particles' textures

[Arcturus]

Springheel, you put new fire texture into tdm_light_textures.mtr. I propose making new mtr for example tdm_particles.mtr.

 

particle torchflame_new01 is using four materials. One is a new one, three are Doom's.

 

textures/particles/barrelpoof from senetemp.mtr from pak000.pk4

textures/particles/pfirebig2_sort10 from sfx.mtr from pak000.pk4

 

Images for these two are in pak001.pk4 in dds/textures/particles. So if we create similar images with exact same name and put them in darkmod/dds/textures/partciles (we already have this folder) they would be loaded instead of original. But if we want to make mod standalone we need to create new mtr. files. Question is, is it ok to copy materials or do they also need to be different. We can change names of the materials and then only update particle files. Then there's a question of names of the particles, do they also need to be different? If we change particle names that may screw some maps.

[Springheel]

That's fine with me...I wasn't really sure where to put them.

[Arcturus]

 

On the left is textures/particles/barrelpoof, on the right is mine.

 

original:

 

new:

[New Horizon]

I like yours. The transition appears to be much smoother.

[Tels]

Like the new one.

 

We need to keep the material and particle shader names (because maps will refer to this, and at least my add-on refers to the material and particle names).

 

However, we can re-introduce our own material definition (e.g. if you write it from scratch, it will look different enough - a plain definition file is like a C header file - it is way to restricted to be actually copyrightable, e.g. the technical parts define what you write where, anyway. So the only "creative" part is spaces etc.).

 

The actual texture (.dds) file name might be changed, but I am not sure this is really nec., filenames can't be copyrigfhed, anyway, as they are way too short.

 

So, just adding our own files with our own texture contents should be enough (IANAL), and it is a good step in the right direction - I like it!

[Arcturus]

I created new mtr file for particles and moved Arcturus_fire there; added textures/particles/barrelpoof with new texture. When we replace materials with our own, we will still need to make custom particles.

[Bikerdude]

On the subject of fire, I assume at some point we will get closer to look like RL..?

[Springheel]

On the subject of fire, I assume at some point we will get closer to look like RL..?

 

Arcturus' are much more realistic than our default ones and they're available now (torch ones anyway).

[Arcturus]

textures/particles/pfirebig2 and textures/particles/pfirebig2_sort10 from sfx.mtr, New on the left, old on the right:

 

 

New:

 

 

Old:

 

[Springheel]

Is the point of these to replace D3 assets? Or are you improving existing TDM assets?

[greebo]

I guess you have both options now.

[New Horizon]

Replacing the Doom 3 assets would be nice. Every little step toward going stand alone is great.

[Arcturus]

Is the point of these to replace D3 assets? Or are you improving existing TDM assets?

Just to replace.

[Springheel]

They'll have to be saved with the same name and folder structure as the D3 files then, correct?

[Arcturus]

In Doom every particle texture seems to be in two versions, dds in dds/textures/particles and tga in textures/particles. If we put our textures in darkmod/dds/textures/particles and copy particle materials to particles.mtr they should work, right? I'm still though not convinced we can simply copy all the materials structure with all their names and then distribute for free. Making high-res mod for Doom is one thing, but we want to make completely new game based on the work of ID.

[Springheel]

As long as the image files are replaced, what would be the problem? You can't copyright folder names.

[Tels]

Well, copyright (at least in the US, and I think in most countries following the Berne convention) says that things "too simple" can't be copyrighted. Shopping lists, cooking receipes, C header files, all these things can't be copyrighted as they are not "high enough" on the creativity scale. Plus, some of these things have a "technical aspect" which is nec. for interoperability - you cannot cook onion if you want them fried, you cannot have a "#define" named "#foowarble" etc, these things are sort of fixed. All that further reduces the creativity that goes into these files, so nobody can claim copyright on them.

 

IMO filenames for textures and particles, as well as shader names fall in the same category.

 

Yes, it would be better if we changed them, but we can only do so for texture names - particle names and material shader names need to stay (or we need to make a 100% test of all missions and call it TDM v2.0 because it might break something).

 

Of course, you'd need to ask a lawyer to get a sensible advice on this (and if you ask 2 lawyers, you get 3 opinions...)

[Arcturus]

Uploaded. What I mean is that we will end up with dozens of shaders with exactly the same names and very similar textures. Some names like bfgballblast are obviously connected to the original game. Perhaps I'm exaggerating.

[Tels]

Yeah, you are right, I don't like that either. If it is just the texture file name, you can go ahead and change it, then adapt the shader - but please keep somewhere an updated list of these changes because I need to mirror each change in my add-on.

 

Once we near release, we can test all missions and see if any of them actually added particles and used the texture file name in them (or just used shader names and are all happy). At this point in time we can still either change the textures file names back, or opt to fix missions.

 

What we can't do (and I am sure we can't do) is changing either material shader names or particle names. That would break missions.

 

(It is one of these cases which I should have pushed much much harder to clean up before release v1.0 - I knew it would bit us in the ass. We already changed all entity names etc, but we missed a lot of other D3 legacy names). On the bright side, tho, the names are no legal problem, they are just - not neat and clean

[Bikerdude]

Some feedback:

 

I've just been looking at the new flame particle effect while working on st lucia and while it looks more like fire its actually too dim. Its missing a glow and/or isnt bright enough, as in when you look at the flames and then the light they are emitting the two don't match.

[Tels]

Is this new flame particle the one that arcturus used in the grass map? All I can say to *that* particle is that it doesn't look right at all - it looks more "realistic" but that is actually counter-productive, as it just enters the uncanny valley - it isn't realistic enough and I much prefer the original particle we had. (There is nothing wrong with it, so why "fix" it?)

 

We'd be better of if we replaced D3 assets instead of always mucking with the stuff that already works and nobody complained about (the complaints about our flame particle are about zero).

[Bikerdude]

Im guessing they are and yeah I liked the old ones aswell, that said the new one could work. It just needs tweaking so the actual flame texture is much brighter. Also the animation of the flame/s needs to be a bit faster as its almost like they are in slo-mo.. in that they don't sync with the sound.

[Springheel]

We'd be better of if we replaced D3 assets instead of always mucking with the stuff that already works and nobody complained about (the complaints about our flame particle are about zero).

 

I happen to think the new one is far superior to the "jet fuel" look of the old one, but nothing has been replaced; both particles are there for use. I agree with Biker about brightening it a bit, however.

[Baddcog]

Well, some of the torch entities use a 'new particle'. I'm not sure what is what really, but in the light_entity test map most torches have that, and the statues appear to have the original.

 

I suppose they should all be the same, maybe if someone can look and decide...

[Bikerdude]

Can the new flame particle be edited in DR..? if so I will have a stab at seeing if I can brighten them up and increase the anim speed.