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The Worst TDM Missions


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Perhaps i suffer from the mappers syndrome.

 

I'd say so. B)

 

One thing that you may be having an issue with is that Doom 3's reliance on normal maps has two troubling consequences:

 

1) Since they eat Gallons of texture memory, your budget for unique textures is lower and hence more repetition

2) With older static lit engines, you could use hand-drawn "bridge textures" to add nuance and detail to material transitions...

....with normal maps these transitions would need to be made as high-poly models and baked to a model that is a copy of the brush geometry (unless you've got an eye from drawing normals by hand...)

 

Problem 2 is something that I've been considering awhile now. The answer to how "solvable" it is comes down to:

 

1) Is there a tool that can convert Normal Maps back to geometry (Oneofthe8devils had a doom3world thread that implied there was...) ?

2) Might it be possible to modify the "renderbump" command to work with brushes and patches?

3) Are there any tools that can convert normal mapped brush prefabs into "virtual high-poly models" in real-time to "sculpt normals"

 

Blender plugins (etc).

 

I'm surprised that such solutions would never have been discussed before given how widespread the use of Normal Maps are but

I guess that since UE3 is heavily biased towards Modelers (as the core content creators) that the topic has not really been broached that

much by the industry...

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I'd say so. B)

 

One thing that you may be having an issue with is that Doom 3's reliance on normal maps has two troubling consequences:

 

1) Since they eat Gallons of texture memory, your budget for unique textures is lower and hence more repetition

2) With older static lit engines, you could use hand-drawn "bridge textures" to add nuance and detail to material transitions...

....with normal maps these transitions would need to be made as high-poly models and baked to a model that is a copy of the brush geometry (unless you've got an eye from drawing normals by hand...)

 

Problem 2 is something that I've been considering awhile now. The answer to how "solvable" it is comes down to:

 

1) Is there a tool that can convert Normal Maps back to geometry (Oneofthe8devils had a doom3world thread that implied there was...) ?

2) Might it be possible to modify the "renderbump" command to work with brushes and patches?

3) Are there any tools that can convert normal mapped brush prefabs into "virtual high-poly models" in real-time to "sculpt normals"

 

Blender plugins (etc).

 

I'm surprised that such solutions would never have been discussed before given how widespread the use of Normal Maps are but

I guess that since UE3 is heavily biased towards Modelers (as the core content creators) that the topic has not really been broached that

much by the industry...

oh god,nbohr,mappers syndrome is not about normalmaps...

Perhaps i suffer from the mappers syndrome.

yeah,me to

Proceed with caution!

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What else can we attribute these claims of "Doom 3" is not "Thief enough" to?

 

They are both 3D engines that use textures and polygons.

 

What is the difference? Why does one look "more organic"?

 

A simple examination shows that mappers for engines with baked lighting can hand-draw details and shading

in ways that do not work for engines where lighting must provide the shading.

 

Those hand-drawn features give you such lovely nuace as seen in the DrK missions for Thief II. It imparts an emotional connection.

 

To achieve the same results in Doom 3 without heroic workarounds would take massive textures. Hence the move to Megatexture for Id Tech 5.

 

The solution should've been something akin to what I described. Something to make it easier to produce organic transition details between tiled textures.

 

(Unless you prefer downloading 100GB texture files for every mission...)

 

The other alternative... going hog-wild with geometry like Johannes :laugh: (and let the lowend folks weep at the requirements)...

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

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What else can we attribute these claims of "Doom 3" is not "Thief enough" to?

 

A simple examination shows that mappers for engines with baked lighting can hand-draw details and shading

in ways that do not work for engines where lighting must provide the shading.

 

I hardly think that the majority of T2 mappers would be using such techniques, so I consider it unlikely that the lack of this particular item is the cause of complaints about TDM graphics quality. More likely it is much simpler things, such as: over-reliance on flat ambient lighting, monochromatic or miscoloured light sources, unrealistic light falloffs, missing trim and edge textures (like tiled brick wall being used for the back of steps or right up to a doorway edge without a door frame), lack of grime or dirt, expansive surfaces with a single texture, and so on.

