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Manik999

Anyone planning a D3-D1 port?

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A question that's been plauging my mind for some time is probably the most classic question of all-- who's going to come out with the port first?

By that, I mean: when the mapping tools for D3 come out, will someone actually make the time for mapping all the classic Doom levels? Imagine how much you could add to the original levels considering everything the enhanced engine has to offer.

The other part to this question is: how come this hasn't been done yet? We've been bombarded with 3d games, all with their own SDK's-- and no one's bothered to revamp the original 3 episodes. I've spotted a few in my time, only to discover the project gets dumped before any progress is actually made.

Does anyone know of any such projects that have actually succeeded?

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I think eventually over time someone will do it but keep in mind that's 30 levels and that's a lot of work to be doing since it takes a long time to make 1 doom 3 level it would take a lot to do 30 of them

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Manik999 said:

The other part to this question is: how come this hasn't been done yet? We've been bombarded with 3d games, all with their own SDK's-- and no one's bothered to revamp the original 3 episodes. I've spotted a few in my time, only to discover the project gets dumped before any progress is actually made.

Direct ports are about the most boring thing you can do with a SDK. It's always better to exploit your creativity.

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I agree with Zaldron. If someone's going to the trouble of making a port, why not add new features or levels in to spice it up? It's a good opportunity for some creative people to show their interpretation of what some levels should/could have been, but weren't in the original Doom.

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actually I plan on doing that, starting with e1m1.


but I am not going to make a duplicate. bascially Doom 3 level style of its design, but flows just like e1m1.

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Alientank said:

it takes a long time to make 1 doom 3 level

It's kind of a shame. The more "advanced" games get, the harder it is to map for them. This means less replayability value.

When the level editing process is simplified with easy built-in commands, it makes for curiousity, experimentation, and discovery of many neat easter eggs. Unfortunately to me, newer games are concentrating on being "interactive movies," where the regular game set of maps is vastly advanced to any modifications ever to be developed for them. Mapping for these games (I shouldn't have to name what the games are, as there are obviously quite a few) is extremely difficult, and the actual designing of levels consists of exhausting micro-managing of every little detail. Basically, the only thing worth playing is the original set of maps/levels.

The original DOOM was designed with ease of modification as a priority. First impressions seem to suggest that Doom 3 will not share this advantage in any way. It's sad because it seems probable that Doom 3 will lack everything that made me a fan of the original DOOM series. Sorry if this was a bit off-topic.

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I agree that using an engine just to rehash some levels would be a waste, but I think Deathman's got the right idea.

Like "Entryway"... in that third room with the crooked pathway, you can try and imagine what the designer was visualizing. Instead of just the pathway, you could have a genuine-looking atrium-type room with large panes of glass. The floor would look crumbled and completely destroyed, with glowing radiation seeping out of the cracks.

And imagine how great "Mt. Erebus" would look if you had the engine to make it look like a genuine wasteland devoid of life.

And don't forget "Unholy Cathedral"... with the right textures, you could make it look like a towering, twisted Gothic abomination.

Well, that's enough daydreaming. Mmm... pardon me, I have to go get a fresh towel.

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AndrewB said:

It's kind of a shame. The more "advanced" games get, the harder it is to map for them. This means less replayability value. (...) Basically, the only thing worth playing is the original set of maps/levels.

I disagree. Yes, it takes a lot more time and dedication to modify games these days, but that also means we end up with higher quality mods and maps in general. Now, instead of 3000 crappy maps, 500 mediocre ones and 50 great ones, we'll be seeing like 200 mediocre ones and 20 great ones in the months following Doom III's release.

A straight mindless port of all Doom maps would be a pretty bad idea IMO. I'd much rather see a few large, very detailed maps that are roughly based on Doom I, while not forgetting all the new features of the new engine.

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And if anyone actually succeeds to pull it off decently then there is a high chance they will be assimilated by the corporate.

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Exactly. Some of the most succesfull and highly payed level designers of today got jobs by making maps for the original Doom (Richard Gray, Tim Willits, etc). Being able to make a good, solid Doom III map would look nice on your resumé if you're going for a designer job in the game industry.

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ITS ILLEGAL!!!!! DUHHHHHH!!!!

howerever, remeaking the entire game would be a good idea if we could get away with it, though it woulod be difficult

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AndrewB said:

Unfortunately to me, newer games are concentrating on being "interactive movies," where the regular game set of maps is vastly advanced to any modifications ever to be developed for them. Mapping for these games (I shouldn't have to name what the games are, as there are obviously quite a few) is extremely difficult, and the actual designing of levels consists of exhausting micro-managing of every little detail.


It's a different style of game-- and you've hit upon the point exactly. Doom3's like an interactive, quality CG production. We've gone from hollowed out logs to fully decked out yahts, and Carmack said a lot on this topic at one of the QuakeCons. We're rapidly getting to the point where the lone artist/mapper is just not going to be able to keep up with the demands of the technology. Carmack even invisioned a point where you won't use a modeller at all, but a 3D scanner and physical miniatures to produce the level data. You'd have to go home, and actually construct with your hands a miniature "game set", and then scan it in as voxel data.

It's kind of funny, but all those miniature model makers that have been nudged out by CG artists might be back in demand quite soon...

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EsH said:

We're rapidly getting to the point where the lone artist/mapper is just not going to be able to keep up with the demands of the technology. Carmack even invisioned a point where you won't use a modeller at all, but a 3D scanner and physical miniatures to produce the level data. You'd have to go home, and actually construct with your hands a miniature "game set", and then scan it in as voxel data.

