D3 Open Source coming soon...

[rich_is_bored]

Problem is, you'd still need D3 to run the actual game, unless someone also re-implements the physics/rendering/sound/loading engine etc . But you mean that this "TDM stripped" would simply to gather efforts from people?

 

I'm not talking about writing an engine from scratch here.

 

I'm saying that when the engine goes open source you'll have the code needed to produce a standalone game. The physics, rendering, and sound handling code will be there.

 

The only thing you'd need from Doom 3 at that point are art assets. But the game doesn't have to crash if you are missing those assets. It simply needs to fallback to a set of proxies like black boxes, checkerboard textures, and in the case of sounds a beep.

 

This isn't a problem for people who've purchased Doom 3. They simply copy over the PK4s and all is well. The difference is that people who don't have Doom 3 aren't shit out of luck. They can still experience TDM. They just don't get the full experience.

[Springheel]

The only thing you'd need from Doom 3 at that point are art assets. But the game doesn't have to crash if you are missing those assets.

 

It will if you're missing animations.

 

Beyond that, replacing assets is only the second half of the battle. First you have to identify which assets came from D3 in the first place. Is there an automated method that would catch a texture that has been copied from D3, converted to .dds and renamed? Is there an automated method that would catch a head mesh that has been copied from D3 and re-rigged to a different skeleton? What about a model that has been copied, resized and re-saved under a different filename? I know of multiple examples of all of those cases.

 

Rather than trying to replace assets, it would be much easier to specifically create a map/maps that ONLY uses assets we are sure have no connection to D3. Default AI only, no zombies, no D3 heads, no spiders, no blood splatters or anything using D3 impact sounds, etc. Someone would still have to double-check the assets were definitely ours, but that would be a hell of a lot less work. Then some kind of "TDM Demo" that bundles those maps could be released, for those without D3.

(That's assuming there isn't a lot of coding involved; I can't even guess at what might be necessary.)

 

Someone could start on such a map now, if they wanted to.

[greebo]

I agree that the D3-derivated art assets will be the hardest part to find, but we have SVN logs and we could do binary / block-level comparisons of our files to find the renamed D3 ones. Also, I'm not sure if a re-rigged and re-skinned head is going to cause any copyright problems, as it's largely unrecognisable whether the bunch of vertices came from D3 or from oddity's models or both. It's only part of the 3D coordinates which are matching, the textures, UV coords and skin weights are different (I'm not a lawyer, as you can tell). The D3 heads and body parts maybe are the most obvious rip-offs, which need to be replaced.

 

Light shaders are easy. Animations are a bit harder. Impact sounds and whole zombie models are definitely a challenge to replace.

 

As far as C++ code is concerned, I don't see any problems with that. In the case D3 goes GPL all of our code is immediately free from that point on, so we don't need to scour through that and remove anything.

 

For D3 scripts: either these files are GPL'd as well, or we "just" need to remove the D3 parts, which is not a biggie as we don't use much D3 script code anymore. Apart from a few animation scripts (which have been heavily re-scripted in the past already) there is not much we're using from vanilla D3.

[jdude]

I think the point is for people who *cannot* buy D3 anymore. Just imagine it gets delisted at Steam for whatever reasons (or Valve closes shop entirely). You already have problems buying Doom3 in Germany, because it is rated 18+ (meaning you need either a credit card for Steam (which is so 18+automatially, too) or find some online dealer (which also makes it automatically 18+). This will only get worse over time.

 

Anyway, we surely have way too many work and way too little people.

 

Hmm, well how bad are the restrictions in Germany? Why can't you just go to amazon, or EBay. In addition I don't think we have to worry about steam going out of business. How about if steam DOES go out of business then we can worry about it?

[Tels]

Hmm, well how bad are the restrictions in Germany? Why can't you just go to amazon, or EBay.

 

You cannot buy 18+ rated games online, unless the dealer does quite a lot of hops (verify yu etc.) That is either costly (Okaysoft wants I think 5Euro registering, plus 2 euro per game, plus the whole send-your-papers there), or simply impossible (f.i. Amazon.de doesn't sell most things in this category). Ebay is out of the question, they pull auctions for these items (or don't show them if you have a german IP).

