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I always got the impression that having tons of needless caulk is better than having a leak, so if you can't spot a leak on a dime then caulk away as the performance hit for caulk is minimal?

Yeah, it looks like any change in this regard would have to wait till it could be "added as a new capability" rather than supplant the existing one. Ironically, I was hoping that this could be a performance booster but that 3 texture sample for the falloff looks like a non-starter. On the plus side, Sikkpin has been made aware of Strombine lighting now (which he recognized as something similar to lighting done on some maps for Prey). He is currently considering what I was trying to accomplish with my wacky version of that idea

When Solarspace mentioned using "Func_Animate" for his Chicken models I immediately thought of this application. 1) Setup a bunch of Func_Animate with the same model and animation as AI 2) If player = x distance then replace Func_Animate with real AI From my understanding there was another discussion about bird behavior where the use of AI for the birds was also in question. Did Grayman ever look into concept this further?

That makes sense. We'll probably still see this code in use after GPL when you will be able to apply it selectively or with a keyword. (I really wish that cubicLight worked like ambientLight... I will do some futile trial and error just in case... )

Controlling Falloff looks like it might be the big performance issue:

Sikkpin has finally spilled the beans about how he got Doom 3 to use a Cubemap as a projection texture. http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=24193 As Rich_is_Bored predicted, this required the modification of the vfp that controls all lighting (interaction.vfp?), and requires that all lights would need to use Cubemaps. Projected lights would work correctly as long as only one direction of the cubemap had a projection image while the others were black. Essentially every light would be a point-light (parallel lights are an unknown quantity at this time???). Besides simply offering more accurate illumination direction from light sources, having this ability also could potentially make the use of radiance cubemaps more practical and has the implication that other 3D or n-D formats could be used instead of the current methods. So the big ticket questions are: 1) How many Light Textures would need to be redone as Cubemaps? (Is it worth it?) 2) How many Lights are currently taking advantage of the current cylindrical lighting method where the switch would look wrong? 3) Beyond Cubemaps, could this method be extended to true 3D textures? 4) Can falloff be added back to this shader for more control than the current spherical algorithm (pending reply)? I was really hoping that Sikkpin had discovered a new (hidden) native capability in Doom 3 (inferred from the _cubicLight internal image) rather than this system-wide change (akin to the problem with Parallax mapping etc), as this would make the Strombine style ambient light method as easy as: 1) Light scene with primary lights 2) Light scene with smaller lights to simulate radiance bounces 3) Capture grayscale Envshot ala Rich_is_Bored material replacement trick from the origin point of the primary lights 4) Remove smaller radiance lights 5) Setup lights with inverted falloff and use the envshot from step 3 as the projection Cubemap (placed in the same location as the primary lights) Heck, since FPS would not matter for the purpose of collecting the envshot, you could even apply JC Dentons reflective methods and Sikkpin's SSIL and SSAO effects (or any other sophisticated lighting model that may require the z-pass hack etc) instead of Step 2. I will continue to monitor the Doom3world thread for more details and other usage scenarios as they develop but I thought I would kick-off a thread about this and see what folks think. Would it be worth it to overhaul the lighting for a more accurate 3D projection method? More intuitive to mappers than the cylindrical pointlight falloff model? Or is this another thing that should wait until it can be selectively applied when GPL arrives? Disclaimer: For the record, I like Doom 3 lighting as is and I'm over-the-moon about the v1.03 improvements so this is merely a final look at providing something akin to (modern) lightmap quality ambient light for mappers who are so inclined. And a little fun speculation about pushing Doom 3 to the edge visually...

LOL Tears for lunch is more of a Quake3world thing.

If you are just making a scene look dirty, random decal placement would usually be fine (excluding the desire for custom hand-crafted weathered textures ) but usually grimes also serve to fake AO. If you could have Dark Radiant search a map for recessed areas an mark them for increased decal density for SEED then that would be the time saver decal maniacs are looking for (this would also match the artistic intuition that dirt gathers in corners and crevices). Perhaps Rebb's old Quake AO algorithm could be plugged into Dark Radiant? Edit: With the current LODE system you could 1) Find a wall with recessed edges 2) select it with LODE for random decal generation 3) set a "power" inhibitor so that the decals only render at the edges

Yeah, I was reading an old Beyond3d interview where they grilled John Carmack about overdraw because they are Tile-Based Deferred Renderer fanatics and have been rooting for the PowerVR approach for ages. Carmack seemed to shrug at the idea of doing extra work for over-draw reduction beyond BSP. I got the impression that he thought that was ATI and Nvidia's job. Then he poured a little salt on the PowerVR fanboys' wounds by saying he might look at making a Doom 3 render path for the chips if their OpenGL drivers were top notch. Unless someone up there with a real great math noodle can figure out an really really efficient visibility detection algorithm to add to either LOD or SEED... the issue will need to be address in the renderer (GPL).

