asking & making a good "post" for handling idtech4...

Started by grml4d, September 22, 2017, 03:56:01 PM

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grml4d

that is more than a month that i started to create my "mod" ... O0 ... O:-) the thing i can say , for someone coming from half-life world , is that engine is quite hard to handle... and requires more ultraedit than any other tool

it is hard mostly because there are a lot of scripts that interact and because understanding how they interact is very hard...the only thing that has tutorials is the "editor" that is not so able to do or explain a lot the doom engine .
plus it has some error messages that are very short and not really pointing in the right direction..
for example , in map phobos2 of roe , when you load the map , the console shows a warning about an arcade_capture message :
WARNING: file <implicit file>, line 2: unknown token 'arcade_capture'
that is in a def or snd file where all arcade_* elements are listed with corresponding sound when player games an old arcade box .... by using /* & */ or // ...i finally found that the error is in gamessd.gui  [by now i replaced the gui by an other one until i have time to fix ]...that has no arcade_capture reference inside...
when you know the above ....errors like this one is even harder to track and solve..WARNING: file <implicit file>, line 2: unknown token '5.'

so i would like to read what files are used and loaded by the game ... i think of something like the map being compiled by dmap , that has some references that the game find in script files : def , ma , snd... plus some files for models : lwo...and textures : tga , dds...
the tga can serve directly or some can have the name finished by "local" "s" and few others to be used for bump map ...

the animated models have def files , few md5mesh and a lot of md5anim
some tools like blender or very old maya can be used for modeling them .

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.4/Py/Scripts/Import/MD5
https://www.katsbits.com/tools/

and this one i just found
https://sourceforge.net/p/blenderbitsbobs/wiki/MD5%20exporter/

from what i recently discovered , blender can only export md5mesh , it is able to import md5mesh but the plugin is for previous version ... with maya , i did not found how to import models : i hope to get help , i got maya 7 freshly installed on a xp
one software looks able to handle models without troubles : fragmotion ...

i hope some member like motorsep to share their knowledge and tools in this "post" that should cover all steps with the right working tools
the ultimate goal of this post is also to produce an error free doom3 / roe for modders...
for roe , that needs also the rework of the gamex86.dll ...




Snehk

Check The DarkMod wiki, Doom 3 and Quake 4 SDK, Modwiki.

These sites have all kinds of information about Doom 3 editing. It'll help you with asset creation and show how to identify some problems.

There is a workaround for md5 importing. You can use Noesis (a model viewer and converter for a whole lot of formats) and export md5 into different format, which can be imported to Blender. I found that UE .psk works well, except for skeleton being rotated. .iqm works too if you have Blender importer, but there may be other issues with skeleton. .fbx won't work though and won't give you no mesh nor skeleton. You can try experimenting with other formats supported by it.

grml4d

thank you ... your post goes in the right direction ... https://www.iddevnet.com/ is very interresting and has a lot of infos but it does not say a word about the def files and others scripts that has all the ressources to create mod .. i used few minutes the editafs under roe , some of listbox monsters make the exe crashes.. same with prey or quake4... that is a bit weird because some monsters are missing in the list... :'(
https://modwiki.xnet.fi/ is an unfinished bible for the cvars of idtech4 games ..it has good articles but needs a lot of work..to get complete  ;)
this website is a very good tutorial for mapping : http://mxl.cz/idtech4/tutorial-01.html

i found darkmod forum because of its editor ..the coming new version has very interesting things for models : http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19073-darkradiant-240-pre-release-testing/ . i suggested the team-developer to add a support for "games-models" : i mean monsters , but not only like noesis or modelviewer do show them : only the shape with no texture ...or anims with only points in space ...i mean saving files with the famous def files that has all info about anims and textures ...so some could reuse them in others maps or games ...
my opinion about noesis or else rendering models of games , is that they should handle by games instead of being generic like with 3ds files...for a user it is more interresting to have a list of models for a game than browsing a lot of folders and have a non textured thing to look ..[ no ? ][ i do not complain so much...we all see what can do "some owners" with mp3 or torrents... for files that already made them millionaires...]

i did before , what you advise : to use other formats to get files in software , but sometimes you loose some infos...
i was hoping a direct opening and editing with blender...but it looks even more killer than steam with its updates..
i have maya 7 running may be with few files . that should be easy to have it importing models...?
by now i think the best way is to use fragmotion . i loaded files yesterday . rendering was nice [ without textures but nice...] and it is able to export md5 files...
i ll do some test today to find the way to solve errors like :
WARNING: idAF::Load: articulated figure 'monster_hunter_berzerk' for entity 'hunter_berzerk' at (1792 -448 256) has no modified animation 'af_pose'
WARNING: Unknown joint 'body' in '*hips body body2 origin SPINNER ' for model 'monster_hunter_berzerk'
WARNING: Unknown joint 'body2' in '*hips body body2 origin SPINNER ' for model 'monster_hunter_berzerk'

grml4d

may be i should write " making a good "post" "  by some that have made their mod or tools ...
like how they updated the textures , updated a.i. .... or recompiled the code source and added vulkan or windows audio support...

