I've made a few resources for Doom3 (textures mostly and a few sounds) but never released them as school took me away and I lost all of it in a format.
I was just wondering why no one seems to be modding Doom3.
The main problem is there's not very good support for custom player models - they have to conform to the existing skeleton, which really limits creativity.
Also it takes a lot of time and effort to make a full Doom3-quality player model ... then the export process from various applications isn't very well-documented or simplified.
Generally it's faster and easier to make more interesting models for other game engines like UT2k4. They have more customisability, and the game runs better on more computers, so there's a wider target audience.
the main flaw it the total lack of support for PPM, there was a mod once developped by kdr11k that allowed such support but it's not anymore compatible with the latest patches, unfortunately.
let's now hope that quake 4 will allow playermodel support, in that case, I'll convert my doom3 models into quake 4 mp models
Given id's history with producing games with fun multiplayer action, to say Doom 3's multiplayer features and support was a let down is a serious understatement.
Shame that in order to do anything serious in Doom 3 really you've got to have a programmer who can mod what you need. heh
Very strange that a company that really makes a bulk of it's revenue from Mod Licenses would make such a specialised engine. Anyone tried making vehicles for Doom 3?
: rubs temples : tell ya even if I was paid to do it wouldn't without someone modifying the code first.
Quake 4 is likely to actually be what Doom 3 should've been (engine wise). Can see it being more modifiable, but knowing Raven will again lack any real support.
I don't know about that, Raven's Jedi Knight 2 had quite a few mods and models for it.
Nothing like Quake3 by any means, but there were still quite a few.
It's also a matter of people are still learning high end 3d. We've been doing low poly 3d for so long, that we're scrambling to learn high poly, before next-gen slams into our faces.
Once we all learn the high end stuff, there will be more and more models available.
Yeah I think that's the biggest thing Vassago ..it's not a matter of taking 30-40hrs and completing a model like even Unreal Tour 4 or Half life 2 ..it's like a month to build a good high res model and then build the low poly then texture . It's a massive time investment now .
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haha.. yeah, I think the keyword is 'tried' though.
I'm not a fan of the ones in the SDK.. apart from the fact they handle like a Reliant, they look seriously rushed and horribly put together.
Not to mention there are no animations or tags for the player in there. So if you want to make the vehicles and such it takes some serious time and energy investment. Not like Source or Unreal 2.x where your looking at basically modelling; the rest is pretty much a case of an afternoon tweaking.
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I don't know about that, Raven's Jedi Knight 2 had quite a few mods and models for it.
Nothing like Quake3 by any means, but there were still quite a few.
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I don't remember any real Modifications though, just really silly server-side things that technically just unlocked or altered settings. Even Raven's own Academy game was a fairly weak update... and S-L-O-W. The physics in that seriously disappointed me. The world has very slow cumbersome physics and all of the models themselves had pre-made physics animations.
So while they tumbled down stairs realistically in terms of where they bounced... there was no real rag-doll it was all faked.
I agree there were a number of models made, but the majority were quite disappointing due to the limitations and lack of animation support. Remember trying to help Mete Criegen make a GLA import/exporter, but for format was just too hard to work around. Just couldn't finish one that didn't have some pretty horrible show stopping bugs.
Didn't help that the format itself still isn't documented. Something many JK2 Mod Developers complained about was the lack of mod support. It's the same with Doom 3 really.
We have the tools available... but then that's it.
Epic and Valve have provided HUGE library sites dedicated to providing you with tools and explainations on how everything works.
iddev.net honestly feels like it's run as a fan site rather than by id themselves. There is so much information lacking, there really is no way to just pick-up Doom 3, install the SDK and get to work. You have to learn quite a bit just to get the basics going.
As was mentioned above this is a case of taking months rather than weeks. Time most people aren't willing to put in. Especially when Doom 3 is hardly a popular game.
This said even Half-Life 2 has a destinct lack of online characters. Not sure about why that one is though. I mean using the Mod Tool it is a fairly simplistic task creating new media for it.
From what I understand HL2's development pipeline for playermodels is awful.
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Awefull is a mild word for that its complete crappy like
Far Cry but at last Valve trys to improve stuff btw.
wouldt do a MOD for both engines it simply sucks.
Its extremely rough getting started. Very little documentation. I've writen a few tutorials on getting PMs into hl2. I need to finish them though. Its really not bad once you figure it out. It only takes a second to update the model and check it.
The same can be said about virtually anything, including Serious Sam. Have you seen how many people gave up in frustration from Serious Sam's documentation? (I thought it was easy to understand but 90% of the people seem to disagree)
It has been extremely difficult finding high poly modellers... even for a very successful project team with full concept art and a dedicated leadership. The people just aren't out there yet. I asked this very same question about 9 months ago and the answer was more or less the same... poor PPM support. Our project (Weapons Factory Revolution) was originally slated for Doom3 but got pushed to Quake 4 VERY quickly after the SDK came out. We are plugging along getting preproduction done for Quake 4 but finding artists has been a terribly difficult challenge. I didn't have anywhere near the trouble finding talent for the Quake 3 version of our franchise.
On the plus side, we have at least one of all the essentials so work is progressing nicely... I just wish we had another modeller or two... it takes a good chunk of time (as has already been mentioned here) to make each character and we have 7.
When you have access to the codeadding playermodels is trivial. Hell, you could just add code to spawn the player as a different entity for each class. Entity definitions include models so they wouldn't even be hardcoded.
True, there is a lack of willingness. I think this is more still a case of the technology is just too new still.
Quake suffered from the same problems, but by Quake 2 people had become used to how everything worked. Half-Life 2 in my eye's isn't that different from Half-Life; I mean there are some obvious changes in your development pipeline, but on the whole it's just a case of more work rather than completely changing how you work.
