Doom3world

Hey guys

Last weekend I felt like doodling. I ended up playing around with an open aired Egyptian themed map (I have no idea if I'll complete this or if there will be game-play, but I'm having a bit of fun at the moment making it - so who knows what will happen)

I start with blocking in all the main architecture of the level to get a sense of the scale, ended up being pretty sizable. I then searched around for some reference images and found some nice sun set type desert photos and used that as a basis, then added my own spin. I made a sky-dome, a bit of an atmosphere and Thursday/Friday I created the desert dune mesh.

Please note all textures and most of the geo is all work in progress, but it seems to be shaping up to something interesting for Doom 3.

Today I'm working on creating a new texture for the terrain that fits correctly, the current texture was designed to be used in smaller clumps but not large sprawling areas. I also hope to finish the terrain mesh, so it's not floating beneath the geometry

Here are some images:

http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/shot00005.jpg
http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/shot00007.jpg

This was my first days work and it turned out ok, but very brown and a bit dull.

http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/shot00008.jpg

I added the sky-dome but the fog/lighting/ambient still needed some tweaking

http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/shot00015.jpg

This is today's progress. The over all atmosphere is a bit more orange now to match the sun light. The textures are all a bit more orange too. The geometry textures will get replaced so I wont be using Doom's textures in the future.

I do have effects in the works to have sand blowing around and up and down the dunes. I also bake AO in to the vertices of the terrain to give it a bit more depth.

Cheers

Z

Lookin nice! When you start making custom textures, do you expect you'll use features from Sikkmod or jmarshall's build?

Makes me want to kick some Mental butt.

Nice looking!

Already a good-looking stuff !

As much as I respect Sikk and his mod, either I'm a twat and have no idea what I'm doing ( I suspect not ) or it just never works properly for me and I get glitches, so I never use it

If someone did a basic implementation of shadow maps, AO, post process utility (not a console typing in variables) and material control over glass and spec, yeah I could see myself doing more with the level for sure

Definitely the former. Totally and completely joking.

Anyway, I'd love you to help you with getting Sikkmod to work, not necessarily for your map (jmarshall23's deferred renderer would better suit you're large scale design) but just so you can try it out, fall in love with it, and never play Doom 3 without it. Plus, you being in the industry, it's good advertising.

If you'd like to get it working, just let me know what your problems are (screens shots and descriptions and such) and I'll do my best to help you solve them. Are you on an Ati, by chance? If you are, CatAI has to be turned off.

Cheeky bugger

Ok so, so far I've tried the D3XP version of sikkmod and I get odd AO artifacts, and I get odd black shading on surfaces that are in shadow. I'm also not sure if the post card effect from the sun is supposed to appear like it does.

I use 2 GTX560's in SLI with latest drivers.

here are some shots with the specific effects enabled: AO (all variations cause similarly odd effects), soft shadows, sun shafts, color grading.

http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/sikk/shot00016.jpg
Pretty much all AO solutions cause this issue except (low)
http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/sikk/shot00017.jpg
More AO goodness
http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/sikk/shot00018.jpg
This uses HBAO(med)
http://plagueandpestilence.com/shots/sikk/shot00020.jpg
More AO goodness

This is all on a super clean build of the game that just has my map and a few textures.

Not sure if any of this can be fixed or not

Thanks for offering to put in a bit of help so I can use some candy.

Are you forcing AA or AF through the driver? Forcing these cause the post effect buffers to be AA'd and AF'd as well. This isn't a problem for color buffers (like for HDR and bloom) but since the depth is encoded, applying AA will fuck up the depth causing artifacts like you're getting. This also causes similar problems with color grading when using the LUT method (as it also applies AA and texture filtering to the LUT which needs to be pixel accurate).

I hope the problem is as simple as that. Let me know if turning those to 'app controlled' works.

Great work, looks very stunning and original. I hope it won't die like z13d3sp3, which was supposed to get a beta release back in 2009, but the beta is still "coming"

Nah I generally don't play with that stuff unless it's an older game like Warcraft 3 and even then I set it per application. For testing purposes I restored the driver to default settings and it looks exactly the same

sad panda. If I disable AO it looks fairly alright with assets that weren't made for these settings. If I cold get the AO to work then we'd be in for a bit of a win.

I still have that map I just got totally bored of the scifi stuff really. I've actually made 3 SP maps ranging from 50-80% completion I just wasn't bothered finishing them and releasing them

But I think I will with this one, it feels more fun than a chore to make

This has piqued my interest, but I'll believe you when you say you'll finish it once I've downloaded it

The geo's quite interesting, very serious sam like, and very reminiscent of the design of another mod I heard of some time ago, but can't remember the name of

I'm interested to see how you handle the lighting in such a large area, as I'm about to light an outdoor section of my map, but am struggling to make it look acceptable by todays standards.

Also, which version of sikkmod are you running? Sikk never released 1.0 for d3xp, which means you might be running the older, buggier version.


Amen to this... I just spent 3 weeks building pipes in one room (basically a room made of pipes), forcing myself to work on it... then the last week and a half I've done three times as much doing more interesting geo.

oh, and more screenshots!

That is some very awesome work, seriouslly. I'm looking to get tallented artists to do some art stuff for my engine conversion; and you are a great environmental artist. Would you be willing to share your map for usage in the project?

first screen shot is best with the "dusty" air.

try adding cracks and busted up or chipped stones.

Thanks for the kind comments, but I am very far away from being a good environment artist. I'm a level designer by trade who likes to poke around with the pixels

You can use what ever you like but I am sure there is better content out there than what I am doing that's for sure.

bkt: Yeah I'll get some more screenshots on the weekend, I don't do much during the week, because I'm already making level 40hrs a week

Ahhh... those were the days. Can't wait to get back to 'em! In the meantime, I accept nothing less than awesomeness from you

That looks great, Zombie!

Serious Sam in my Doom3? Why not
On screens that map look very clean, some destruction could add more details - like try to break or remove some bricks, add barriers from collapse walls and pillars, add cracks on stairs/walls/rocks - but that's just my humble opinion. Great work! and I wish to see this map done and playable.

Me too! - looks very promising indeed from the screen shots!

Cheers