 

All things that are very easy to miss when you are concentrating on mapping and gameplay, but contribute to a "clunky graphics" feel.

 

The solution should've been something akin to what I described. Something to make it easier to produce organic transition details between tiled textures.

 

Vertex blending, decals, projected blend lights and alphatest materials can all help here.

 

Don't go smartass on me, just saying what i believe.

 

The problem is that what you believe just doesn't make any sense. Claiming that the quality of Doom 3 as a game somehow affects the capabilities of the engine is like saying you don't ever want to drive a Nissan because your mate had one and it stank of cigarette smoke.

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The Doom 3 Engine is a fantastic engine. The fact we were able to twist it into a Thief styled game before gaining access to the full source code demonstrates that very well.

 

Many complain about the pitch black shadows, or the shiny plastic look of everything in D3...but those aren't faults with the engine those were artistic choices, they are choices we chose to side step in our work. I've ready many times on the net how people simply can't believe TDM is built on the same engine since it looks nothing like D3.

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The problem is that what you believe just doesn't make any sense.

 

Orbweaver beat me to it.

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What else can we attribute these claims of "Doom 3" is not "Thief enough" to?

 

They are both 3D engines that use textures and polygons.

 

What is the difference? Why does one look "more organic"?

 

A simple examination shows that mappers for engines with baked lighting can hand-draw details and shading

in ways that do not work for engines where lighting must provide the shading.

One more reason (which was raised by Zylonbane): higher graphical quality means you need more stuff to make a scene come alive.

  • In Thief missions, you can have a room (cube air brush, cylinder air brush for the vaulting... another cube air for trim if you are feeling fancy) with a stool, and a niche with a torch in it. That's a scene.
  • In TDM, that's not a scene yet. You need more detail, decals (grime, cobwebs) and little objects to impart the same feeling of completeness.

I am generalising here, but we accept a level of abstraction from Thief that we don't accept from TDM. Hence why some missions - which lack that extra work - may feel less organic, less lived-in. Sometimes people don't do that work, and it shows. On the upside, I believe it is not much more work, just a matter of a little more attention.

 

On the other hand, there are zillions of Thief missions which don't feel organic and never did. The default Thief 2 texture families for example are monumentally unsuited for building game spaces that look alive. They look incredibly flat unless lit very well. Some people have managed to do it, but many more have failed. Thief 1... for some reason, though, Thief 1 missions, even if fairly plain, tend to look at least decent. I think it is about colour contrasts, and a feeling of grittyness in the rough 256-colour palette. So it is also a matter of choosing your textures. That's like a painter choosing his or her colours. Supremely important.

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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The problem is that what you believe just doesn't make any sense. Claiming that the quality of Doom 3 as a game somehow affects the capabilities of the engine is like saying you don't ever want to drive a Nissan because your mate had one and it stank of cigarette smoke.

 

It was merely a theory, and i dont know jack shit about the engine, but my guess is that it contributes to the plastic feeling that the majority of fms suffer from.

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It was merely a theory, and i dont know jack shit about the engine

 

You're blaming the engine but admit that you know absolutely nothing about it.... And even if you were correct (and you're not), how would that information be useful to anyone? It's not like we can change engines seven years into the project.

 

That's why I referred to it as a "pointless comment".

 

my guess is that it contributes to the plastic feeling that the majority of fms suffer from.

 

What do you mean by "plastic feeling"?

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Vertex blending, decals, projected blend lights and alphatest materials can all help here.

 

All these techniques have one thing in common. What they address are not reactive to surface interactions.

 

These are more sophisticated versions of the same hand-drawn tricks used in baked lighting engines.

 

They are GREAT for blending diffuse details, adding visual density (grime) or faking AO.

 

They do not address some of the problems where two or more surfaces with strong normal maps converge.

 

Exception... normal mapped decals might work... but even there the normal map on the decal will not normally be a good offset

for the world geometry the way normal map baked from a model would.

 

Yes, if mappers used the mundane (old-school) diffuse tricks more often, things would improve but then you are betraying the nature of the engine.

 

It works.... until a torch bearing AI walks past or you pull-out your lantern...