motorsep

If you really want to mod - mod Quake 1. The modding scene is very much alive for Quake 1, modding is infinitely easier than modding Doom 3 as Quake's simplicity is suited for single-man projects.

grml4d

i would do my mod with quake if that was possible....  :'( :-\
i think i found a good tutorial with the tools i need at this page :

http://www.clintons3d.com/lightwave/index.html
same Plugins for Lightwave 11
http://www.clintons3d.com/plugins/lightwave/doom3.html

i know the project is too big for one human being  :P ...moreover me that is not a developer ...
i will select monsters and places , then publish a beta ... i hope some ones will be able to give "life" to monster not only by the gamex86.dll but also by some new animations


The Happy Friar

You would be better off using the non-Doom 3 assets with modified Doom 3 AI scripts.  You might even be able to import the Q4 assets in to Blender & re-export them in Doom 3 md5mesh/anim standard. 

I'd also say Quake 1 is very easy to mod.  it's dll format can still compile on windows 10 & is cross compatible with any OS (just need an engine binary).  Only downside (that I can see) is that the game ai/weapons/etc. Weren't GPL'ed with the engine, just like doom 3.  Q2 & Q3A had their AI/etc. gpl'ed but Q2 is way behind in the SP GPL engine engine compared to Q1 & Q3A has no SP AI.

Not much has been done with the "old" idtech 4 Doom 3 GPL, more has been done with the BFG version.

MrC

Quote from: The Happy Friar on September 27, 2017, 12:16:08 PM
You would be better off using the non-Doom 3 assets with modified Doom 3 AI scripts.  You might even be able to import the Q4 assets in to Blender & re-export them in Doom 3 md5mesh/anim standard. 

I'd also say Quake 1 is very easy to mod.  it's dll format can still compile on windows 10 & is cross compatible with any OS (just need an engine binary).  Only downside (that I can see) is that the game ai/weapons/etc. Weren't GPL'ed with the engine, just like doom 3.  Q2 & Q3A had their AI/etc. gpl'ed but Q2 is way behind in the SP GPL engine engine compared to Q1 & Q3A has no SP AI.

Not much has been done with the "old" idtech 4 Doom 3 GPL, more has been done with the BFG version.

Not that it matters but...

I thought D3 was the only GPL release that didn't include everything.

I was under the impression that Q1 includes everything like the the QC sources under GPL for ai and stuff (https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-Tools/tree/master/qcc/v101qc).

grml4d

using blender is quite hard...because the compatible pluggings for importing files need an old version...[at least for importing , Motorsep makes the updates for the export plugging and it seems well funtionning with latest blender..] so if you have a good plugging with a blender , that could make a good link in this topic ...["8

by now i try to resize models from prey and quake 4 : the centurion and the network guardian ....
i hope to re-use the def files from their games and think of using modified scripts...
i have maya7 and found the right mayaimport dll at the wiki of http://www.darkradiant.net/
same with lightwave ....
doom3 is very popular ...but its files formats are not offered by latest blenders , maya$ or else 3dstudio...
so i have to handle carefully

by now i stay with doom3 1.3.1 because i can read files [so i was able to clean nearly all errors...] and they are same formats as prey or Q4 , doom bfg uses binaries .

i do not care about "licences" because the web has tons of copies of these games , like steam for less that $10 ...
i think it can make a great game that will may be have a little success...and perhaps, i hope a port to latest engine ;']
i am sure all doom3 lovers will also like my mod ;']

motorsep

Quote from: MrC on September 27, 2017, 03:22:47 PMI was under the impression that Q1 includes everything like the the QC sources under GPL for ai and stuff (https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-Tools/tree/master/qcc/v101qc).

Yeah, you are correct.

The Happy Friar

Quote from: grml4d on September 27, 2017, 04:32:53 PM
doom3 is very popular ...but its files formats are not offered by latest blenders , maya$ or else 3dstudio...
so i have to handle carefully

id only ever released a md5 plugin for the Maya that was out at the time & everything else was written by fans, that's why there's not much out there.  Blender has a more dedicated programmer community, hence it's got a little more compatibility with Doom 3.

I use to like Maya until they went to the yearly license.  Blender does everything I want now.

Quote from: motorsep on September 27, 2017, 07:54:55 PM
Quote from: MrC on September 27, 2017, 03:22:47 PMI was under the impression that Q1 includes everything like the the QC sources under GPL for ai and stuff (https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-Tools/tree/master/qcc/v101qc).
Yeah, you are correct.

I stand corrected.  My Quake 1 GPL code came from ftp.idsoftware.com long, long ago & the QC code wasn't included in that release & it seems none of the GPL branches (darkplaces comes to mind right away) included the QC source files either.

I didn't even know there was a github of Quake 1 code.  Thanks for the link,