 

Ebay doesn't list if for Germany, Amazon does, but it is a third-party seller:

 

http://www.amazon.de/ACTIVISION-Doom-III/dp/B0002OJU1Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278308211&sr=8-1

 

Btw, it is illegal in Germany to "import" such items, meaning if you simply order in Austria, and the border control finds your package, it is gone. That means, you usually can buy such things abroad, but it is a risky that money and goods are gone. I am atm not sure if there is even a fine you have to pay or if that is dropped if the goods value is less than X €.

 

Oh aren't intellectual property laws combined with "think of the children" wonderful?

 

In addition I don't think we have to worry about steam going out of business. How about if steam DOES go out of business then we can worry about it?

 

As far as "Germans under 18 for doom3 shopping" are concerned, Steam is already out of business

[jdude]

Oh! I had no idea how stiff the game regulations were over there! That's tough I suppose you have a point then

 

edit: Do they do the same with older games like quake and quake 2 and if so are there shops that sell these old games around? I'm not suggesting we leave D3 to these shops just out of curiosity.

[OrbWeaver]

Gotta love the genius of politicians. Because, of course, there was absolutely no history of violence in Germany until video games came along.

[Zaratul]

I got a question.When D3 SDK is released are Dark Mod team convert mod to stand alone version?

[Diego]

I got a question.When D3 SDK is released are Dark Mod team convert mod to stand alone version?

I think the last 15 posts or so are about that, exactly

[Midnight]

Gotta love the genius of politicians. Because, of course, there was absolutely no history of violence in Germany until video games came along.

Of course there wasn't. Didn't you know the Nazi's were inspired by Wolfenstein? id Software has a lot to answer for.

[Melan]

And what about all the fat kids who were inspired by PacMan? Say no to the pie-shaped yellow menace!

[lost_soul]

I'm hoping if the D3 stuff goes open-source, we can have the load times cut down a bit. Do not take this as any kind of criticism or insult, it is just an observation. I was recently playing Quake 4 and Prey on Linux, and the maps load up much faster than maps in Doom 3 and TDM do.

[nbohr1more]

So far I've seen that map load times appear to be related to how the video driver tries to optimize or pre-process data before it hits the video card... I believe that this factor is entirely up to the video card vendors... (just from anecdotal evidence at Rage3d forums regarding load times...)

 

(plus... bigger maps = bigger load times )

Edited July 5, 2010 by nbohr1more

[Midnight]

Once the source is made available, could the renderer be made to load portions of the geometry (separated by visportals) during runtime rather than all in one go, or is that just being silly?

 

 

I know that some games do this kind of loading behind the scenes to avoid load zones etc, though I'd imagine the engine and maps have to be designed from the ground up with this in mind.

 

I've never minded the loading times myself, though I know some people have had problems due to their gfx cards / settings, so I'm not suggesting this is even something to consider, just curious about the technical feasibility of this being done in D3/TDM.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Midnight

[Tels]

Once the source is made available, could the renderer be made to load portions of the geometry (separated by visportals) during runtime rather than all in one go, or is that just being silly?

 

 

I know that some games do this kind of loading behind the scenes to avoid load zones etc, though I'd imagine the engine and maps have to be designed from the ground up with this in mind.

 

I've never minded the loading times myself, though I know some people have had problems due to their gfx cards / settings, so I'm not suggesting this is even something to consider, just curious about the technical feasibility of this being done in D3/TDM.

 

The engine does this already for models, clipmodels and texture etc. I am not sure it would make sense to load world geometry in portions, tho, it is the smallest part of a level.

[Mortem Desino]

I'm hoping if the D3 stuff goes open-source, we can have the load times cut down a bit. Do not take this as any kind of criticism or insult, it is just an observation. I was recently playing Quake 4 and Prey on Linux, and the maps load up much faster than maps in Doom 3 and TDM do.

Posh. I've finally purchased Thief [3] - Deadly Shadows. And I HATE the loading and quickloading times. TDM is lightning-fast in comparison.

[nbohr1more]

TDS?

 

1) Cat Squishing?

2) "Keep your enemies closer..." ?

3) Traitor? ???

[elwing]

As far as "Germans under 18 for doom3 shopping" are concerned, Steam is already out of business

 

it's sad for the 18-

but is the dark mod really concerned? I was thinking it was only played by people that played thiefs for the last 12years, menaing that they almost all are over 18...