That's why I said ultra-deluxe pipe-dream version. (AluminumHaste just got scolded for not taking the terrain model \ normal map approach over at Doom3world so I guess it is subjective and depends on the layout... ) Parallax maps can be implemented but they would have to be squeezed into an already packed surface interaction shader which would lead to a heavy GPU penalty... When the engine goes Open Source parallax mapping will be more viable...

Where's my popcorn! This is awesome!!!!!!!!!

From what I've gathered, you should probably still design the terrain as patches and place generic scene geometry on it to get an idea of your best visportal positions. Then chop up the terrain in Dark Radiant along the visportal scissor points and export each section as an ASE model. (Unless you have draftsmen-like precision and can pre-plan a well optimized visportal layout.) Good luck!

Some missions, like "No Honor Among Thieves" and the Training Mission use 3DS Max or Lightwave models for terrain to take advantage of Vertex blended textures. Most missions will just use Patches with Caulked brushed below or even just plain ole Brush work. Ideally, you would create your terrain in Blender as both high and low poly versions then chop both models into segments that align with your visportals then bake normal maps and vertex paint gradients. That would be the ultra-deluxe pipe-dream version...

I think this akin to somebody trying to convey the sound of a vintage music inspired band like Wolfmother by referencing another modern act like The White Stripes rather than Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. There is always this "playing to the kids" concept going on in these circles even if the journalist really knows the authentic roots... This is only a really bad thing when they use a reference to something completely shlock or unrelated like comparing Wolfmother to Godsmack (shlock) or Nirvana (unrelated). So if Hitman is the "Godsmack" of stealth games then I see Aprisister's objection... (but I think that distinction belongs Splinter Cell...)

This topic seems to indicate that Models don't seem to work as well as func_static... http://www.doom3worl....php?f=1&t=9969 The rotate arg should work according to Splash Damage and Modwiki... Edit: bindOrientated ?

Deserving Merit (reward, praise, etc). Edit: I thought something looked wrong. There is no real "meritous" it should be "meritorious". I just used the word merit and the suffix "ous" to infer the meaning. I knew the word meritorious but didn't know that meritous was invalid till a second check...

Yep. That's the crazy part. I didn't know how wide-spread that problem was or whether the fix was pretty well understood: 1) Does it only happen on maps with extreme amounts of entities? 2) Is it intermittent and thus somewhat difficult to distinguish from other save crashes? If it's completely up-in-the-air right now then that idea would be very crazy.

That mod requires an older Doom 3 patch. The authors should update it but there is a Quake 4 mod that is essentially the same and works without hunting for old game patches: Q2 Espisode for Quake 4 http://quake4.filefront.com/file/Q2Episode1_for_Q4;112025

Yep. That is from the LODE Spawnargs wiki article. If all the spawnargs use "seed" in their names it could be confusing to have this specific function named "seed". None of the spawnargs would need to be renamed to change the name of the whole system though

Sorry. I was referring to having a floating patch mimic a distant mass of vegetation (eg: my crazy idea). Since there would be so many different possible variations it wouldn't be practical to make every possible mass to match every possible configuration of plants but having a couple standard "masses" available might be another (easy) performance option. I like the name SEED very much but I did see a "seed" spawnarg: ...so that may make things a little confusing. I liked the name LODE anyway so what do I know I've brought this up before but we definitely should has new TDM v1.0x feature contests to get mappers using the new stuff as soon as possible and drive awareness. This probably sounds crazy but we could have a LODE mission contest where the entrants would be aware that this is still experimental in v1.03 but have the deadline for completion be sometime (one week?) after the release of 1.04. If we posted the contest right on Moddb it would get all the Doom 3 mappers out of the wild (or other mappers who are brave enough to venture a new engine.).

Cant control my inner smart-ass: After careful consideration, since this is the first iteration of Thief-like gameplay, TDM will follow the mold of TDP. We will see more mechanical creatures in TDM II: The Metal Mod (crafted to be more like TMA). ETA 2020 TDM III will become the horrible 3rd person, rope-arrow free version we all dreaded. ETA 2030 (oh wait... this is could also describe Thievious )

This wouldn't be a universal thing so I'm not so sure how practical it is but when I looked at your swamp map I notice that the plants extend in detail all the way till they are barely distinguishable from within a mass of plant matter on the horizon (which looks awesome I must say ). It struck me that if you have a homogeneous or random plant distribution you could just have a decal that looks like that random mass of plants always hover x-distance away and have the other plants emerge from it. Then, if you actually get close to the end of the plants, you could replace the patch with with smaller patches then remove them altogether (yeah, it would be tough to minimize pop-in and Doom 3's blasted lack of fade-in doesn't help but still... ). (Yeah, probably too hacky but I thought I would throw it out there.)

From a practical POV a contest that requires the use of the new AI and mantling would be a great promotional tool at Moddb

YES! Thanks Fieldmedic I will update the wiki.