What is the ultimate maximum size possible - the editor dimension limits?

[Komag]

Okay, I've done a few test...

 

I tried to make one large room that nearly took the entire area, but not height. It was about 125,000x125,000x20,000 or so. Doom didn't like it though, and would always crash with a "malloc failure for 65512" long error message.

 

So I shrank the room down to 60,000x60,000x20,000 or so, and this time it didn't crash, but it never compiled. It may have after a long time, but waited about 15 minutes with no luck so I ended the Doom 3 process via Windows Task Manager. I now wonder if it might have eventually worked.

 

I then strank the room down to about 30,000x30,000x15,000, and this compiled in about 45 seconds and worked just fine!

 

Since then I've copied the room and added two copies of it, connected by view-blocking hallways, and it now takes close to 3 minutes to compile and run, but still works. These three rooms total up to about 3/4 the size of the 60,000x60,000x20,000.

 

I'll try to add a couple more rooms and see if it all still works.

[Crispy]

Just to confirm the ratio of 1 Doom unit = 1 inch: While looking through sound.h in the SDK just now, I noticed this line:

 

// unfortunately, our minDistance / maxDistance is specified in meters, and
// we have far too many of them to change at this time.
const float DOOM_TO_METERS = 0.0254f;					// doom to meters
const float METERS_TO_DOOM = (1.0f/DOOM_TO_METERS);	// meters to doom

 

...Implying that to convert from Doom units to meters, you multiply by 0.0254. So 1 Doom unit = 0.0254 meters, and if you do the conversion to inches you'll see that 0.0254 meters = 1 inch. So id software agrees; 1 Doom unit = 1 inch.

[Komag]

Hmm, if that's the official word then an awful lot of models, AI, etc need to be adjusted!

[Crispy]

Why do you say that? Using the 1 Doom unit = 1 inch measure, the citywatch's head joint (for example) is exactly 6 feet above the citywatch's origin (which is the ground - all AI are expected to have their origin on the ground). And it looks fine in-game to me.

[SneaksieDave]

Even in the original game, unless of course everyone on Mars is 6'8" tall.

 

Edit: incidentally, that's where the 1.1 unit : 1 inch ratio estimate came from - the same 80 unit tall guy would only be about 6'1" at that ratio...

[Komag]

I was looking at some desks and chairs that are very tall if 1 unit is 1 inch. Some desks are 40 units tall, others 36. A chair has the seat up at 24 units. If you measure your furniture at home you'll see the reality.

 

But it sounds like some things such as the citywatch work well with the 1 to 1 ratio, and look pretty much right, whereas other things may be a bit off. I think that just looking at a wall in game that is 24 units thick, it just doesn't look like 2 feet to me. I admit, though, that just "how it looks" is pretty subjective.

 

Does anyone know the player eyeball level height in units?

[Ishtvan]

I wouldn't necessarily draw conclusions from the doom to meters thing in the sound system code. The D3 sound system was not exactly the pinnacle of accuracy.

[Crispy]

True.

 

It may well be that the original intention was for Doom units to equal inches, but the art guys had other ideas...

[sparhawk]

Does anyone know the player eyeball level height in units?

 

I think it was 74. Not 100% sure as it was more then a year since I worked with it.

[Springheel]

Yeah, the 1:1 just doesn't fit with the original assets, or ours.

[Nyarlathotep]

I believe the player height is 74 (which at a 1.1:1 ratio translates to 5'7", exactly our thief's height), and the eyeball height is something like 68.

[demagogue]

Reading this thread makes me long for MegaTexturing so we can make all that space look good.

I know the game-play doesn't focus on big, outdoorsy areas, but every now and then it's nice to spread the wings...

 

Did anyone ever figure out if it's at all practicable to get it in after id4/Doom3/ET:QW all go open-source?

 

Edit: A little research later, wow, I didn't realize that some workable Megatexture tech was already built into vanilla Doom 3 - link1, 2, 3, 4,

. Well that opens up possibilities! It has limitations (no compression? apparently), but it's there. Maybe oldhat, I think I saw those screenshots before, but I didn't catch their significance. Edited October 26, 2008 by demagogue

[jdude]

Wow! I remember looking into this a long long time ago when they were still working on it, and I ended up dismissing the idea. However maybe the mega-texture in D3 is something we should look into. I currently can't really think of any thief-type applications for it, but I know it would be useful. I probably need to sleep on the idea

[Komag]

At the very least the potential is there and known, so it bodes well for the future of fan mission development

[Kiln]

As long as you're looking into Doom3 tech tweaks, I was wondering if you guys caught what LDAsh was doing with foliage over at doom3 world:

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...f=2&t=21149

 

The video he made looks great and seems frame rate friendly, the normal map stuff he talks about is all voodoo to me however. ToSL looks mighty fine, excellent job all around gents (and lady), but the low shrubs and wall creepers really had some flat lighting going on.

 

Enough back-seat modding from me, but check it out of you haven't already and keep up the great work.