will also get plenty of help here if you need it. You do not necessarily need worry about super high quality or bump & normal maps (surface contours), specular maps (shinyness) but just so you have a thief like texture to be going on with. Dark Radiant lets you change ALL occurrences of any texture to a different one once you get the TDM textures. Just the minimum to help the imagination while you concentrate on terrain.

 

Or of course you can go crazy and make the best damn thiefy textures possible!

 

Hope you at least try the minimum option if only for a few days. The quickest way for anyone to get into TDM is probably to produce a decent small map with Doom or whatever assets they can and submit it to the team. Why wait?

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You should also mention that the Radiant is the editor, which is easiest to learn editor and comes along with the possibility of a really fast workflow. :)

 

Anywho, since when can you alt+tab doom3? And also, why can't you compile the map from within the editor dropdown menus? It should be no problem at all normally... I mean it should be just a simple exe file with parameters you are running there isn't it? Haven't been mapping for Doom 3 yet, so I don't know this stuff.

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The actual map compilation code is not released yet, therefore DarkRadiant can't generate the .cm (collision model) and .proc files out of the maps on its own. This has to be done either in the Doom3 console or in D3Ed. Alt-Tabbing between Doom 3 and DarkRadiant is no problem at all.

 

I assume you're talking from your Quake 3 experience?

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But hitting Alt-G to go in game, Alt-E to go back to editor was nice.

Not if it crashed every time you pressed Alt-E. grrr... <_<

 

I tried Dromed again the other day for the new hammerite mission contest, but gave up at about the 53rd crash (about ten mins in).

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Dromed is unstable but not that unstable.

It sounds like you did something it doesn't like.

 

All of this talk is reminding me that I want to be a beta-mapper, but my laptop won't run Doom3. Have to wait until I can get a desktop that can handle it.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I assume you're talking from your Quake 3 experience?

 

Yeah, minimizing quake 3 wasn't possible without an additive tool. But in the early version of Doom 3 it was like that too I think. At least I tried to switch to the "doom 3 advanced graphics mod" readmefile while ingame to check for other commands and it didn't work, so I thought to myself "Id-software crap again" ... ;) I guess they have fixed this issue with an update. Wow, I am really suprised. First they altered pk4 handling and now this... =)

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Fullscreen alt-tabbing is just generally dodgy - not really D3's fault, more of a driver/OS issue. It always seems to work on my system, but other people aren't so lucky. Windowed alt-tabbing works great though.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Hehe yeah, I though so. Of course you can alt+tab Doom 3 in windowed mode. But I only enjoy my gaming at it's full pleasure, so I didn't even get to that idea... ;) Also Quake 3 always had to reload the level when switching between fullscreen and windowed, so I am used to not doing so.

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I think D3 performs a bit worse in windowed mode as well. Some renderer optimizations aren't used in windowed mode, right?

 

Yes. Scissoring is the only one I can immediately think of, but there are sure to be others.

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