Doom Ascension Mod: Recruitment & Announcements (Image Heavy)

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Announcments:

OP updated to reflect current team members.

Thanks to 4mer (aka Savior of Ascension) there seems to be hope of getting these into md2 from maya. He has created an md3 without animation. Here is the screenshot on the Doom Ascension website.
https://sites.google.com/a/doomascension.com/www/screenshots

Justince said:

This looks absolutey brilliant! It's always awesome when super talented people just happen to be into Doom, we're really lucky here.

This is a nice relationship we have here because I feel really lucky that I & the rest of the team have a community to do this for.

So..... COOL!

good work guys excellent work!

Announcements:

OP updated to reflect recruitment and task list changes.

Doom Ascension Forums are open. They can be found on the Doom Ascension website or can be found here http://doomascension.forumotion.com/

I would love to see this finished eventually, I sure hope you don't get bored from it. Your models are the best I've seen so far.

Announcements:

-Wallpapers are now available on the Doom Ascension website's downloads page. You can find the link here --> http://www.doomascension.com/downloads

-Progress Report on the Doom Ascension website has been updated.

-Thanks to Downfall there will be a remastered high quality music mod and a remastered high quality sound mod added to the Doom Ascension project. More info on original post.

dutch devil said:

I would love to see this finished eventually, I sure hope you don't get bored from it. Your models are the best I've seen so far.

That all depends on how well the MD2 thing works out. *crosses fingers*

My prediction is that the high-def-ness of the models will clash with the primitive sector lighting of the stock levels.

If someone took an open-source rendering engine like Darkplaces/Sauerbraten/GameBlender and fused it with the resource-loading logic of a Doom source port, as well as part of the gameplay logic (a hybrid source port, if you will), would you allow the models to be used in 3D remakes of various Doom levels?

Vavoom's Quake like lighting or Doomsday's WIP bias lighting.

Admitedly, I don't know if Vavoom can automatically do anything to a non-Vaoom specfic maps lighting, but Doomsday's bias lighting works with all levels.

Vermil said:Doomsday's WIP bias lighting.[/B]

My bad, you're right. This is the first OpenGL port actually that looks better than Software to me. Awesome work, looks like the Ascension team made the right port choice!

Spleen said:

My prediction is that the high-def-ness of the models will clash with the primitive sector lighting of the stock levels.

If someone took an open-source rendering engine like Darkplaces/Sauerbraten/GameBlender and fused it with the resource-loading logic of a Doom source port, as well as part of the gameplay logic (a hybrid source port, if you will), would you allow the models to be used in 3D remakes of various Doom levels?

I currently believe Graf's explanation of why it won't work well. In Quake, all lighting is done from light sources - lightmap is only precalculated for performance, and you can discard it and build it again, and it'll be the same. That allows normal mapping to work in Quake. Now, how you would create the light sources in Doom levels? Using just the lamps and such?

tempun said:

I currently believe Graf's explanation of why it won't work well. In Quake, all lighting is done from light sources - lightmap is only precalculated for performance, and you can discard it and build it again, and it'll be the same. That allows normal mapping to work in Quake. Now, how you would create the light sources in Doom levels? Using just the lamps and such?

Oh, I was referring to making Quake-format (ones you make with GTKRadiant) or Sauerbraten-format maps work with Doom, rather than trying to convert existing Doom maps. Hence the question is, if someone wanted to remake Doom maps in "true 3D", would they be allowed to use these models.

Spleen said:

Hence the question is, if someone wanted to remake Doom maps in "true 3D", would they be allowed to use these models.

I get the feeling that this is a question filled with layers of additional questions and the easiest answer would be "How would I stop you?".

The A-Team's official response to questions like these will look something like this- Do whatever the hell you want with these assets just so long as you give us credit for our hard work. After all, that's what this stuff is for.

But to get the raw assets for exporting as something better than md2 or dmd you would have to come strait to me and i'm not entirely sure how on-the-ball i would be with something like that. It just sounds too boring. So most likely people would have to use the md2 files that will be packaged with the mods. (Curse MD2 forever!!!)

tempun said:

I currently believe Graf's explanation of why it won't work well. In Quake, all lighting is done from light sources - lightmap is only precalculated for performance, and you can discard it and build it again, and it'll be the same. That allows normal mapping to work in Quake. Now, how you would create the light sources in Doom levels? Using just the lamps and such?

If you limit the inputs to a global illumination model to just the "light sources" such as lamps and other such sprites then yes, I fully agree there isn't enough information.

However, DOOM already provides lighting information in the form of it's sector based lighting model. What Doomsday's bias lighting attempts to do is to take that information and transform it into something usable in a per-vertex model, interpolating the lighting differences between two sectors and essentially "smoothing" across sector boundaries.

Its still pretty much a POC implementation presently; there are many issues to be resolved but its getting there.

DaniJ said:

However, DOOM already provides lighting information in the form of it's sector based lighting model. What Doomsday's bias lighting attempts to do is to take that information and transform it into something usable in a per-vertex model, interpolating the lighting differences between two sectors and essentially "smoothing" across sector boundaries.

Can it accomodate normal mapping (which, as I understand it, requires all lights to be directional)?

The problem with normalmapping is that you need at least one light vector. DOOM's sector based lighting model is apparently direction-less with a sector's lightlevel being a single ambient term for the objects within it.

If you consider adjoint sectors with differing lightlevels provide "directionality" (i.e., the direction being the crossproduct of the angle of linedefs which form the boundary, or more simply, from bright sector to dark) then you already have a degree of information. Although the coarseness of such a model is directly dependent on the "detail" of the original map.

