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I'm just skinning the lightgem. Of course I do this for myself and not for you, because you can expect how it will look when I do this. I noticed a severe problem with the model from oofnish. It is hollow. Doom 3 can not render this because it doesn't accept doublesided polygons. So for all models that are built they always need a seperate bottom even if you think it will never be seen. In the case of the lightgem this is of course not really true, because it depends on the players position what you can see. If the player turns around enough the bottom might be seen a little so it will need it anyways.

I sure will take a look at it, but I won't buy it because of Steam. Nevertheless I think the phycsics is probably much better then the one from Doom 3 even though it will suffice for our needs.

check out this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=10 there you can find the ftp-data.

oDDity: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=520

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.

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.

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.)

Those coins REALLY need a normal map. Trust me. You'll be amazed. As for normal mapping... Well, basically EVERY DOOM 3 object is normal mapped. <shrugs> It's your choice, obviously, but I seriously recommend it. Remember that normals don't need to be same rez as the diffuse.

Half Life 2 is a wonderful, wonderful, imaginative game. Doom 3 is frankly bollocks in comparison.

Just played a little Doom 3 again. After all doing the mod takes most of my time and I'm still at the very beginning. I just came back to mars city. Is the scenery changin in later levels or is it always this underground scifi scenario? I must say that I liked Doom and Doom 2 much more then D3. For all it's flashy graphics it's rather boring. Most of the tension comes not from gameplay but from the fact that you can always expect one monster spawning behind your back. I hate this. That was the single worst feature I hated most in Duke Nukem, despite loving that game for all it's fun, but D3 excells at this. Well, it doesn't really matter because it seems that I bought D3 mostly to play Thief after some time. So it's still worth it's money, even if it is not what the developers may have intended it. Then again, they might, because I think that D3 is not something a gamedesigner could be proud of. 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.

So, Tom, are you still with us? Haven't seen you post anywhere yet. Are you seeing the developer's forums now?

http://www.tpd.tno.nl/smartsite966.html that's the URL. but I found out that it actually isn't one huge picture. there is also a thread in the TTLG at Communtiy Chat. http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91130&page=1

It would be a very good re-playability feature. It's not something you tend to see a lot of nowadays, games being made as a kind of interactive movie. Instead of like the original Worms game for the PC, which had a lot of work put into it's random level generator. I've often wanted the very feature just described by SneaksieDave, in many newer games, for replayability. It wouldn't be more technically complex than having several player spawn points in a Doom 2 map.

Anyone familiar with this team? I was wondering if we could recruit some people now that they seem like they're nearing completion. http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91246

Just to clear things up. This happens before the model is exported/imported. Scaling happens in Blender. The .ase export script we are using with blender is a bit pants and will ignore attempts to scale, rotate or move an object, unless you press CTRL+A to 'confirm' the changes. If you need to scale a model after trying it in Doom then you'll need to make the changes in blender and then repeat the export process. Doom3 Radiant allows patches to be exported as .obj files. These can be imported into blender and can be used as scale guides.

I noticed this as well. It seem you can not reyize it after you skinned it. Don't know why. What you can try to do is to resize and press CTRL-A (I think this was it) to apply the changes. If it is the correct key then it should ask you to apply. I tried to import a ASE file and resize it, but somehow the model always stays the same size. I always kept the untriangulated mopdel for this purpose and did the skinning again. Of course in my case this was not so bad because I never tried to make it good looking, just to have it show up in the game. If we can't find a better solution I guess the best workflow to do it would be this. 1. Model the mesh. 2. Save the model in a new file and keep the original model you work on in a seperate file. 3. The new file is now triangualated. 4. Skin it wihout regard for look. 5. Import it into Doom 3 and see how it's size is. If the model is to big or to small you must start at 1 again, that's why you should copy it in a seperate file. Once the model is properly sized you can start on serious skinning because you wont change the mesh anymore. This is not really satisfying because it means, that you have to do the skinning everytime you need to change the mesh.

Slow down, NH. See above post. We should be very careful about not letting our own enthusiasm dictate what we show the public. We could post something like this in our own public forums, but I wouldn't make it a public release, UNLESS it was combined with some other things, like mentioned above. In all seriousness, if we had the following: The bedroom map (in-game, with fire going), The ability for objects to vanish when frobbed At the very least, removing the D3 HUD and crosshairs THEN, I think it might be worth releasing a new video. But not until then. IMO, it's better to have people wondering what we're up to than it is to release things that make people (who know nothing about how hard things are) say, "THAT's all you've got so far??"

I dont' think that this would be a good idea in terms of gameply. How should the user ever know that a loot exists if it only spawns randomly. I can't really see a benefit for this. Most likely the majority of the users will consider this a bug. I think this is possible with Dromed already. There are guard which have a pattern set out, and the (more or less) randomly choose which one they will follow. The path is still predetermined, but there are variations because the can select thenode they want to follow. That sounds like an interesting idea. I never played NOLF but it got a good ranking the games magazine that I read. I think this could look rather convincing if a guard search for a thief it knows must be there and then kicks a can in frustration because it can not find it. Doom 3 seems to support ladders so we are investigating this. Personaly I consider this a hot topic, because the AI in the Thief games was quite easily fooled with such things.

