Domarius
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Posts posted by Domarius
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BEAUTIFUL WORK!!!
So, lwo format works in Doom without conversion?Well apparently
many meshs I've been referencing in my scripts have the extention .lwo -
edit:I can upload the onjects and scene if oyu want to check it out.
I would really appreciate that
Thankyou for offering. -
oDDity, those pre-rendered images, is that just a vanilla installation of LightWave, with no extra plug-ins? The lighting looks so realistic.
Also kind of looks like you have a grainy photo filter thing happening.
I really want to know how I can make my renders look like that too. And do you have material settings that you like (eg settings that you know looks like porcaline (sp)) that you keep using? How did you get them, through trial and error, or off tutorials off the net?
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What you say?
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The choice of no headgear is one worth debating I think. I like it. I think it gives some variety that the original games never had.
Are there any historic examples of cheap guards with no headgear perchance?
If they are too cheap to have armour in general, they wouldn't be able to afford helmets.
But even if they are having armour as cheap as leather armour, they could still have leather headgear.
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Okay, I should have posted a link to my progress with the blackjack - I kind of assumed everyone uses the "show new posts" feature of the forums.
http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=594&hl=
I'm using the grenade animations for now, because they are actually a lot like blackjacking animations.
The "view" (name for the weapon stuff you see in first person view) mesh and associated animations are all self contained. You have to have the hand(s) modeled into the animations. You never see the actual player model in first person view. This means you can have a lot more detail on the weapons, such as GUI's (the readouts that tell you how much ammo is left), glowing lights that actually affect your surroundings in real time, etc.
The things that other people see of you in multiplayer, and what you see in mirrors, are much less detailed.
BTW, I updated my post up there with a new modelling suggestion link. It is also from the main tutorial page. I am just suggesting the tutorials.
I also re-worded the intro to that post, so its clearer that I don't actually NEED them, but it is ready for them to be dropped straight in.
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Awesome
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I'm far enough with my progress on the blackjack that it is ready to have models and animations dropped straight into it
Blackjack model assets:
- viewblackjack.md5mesh - static, textured mesh file of a hand holding a blackjack, to be seen in first person view. (the rest of these files are animations for this mesh file)
- blackjack_raise.md5anim - pulling out the blackjack. What you see when you select the blackjack as a weapon.
- blackjack_idle.md5anim - holding the blackjack. What you see when the blackjack is selected but doing nothing, just hovering around because the Thief can't hold it perfectly still like a robot.
- blackjack_start.md5anim - Raising the blackjack in preperation to strike someone. What you see when you click and hold the attack button.
- blackjack_throw.md5anim - Dropping the blackjack to strike someone. What you see when you let go of the attack button.
- blackjack_lower.md5anim - putting the blackjack away. What you see when you un-select the blackjack for another weapon.
Some tutorials on how to get models into Doom 3 properly can be found here:
(scroll down to the HTML/TXT TUTORIALS section, then further down to the Modelling section)
That is by far the definitive list of Doom 3 tutorials, for EVERYTHING about the game.
Suggestions from that page:
- viewblackjack.md5mesh - static, textured mesh file of a hand holding a blackjack, to be seen in first person view. (the rest of these files are animations for this mesh file)
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... tgas compress VERY well !
That's because they are just raw image data - those damn things are the same size no matter what you take a picture of (providing they are all the same resolution).
jpg is even better because it removes stuff as well as compresses.
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If you look at my example drawing picture, you can see that the tilting isn't a problem if it is a perfect sphere, placed perfectly in the center of the compass points, and isn't so huge that it obscures the furthest point at most angles.
That picture isn't correct for the example I posted at all. If the gem is dead center, the whole thing will look the same no matter what angle the compass points are on. Look at my example drawing.In its current form we would get issues like this if it wasn't 3D. -
Nope. Not only would cloaks not be practical thief-wear (they get snagged on things and knock things over), but they are a major pain in the ass to model.
(Though I do love the look of cloaks in general.)
I think the cloak is not for the on-the-job outfit - too impractical.
But I think it has it's place in cutsceans. He would wear it to be inconspicuous when amongst other people. Don't you think he'd attract too much attention in that get-up he wears when on the job?
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Bare with me on this. This isn't some idea I just came up with. The illusion WON'T be destroyed when the compass points move (as I thought I illustrated). It's a trick used in many commercial 3D games.
No, the 2D gem doesn't move. It doesn't need to, because it's a perfectly round sphere. You can't tell which way its facing. Look at my previous example pic. BECAUSE you can't tell which way a marble is facing, is why you can use a 2D pic for it.
You don't need to render new pictures for every angle you see it on, because a perfect sphere never looks different, no matter what angle you view it on.
