id Tech Forums

I found a hidden gem while browsing the ModWiki which describes a way to extend the AAS system for the AI. We are able to script Doom III bots to fare well enough in close encounters at predefined places, but imagine how much fun it would be if they were able to roam free on the map. Right now they don't know how to climb ladders, use elevators, portals, crouch to move in confined spaces, etc. The wiki article and the included code are obviously outdated, but if an engine coder could take a look at it and adapt it, it would make AI scripting much more fun for scripters.

As my learning project to get started with D3/OpenGL I decided to write a model viewer for the MD5 format used by Doom III. There are several examples of rendering MD5. However, they are either too basic (no textures and animations), don't compile or don't display the models properly. Writing one from scratch by studying the unofficial reference documentation turned out to be way over my capabilities. The single working model viewer with source code available I found was written by the legend himself, Fabien Sanglard (I bet you thought I was going to say Trebor).

So far I ported it to SDL 2 and removed dependency on SDL_image by switching to header-only stb library.



Roadmap

Phase I

• remove GLUT and use GLM for OpenGL mathematics
• add CMake build script (Windows/linux/OS X)
• use GLEW
• move project to Github

Phase II

• port from OpenGL 2.1 -> OpenGL 3.3+

Phase III

• import/export binary MD5 models used by DOOM 3: BFG (bmd5mesh)
• add optional GUI for opening models, changing shaders and animations, etc.
• add optional PhysFS support for opening models directly from pk4 packages

There was recently a discussion at the #iodoom3 channel @ Freenode.org about the possibility of porting DOOMEdit from MFC to the Qt toolkit. I have been learning mapping in the past couple of weeks for my project ET: Legacy which is a fork of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and I thought it would be a nice learning exercise to port GtkRadiant to Qt. Basically, my aim is to create a map editor which is easily extensible and customisable.

Here is my current progress:

Is there a tutorial somewhere on the net about how to correctly pack .resources and generate corresponding .crc files? Are there any standalone utilities for doing that?

It would be great if there was a short guide on making a simple BFG mod, but if there was such a thing I bet it was lost with with doom3world.org shutdown.