Helluva Task...

Yes, a cursory glance at the Doom III shots may have us soaking our socks with saliva, but the question remains - how many mappers out there would have the patience?

Considering the level of detail witnessed in the game, it'd take an incredibly committed designer to churn out a single map. However, what kind of prefabricated objects and aids/tools do you think will be provided to make D3 mapping a smoothly flowing process?

Let's hear your views...

Well, IIRC, mapping will be EASIER for Doom 3 than with the original Doom but I dunno, I haven't used the editor.

Mentally created objects! VR editing!
I wish, but seriously, they'd probably have something to help out.

Most of the things you see (tubes, screens, bathroom pieces, whatever) must be prefabs

myk said:

Most of the things you see (tubes, screens, bathroom pieces, whatever) must be prefabs

That was my original train of thought; however, that's gonna mean a lot of prefabs, from earthly objects to hell-surroundings. An intricate prefab menu system, then, with plenty of dialogue boxes for each prefab for items you mentioned above?

Spike said:

That was my original train of thought; however, that's gonna mean a lot of prefabs, from earthly objects to hell-surroundings. An intricate prefab menu system, then, with plenty of dialogue boxes for each prefab for items you mentioned above?

Sounds similar to UT2003's Static Meshes.

Well since the Doom 3 editor is basically the same as Quake3 editor, any experienced Quake 3/RtCW/whatever mapper can probably easily migrate to Doom 3 mapping.

Migrate to the editor yes, but there will be a lot more work involved in creating a good Doom3 map than creating a good Quake3 map. The placement of lights is crucial now, to gameplay and framerates, for a start.

I wonder how editing UT2k4 would compare to editing Doom3. From what I could tell, editing the aforementioned was kind of rough since it was more or less the stellar opposite to editing ZDoom now. However, I'm salivating at the idea of real over-under rooms, room on rooms and bridges without any crazy tricks. :P

myk said:

Most of the things you see (tubes, screens, bathroom pieces, whatever) must be prefabs

If they aren't, I don't know what I'll do! *whimper*.

I am going to try my hand at this. Should be fun to see what we can all come up with.

Well I remember when they were trying to hire people a while ago who had experience with Radiant. So just guessing, but if you have experience with Radiant you should beable to make a Doom 3 map, or so I'd think. If that's the case I shouldn't have any problems :D

I don't think it's going to be much of a problem. I've seen amazing Doom/Doom II/Quake/Quake II/Quake III Arena maps with detail that far surpassed the original game maps. and if Doom III is as easy to edit as id's boasting, I'm sure there will be no sortage of quality maps.

I can guarantee if I get any help I'll re-start my Lifetime in Limbo project for Doom 3, which I lost to an HD virus 3 or 4 years back.

Basically you're the happy marine doing his thing back on earth after you have defeated the hellspawn when your residing city is attacked by demons in a fit of vengeance looking for you. Call it something similar to an act of attrition, except it is not because of natural elements or God.

In any case, the beginning map layout was fairly complex, being that it was on EDGE at the time of its conception, when I had started doing more sophisticated editor tweaks like setting SideDef reference tags to point inside the sector ("invisble" stairs), making luminescent lava without an entire sector being lit (thanks Mordeth), and so on and so forth...

The first map started the marine out in his apartment with all hell breaking loose and the ground below him crumbling as he struggled to get over to a nearby building. From there he had to make his way around a series of building foundations to get inside a building and escape via a subway.

Obviously, my planning had been in the right place, and even my work ethic was a little stronger then and more committed.

My commitment to mapping has since dwindled. I enjoy making maps for Quake 3 but there is never any motivation. I am proficient enough to create something in Quake 3 that some may call "pretty cool" or "fun," but maybe not "kickin' rad."

It all boils down to how much fun I CAN HAVE in my own map. If I think it sucks then I tweak it more until I decide to put it out on the internet.

The only map I have out on the internet (which is for the most part complete, albeit small) would be a Medal Of Honor DM map I made of a small castle I kind of just came up with off the top of my head.

Anyways, fast forward to 18 days from today.

If anybody who is familiar with the new mapping technologies (I am not too familiar with bump mapping so I wouldn't be an ideal texture artist until I understand more about them) would like to get together to make a DM map or help me remake LiL, lemme know. :)

AJS22542 on AIM

P.S: I do not run a mod group, I would be happy to get ideas and input from anybody, even if they couldn't make a 3d model of a dingleberry on their ass hair to save their life. I find it always more motivating to have somebody add their own ideas to my own ideas and make a collaborative effort to create a fun DM map, which me and Jebus (GreedyFly7 or DemonFart, what happened to him? :( ) had done with Cybermarine666 and played a lot of said maps with ZDoom and ZDaemon.

