Weird Maps

[Springheel]

Man, people are making some weird stuff with TDM...first a McDonald's, now Lloth's spider ship. How about some actual missions people?

 

[Springheel]

And the Giza pyramids....

 

[Melan]

The spider ship from an ancient AD&D adventure module that's only a month younger than me no less. (It is actually a pretty cool one, full of really strange imagery and alternate dimensions. I've never player or ran it, but it has inspired me in a lot of ways.)

 

Edited September 10, 2011 by Melan

[Springheel]

And a giant chessboard...!

 

[Springheel]

he spider ship from an ancient AD&D adventure module that's only a month younger than me no less

 

I remember playing one of the Lloth modules, but I don't think I ever played the ship one (never liked the ones that added modernish tech).

[Melan]

The chessboard puzzle is cool. I can imagine something like that deep in a Bonehoard-style mission, on the boundary where conventional reality gives way to surrealism.

 

WRT multigenre stuff in RPGs, I have always liked the lasers-versus-monsters aesthetic (the journal from our now concluded campaign was even titled Sword, Sorcery and Rayguns). It actually goes a long way back, before Tolkien became default in fantasy and the genre became more strictly separated from SF - you had people like Leigh Brackett, Catherine L. Moore or Abraham Merritt writing "sword and planet" stories and gleefully mixing spaceships with dark magic, evil gods and whatnot. The game has changed a lot over the years, partly to accommodate more popular fantasy concepts, but the oldest layers of D&D - Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Tékumel, the original Castle Greyhawk, Temple of the Frog, Arduin etc. - have a lot more in common with this tradition than Tolkien.

[jaxa]

McD's? Where?

[Springheel]

I think it was Melan who linked to that one a while ago.

[Andrey]

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130745&p=2079084&viewfull=1#post2079084

[Jesps]

Some pretty cool stuff there, actually. I'd love to be able to rob the pyramids!

[Mortem Desino]

I made a tiny map a couple years ago. It was an experiment to see if TDM could make a level with a "near-future" setting. It didn't work well. I had to borrow waaay too many Doom 3 assets.

 

I made it a pretty much near-complete mission and dedicated it to my friend Samir, a poor cubicle dweller.

 

Basic storyboard:

[Shadowhide]

Man, people are making some weird stuff with TDM...first a McDonald's, now Lloth's spider ship. How about some actual missions people?

 

are you really want to play it ?

[Shadowhide]

I made a tiny map a couple years ago. It was an experiment to see if TDM could make a level with a "near-future" setting. It didn't work well. I had to borrow waaay too many Doom 3 assets.

 

I made it a pretty much near-complete mission and dedicated it to my friend Samir, a poor cubicle dweller.

 

Basic storyboard:

dats looks pretty cool

Edited September 11, 2011 by Shadowhide

[Glyph Seeker]

That crazy chess board one fascinates me! That kind of Bonehoard thing is kind of what I'd like to see more of >.>

[demagogue]

It didn't work well. I had to borrow waaay too many Doom 3 assets.

 

In the interest of public education, could you explain what didn't work well.

I think a lot of us toss around the idea of futuristic maps with the stealth gameplay, exactly because we do have access to all the Doom3 assets.

What's the actual problems with using them in the TDM?

(Are you talking about problems implementing them, or just problems with the aesthetics? What's wrong with using "waaay" too many of them? I'd think a futuristic map could hardly use them *enough*.)

I know their AI isn't going to have access to the Darkmod AI code.

(Is that something that could be rigged without sourcecode changes?)

So you're still limited to the TDM AI.

But a lot of the textures and objects should work ok, I think.

I know you can rig objects up to be frobable & moveable in the .def files.

I think you have to do work to get the textures lit up in ambient lighting (so they're not pitch black), but that's also something you do through accessory files you can bundle in without sourcecode changes.

But some things would require code changes... like access to the D3 weapons (which you probably wouldn't want to use much anyway, since it changes the gameplay; maybe a very limited amount of ammo.)

What other kinds of problems were you thinking about though?

[Mortem Desino]

Here are some big ones.

