Make levels using Blender?

[LeiGet]

Hi. I'm a long-time Blender user and was wondering if it's possible, in part or in whole, to use Blender to make levels, mostly the level geometry. I understand that NPC, scripting, partitioning, etc would be something better done in DarkRadiant, but I'd like to use Blender to make the buildings, streets, terrain, etc and to place them.

[nbohr1more]

Yes, this is possible but there are a few things that make it a little impractical.

1) Models do not seal the void so you need BSP brushes behind or inside models to properly seal a map. As I recall, there are doom 3 and quake map exporters that can export your initial block-out geometry as standard brushes so you could do both modeling and brushwork in blender. You’d just have to do it in phases

2) Visportal placement is crucial to performance so you will need to ensure you blender models are cut at portal boundaries so that you can setup brushes and visportals at choke points to prevent rendering outside the player view area

3) model geometry is often too complex for the physics engine. You will need to make invisible clip models or clip brushes that use a more simplified structure to ensure AI pathing and overall collision physics perform well.

4) Models need to be split at light boundaries. If a single light touches a model the engine will do light geometry calculation for the whole model. If enough lights hit a large model it can severely impact performance. Brushes will auto-split on light boundaries but often split in less optimal locations so it has become the convention to use func_static geometry to force brushes to split in the preferred locations

5) blender has no knowledge of specialty brushes like fog volumes, water, SEED auto dispersal etc

So it’s possible to do the majority of mapping in blender but ultimately you will need to use Dark Radiant to do the finishing touches

The current paradigm is to create modular content in blender and then assemble the modules together in Dark Radiant along with bsp caulking and vidportal placement 

 

[HMart]

1 hour ago, LeiGet said:

Hi. I'm a long-time Blender user and was wondering if it's possible, in part or in whole, to use Blender to make levels, mostly the level geometry. I understand that NPC, scripting, partitioning, etc would be something better done in DarkRadiant, but I'd like to use Blender to make the buildings, streets, terrain, etc and to place them.

nbohr1more already said most of it but if I can add anything, is that the AI traversal system called AAS (Area Awareness system) also requires brush's to work.  

Spoiler

This is what I know about it, others may correct me if something is wrong, AI will walk fine on a complex floor model made in blender but bellow the model, you need a brush for the AI to be able to traverse the space, the brush doesn't need to be accurate to the floor mesh and the AI doesn't need to contact the brush at all, so you can just put a flat brush a few units bellow the floor model, the AI just needs it there to know where to go next, because its AAS system (navigation system) totally ignores mesh's, is like they aren't there at all. This means AI afaik will also bump into mesh based static models in it's path, like headless chickens, if you don't enclose those, in a brush using the special monster_clip texture. My two cents.

 

[Wellingtoncrab]

I have seen this addon mentioned on the idtech 4 discord regarding exporting doom 3 brushes from blender in the .map format which might let you accomplish some of what you want as far as building level geometry in blender. Haven’t tested it personally for tdm:

https://github.com/c-d-a/io_export_qmap 

[nbohr1more]

I should have posted this link but my previous reply was posted from my phone:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Modular_Building#Modular_Building_Technique

[jonri]

15 hours ago, nbohr1more said:

4) Models need to be split at light boundaries. If a single light touches a model the engine will do light geometry calculation for the whole model. If enough lights hit a large model it can severely impact performance. Brushes will auto-split on light boundaries but often split in less optimal locations so it has become the convention to use func_static geometry to force brushes to split in the preferred locations

Is this still true now that 2.11 is out with this feature?

I've been wondering about whether this might open up the possibility to use larger models for things other than terrain, for example modeling a building at a time in Blender and then assembling them into a street in DR.  I'll probably at least test it out someday...

[Arcturus]

There are .map exporters for older versions of Blender. I once made this in Blender: