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Messing around with Dark Radiant and TDM Demo


Neurological

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If you say so... :) I was just playing around a little with DR this weekend. Can't do anything on it this month though, because I got 4 big exams coming up and as every student, I know nothing so far... ;) Anyway here are two screens:

shot00009mi3.th.jpgshot00011iw2.th.jpg

 

(The yellow of the window is not actually that glowy ingame. Doom 3 just seems to fuck brightness when making screenshots and I had to raise it manually via PS again, which created that awkward yellow effect)

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Doom 3 just seems to fuck brightness when making screenshots and I had to raise it manually via PS again, which created that awkward yellow effect)

 

The brightness and gamma values are post-rendering effects, which are not rendered when you take a screenshot. This tends to make screenshots darker than your view in game.

 

A simple curve in PS or GIMP can solve this quite easily. I have created one and saved the settings so I can use it on any screenshot.

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Ive been following the tutorial for the map editor and im having an absolute nightmare with sky portals. As there is no prefab with the demo I have to make my own.

 

First off I texture my sky with portal_sky texture.

I create a cube shaped brush and hit room to hollow it, inside I place info_skyportal... now if I compile here it actually works, I can see the image the camera see's of the inside of the box and the texture applied to it.

 

BUT, if I texture the box with a sky shader, I get leaks when I dmap and the sky wont work. I even tried putting the skybox inside of another hollow box but this just shows the textures off of that box I used to prevent the leak... I've tried texturing just the inside faces of the block AND texturing the whole block with the same results.

 

Where am I going wrong?

Edited by Scope
-Scope
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Thanks for the tip neuro but it didn't work... I did get it working to an extent however...

 

The trick seems to be to have another hollow room around the skybox THAT MUST TOUCH IT.

 

Now I'm presented with a new problem.

 

When I look at the sky and see the animating clouds I can see the square cube shape of the skybox instead of a seemless sky :/

 

skymb4.th.jpg

 

Now I must overcome this hurdle... any ideas?

Edited by Scope
-Scope
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Using 'room' to hollow the brush WILL make the 6 brushes like Neurological posted.

Using the 'hollow' command is the messy Doom3 way to do it. It still should work but is not the best or easiest way. Use Room.

 

And it's easier to select all the brushes. Caulk them, then select the inside faces of the room and only apply sky portal to them.

If you apply sky first you'll have to select alot more faces outside to apply caulk to.

 

Nice pic there STiFU

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I can't watch that terrain blending vid on this comp but I see no reason why using objects for this purpose would be considered sloppy or bad in anyway. Sure you'd have to back it up with caulk, no different than patches in that instance. You might not be able to export a smooth area of terrain (like a patch would make) but you could easily use the exported terrain as a base to make a smooth object mesh out of that would simulate a patch.

 

You'd probably also need to add monster clip brushes, but you have to do that with patches too. AI will colide with the model unlike a patch but the clip is needed for pathfinding.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Wrong topic maybe? :) But thanks baddcog, finally somebody says something.... ;)

 

But I think Scope is having problems with the skybox itself not with the walls covered with the skyportal shader inside the actual map. I extraced the skybox of thiefsden as a prefab for later use as well and it works without a problem. It's a shame that the clouds in it don't use alpha though, 'cause I wanted to add a predesigned background behind the cloudlayers. So from my experience it doesn't matter how you texture the inside of the skybox as long as it seals against the void, since the texture isn't visible anyway through this specific type of cloudlayers.

 

This info_skyportal system is very powerfull. You can do a lot of very nice things with it, but you have to be carefull, because it can hit performance a lot. At least that was the case in TDS and since the mechanics are the same, it's a good guess to assume the same for TDM. :)

 

Doom 3 does also support the old quake skybox system, doesn't it? In that system you create a shader in which you add the 6 pictures for the skybox and a (sun-)lightsource maybe, to cast some shadows (and emit light of course). This skyboxshader can then be applied to the walls on which you'd normaly use the skyportal shader and the engine does the rest. I am not sure, but I think that you mustn't use these skyboxshaders inside the info_skyportal-box, because the skyboxshader and the engine already do, what the info_skyportal would do, which is rendering the skybox in the proper angle. Redundant! On the whole the new system is way easier to use and more flexible. After all you don't have to fiddle around with any mtr files for your own custom skybox.

Edited by STiFU
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This info_skyportal system is very powerfull. You can do a lot of very nice things with it, but you have to be carefull, because it can hit performance a lot. At least that was the case in TDS and since the mechanics are the same, it's a good guess to assume the same for TDM. :)
I don't think the skybox is any more expensive than any other part of the level.

 

Doom 3 does also support the old quake skybox system, doesn't it? In that system you create a shader in which you add the 6 pictures for the skybox and a (sun-)lightsource maybe, to cast some shadows (and emit light of course).
Yep, they're called cubemaps. They're not only good for simulating skies, but also reflective surfaces. However, in Doom 3, they're just a texture; they don't emit any light.

 

I am not sure, but I think that you mustn't use these skyboxshaders inside the info_skyportal-box, because the skyboxshader and the engine already do, what the info_skyportal would do, which is rendering the skybox in the proper angle. Redundant!
Although I haven't tried it, I doubt there's any problem with using a cubemapped texture as a wall for a skybox since a cubemap is just a way of looking up a texture (whereas skyboxes are actually rendered).
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I don't think the skybox is any more expensive than any other part of the level.

Sure, it isn't, but given the fact that it's rendered all the time and that you can put a lot of details into a skybox like in every other room, you have to be carefull, that's what I meant.

 

Yep, they're called cubemaps. They're not only good for simulating skies, but also reflective surfaces. However, in Doom 3, they're just a texture; they don't emit any light.

It's a shame. It was very nice in q3, because if you had an "openair" map you could just add a sunlight to the skyboxshader and you didn't have to deal with lightning at all anymore... :) All shadows were baked nicely, where of course Doom 3 doesn't bake shadows at all.

 

How would an unlimited parallel sun-/moonlight be realized in Doom 3? Or would it hurt performance too much? And another question: Did you also use a cubemap on the reflecting water from that video you guys once posted? Those reflections were distorted by the noisy-surface of the water and I'd like to know how to do that....

 

Although I haven't tried it, I doubt there's any problem with using a cubemapped texture as a wall for a skybox since a cubemap is just a way of looking up a texture (whereas skyboxes are actually rendered).

I just tested it, just to be sure. It works, but boy are those default doom3 skies ugly... :D

Edited by STiFU
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Yep, they're called cubemaps. They're not only good for simulating skies, but also reflective surfaces. However, in Doom 3, they're just a texture; they don't emit any light.

 

Are you planning on using cubemaps for metal objects etc? Not sure that I saw any in the demo.

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Ah yeah, I'll have to look into that. The problem I see with that is, that you may have to use mulitple Lightsources to achieve the desired effect and that kinda stinks... :) I mean you'd have to place one light behind every building so to say, because anything which is "out of world" (by that I mean, in the void-area) isn't rendered by the engine, right?

 

I just had a look at the thief's den again in order to check how that map dealt with lighting - especially ambient lighting - and I noticed that Fidcal used multiple normal lights to create the overall ambient light, but he forgot to disable the shadows on them, which is probably another reason, why some suffer of bad performance. After I noticed that, I started thief's den again and checked the map with r_showlightcount and I think you'd have to optimize the lightning. There were areas with pink and white surfaces which is not very good and it didn't even display the moving torch.

 

Will there be a way to set an overall ambientlight level later on, like in Quake 3 or TDS? I googled a little for Doom 3 lighting tutorials, but none mentioned ambient lightning. I really hope it's possible at all, because placing many noshadow lights all over the map is very uneffective, also for later adjustments.

Edited by STiFU
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Ah yeah, I'll have to look into that. The problem I see with that is, that you may have to use mulitple Lightsources to achieve the desired effect and that kinda stinks... :) I mean you'd have to place one light behind every building so to say, because anything which is "out of world" (by that I mean, in the void-area) isn't rendered by the engine, right?

No, it's enough to place one parallel light over the entire region plus one ambient light and there you have your moonlight. The ambient will raise the light level in general and the parallel light will illuminate each face that is not facing away from the light direction. Shadows will do the rest, looks quite believable.

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Will there be a way to set an overall ambientlight level later on, like in Quake 3 or TDS? I googled a little for Doom 3 lighting tutorials, but none mentioned ambient lightning. I really hope it's possible at all, because placing many noshadow lights all over the map is very uneffective, also for later adjustments.

 

Ambient light is a bit of a pain in Doom 3...it doesn't work the way it does in Q3 or TDS, but it's still usable. Basically, you draw a light brush around the entire level, select the ambient_nofall light shader in the light inspector and of course, set it to no shadows. The ambient can not be very bright though, as it washes out normal maps quite badly. It's essentially used to lift the pitch black out of doom 3 shadows.

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just in case someone is interested.. in real life moon light is just white, as it's just suns' light reflected by the moon. but as an optical illusion we look at it and think there's a bluish tone (in contrast to the yellow tone in internal light) in all night scenes. usually artists use that in their favour when making things like paintings, movies, animations and, why not, maps :)

i had a great article about that, not sure where it is though. but here are some examples of what i mean:

blood_siren.jpg

1185.jpg

 

edit: I don't have any credit of this images! just showing them to ilustrate the concept :)

Edited by Diego
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just in case someone is interested.. in real life moon light is just white, as it's just suns' light reflected by the moon. but as an optical illusion we look at it and think there's a bluish tone (in contrast to the yellow tone in internal light) in all night scenes.

We don't "think" it's a bluish tone, but we actually see it as if it was more blue, because the lightwave receptors (don't know the proper english term for them) that are used for the scotopic vision (the vision at night) are more sensitive to shorter wavelengths, which are represented by the colors purple and blue. As you see, it got nothing to do with our brain, but you're right about the fact, that the light at night is not specifically blue. :) Do you also want to know, why the sky is orange at dawn?? ;);)

 

Anyway, I really like the second artwork. I wonder if it's just drawn or a combination of raytracing or at least 3d-sculpting and postwork/2d-art...

Edited by STiFU
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We don't "think" it's a bluish tone, but we actually see it as if it was more blue, because the lightwave receptors (don't know the proper english term for them) that are used for the scotopic vision (the vision at night) are more sensitive to shorter wavelengths, which are represented by the colors purple and blue. As you see, it got nothing to do with our brain, but you're right about the fact, that the light at night is not specifically blue. :) Do you also want to know, why the sky is orange at dawn?? ;);)

 

Anyway, I really like the second artwork. I wonder if it's just drawn or a combination of raytracing or at least 3d-sculpting and postwork/2d-art...

 

yes, you're right :) i mixed things up. by 'optical illusion' and 'brain', i was refering to the artwork exagerating the blue tones, not the actual night vision. And yet, still not a good use of the terms, it's just a simulation of how we remember night.. but i think you got the point!

 

I found this images on 3dtotal.com , the first is obviously a painting (photoshop, probably). the second is a 3d scene, maybe with some post processing.

 

I did some night rendering tests once! when i was trying to make a short movie about thief. looking back, that was a terrible idea!! think: the story happens by night, the main character is always in the shadows, there's no dialogue.. that would be a challenge even for experienced film makers! :wacko:

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