 

Point taken about the heightened expectations Melan. ^_^

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

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It was merely a theory, and i dont know jack shit about the engine, but my guess is that it contributes to the plastic feeling that the majority of fms suffer from.

 

There is nothing in the "engine" that causes a plastic look. It's an artistic choice. There was a plastic look to everything in Doom 3 but that was because Doom 3 used extremely strong specular textures...on EVERYTHING. We didn't do that. Sometimes we don't even use speculars in TDM, and even when we do have specular textures, they are very minimal. I really don't know how a majority of FM's could suffer from a plastic feeling when many who loathed the plastic look in Doom 3 were amazed that we didn't have it. Like I said before, the Doom 3 engine is fine.

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Ok, enough about the damn engine, im not blaming anything just shitting out words and ideas.

 

About the plastic feeling, its hard to explain.

Everything is uneven, there is no visual/functional balance, one thing can look, act, behave etc realistic and the object next to it would be the opposite.

Everything just becomes very messy imo ie. texture, ai behaviour, animations, lightning, sounds, models, layout (sometimes) etc.

Its either shit or great, hence the lack of balance and the "plastic" feeling.

 

how WIP is TDM at this stage?

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I think that specular too is often a red-herrring.

 

What people mean by "plastic" may be the lack of "Precomputed Radiance" ala HL2 to soften the lighting.

 

I think the new Post Process shader does an admirable job but more sophisticated methods would help.

 

Right now, the light hits the surface and paints a somewhat sterile reaction with no sub-surface effects or caustics.

 

When you bake the light, you can also bake-in that softer look. Or use a painterly non-photo look.

 

So that may be another area where folks are not articulating the problem properly.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

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Everything is uneven, there is no visual/functional balance, one thing can look, act, behave etc realistic and the object next to it would be the opposite.

 

Well, you're dealing with a set of assets that have been added by multiple people of different skill levels over a period of seven years. So some of them are obviously going to be better than others. There are certainly some textures and models added in the early years that are a little rough around the edges.

 

However, a concrete example would help.

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However, a concrete example would help.

 

...and at best in an other topic

Ich konnte mich nicht erinnern Teleportation gezaubert zu haben und doch stand ich da... alleine und nackt.

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The ways Orbweaver mentioned to add variation to surfaces are pretty much standard in recent games, and they work well when used properly.

 

Regarding the "plastic look" :

 

There are many reasons people might think default Doom3 looks "like plastic", altho that's highly exaggerated and some people might even just be parrotting something they heard others say ( as is too often the case for a lot of things ).

 

id went with a single very basic and simple lighting model ( fast to calculate ) on everything, with a constant specular power factor that is just attenuated by the specular-map, none of the rendering is gamma-correct/linear by default etc.

There have been improvements to some things in the current TDM shaders tho ( along with some more or less questionable changes, imo ).

 

But the actual asset creation and the use of assets by the mapper plays a big part as was already mentioned.

If things don't look coherent near each other, then all the effects and fancy graphics features in the world won't be able to hide it. Unless you use lots of bloom.

 

That said, nobody is perfect and some people may have more experience than others.

Making a map or assets for a game requires a lot of effort which is commendable in itself already.

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Well, you're dealing with a set of assets that have been added by multiple people of different skill levels over a period of seven years. So some of them are obviously going to be better than others. There are certainly some textures and models added in the early years that are a little rough around the edges.

 

However, a concrete example would help.

 

Looking at the media section.

 

Here's is an example

 

http://www.thedarkmo.../rttc_2_six.png

 

The layout, and design of this mission is clearly fantastic, but still something is flawed.

it looks like brushes piled onto brushes, instead of buildings with kickass detail.

 

http://www.thedarkmo...ts/fiasco_2.jpg

 

Same with this one, great brushwork and layout, but still, once ingame its to bright, looks blocky and it gets messy.

when looking in the editor the normals look good, but ingame they make shit look intensly bright or flat.

 

other things that contribute to the "plastic" are Ai behavior, speech, animation and overall sound, but im guessing this is still very WIP

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Please post a screen-shot.

 

You might have driver related artifacts...

 

Also, what Ambient, Interaction Shader, Post Process, AF, and AA settings do you have configured?

