Doom 3 was NEVER "impressive" graphically, or even above-average graphically.

[Akira1364]

I bought it at release in August 2004, and owned a PC at the time that was easily able to play it at max settings. Even back then, I was INCREDIBLY disappointed by the indiscernibly low-res textures and the ugly, clay-like, ridiculous looking character/monster/weapon models. I legitimately don't understand how anyone could have ever considered the game to be some sort of graphical benchmark. Anyone want to weigh in?

Don't get me wrong, by the way.... I am and was a massive fan of the earlier Doom games. Doom 3 was just a huge letdown though, in my eyes.

[mafon2]

What games we have to compare this "ugliness" to? Half-life 2 and Far Cry? Doom 3 was the bumpiest game I've seen, plus the 1st one (if I'm not mistaken) with the dynamic shadows. The level design might seem blend, but it doesn't cancel the technicalstandpoint.

[The 1st Gamer]

I always felt that the game looked good, though the human head models looked pretty pointy at times.

[Tetzlaff]

I was totally fascinated when I first played Doom 3 in 2004. The world felt real, lights and shadows interacted with everything just like in the real world, everything had more depth.

Sure, the texture resolutions were'nt spectacular, but they weren't bad either. It only looks blurry when you come so close to a texture that you almost touch it with your nose... Back when Doom 3 was released, there was Unreal Engine 2 as a competitor. UE2's approach of simply adding higher texture resolutions and more detailed mapmodels to everything seemed stupid to me. Doom 3 was much more impressive, even if it used sometimes a 256x256 texture for a sky box - it was about substance, not "yeah we have 1024x1024 textures everywhere!!"

[geo]

The 1st Gamer said:

I always felt that the game looked good, though the human head models looked pretty pointy at times.

Agreed and still do even in the BFG Edition. I'm still impressed with Doom 3's graphics at least on the HD version.

As for the original poster, the enemies are beefy, too beefy, you're right they do look like clay models.

Just for this thread, I'm going to find my copy of Doom 3 and install it now that I have a PC that can run it on ultra settings... 2 minutes later lol I have no CD/DVD ROM on this computer? Well I've still got the X-Box version... if my X-Box's laser still worked.

Anyway I always thought Doom 3 was impressive, the only problem is the whole space station metal on metal just always makes it look average, common or stock. Mars and Hell are the only two places that really show off the game.

if you want bad texture quality, check out Rage.

[Coopersville]

It still beats out games today. Seems impressive to me.

[FireFish]

In 2004 doom 3 was ONE of the first games in its league...
There is an actual reason why Doom 3, half life 2, and the first Farcry where THE talk of the magazines, and people playing games back then. Quality, graphics, and content. They where highly impressive.

But Doom 3 was rough around the edges, as some models clearly have a pointy or hard edged look to them... while FC and HL2 look a lot smoother overall.

Though, by personal preference Farcry beats the hell out of doom 3 with its smooth models, physics (more than you might realize), lighting, and big island.

[Avoozl]

Physics and lighting seemed much better in Doom 3 than Far Cry imo.

The models only really look pointy on the lower resolutions and a certain distance away because of the LOD I gather.

Out of the three games mentioned HL2 was the more dated looking game.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Avoozl

[Shaviro]

When Doom3 was first shown at macworld back in 2001 it arguably represented the biggest leap in realtime game computer graphics ever made. You'll likely never again see a leap quite like that. In 2002 when they showed it at E3 people didn't believe it was real. They even had to go to some lengths to convince the E3 judges that it wasn't a trick or prerendered.

I'll definitely concede that by the time it was released a few games had *almost* caught up to it and depending on personal preference some games had a more pleasing look overall. Claiming, however, that it was never impressive is crazy.

[FireFish]

Before doom 3 most 3D games still looked like tribes 2 or quake 3.

Avoozl said:

Physics and lighting seemed much better in Doom 3 than Far-Cry imo.

I made many weird private mods for Far-Cry by editing its scripts and usually i messed with the physics their settings ;
weight of objects, propulsion power, speed of bullets, impact power of bullets,strength, and so on. usually i ended up beating the enemies so hard they flew out of sight in a matter of seconds, cars acting insane, etc. All those physics are live calculated.

Far-cry has another rendering / graphical style though so the part about the lighting is an opinion (and preference) not based upon the technical side.

The maxed out doom 3 graphical settings still give you a rough edged shotgun being held by a hand with a rough, rectangular, hard edged look to it. While the hands and models in Farcry look smooth(er).

[RUSH]

I'm not sure I understand. I remember when Doom 3 came out me and my friends were all completely amazed by how great it looked graphically. The environments and machinery were so incredibly detailed - they looked like real functioning pieces of equipment. And the shadows were fantastic, they added so much depth and creepiness to everything. Nothing else even came close to comparing to this at the time:



Yeah some of the models look a little blocky by modern standards but damn - for 2004 this kicked ass. Everybody who saw the game thought the same thing.

[Linguica]

I think Half-Life 2 managed to look more impressive both at the time, and certainly today. I think it's instructive that Doom 3 was very technically "pure" engine -- the lighting/shadowing model was almost entirely unified, everything was real-time, there weren't a lot of tricks used to render the environments -- but still ended up looking inferior to the Source engine, which was somewhat janky, used plain old baked-in lighting, and generally utiltized a ton of tricks and artifice in pursuit of some excellent art direction.

[jute]

Doom 3 looked amazing to me at release, and still looked amazing when I replayed it earlier this year. I find it amusing that a Doom fan would complain that the enemies look like they're made of clay!

[Linguica]

jute said:

I find it amusing that a Doom fan would complain that the enemies look like they're made of clay!