This only provides directionality along boundaries and does nothing for large open areas. Outdoor areas in particular, typically use very uniform lighting.

However, there is yet more directionality present in DOOM if you consider that outdoor areas use the F_SKY1 flat on surfaces where the sky is to be drawn. This can be interpreted as a vector (from sky to non-sky), giving you another degree of information.

This is the underlying principal behind the bias lighting in Doomsday - locating and interpreting what is already there into something applicable in a more finely-grained model.

... and besides, who is going to create normal maps for 3d doom models? I'm not. I'n my opinion there aren't even enough 3d model mods out there to justify supporting 3d models.

Yeah it looks good,but...why Doomsday?Can't you use GZDoom?

killer2 said:

Yeah it looks good,but...why Doomsday?

I think because it looks good.

killer2 said:

Can't you use GZDoom?

I don't think the team would object if you port it to GZDoom. (link)

I don't know to port it,but I was suggesting this because GZDoom is a lot more popular and has more features than Doomsday.

killer2 said:

I don't know to port it,but I was suggesting this because GZDoom is a lot more popular and has more features than Doomsday.

Currently GZDoom may surpass Doomsday for map making features, but currently Doomsday surpasses GZDoom for 3d model features.

Apparently Doomsday has more downloads than all the other main ports put together (we're talking about the whole internet here, rather than just Doomworld).

I'd personally like to see a full blown sky model for the skies rather than just hi-res textures; if the correct perspective can be achieved (I mean imagine Doom2's city sky in 3d with animated burning buildings).

killer2 said:

Yeah it looks good,but...why Doomsday?Can't you use GZDoom?

Because Doomsday looks the best, is the prettiest and because it looks the best. And this mod is all about changing the way the game looks.


The A-Team's target audience is the non-Doom community casual Doomer all the way down to the random passerby gamer (Mainly my kids). I am pretty realistic in realizing that this mod won't be very popular amongst the established Doom community.

tempun said:

I think because it looks good.

Correct!

tempun said:

I don't think the team would object if you port it to GZDoom. (link)

Correct!

killer2 said:

I don't know to port it,but I was suggesting this because GZDoom is a lot more popular and has more features than Doomsday.

Being a popular mod is not a reason for doing this and these features you speak of are not very appealing to me with respect to the scope of the Ascension project.

Vermil said:

Currently GZDoom may surpass Doomsday for map making features, but currently Doomsday surpasses GZDoom for 3d model features.

Correct! This is the one area where I am willing to allow scope creep for the good of the end outcome... Scope creep is evil evil evil.

Vermil said:

Apparently Doomsday has more downloads than all the other main ports put together (we're talking about the whole internet here, rather than just Doomworld).

This interesting factoid (only calling it that because i'm too lazy to verify it as fact) backs up my claim that it will be more popular amongst the casual Doomer/gamer.

Vermil said:

I'd personally like to see a full blown sky model for the skies rather than just hi-res textures; if the correct perspective can be achieved (I mean imagine Doom2's city sky in 3d with animated burning buildings).

Teaser: You might be pleased with what we are planning for the skies.

Announcement:

OP updated with the first screenshots of the animated Zombieman in game. Thanks to A-Team member 4mer most of our previous md2 woes are a thing of the past.

Also, we are currently recruiting texture artists. Anyone who is interested in being a part of this project can contact me in this forum, through PM or can contact us at the emails listed on this page--> http://www.doomascension.com/contact

It's good that you got the model in, though I don't think the pose looks “generic” enough; as your screenshots show, sometimes the a zombie/possessed human is placed as if it is waiting to ambush the player, but other times it is placed as if it is working at a computer.

There’s also the conundrum of how "with it" the zombies/possessed humans in Doom actually are. Some elements of Doom insinuate that they are animal like and feral while other elements insinuate that they still have enough coherence to remember and use their former military training.

Though I suppose one could look at Doom3 for an answer, if not a logical one. In Doom3 the civilian zombies/possessed human's are animal like, while the security force zombies/possessed human's utilize combat tactics. The extreme difference in coherency doesn't make alot of sense.

That said the model really does stick out against the original resources. Maybe your next screenshots whenever they come, could feature the resources for an entire scene, rather than just one mobj?

I'm a bit late, but I knew that someone would come by and make some awesome looking Doom models eventually. Great work!

Also, after looking at that imp model I have the sudden urge to read impse.

Well, you've made marine and imp, want to make 3D this?

killer2 said:

Yeah it looks good,but...why Doomsday?Can't you use GZDoom?

That may be done later but currently I think the team prefers to stick with doomsday. Either we could tackle it later or someone else could port it after the models are released.

Dee said:

That may be done later but currently I think the team prefers to stick with doomsday. Either we could tackle it later or someone else could port it after the models are released.

Would surely be nice if you would tackle it.

these 3d models are fucking amazing. I really hope you finish this mod because id love to see how the spidermastermind and arachnotron would look in 3d, no pressure =P.

I'm pretty confident it will be finished. Were also making a hi-quality soundtrack for the project. re-recording all the music and sounds in the game.

Dee said:

I'm pretty confident it will be finished. Were also making a hi-quality soundtrack for the project. re-recording all the music and sounds in the game.

May I suggest this music replace map10's?It's really well made.Btw he has done more tracks.You could check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU3_QTSeNW0&playnext=1&list=PLEF4D143C3DCFCD6C