 

It may also be helpful to see if any "image downsize" options are applied. Please post your DoomConfig.cfg

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

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im guessing this is still very WIP

 

You guess wrong.

 

but still something is flawed.

 

That's not very helpful. What exactly do you think is flawed?

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OK, let's first straighten the record for what 'plasticy' means so people just stop parroting the term as a 'flaw'.

 

Plastic means it looks like , you guess it PLASTIC. It looks SMOOTH, HARD and SHINY. So in one post you say the map in game looks too messy, thus plasticy? that makes no sense. Plastic is a very clean and glossy fabricated material. Doom3 DID have that feel as others said from the fact they used very high specular, thus glossy shiny materials.

And as said above, our specular maps are very low key on almost everything that has them. So I disagree, TDM does NOT look plasticy, even though Doom3 might have.

 

-----------

As far as engine vrs game.

 

The engine is a program, that runs the game. That's it. So you can build any game in the Doom3 engine and it can look like any game. You could build mario brothers and it wouldn't look like Doom3.

 

Why? Because the ARTWORK. The textures, models, etc... If an authors doesn't use any Doom3 artwork (most don't, but there are some things people do use, blood splatters for one) then it simply won't look like Doom3 AT ALL.

 

The renderer is another program that draws the scenes that are built in the engine.

 

The engine DOES NOT make the game. You could build the same game in twenty different engines and get the same exact look.

 

---------------

As far as art, like Spring says. Yeah, there is some inconsistancies, stuff was made by different people over 7 years. People tried there best to make stuff that fit. I think overall it's all pretty consistant for the circumstances.

 

It's alot easier for a studio with a small team of dedicated artists making everything to keep it consistant. But a small studio also sets up strict parameters on a game before they even start on it. They have trained veterans who know every step of the way what needs done where when and how. They have modelers, texture artisist, concept artists who all specialize in very narrow catagories.

 

T1 and 2 were very consistant throughout, see above reason. They had all made games together before, etc... But to say that T2 FM's are consistant is far from the truth. I hosted models from 20-30 people including myself (and my objects probably appear in half the Fm's out- I couldn't keep track) that were made for T2 FM's. Many custom textures and upgrades have been done.

So if you look at FM's from very early on, or Fm's for a T2 resources only contest, yes it's all very consistant. But if you look at the other 90% of them the same can't be said.

------------------

 

We've discussed this many times too. It would be great to have baked AO, or Real time AO. But baked Ao increases file size ALOT, and it also needs written into the compiler which is no easy task. Real time AO these days is probably a much better option and maybe easier to wrtie into the renderer. But it's got a very high overhead and would increase the required system specs by quite a bit. Of course we can always have a toggle option for lower end machines.

 

But that was waiting on open source first, which is now good to go. But still needs the work to be done...

 

We can use decals and whatnot, they aren't the best option, they take time to do... But it's an option for authors. Fidcal probably showed it off best in 'Heart' where he decaled every single corner of the map. I personally would never have that patience but that map looks great because of it.

 

Would could also have more grime and shading painted into duplicates of tiling textures. This would achieve the same effect that you see in many games. It could require more textures to be loaded into memory during game to tile big walls,etc..

And it wouldn't require any fancy normal map stuff. The material shader would just use the same normal map for both the clean and dirty versions of the texture.

But that takes time and effort and more texture artists.

 

it really would be the best way to go imo. Not quite as good as Ao but it's doable and easier than decaling.

---------------

Again,

 

some of the complaints are sound, ai behavior that feel (lol) plasticy. Maybe you mean FAKE. there is a difference. Either way as has been said over and over.

 

A Fan Mission no more makes TDM what it is than an engine makes a game what it is.

 

If an author doesn't use sounds good, then that FM will be lacking. But TDM has some pretty damn good sounds imo. Of course there is still some stuff we'd like replaced, the stock Doom3 'tin can' sound on moveables... And in another thread people are discussing recording better ones.

 

TDM is pretty much finished : ie the core of the mod. That's why it was released, it got to a point where it was viable to let people start using it publically to make FM's. But it is open source, people can mod it, make their own resources, etc... at any time. Whether or not they are included in the mod DL is one thing. But that doesn't stop them from using them, sharing them, etc...

