Doom 3 Garage

[MattWBradbury]

I have always wanted to see what doom 3 would look like if I rendered it with radiosity. The game engine does not have any baking for lighting, so every light is ray traced. I've used the editor to take measurements of the garage I wanted to recreate, and I'm using textures from Doom 3 for all of the surfaces.

 

The entire geometry took me around twelve hours to input into A:M, but the results are already very cool.

 

Here is a render that I did yesterday with photon mapping but with no texturing.

[attachmentid=14610]

 

Since the image was rendered, I have added railing, more pipes, wires in the back area, and a few textures. The animation shows the room a bit better.

 

I would have stoped at the matte white model to check radiosity, but I realized that the scene was intensly bright. By adding dark textures to the surfaces, the photons will become darker and radiosity will look more natural.

Partially_Textured.mov

[Zaryin]

It's looking pretty good so far. You are right about that white. You need darker surfaces to get good results.

[MattWBradbury]

I didn't have much time to texture any of the patches though I did manage to get a quick render out to see how things were coming. From the render, I know that I need to reverse some normal maps. The hazard strip normal maps are defininatly in reverse.

[martin]

Matt. You and your brother have sure been doing good work lately. It's a pleasure to have your inquisitive minds, (you actually research your problems). I hope there's more where you came from.

[MattWBradbury]

Thanks for the complement Martin. I find peace in knowing that my mind doesn't just drone away at video games all day.

 

The only challange I'm going to face in recreating this garage perfectly is the lights themselves. Doom 3's rendering engine uses square lights (Light falls off at different values in the XY and Z Plan). Some lights have very odd forms to them like a trapizoidal prysm with the center of the light off from the center of the prysm.

 

I'm going to render a radiosity render overnight just to see how it's doing. The decaling is no where from being complete, but because I'm using only one light, the radiosity shouldn't over expose the diffuse color of the model.

[MattWBradbury]

Here's the renders. I'll add more textures today. The radiosity looks a little wiered because I didn't use final gathering.

[KenH]

Shaping up nice. The only crit I'd have is the edges of the models are quite sharp. A little bias adjustment would work wonders IMO.

[MattWBradbury]

When the texturing is finished you won't be able to tell there are sharp edges on everything. The textures in Doom 3 all of local maps (normal maps) that make the geometry appear as though it were beveled. The main point of this project is to perfectly replicate the garage as possible. That is why I made the pipes have peaked edges.

[MattWBradbury]

I did some more decaling on the cieling and the walls. I expect that decaling will take about another twenty hours to finish. I'm already up to seventy textures, and around one hundred decals. I like the way that this is turning out. Maybe I'll recreate one of their security guys to sit in the scene, though I do not have much skill in modling a human.

 

Here is what I have so far. I'm going to tackel the giant white wall in the shot next.

[oakchas]

it looks really good.

 

How do you get the graphics out of doom? Screen cap? or are you remaking EVERYTHING?

 

If the latter. stop it. Create your own! You obviously have the ability!

[nixie]

This would make a great addition to the extra cd 2, perhaps with radiosity lighting already set up to go as a choriography?

 

but yeah, why doom 3 and not something of your own?!

 

Nixie

[MattWBradbury]

I've done my own rooms and textures before. This time around I wanted to see what A:M's photon mapping could do to a scene from Doom 3. The Best way to do that was to recreate the garage and apply radiosity to it. The only thing is, this process of recreating the garage is taking a long time. I have already increased my skills of decaling by twenty fold! I will build my own room with my own textures after I see how this turns out.

 

I am rendering a scene with radiosity, and currently on pass number twelve, there are spots everywhere. I will probably not use final gathering for any further renderings because of the noise it creates. I'll post it when it finishes.

[MattWBradbury]

Okay, here's the render. You can see what I mean by the noise I mentioned eariler today. This is due to final gathering.

 

Total render time was 14 hours!

 

I edited the render in photoshop by using the dust and scratches noise remover; it worked quite well.

 

Total noise reduction post effect time .37 seconds!

[oakchas]

Matt,

 

Just for grins, post the original Doom screen for us to compare to... if you can.

 

Looks like your PS "vacuum cleaner/polisher" did a pretty good job... only missed a spot or two, eh?

[MattWBradbury]

Here are some screen shots from the Doom 3 garage I am translating into A:M.

[attachmentid=14660]

[attachmentid=14661]

[attachmentid=14662]

 

The guys at ID software really know how to make a cold and dingy atmosphere.

 

There are decals that I have not yet placed on the garage floor, and there are also objects in the room that I have not created yet.

 

The aspect of the Doom 3 engine I like the most is that all of those shadows are real time. I could move the light around the room and everything would update their lighting. These screen shots are what I would like to see in A:M real time, but that would take a lot of time to write, and the the A:M team already has enough work to do.

 

This is what the editor looks like if any of you were interested. The project is fairly simple; it just entails a lot of decaling and correct alingments which can be very time consuming.

[attachmentid=14663]

[oakchas]

So, what you're telling me is that DOOM let's you create your own "game?" In your own environment?

 

I did not know that!

 

Hmph. Well I guess video games are not quite as mindless as they usta be. Back in the day I refused to sell joysticks to parents who were buying computers for their kids. I was a crumudgeon even at 35 y.o., I guess.

[MattWBradbury]

This engine is quite complex, but there are far more complex map editors out there. Half Life 2's source engine had tons of physics including: ropes, welds, sliders, friction, elastics, ballsocets, magnets, and even thrusters. Doom 3 is more based on static environments filled with realistic lighting. The only thing is the size of maps. Games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3 have relatively small map sizes compared to games like Grand Theft Auto III where you have miles and miles of map. It is always going to be quality vs. quantity.