Anyways, good luck to all of us, and I promise that after I beat Doom 3, I'll be looking for some sweet sweet Doom 3 mapping goodness.

P.S: Anybody contemplating ideas to get 4</= players in Doom3 via a patch or source port like most Doom ports have now?

That would be super.

Good luck to all of us, and btw, UA-Corp has a real-time clock which shows exactly how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds there are left until it ships.

BBG said:

Well, IIRC, mapping will be EASIER for Doom 3 than with the original Doom but I dunno, I haven't used the editor.

I can BARELY make maps for Doom1 as it is... there is no doubt in my mind that I could never make a Doom3 map, what with the 3D and all.

I find making levels in 3D FAR easier and more intuitive than Doom. Plus you don't have any of the restrictions.

I never mapped for Doom back in the day because of all the frustrating limits and piss poor editors. Once Duke3D's BUILD was released I started mapping.

Things like the toilets, noticeboards, computer terminals etc most probably are "static" meshes. Though naturaly you'll be able to create your own too.

I suppose it really depends on how you visualise it. I've made the obligatory n00b house map for every game that I've really liked (leave the real stuff to those who can I say), and though it was more straightforward with Unrealed for example, it was definately more time consuming and mentally involving. Plus I was actualy motivated to actually make proper maps for Doom and Duke, since it didnt take forever to get something decent out of it.

Dani, didnt you ever use D.C.K? That was probably the most intuitive doom editor you could get at the time, you just clicked and drew lines and the editor did the rest (when it wasn't habitually crashing...)

Depends on how much free time I'll have once school starts again. I've had a E2M2 remake in mind for a while now, and PornDoom3 of course, but even with the Radiant and (a little bit of) Lightwave experience I have it'll probably take a few weeks to get into it again.

kalamari22 said:

If they aren't, I don't know what I'll do! *whimper*.

Make your own personalized library of prefabs? It's a good idea that I'm implementing with Doom/Doom2, actually. Saves time.

I would put time into it if the editor was newbie friendly...

DD_133 said:

I would put time into it if the editor was newbie friendly...

Yeah, same here. Maybe it'll come with some kind of tutorial.

Honestly, what you really need to worry about is just working with brushes and entities, and you have to come to grasp the concept of brush-by-brush editing operations as opposed to the Doom 1-ish subtraction engine.

Quake 3 and almost every other Id game after Quake have been CSG Additive, which means instead of carving out of an empty space, you are adding to it. The only real problem with these types of editors is the dreaded Radiosity leaking error, which occurs when someone leaves a face open out into the void. Unfortunately, last time I checked, that did not foolproof textures with alpha transparency masks on them so you need to really be careful where you put stuff.

Otherwise, I am positive the Doom 3 editing experience will really be awesome. I am really looking forward to getting my Lifetime in Limbo project back on Doom 3, especially with the nice shadows. :D

In the meantime, I can help noobies out with Radiant, even though I don't know Doom 3's mapping layout well, it DOES use an updated version of Radiant which is the same thing used to make Quake/2/3 and all other post Quake maps for Id software's games and their derivatives (Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, etc...)

I would really urge people to give it a try.

Like I said before, AJS22542 on AIM if you need help with Radiant.

G'luck. :)

I'll say this: I'll definitely try the editor (when I've played the game enough times - how many that may be) and if the editing happens to be entertaining and exciting in itself, I wouldn't worry how much effort is needed for making maps.
I'm used to spending a lot of time tweaking my own art and making level is probably an art form in its own right :-P

Isn't everything in the game going to basically be a pre-fab? Since you can jump right into the editor while playing a map and edit that map can't you just jump into the editor if you see a walkway design or control panel that you really like and copy and paste it to your own map?

-E

I don't think so. HOwever the time from editor to game is going to be very low - a map compile (like running qbsp), obviously no light/rad, and I don't know about vis. The're going to be shipping all of the source maps so you can just copy and paste out of those. Close enough.

Skycrapers complete with stairs and elevators, anyone????

Endureth said:

Isn't everything in the game going to basically be a pre-fab? Since you can jump right into the editor while playing a map and edit that map can't you just jump into the editor if you see a walkway design or control panel that you really like and copy and paste it to your own map?

-E

True, good point, id plans to include EVERY source to the map, so technically the whole game is a prefab

The instant you see something you want to figure-out how to do, bring up the editor

nightice said:

I don't think so. HOwever the time from editor to game is going to be very low - a map compile (like running qbsp), obviously no light/rad, and I don't know about vis. The're going to be shipping all of the source maps so you can just copy and paste out of those. Close enough.

That's exactly what I said.

-E