It's kind of funny, but all those miniature model makers that have been nudged out by CG artists might be back in demand quite soon...


In reply to your first point: I welcome it with open arms. Half-Life's customizability has saturated the market with mods that really don't have anything fantastic to offer, save for some badly made maps and godawful models. So rarely does an innovative mod come along that those that are get lost in a sea of feces.

Maybe toughening up the qualifications(like oh, I don't know, being able to CODE) would sift out any chance of some mod where the pistol shoots out Flaming Fire Of Killing Death.

And as for modeling with actual material... I'm up for that, too. I'm TONS better working with my hands than with Milkshape(err, umm, I mean Maya).

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Eventually, somebody's gonna make a simple map generator for Doom 3. The plan is to combine the generator with the WAD-loading functions from the original Doom source. Once I get that working properly: WAD goes in, D3 map comes out. Then if I wanted to, I could go into the generated map and start adding details.

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EsH said:

We've gone from hollowed out logs to fully decked out yahts

I guess that means hollowed-out logs are better than fully decked yachts. Games are losing their replayability value every year, and this is considered progress? Balderdash.

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Xian said:

ITS ILLEGAL!!!!! DUHHHHHH!!!!

howerever, remeaking the entire game would be a good idea if we could get away with it, though it woulod be difficult

Yeah, apparently converting maps from one game to another (be it automatically or manually) is considered illegal these days. Though I'm sure that if someone constructed a E2M2 remake for Doom III that was really good and worth of the name, id would put up with it.

The really stupid thing is, 3DRealms forbid anyone to port Duke3D maps to Quake-engine games, while they shipped WAD2MAP with Duke3D theirselves. Stupid legal mumbo jumbo.

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AndrewB:

You seem to treat engine advancements as though they're a negative thing - that we all have to be content with "2.5D" or Quake-1-level 3D if we want to play a game more than once. Replayability doesn't have to mean X number of maps for download or Y number of mods (otherwise Doom would win simply due to those shovelware CDs), it's a question of the quality in proportion to the volume.

I would rather see one quality Doom 3 map that feels like an extension to (or fresh departure from) the original game, instead of ten so-so maps that feel like boxes with monsters. Did you really play the "average" map more than once? Probably not! If you want to add more detail visually, you have to put in more effort - pipes that break open, in-game computers that operate machines, those take time.

Flathead:

It may be more difficult to breach the user agreement on Doom 3 depending on how you convert maps. Doom 3 is a very different engine and will have very different versions of the same characters. Visually, having the exact same level would be boring; everything would be angular, flat, and lose its effect. Bringing a map up to Doom 3 visuals would essentially remake that map.

With monsters you'd naturally end up needing a mod to keep the same kind of playbalancing. It'd be more worthwhile to just use the existing Doom 3 monsters and fit them as best you can to the map data. So, as before, it ends up feeling like a "new" map.

If you do it right, you could likely have a conversion that escapes legal death simply due to the effort needed to make it work well. It may be that any map too faithful to the originals would "deserve" to die due to the mediocrity of the conversion.

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Andrew B youve definitley got it right.

people who have the talent in creating complex realistic maps ARE ALMOST NEVER THE SAME PEOPLE THAT HAVE ARTISIC AND FUN CREATIVITy. the two are almost EXCLUSIVE. Notice that as gasmes get more technologically advance the actual artistry and fun factor almosts dissapears. Just like in quake 3, where almost the only levels that are ACTUALLY WELL DESIGNED and dont just look good, are the ones that came from id mappers.

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Postal said:

If you do it right, you could likely have a conversion that escapes legal death simply due to the effort needed to make it work well. It may be that any map too faithful to the originals would "deserve" to die due to the mediocrity of the conversion.

True.

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Xian said:

people who have the talent in creating complex realistic maps ARE ALMOST NEVER THE SAME PEOPLE THAT HAVE ARTISIC AND FUN CREATIVITy. the two are almost EXCLUSIVE. Notice that as gasmes get more technologically advance the actual artistry and fun factor almosts dissapears. Just like in quake 3, where almost the only levels that are ACTUALLY WELL DESIGNED and dont just look good, are the ones that came from id mappers.

Well, maybe these two kinds of people should go together then. Those who can make realistic maps, start out doing a map, whereupon they hand their map over to the creative minds for them to alter, or vice versa - I mean that's what id does, Christian Antkow is a creative mapper who starts out doing the maps, before handing it on to those of the id employees who can make realistic maps.
I remember reading an interview with Antkow in which he stated that the result of this cooperation was great.

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I guess someone will have to write a tool to convert doom1 levels to doom3 levels..

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Theoretically, if you had teh WAD-to-Doom3 converter program, you could spend time building a fun Doom(2) PWAD and, once it works and it's fun, run it through the converter and put some effort into making the result look nicer.

Another thing you could do is have the converter look for certain flats in the PWAD and use them as a reference to insert prefab brushes in the converted D3 map. It'd look like shit at first, but it would give you something to start from.

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What about music? I know that some of Doom 3's music tracks may be suitable for some areas of a port, but it'd be much better if you could make updated and revamped versions of those midi tracks for those levels we all loved back then.

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IMJack said:

Another thing you could do is have the converter look for certain flats in the PWAD and use them as a reference to insert prefab brushes in the converted D3 map. It'd look like shit at first, but it would give you something to start from.

That is pretty damn interesting, though I don't think I'd trust such a process one bit. I'd rather do everything myself.

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Don't worry Lord Flathead, I fixed his "little stunt".

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