If someone does work that is good enough to be included it just might be.

 

-------------

The Doom3 has way more possiblity to look organic than T2 ever had. Not only look but feel. You can make patches for round towers, curvy streets, round hills.

T2 was the 'blocky brushes piled on brushes' engine. All you could do in T2 was blocky brushes, unless you used models. But models were limited to 3 collisions, block, sphere, sphere hat (a sphere that always rested right side up). So you could make fancy arch models that either the player couldn't walk through, or they could walk straight through it literally.

-----------

 

If a map is too bright for you, try turning down your gamma. I never had a problem with the map you showed being too bright in game. Sometimes YOU have to take control and adjust things a bit yourself. Can't blame a map or mod cause you can't find the brightness slider.

--------

 

Bah, I get so tired of reitterateing the same basic principles over and over

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I think Theo is suffering from mapping syndrome, but -if I interpret correctly- I can understand what he means with plasticity.

 

Mapping syndrome:

Once you've mapped enough, you always look missions with a mapping point of view. If you know how visportalling works, you instantly have a subconscious hunch how the locations are built. Or at least you have certain expectations. You should actively focus on enjoying the mission, and that way at least I can remove the Mapper bias and turn myself into a Player.

 

Plasticity:

Thief N had rather low res textures. The basic textures looked gritty and dirty. In TDM the textures are high res, clear and crispy. The mapper has to really work their ass off the get the scene to look grimy. Great decalling effort is required and I'm usually too lazy to do that. Nowdays I just compromize by stuffing decals near the lights. The dark areas have none. This means that everything is fine for people who have gamma-room set visuals. If they have too bright settings, the dark areas will look rather bad, I guess. But that's their problem, in my view, the game should be played with setting where darkness is as dark as it can be so that the player can still barely see what's in there.

 

In TDM, there are many textures that look just fine in the editor, but in game they are not as good as you'd wish. With experience, I've gathered only a few useable textures in each category, wood, stone, metal, etc. Luckily adjusting the scaling I can use those textures over and over and they look different. What I mean with this is: it is easy to choose poor looking textures. The texture decision seen in the much debated KM cellar is especially poor one.

 

I'm not sure what is meant with "plasticity of sounds and voices." Sure there are some weak sounds like the sword sounds, but those were fixed. I'm not bugged with other sounds at present. Regarding the vocal sets, I think they could have used a bit more variety. I probably don't know what I'm talking about but I feel there are same audio clips, with just different emphasis: "*Now* where would I hide if I was a thief." "Now, *WHERE* would I hide if I were a thief", "Now, where would *I* hide if I were a thief." And not like "Here, kitty kitty kitty.." "Come out now and I promise I won't hurt you.." "Get in the open and surrender and I'll spare you."

 

But, yeah, since I'm comparing to a commercial game, I'd still say the vocals and vocal scripts we have are pretty amazing for a freetime volunteer mod.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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All these techniques have one thing in common. What they address are not reactive to surface interactions.

 

Vertex blending between two normal-mapped materials works fine. It is more work, but then so too would be hand-painting "join" textures.

 

They do not address some of the problems where two or more surfaces with strong normal maps converge.

 

Is there a screenshot that would illustrate what you mean? If you are referring to two textures meeting on the same coplanar surface, then this will probably look bad without some kind of trim texture - put a beam or a step or a pillar in the way instead.

 

IIn TDM the textures are high res, clear and crispy. The mapper has to really work their ass off the get the scene to look grimy. Great decalling effort is required and I'm usually too lazy to do that. Nowdays I just compromize by stuffing decals near the lights.

 

One thing you could try is having a grimy overlay material stage applied with "blend filter", but with a scale factor that makes it much larger than the tile size of the underlying textures. This can introduce a low-frequency dirt effect which might help to avoid the excessively clean look.

 

I'm not sure what is meant with "plasticity of sounds and voices."

 

I think "plastic" is being used as a catch-all term for the inconsistency of asset quality and lack of art direction throughout missions, which as has been pointed out is a consequence of having many different contributors over time with many different skill levels. It is something that will hopefully improve with time.

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