I'm not sure how this works. From what I read so far it seems that Doom 3 calculates with a resolution of 640x480, but that doiesn't mean that the images are scaled down and up when you are providing larger images. I have to read on this and see if I can find more information about that. It seems that this is just an internal thing of D3 and doesn't have a visible effect for us. But still we have to test the screens on different resolutions and see how they work.

Okay, since it hasn't been done yet, I'll kick it off. First let me say, I assume this thread is to contain requests out of the ordinary, as stated by sparhawk at the TTLG forums: QUOTE I'm not talking of the standard features like buttons, switches, or similar stuff. Rather I'm thinking of things you might have wanted to implement in an FM but you couldn't because of limitations in the engine or in DromEd as opposed to the obvious, like rope arrows, swimming, etc. So here's a few ideas just to get things going. -random treasure spawns. An author would place a piece of optional treasure, and set a percentage chance that it will appear or not. -optional path nodes (although I think this might already be possible with Dromed). The AI can choose to ignore a node or go on a different, separate path altogether. -AI actions similar to NOLF2. I never played the game myself, but I'd heard they do things that are unexpected, at unexpected times. Many times I've played Thief and thought to myself, "why is that cook just pacing back and forth?" Clearly for gameplay, NOT realism. "Why would a guy just be standing here in a dark room, facing the wall, then turn to the fireplace, back to the wall, back to fireplace, etc?" Again, gameplay, not realism. I'd heard that in NOLF2, AI will often kick a can around, or fidget (already in Thief), or even leave patrol to go to the restroom. That sounds like a fantastic addition that might really lend some tension to the overall experience. -AI ladder climbing. Touchy subject, that, as it eliminates some safety and comfort in the game, but probably a good addition. Okay, there's a few for now. What ideas would you suggest?

Not sure if you all are interested, but a new version of the D3 SDK was released http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096480321/ It adds support for vehicles! Now, rideable burricks would be cool!

If you look for some tutorials you can learn the basics in a few hours. It is really hard to learn when you just want to experiement with it, without looking at a manual. Fomr the big apps you can usually do a lot just by clicking around. Not so with Blender. On the other hand, the interface is asboluelty streamlined to support the workflow. If you learn the keys you must use you can do a lot of stuff in a short time once you are used to it. I saw on the blender forums that there are now also video tutorials available. This might be helpfull. Search on D3World for "blender tutorials" and you can find them easily, there is a direct link to these.

This workflow I highly recommend, not because the 3 programs suggested here are FREE, but because they are the best at what they do, IMO. I love these 3 programs. You will LOVE wings3d for modelling, if you are like me and HATE Blender's nerdy complex interface. (this is from http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/vie...ic.php?p=21397) Where to get these programs: www.wings3d.com (for modelling) CharacterFX www.insanesoftware.de (for animating) Lithunwrap (for texturing) is discontinued and available free at arras's site http://members.lycos.co.uk/arras1/ Also check out arras's site to see what he has been making with this workflow. Bloody awesome game objects. They are all very low poly though, for older systems. Look at the gallery forums at the www.wings3d.com forums to see the high-poly stuff people are making with wings3d. It's just as well suited for low poly as high poly - it has always used the "box modelling" interface, which only the latest versions of big name 3D apps have just made it the new pseudo standard for modelling. The reason this workflow is so good is because each of these programs has a specific purpose (modeling, texturing, and animating) and they are all VERY GOOD and VERY SIMPLE TO USE at what they are for. Ever hard of the term "jack of all trades, master of none"? That doesn't apply to this workflow

In the worst case, only the faces are symmetrical, right? The rest of the body isn't, and that's not so bad. I think I know why they did it. If you've ever zoomed into a Doom 3 monster body, the face is the MOST detailed part. Try the handgun guy with the glowing eyes. He has the most minute (normal mapped) wrinkles all over his face, and his teeth practically look real. His skin really looks dead. And you can really see the difference in detail with the rest of his body - the textures on his body look blurry in comparison. I think they wanted the faces to be detailed, for the cutsceans. And they probably decided it was worth cutting them in half for the extra detail.

I finished the highlight for doors and changed the behaviour for items as well. Now the highlighting works in a uniform way for all entities. As you can see on the screenshot it may not be to nice for ingame, so I would need a texture that can be used for the highlight. Currently I simply use this one for testing: base/textures/base_door/doorlight_grn.tga http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...st=0entry4929 I think the texture should probably be just a white one so that it will brighten up the object in a uniform way but with lower brightness. Probably a moderately light gray. If you want to test the texture you can do the following: I used the frobTest.map. In materials/custom.mtr you (Renzatic) added this material description and I added this texture to it. Textures/Dark_Mod/Mansion/Doors/Mansion_Door02 { qer_editorimage Textures/Dark_Mod/Mansion/Doors/Mansion_Door02_ed.tga diffusemap Textures/Dark_Mod/Mansion/Doors/Mansion_Door02_d.tga specularmap Textures/Dark_Mod/Mansion/Doors/Mansion_Door02_s.tga bumpmap Textures/Dark_Mod/Mansion/Doors/Mansion_Door02_local.tga { // if ( parm11 >= 0.5 ) blend add map textures/base_door/doorlight_grn.tga colored } }