The only way it looks different is if you change the light source, which isn't nessecary for a HUD item.
-But you are right, there is no real difference with a true 3D one and the 2D one from a programming perspective, since both are simply changing textures on a mesh in real time.
-And the poly count doesn't really matter I suppose, since there is only one of them and not lots of them all over the screen (like in-game objects such as coin stacks).
-But the 2D one has the possibility of being pre-rendered much nicer looking, and perfectly round without huge amounts of polys. That is generally the entire reason for employing this trick. If I could find some screen shots, I could show you what I mean.
Okay, it's not a decent example, but maybe it gets the gist across.
Look at the tyres on the Karts. (They are all the same tire object). Notice how they have managed to get treads on the tires, shading, rims etc. all which would take up lots of polys.
The fact is, that they only rendered 1 animation of the tire revolving on the Y axis (ie. rotating as if sitting on a microwave plate while it turns) and stuck this on a 2 poly square.
They did not render frames for any other angles (except 2 more for the z axis, so the tire can look like it's spinning) because the fact is, that the tire will ALWAYS look like one of those frames from the animation of the Y axis revolving, no matter what angle you look at it from, high, low, diagonal, side, etc. because of the way the tire is shaped. It is a perfect circle.
In the case of a perfect sphere, it looks the same from ALL angles, something they exploited in Mario 64 with the king ba-bomb - his body is a 2D image of a pre-rendered sphere with a highlight on it - that way, he is perfectly round (no polygonal edges), it only takes up 2 polys instead of hundreds, and his eyes, arms and legs rotate around that image as he turns, as if it was a perfect sphere, completing the illusion.
Much like what I'm suggesting for the light gem.
All I'm saying is that it's possible to exploit this trick to make a much more beautiful, glass-marble type looking gem, like the one that was first posted.
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While that is true, and would work, it's unessecary. A cube uses 12 polys. Just model a 2 poly square (one face of a cube) in a 3D editor and export it.
When you model a perfect, 1 dimensional square in a 3D editor, it requires 2 polys, since all polygons must be triangles. The square is cut down the diagonal, making 2 polys.
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Batch converting is easy. Okay, I don't personally know of the program, but I do know there is more than one cool little free utilities out there that just convert image files.
Google should be helpfull. I had a quick look but I have to leave at the moment and I only found some 30 day trial ones. Maybe someone else could have a go.
I'm using ACDSee 4 Full Version, that I got for free on a PC magazine CD. It does a fine job.
Anyone who has Photoshop can certainly do it just as easily, with it's "Automate" feature. If anyone wants to know how, I'll make a tutorial.
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I'm giving my support for some kind of compressed textures. Either in a rar archive, or convert them all to .jpg and have people batch convert them back to .tga after they've downloaded them.
I know that managing an archive is hard, but what about the batch .jpg idea?
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New Horizon, there is no confusion, 'cause this idea was never meant to replicated T3's light gem. It is a completely new idea.
This idea has the advantage of;[*]Using much much less polys - the sphere takes up the most, and needs a decent amount to actually look round.
It would definately use fewer polys, but if the compass is going to move up and down in addition to around it, the illusion will be lost. The design was made to fit snugly inside of the compass ring.
[*]Looks better - the 2D gem can be pre-rendered with all sorts of cool radiosity effects to really make it look like a beautiful translucent gem, with reflections inside it, etc.This can still be done with the true 3D gem.
[*]Easier to program - the gem is just a sequence of pictures, just by changing the texture on the 2 poly square. -
Just so we're all in the same playing field, I've drawn up an example of what we should be talking about here.
You can see that whoever is putting the gem together needs to do the rendering, because it must be positioned just right, to maintain the illusion that the gem is 3D like the compass (when it is actually a 2D image).
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Well so there are scripted ones in it for specific effects - but the ones that aren't scripted are VERY good. Like the one Jay mentioned in some other thread - shoot one of the lights hanging by chains in Site 2 (I think it is) and it reacts bloody awesomely.
And you just have to get to the part where you use the remote control metal claw to pick up and drop radioactive drums into a waste disposal - sorry for the language, but f*ck, I have never seen ANYTHING like this in any other game.
If you tell the claw to lower, and it isn't precicely centered around the drum, then when the claws close, the ones on one side hit first, naturally, causing the claw to pick it up on an angle. Raise the claw, and it is actually carrying the drum in an akward way!! This stuff just can't be scripted! There are too many possibilities
Regarding the AI, it is actually not even worth comparing Doom3 to Doom 1 and Doom 2. Those D1 & 2 monsters only ran directly toward you in a bee-line, wether there was a wall there or not. Their pathfinding was limited to sliding along a wall or edge if they happened to run into something along the way.