 

1. Doom 3 textures: Generally high level of specularity ////////// TDM textures: Generally low level of specularity
2. Doom 3 textures: No ambient stage support ///////////////////// TDM textures: Every texture has ambient stage support
3. Doom 3 textures: No froblight shader stage //////////////////// TDM textures: Every texture has froblight shader stage
4. Doom 3 textures: Low-res diffuse and height/normalmap ///////// TDM textures: Comparatively higher-res diffuse and normalmap
5. Doom 3 textures: No custom surftype defined for footsteps ///// TDM textures: Many textures have non-d3 surftype defined (I.E. Tile, slate, straw, snow, grass)
6. Doom 3 moveables: Mass/Density abnormally low ///////////////// TDM moveables: Mass/Density more realistically high (buoyancy in water is more accurate)
7. Doom 3 moveables: Many are (strangely) missing CMs //////////// TDM moveables: Most every one has a CM associated
7. Doom 3 models: Many built for very specific applications ////// TDM models: mostly built for general application (can use practically anywhere)
8. Doom 3 AI: Low-level thinking and pathfinding ///////////////// TDM AI: high-level behavior, sitting, sleeping, pathfinding, excellent scripting support
9. Doom 3 AI: Facial normalmaps not built for TDM ambient //////// TDM AI: Facial normalmaps hand-tweaked to look good under TDM ambient stages.
9. Doom 3 Aesthetic: Generally does not mix AT ALL well alongside//TDM aesthetic.
10. Doom 3 GUIs: Mostly written for very specific applications /// TDM GUIs: Mouse-click interactivity lost somewhere in the code?
11. Doom 3 Assets: TOTALLY NOT Creative Commons. Sad face.

One would be better off borrowing, begging, and making their own assets than tweaking D3 by hand.

[demagogue]

lol, okay, point taken.

 

I was never such a big fan of the Doom3 assets myself for reasons like that. Of course different asset packages is just the kind of branch project I'd love to see... Maybe some team will get to it. We read about these mod teams out there trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch. I wish they'd spend their time making & rigging new assets for Darkmod so we could have a scifi version, a contemporary version, etc.

[Melan]

Looking at some of the responses DX:HR got on TTLG, I wouldn't put it beyond people to try and make a TDM-based futuristic conspiracy game... except they would have to touch an inferior tool like TDM to do that.

 

(All right, that was mean, and it's not quite so bad actually )

Edited September 11, 2011 by Melan

[Springheel]

Doom 3 AI: Facial normalmaps not built for TDM ambient

 

 

I've used several D3 face normalmaps.

[Mortem Desino]

 

I've used several D3 face normalmaps.

Import some of the vanilla D3 AI models, and look at them under the different ambient stage methods. A few of them can cast some strange normal shadows, or strange lack-of-normal-features. The "Commander Riker" head looks quite nice, but some of the old, wrinkly faces end up looking strange.

[demagogue]

Looking at some of the responses DX:HR got on TTLG, I wouldn't put it beyond people to try and make a TDM-based futuristic conspiracy game...

 

Course it'd be better if DX:HR came with an editor so they wouldn't have to look elsewhere.

All those delicious assets! When I see them, I can't help but want to build with them!

[Springheel]

Import some of the vanilla D3 AI models, and look at them under the different ambient stage methods. A few of them can cast some strange normal shadows, or strange lack-of-normal-features.

 

Oh sure, if you don't make a new material shader. I thought you were talking about the normalmap itself.

[Glyph Seeker]

I like that the Demon Queen of Spiders still has an ergonomically adjusted office chair / reception desk and a fire extinguisher in the Gaping Maw of Doom / Lobby which forms the entrance to the Spider Ship. =-P

[demagogue]

Oh sure, if you don't make a new material shader. I thought you were talking about the normalmap itself.

 

I think most of his point was it takes work to get the vanilla assets looking right (at least for someone not used to toying with shader and .def files), at which point you may as well find or make new assets altogether since it wouldn't take too much more effort, and the D3 assets weren't all that great to begin with. You may as well go for new stuff. Of course making a new shader isn't as bad as some of the other things you have to do for other assets to work, and making a new head from scratch isn't as easy as making other assets. It's just in that same neighborhood of annoying to deal with. I think that was his point.

[stumpy]

dx:hr = crystal dynamics engine and a copy of maya to make the maps and assets.