Physics is a bitch to work with, so are the Materials. Most of that though is just a case of getting used to how it works more than anything.
For Doom3 though everything kinda just changed over-night so to speak. It is an extremely huge pipeline change, requiring artists to either work more closely or learn new things. Just a case of give it time I think.
Not talking characters here getting assets into game is very similar to quake3, a bit different but about as easy(or easier). The artistic pipeline is a bit different but as far as the engine pipeline it really hasnt changed at all. Export model, set up shader, load model in game...
I dont really think lack of modelers is really a reason, its more the lack of support for ppms and the fact that nobody at all plays doom3 online, so whats the point? Im sure if there were people actually playing it, and ppm support we would have seen tons of models, even if most were just sub-divided low poly models hehe.
Replies
The main problem is there's not very good support for custom player models - they have to conform to the existing skeleton, which really limits creativity.
Also it takes a lot of time and effort to make a full Doom3-quality player model ... then the export process from various applications isn't very well-documented or simplified.
Generally it's faster and easier to make more interesting models for other game engines like UT2k4. They have more customisability, and the game runs better on more computers, so there's a wider target audience.
let's now hope that quake 4 will allow playermodel support, in that case, I'll convert my doom3 models into quake 4 mp models
Shame that in order to do anything serious in Doom 3 really you've got to have a programmer who can mod what you need. heh
Very strange that a company that really makes a bulk of it's revenue from Mod Licenses would make such a specialised engine. Anyone tried making vehicles for Doom 3?
: rubs temples : tell ya even if I was paid to do it wouldn't without someone modifying the code first.
Quake 4 is likely to actually be what Doom 3 should've been (engine wise). Can see it being more modifiable, but knowing Raven will again lack any real support.
Nothing like Quake3 by any means, but there were still quite a few.
iD did, they're in the SDK.
Once we all learn the high end stuff, there will be more and more models available.
Why are there no Doom3 models?!?!?
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because you touch yourself at night
because you touch yourself at night
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should probably stop spying on him
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iD did, they're in the SDK.
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haha.. yeah, I think the keyword is 'tried' though.
I'm not a fan of the ones in the SDK.. apart from the fact they handle like a Reliant, they look seriously rushed and horribly put together.
Not to mention there are no animations or tags for the player in there. So if you want to make the vehicles and such it takes some serious time and energy investment. Not like Source or Unreal 2.x where your looking at basically modelling; the rest is pretty much a case of an afternoon tweaking.
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I don't know about that, Raven's Jedi Knight 2 had quite a few mods and models for it.
Nothing like Quake3 by any means, but there were still quite a few.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't remember any real Modifications though, just really silly server-side things that technically just unlocked or altered settings. Even Raven's own Academy game was a fairly weak update... and S-L-O-W. The physics in that seriously disappointed me. The world has very slow cumbersome physics and all of the models themselves had pre-made physics animations.
So while they tumbled down stairs realistically in terms of where they bounced... there was no real rag-doll it was all faked.
I agree there were a number of models made, but the majority were quite disappointing due to the limitations and lack of animation support. Remember trying to help Mete Criegen make a GLA import/exporter, but for format was just too hard to work around. Just couldn't finish one that didn't have some pretty horrible show stopping bugs.
Didn't help that the format itself still isn't documented. Something many JK2 Mod Developers complained about was the lack of mod support. It's the same with Doom 3 really.
We have the tools available... but then that's it.
Epic and Valve have provided HUGE library sites dedicated to providing you with tools and explainations on how everything works.
iddev.net honestly feels like it's run as a fan site rather than by id themselves. There is so much information lacking, there really is no way to just pick-up Doom 3, install the SDK and get to work. You have to learn quite a bit just to get the basics going.
As was mentioned above this is a case of taking months rather than weeks. Time most people aren't willing to put in. Especially when Doom 3 is hardly a popular game.
This said even Half-Life 2 has a destinct lack of online characters. Not sure about why that one is though. I mean using the Mod Tool it is a fairly simplistic task creating new media for it.
Well, the documentation says they're proofs of concept so what do you expect?
From what I understand HL2's development pipeline for playermodels is awful.
From what I understand HL2's development pipeline for playermodels is awful.
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Awefull is a mild word for that its complete crappy like
Far Cry but at last Valve trys to improve stuff btw.
wouldt do a MOD for both engines it simply sucks.
The same can be said about virtually anything, including Serious Sam. Have you seen how many people gave up in frustration from Serious Sam's documentation? (I thought it was easy to understand but 90% of the people seem to disagree)
I was just wondering why no one seems to be modding Doom3.
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Because Doom3 sucks.
On the plus side, we have at least one of all the essentials so work is progressing nicely... I just wish we had another modeller or two... it takes a good chunk of time (as has already been mentioned here) to make each character and we have 7.
Quake suffered from the same problems, but by Quake 2 people had become used to how everything worked. Half-Life 2 in my eye's isn't that different from Half-Life; I mean there are some obvious changes in your development pipeline, but on the whole it's just a case of more work rather than completely changing how you work.
Physics is a bitch to work with, so are the Materials. Most of that though is just a case of getting used to how it works more than anything.
For Doom3 though everything kinda just changed over-night so to speak. It is an extremely huge pipeline change, requiring artists to either work more closely or learn new things. Just a case of give it time I think.
I dont really think lack of modelers is really a reason, its more the lack of support for ppms and the fact that nobody at all plays doom3 online, so whats the point? Im sure if there were people actually playing it, and ppm support we would have seen tons of models, even if most were just sub-divided low poly models hehe.