Doom 3 is the real deal. Once an enemy is present, it will chase you anywhere, no matter how complex the path you run, no matter how far away (well, there is a distance limit, but you have that in all games). I have even been testing this myself with my own maps.
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I don't know if this is a good idea. This would mean that the gem itself would stay locked but the compass ring would move around it? I wonder how that will look in-game. I must check how this is done in T3. Didn't they do it the same way? BlackThief said that they used something like 16 textures with different colors.
Calm down. Just let oofnish have a crack at it so you'll see what we're talking about.
The Gem is perfectly round - you won't see it move even if it is fully rendered in real time. Therefore it is a waste of resources, and will look much better as a static image that has had a lot of nice pre-rendered effects applied to it, and look better than it could in real-time, and use less resources to boot. It can be a high enough detail image that the difference between it and the compass ring wouldn't be noticible. Oofnish is going to try it out to see if we can get away with it.
It may even be easier to control with programming, since it will just be a series of frames that show a dark gem gradually becoming a lighter gem. The glow at full brightness could be a wonderfully radiant effect that you just couldn't do in real-time.
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Do you know of one for Photoshop? Actually, if I could just get my hands on one that had a cityscape of any kind, I could then modify it to look like ours. But I can't seem to find one anywhere. I know there is one in D3 itself, but I can't find the file.
No, all these things have to be rendered in 3D first, cause you need the 6 views (that make up the sides of the "box"), and they need to be skewed properly.
Why don't you just use any old rendering program and place six axis aligned cameras, and render a shot from each one? I haven't done it before, but that is all Terragen is doing.
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...So I guess this is just a tech-demo disguised as a game and the designers intended to people mod it after all, or sell it to game developers.
That's what I've always said.
BTW, you asked, so I spoil it for you - YES, the scenery does change eventually.
Well, the tension comes from that a monster can spawn or break out behind your back at any time, but what makes it scarey is that it looks so damn realistic.
This game engine is so awesome. So awesome that they didn't even need to make a real game Heheh.Doom 3 is okay. It's not like the repetative battles are actually hard. I just played my way through with a frame rate that was 4-8 fps half of the time and 15-30 fps the other half of the time, and every battle can be played the same way as Doom 1 and 2. Each monster has a "best" way of killing it, that you soon learn:
Imps - Wait till their fairly close, dodge the last fireball, and run right into their face and fire the shot gun. Can even be done easily with multiple enemies around.
Etc. etc. I won't tell you my tactics for all the others, cause I'm not sure what youve' seen so far (so as not to spoil it), but they are all as fairly straight forward as that.
And then the general tactics - which basically consist of - if there are multiple enemies, backtrack to a choke point and shoot them as they come through one by one. (The level designers obviously knew about this, so sometimes you open a door and find some enemy in your face that wasn't there before. It's usually just a soldier or imp, and their main weakness is a shotgun blast to the head. Works really well.)
Or if stuck in a tight spot, run to the nearest corner and jump out and shoot them when their footsteps are loud enough.
I don't know what exactly you liked more about Doom 1 and 2 over 3. They played exactly the same way as Doom 3, and a few slight scenery changes that were really just different textures. Everything still looked like the same old boxy graphics. Doom 3 just has more cooler features, like better graphics and physics. And when the scenery does change, it REALLY DOES change.
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Well while fiddling with the level editor, I noticed that VERY FEW things in the Doom 3 levels have normal maps, and those levels look awesome. All the AI's have normal maps, but only the most used, biggest geometry type textures had normal maps. The majority of them didn't have any. (This was only while fiddling around with a level from the game called "admin", and it was only the one level, so I may have an innacurate impression, but it seems reasonable.)
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Heresy!!
Heheh. Nah, of course that is a swell idea. I don't see a problem, I don't see a huge advantage either though, so as long as it doesn't take up time that something else could be done in.
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Oh yeah - it's only good for moutains, water, and sky at the moment.
Other rendering programs can render sky-boxes. And there must be plug-ins for ones that don't do it straight out of the box. So many professional games have sky boxes. The software for it must be readily available.
Prince Of Persia Meets Garreth
in The Dark Mod
Posted
How much sillier would it look more than mantling already does? Maybe we'd need some HUD icon to show that you were in "hanging mode" because unlike mantling, it is not something that is over and done with - it's a traveling mode and without third person, you'd need to be sure if the game thinks your walking or hanging. Maybe that's what you guys meant by "silly in first person mode"?
My main concern as a programmer is how difficult it would be to implement. But I like it. And I agree it's not a high priority.
Swinging rope arrows is what I've always wanted
I guess that's not a high priority either. I want to see it in the mod some day though.