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I updated the website and our moddb gallery with oDDity's new model shots. I've also created a new banner and have added us to the Top 100 list of Doom 3 mods over at moddb.

Nice to meet you, Tyro. Great stuff. And welcome to The Dark Mod. I am already impressed by your enthusiasm. I'm the Art Division Leader, so we'll be working together, no doubt. Take some time to read through the different developer forums and bring yourself up to date with what we have already done. When you're ready for some assignments, just let me know. (and you'll find the average age here is fairly high...I'm 32)

That's what the IRC channel is there for. Details here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=450

Eeek, I think there is some confusion here. I've pretty much ripped the guts out of T3 and the gem wasn't 2D. The Gem is a 3D object, just like the compass. It is simply skinned with a 2d texture. The texture will wrap around the gem, and in this way...the gem can be placed in any position we need it and then anchored there while the compass rotates around it. I've checked out the textures oDDity supplied and they should work perfectly. Just a quick shot of the skinned gem model. This is the T3 gem. I used the t3ui.ini to scale it up in size and turn the end towards the player slightly. It's a full 3d model. Just wanted to make sure there was no confusion there. That should help get things moving along. Another shot...angled up and exposing the edge of the gem. Since the t3hud files enabled scaling through the t3ui.ini I'm hoping that there is a similar way for us to do this in doom 3. Having to resize the gem and compass and export it each time we want to try a different size would be time consuming. I've tried the d3world forums but wasn't able to find anything about scaling ingame hud items. I'll send an email to id support.

Now, how am I supposed to know which exact angle you're going to put the comapss in at. I though you would do the gem renders youself. Those gem textures are to be put on the gem model, you can render the bitmaps youself at whatever angle you need. The model is exactly the same size an Oonfish's. All you have to do is resize it to doom proportions in whatever 3d app you use. Maybe I should send you the Lightwave scene, and you can do the gem renders yourself. I have an envelope on the luminosity channel, which finishes at 100, but you can make it higher if you want it brighter. Or esle we'll have to wait till I get a faster connection next week, there's no way I'm downloading all the dark mod stuff on a 56k.

The model is shown in this thread a few times: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=292 The actual model itself should be on the ftp site.

I managed to get it sorted out, I didn't need any .def file actually, just wrote a material shader. I got the lightwave normal map plugin working (I just needed to get the LW8 version) so I didn't have to bother pissing about with renderbump. I can tell you now how to get a complete textured, normaled, speced static mesh into Doom using Lightwave, but since no one else here uses LW, there isn't much point As for getiing animated characters into the game, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it...

ok - I resized the chair. I think the proportions are ok - here's a screen with the Doom-Guy in the model-viewer (ignore the strange stuff around - that's atteched to the player-model)

What I did to use renderbump was make a low and high poly version of a model (obviously) put them in a folder models/mapobjects/object/testobject.lwo Then I wrote this shader and put it in the mapobjects material file: models\mapobjects\object\testobject { renderbump -size 256 256 -trace 0.03 -colorMap -aa 1 models\mapobjects\object\testobject_local.tga models\mapobjects\object\testobject_hp.lwo diffusemap models\mapobjects\object\testobject_d.tga bumpmap models\mapobjects\object\testobject_local.tga, specularmap models\mapobjects\object\testobject_s.tga } What I'm not sure of is where to put this shader, or what to call it at the top of the code. I read on the doom forums that you put the name of the surface of the low poly object u there, but i the material files the doom devs always write the path an the name of the object what I get when I run renderbump is this WARNING: Couldn't load image: testobject surface 0, shader testobject renderBump = (no action) 0.01 seconds for renderBump SO you write a .def fle as well? fr the object or for the map you put the object in?

With simple geometric shapes such as a chair, it's just as well to rebuild the low poly mesh from scratch using the high res version as a template, it 's much neater. Remember, when using normals and spec maps you really don't need any detail whatsoever on the chair, just basic squares, rectangles and 4 sided pyramids. For example the chair section I've marked in red need only contain 28 triangles, whereas that seems to have about 100. The leg I marked in green only needs 12 triangles, the seat should only have 12, etc. I reckon that entire low res chair should only have about 150 polys. Feel free to get carried away with the high res object and pile on as many million polys as you desire, but the low res cage should be as low as possible, the RTShadow system in games like Doom don't like high poly counts.

Has ayone managed to get static models in-game, complete with normal maps? Normal maps generated by ZBrush don't seem to work properly in Doom, I think because they use tangent space instead of local space, the model I imported was 0,0,0 black everywhere except where the lights hit it. The Orb normal map program site seems to be down since all the links are broken, my lightwave notmal map plugin seems to have mysteriously stopped working, and I can get renderbunmp tool in Doom to cooperate either! :/ SO if anyone has generatd their own normal maps for an objects and it worked ok in-game, please spill the beans. Also on poly counts, it states somwher on the forums here that character models can be up to 7-8k or something, but I think that's way too many. The model I imported was only about 4k and my perfomace went way down, even though it was the only model in an empty room. All of the Doom models are very low res - that's the point of using normal maps in the first place..you don't need high res models.

You mean the finished game model? A long time I would suspect. Doing the high res model is only 10% of the workflow. I still have to trawl various websites and forums trying to get the information I need to work out how to get characters into the game, and no animations have even been started yet. Heh, I've only just perfected getting characters into UT2K3, and now I have to start all over again for Doom. Still, I've finished a lot of Nightblade work, I've only a couple more models to do for that, so I sould have a decent amount of time to devote to this.

I have no problem with an animated movie as part of the menu. It just means we would have to change the design again. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but I thought pak was talking about having a 'live' shot of a map behind the interface...AI wandering around just as they would in a game. Not a pre-recorded movie. Actually, the new design I'm considering DOES include a brief animated movie, kind of like the planet coming into view in the original D3 menu. I'll post more about the idea this weekend, once I get this GUI tutorial under my belt. It's on the Doom3World forums under scripting. Damn, can't remember the title offhand...something like GUI Tutorial #3. I'll post the url later when I can find it. Edit: here it is, NH: http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=3241

That doesn't mean we can't have a small doom 3 level as the background. I still think this would be the best way. I can record a small video of how it looks in Half-Life 2, if you want.

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?