Ironic considering several of the Doom enemies were LITERALLY made of clay.

[Marnetmar]

jute said:

Doom 3 looked amazing to me at release, and still looked amazing when I replayed it earlier this year. I find it amusing that a Doom fan would complain that the enemies look like they're made of clay!

I see what you did there.

[Clonehunter]

Doom 3 was pretty amazing when it came out. Nobody's fault you played with bump mapping off and low res texture settings.

[Caffeine Freak]

Linguica said:

Ironic considering several of the Doom enemies were LITERALLY made of clay.

As I recall, several of the Doom 3 demons were made with clay as well, scanned into 3D model files, and further re-touched with programs like ZBrush.

Anyway, part of Doom 3's visual appeal stems not only from the graphics, but aesthetics and design as well. The designers knew how to make visually impressive scenes whilst utilizing a relatively manageable amount of system resources. The texture work is generally used in appropriate places and on objects and prefabs where it serves to further accentuate certain features. D3 is not a visually perfect game, but there are plenty of expertly done aspects to its design.

[printz]

Is this a troll thread? It surely looks like so, from the wording of the title.

Doom 3 is quite impressive, with great attention to detail throughout.

[geo]

printz said:

Is this a troll thread? It surely looks like so, from the wording of the title.

Doom 3 is quite impressive, with great attention to detail throughout.

New user threads are full of troll.

[Koko Ricky]

Linguica said:

I think Half-Life 2 managed to look more impressive both at the time, and certainly today. I think it's instructive that Doom 3 was very technically "pure" engine -- the lighting/shadowing model was almost entirely unified, everything was real-time, there weren't a lot of tricks used to render the environments -- but still ended up looking inferior to the Source engine, which was somewhat janky, used plain old baked-in lighting, and generally utiltized a ton of tricks and artifice in pursuit of some excellent art direction.

I would argue that, while HL2 looks very good, light and shadow are very important for selling realism, and HL2 simply doesn't have very impressive light and shadow effects.

[Koko Ricky]

Shaviro said:

When Doom3 was first shown at macworld back in 2001 it arguably represented the biggest leap in realtime game computer graphics ever made. You'll likely never again see a leap quite like that. In 2002 when they showed it at E3 people didn't believe it was real. They even had to go to some lengths to convince the E3 judges that it wasn't a trick or prerendered.

That's funny, because I was talking to my sister about Doom 2015 and she is having a hard time believing it's real-time.

[BaronOfStuff]

Akira1364 said:

I bought it at release in August 2004, and didn't own a PC at the time that was easily able to play it at low settings.

Seems more likely than the actual OP. Nice try though.

In other words, Doom 3's visuals looked fantastic back in the day. Few things even came close to looking so alive.

[Touchdown]

Oh come on, DOOM 3 looked awesome back in the day. Frankly, the BFG Edition still looks decent, or at least it's certainly not ugly.

But I gotta disagree about HL2. While E1 and E2 are still really pretty, I didn't find the base game impressive at all. That initial version of Source was just crap.

[Koko Ricky]

The only truly ugly stuff in Doom 3 are a few of the character models of the humans. I dunno, their skin and faces can look pretty weird.

[quakke]

Yep, troll thread most def.

Back then i was absolutely blown away from the ridiciously realistic looking graphics and to me, the game still looks really nice. It looks the best when you are in a more dark area so that only the beautiful lighting and shadows show. When you are in more well lit place, you get to see the lower res textures which aren't that impressive.

[Avoozl]

A lot of HL2 textures were grainy and plasticy, the character model textures looked good though.

[SavageCorona]

I'm still impressed by the lighting effects the engine achieves. Hell I'm still impressed by what Quake 4 produces with the same engine, it still looks fantastic and like it's newer than 10 years old. Still has the same issue with human heads though.







Too bad the game didn't live up to the same standard HUEHUEHUAHEUHEUHAUHE

[Buckshot]

I always thought half life 2 looked like crap... never understood how anyone thought the source engine was impressive.

it lacked atmosphere and loomed ancient. personally thought farcry and unreal 2 did leaps and bounds over HL2, and while Doom 3 didn't match the outdoor aspect... the indoor atmosphere and engine fx were just light years ahead of all 3 of them.

[Akira1364]

BaronOfStuff said:

Seems more likely than the actual OP. Nice try though.

In other words, Doom 3's visuals looked fantastic back in the day. Few things even came close to looking so alive.

Incorrect! Honestly, I'm not a troll. I had an Asus P4P800E mobo, ASUS V9999 Geforce 6800 Ultra, Prescott P4 3.4 HT, and 2GB ram.

[Shane]

GoatLord said:

The only truly ugly stuff in Doom 3 are a few of the character models of the humans.

Pretty much this. The lighting engine is probably where Doom 3 was at. It seems like that's pretty much what all of Id's engines have been excelling with lately.

Buckshot said:

I always thought half life 2 looked like crap... never understood how anyone thought the source engine was impressive.

it lacked atmosphere and loomed ancient. personally thought farcry and unreal 2 did leaps and bounds over HL2, and while Doom 3 didn't match the outdoor aspect... the indoor atmosphere and engine fx were just light years ahead of all 3 of them.

My guess is its physics. Some of the environmental interactivity with Half-Life 2 is still far ahead of FPSs coming out today (looking at you, Rage). I think the most impressive thing for the source engine at its time were its water shaders, and to be fair they're still not bad.

I don't think Far Cry's engine is that impressive, but it does have a more visually interesting atmosphere than a grungy city or abandoned lab, but you're right. Doom 3's lighting engine annihilates.