[gschumsky]

So, the questions I have are: Is the Doom editor you're using free, or really really cheap? And you were comparing it to the other engines. Do you have copies of those (kinda like the free version of Maya I'm guessing)?

Reason I ask is we were looking into the Quake III engine, but couldn't swing the $250,000 to do tests to see if it was the right solution.

 

Greg

[DanCBradbury]

Doom3 was actually built with the Quake3 engine if i'm not mistaken. We're actually using the Doom3 game, not a separate application, to utilize the engine, which comes with a fully operational map builder, scriptor, and compiler. We also have at our disposal several thousand textures which were used for Doom3, which are of course all copyrighted by ID® Software; however, the program does not include a model builder for character and prop objects, but i'm sure they used 3D Studio Max® or an equivilant to create their models and then exported them into the Doom3 model type .mdl.

[MattWBradbury]

I just bought the game, and used the target extention +editor. This turns the shortcut into the executable for the editor it'self. You can download Half Life 2's editor off of Steam when buy a copy of Half Life 2.

 

For the quarter million dollars you would spend on the Quake III engine, it will come with tons of tools and instructions on how to use those tools. The Doom 3 editor uses the Doom 3 Engine to compile and run the maps produced by the editor. So you do not actually minipulate the engine itself.

 

Right now, the Unreal III engine is being used to make some of the best looking games coming out on the market right now and the future. If you want to see some of the upcoming games that the Unreal III engine is making, look up Unrealtournament 2007 and Gears of War.

 

The doom 3 editor, just like with most game editors, comes with all of the textures and prefrabricated models that are in the game. This allows users to create their own maps filled with monsters, triggers, and they can even recreate their own game if they wanted. They must only stay within the grounds of the editor.

 

Another thing you have to look at is the way inwhich you load models into the game. Doom 3 uses 3D Studio Max modles, so you would have to also own a copy of 3D Studio Max inorder to create your own modles to import into the game. That is why having a 3D Studio Max exporter for A:M would be awsome. Though again, that would cost a lot of licensing for Hash Inc. to do that, and it would inevitably lead to a higher price for A:M, and we all don't want A:M to cost the price Maya.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

You can also make a modification 'mod' of the game or full conversion type 'mod' to see the public reaction to your game for free.

 

If the public starts clammoring for more, well, then you can contemplate the quarter million to market a game... remember, if the game sold for even as low as $40, you could still make a million or two.

[MattWBradbury]

$40 is quite a bit for a game. Though if it has a great story line and great believeabily then you could even sell it for as much as $54. I'm using some light gels to filter the light into the room, but I have no idea how to use light gels for point lights.

[Dhar]

I remember when I dished out $50 for Sega Genesis games (remember that?), then for Playstation, then for PC games.

 

I don't regret spending that money on those games, because the dollar to funtime ration made them a bargain.

 

Now where did I put that Driver game? I feel like burning some rubber on that 69 GTO...

[gschumsky]

I was looking at Id's site, and they have the Quake 1 and 2 engines now in the public domain, so they're free under the GNU agreement, or $10,000 if you want to keep any modifications to the engine for yourself. Not bad, since those were used for a ton of games, inc. Doom, Quake, Unreal, Wolfenstein, etc, and have great networking code. But we're really looking to compete head to head with games that are out now (I mean really compete). So, the modding the game might be the way to go by adding our own characters (can we change the storyline too, or is it restricted to maps and characters?). Also, is their a flight sim in Doom? We have quite a few air battles planned out.

Otherwise we might go with the free Quake 2 engine to get funding for Quake 3, as long as the stuff we make is forward compatible.

 

Thanks Matt and Dan for the great stuff you've been doing, and helping me to see there are some great alternatives (we had been thinking of Torque as well).

 

Greg

 

 

edi: Okay, Unreal is a different engine..but still, free for the Quake 1 and 2 engines.

[MattWBradbury]

Greg,

 

The Quake II Engine was used for games produced top notch games four to six years ago. Games like Half Life 1 and Solidier of Fortune were based off of the Quake II engine.

 

Remember that the games coming out right now were being made about three years ago. If you really want to compete with the games coming out right now, you should be looking for engines that have fully integrated HDRI source. Look at Half Life 2 Episode One, Day of Defeat, Call of Duty 2, Top Clancy's Splinter Cell Choas Theory, Far Cry, Huxley, Gears of War, and Unreal Tournament 2007.

 

I do not know whether or not the Doom 3 Engine has flight simulator source in it. If you plan on having a lot of out door areas, you should really look towards the unreal engines. They are much better adept to rendering outdoor scenes than Doom 3 because of the lighting different from the two engines. You are also going to want to look at engines that have light map baking for topography.

[MattWBradbury]

Here is the garage model file if you guys want to play around with it. There arn't any textures on it because the texture file itself is over 30 MBs.

GarageMatteWhite.zip

[Dhar]

Thanks for sharing Mat. Very generous of you.

[gschumsky]

Thanks Matt.

 

Yeah, a lot of outdoor stuff, but then again there will be a fair amount of indoor play, and if we could get both flight and vehicle (motorcycle) simulation, then we'd have the engine of choice.

 

And we really need to compete head to head, really. I'll have to have a heart to heart with the Unreal guys at the upcoming E3...

[MattWBradbury]

Yeah, I've always wanted to go to E3, but funny thing... I'm not a member of the industry or the press. I should go wearing a fedora with a PRESS card on it and try to get in.