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STROGG - A prequel to Quake2/4 in IDT4 (?)

Started by Blogutan, August 17, 2017, 07:54:22 AM

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Blogutan

Hello. My name is Samet and i live in Germany (Frankfurt/Hesse). I am 28, student of applied mechanics and i love to think/write stories.
During my lifetime i did a lot with 3DModelling and even some modding. I also have some basic knowledge in programming (Java, C, C++, Basic, Python, etc.) - but to be honest: I am total "noob" (if you will).

Like i said: I love to tell stories. And i always wanted to be part of a game-dev-process.

Here is my idea:

STROGG

Its set up a few years in the future and on earth at an Aiport.

I would love to have this game in the ID-Tech4 Engine.
Any people interested to work for some years on that project ?
I have a story and some basic design ideas for enemies/gear/plotpoints and (really basic) puzzles.
The game-mechanics would be basically like Doom3/Quake4. Nothing wild really.

I think of like 6/7 levels (Act 1 = 2 Levels, Act 2 = 2/3 Levels, Act 3 = 2 Levels) - like 4 Hours gameplay if you go slow.

Who would be interested ?
Coders? Mappers? Modellers ? Maybe a group who needs someone for story/design directing?

Cheers!

Snehk

Welcome to the forums Blogutan!

Before starting development, it'd be good to decide which fork of the engine you'll use. You could go with stock Doom 3 or BFG GPL engines, but their forks brought numerous fixes and improvements, so it's not really practial to use them. You may consider:


  • dhewm3 - several fixes, 64bit port, OpenAL audio, better widescreen support, cross compatible
  • Raynor Pat's fork - replaced ARB shaders with GLSL, parts of BFG renderer ported as well
  • fhDOOM - OpenGL 3.3, GLSL shaders, many graphical improvements, fixed tools
  • RBDOOM-3-BFG - improved Doom 3 BFG engine, soft shadows, 64bit and Linux support, several fixes
  • OpenTech Engine - based on RBDOOM-3-BFG, suited for creation of standalone games, Flash menu replaced with CEGUI
  • Storm Engine 2 - like above, but better performance fixes, improved shaders, YCoCg texture compression, fixed and enhanced tools, reverse-engineered Flash menu, many other improvements
  • VkDoom3 - Doom 3 BFG with Vulkan renderer

Check each of those pages and try to choose a best development base for your project. I could help you get up and running with minimal base assets. It'd be easiest for Storm Engine 2 though, as I could simply send you my base directory and write where I made small tweaks in the code to make it run. If you're not into compiling the engine yourself, I could send you a binary as well, but I made a few small changes in dialogues of some tools.

For general development tips, check these sites:


It won't necessarily take a few years to develop a simple game like this on id Tech4. You have AI with area awareness system and dynamic obstacle avoidance, physics code and game logic from get go, it'd only need some scripting. Hardest part is actually starting up with minimal base assets. Once you've got this done, it's all about asset creation and scripting. Since you did a lot of 3D modelling, you could simply make your levels in modelling software. Then you'll have to use func_static to bring the model to your level and seal them with brushes (build brushes with caulk or nodraw textures all around them). The other way would be modelling your level in Blender and exporting it as .map file.

Using vertex painting is necessary to get texture blending, an advantage of using models over world brushes.

I'm a noob as well. I know basics of C++, I can make models, simple textures, levels, edit sounds, use trackers to make simple soundtracks, write (I practise this one on an almost daily basis), but I started working with this engine just recently. I may help you from time to time if I'll be able to.

Blogutan

Hey Snehk !
THIS IS GREAT ! Thank you so much for this reply, which is super helpful.

I didnt even know, that there were so many builds out there!
You are actually right. (And pretty uplifting.)
I also thought about just building stuff myself - yet i really have a hard time with the coding. But now seeing that progress - oh boy.


I will look each page up and cross check it with my ideas and then write a reply in like the next days :)


Snehk

I guess that you can get those ideas done in any of the engine forks, even stock GPL ones. But if you plan to have large open maps, then you'll have to make a lot of optimisations to get it running. Renderer is not suited for that. I'm still yet to check VkDoom's performance, but I'll do it next week due to schedule changes.

Blogutan

#4
Quote from: Snehk on August 21, 2017, 05:12:47 AM
I guess that you can get those ideas done in any of the engine forks, even stock GPL ones. But if you plan to have large open maps, then you'll have to make a lot of optimisations to get it running. Renderer is not suited for that. I'm still yet to check VkDoom's performance, but I'll do it next week due to schedule changes.

Thank you. I am a bit overloaded with University-Stuff right now (till October 4th).
Today i read some documentations for the D3-Engine. (Great stuff really) and now i see why you recommended the StormEngine. It is probably the "cleanest" of the bunch. YET It is based on the BFG Version right?

1.)  "This file is part of the Doom 3 BFG Edition GPL Source Code ("Doom 3 BFG Edition Source Code")."  - How is the, let me call it, "translation" of this version of the engine? I mean like: I thought the BFG Engine was horrible, while the original Doom3 felt flawless. Do i have the same performance problems ? Is it due to the engine/code ? Or did the programmers simply made a sloppy job with transferring Doom3 into BFG? Is it stable enough? I want to execute my project on a wide spectrum of system specs.
I simply dont know what they changed since "Carmacks" original code. Is the BFG derivative (StormEngine) stable?
Or should i check a more "pure IDTech4" engine?


2.) The documentation under StormEngine2/blob/master/neo/renderer/Model.h is really specific about MD5:
// shared between the renderer, game, and Maya export DLL
#define MD5_VERSION_STRING      "MD5Version"
#define MD5_MESH_EXT         "md5mesh"
#define MD5_ANIM_EXT         "md5anim"
#define MD5_CAMERA_EXT         "md5camera"
#define MD5_VERSION   10


So i guess i have to bring potential Blender3D models and animations into  MAYA format ?
Or should i install Maya again? (I am familiar with Maya, yet prefer Blender3D for its GPL nature)


Maya/Blender: There are some tricks and scripts for that issue. That is done for now.
(Since the release of the DarkMod, they made a lot of nice tutorials, tools and script. Also there is the DarkRadiant, which is a good alternative to the GTK Radiant Tool.)


Cheers! :)


(I will look up more later. Thank you so far.)


Snehk

I'm busy with University stuff as well. There weren't any performance problems with BFG as far as I know. It was less accepted due to being harder to mod.

Changes in BFG (it's also Carmack's code, I think he was still with id at the time):


  • Updated OpenGL core profile
  • GLSL shaders instead of antiquated ARB
  • Tech 5-like multithreading
  • Tech 5 file system
  • Flash main menus and hud

There might be more changes, but they weren't that big and affecting performance. BFG forks can currently run on any platform, BFG was even released for consoles, and with right amount of coding it also supports VR.