Exactly. Doom3 can do it. Hell, Quake3 might be able to even do it. A few simple engine additions will get the same effect (mostly thinking of vis distance)

It's not an advancement at all. It's just a creative use of mostly existing technology, with a few things in the background supporting it. Of course, if Valve just left it at that, I wouldn't be making this post, however all the cries of "3D Skyboxes are revolutionary!" is just ignorant.

When i was messing around with Hammer (Source mapping tool) i noticed a tutorial on "3d sky boxes". Thats why the HL2 levels look so damn big. All that happens is that you create something, make it 1/16th scale then place it just outside of where the player can run around, hence big looking areas.

Walk out of the train station at the beginning of HL2 and then turn on noclip...you'll see examples of that...


http://tds.nin.com/

I've just read the "Doom can do it too" post on that doom3 forum. Damn. Those guys are good.

I've always held the belief that the Doom 3 engine can match the HL2 engine in size of maps. When i was messing around with Hammer (Source mapping tool) i noticed a tutorial on "3d sky boxes". Thats why the HL2 levels look so damn big. All that happens is that you create something, make it 1/16th scale then place it just outside of where the player can run around, hence big looking areas.

To me thats a cheat. And after watching the Doom3 5 minute long movie those guys made, i'm convinced that within a month or two, if not now, modders will make mods to doom 3 with levels much much much bigger than source could ever do.

And when i say levels, i mean areas where you need to load it once and thats it. You could make a huge hl2 map where it loads every 2 minutes, but again thats cheating.

Thanks for that link to that forum sponge, i'm going to follow this closely now.

I was getting tired of these false team-based games, i am a huge fan of multiplayer co-op, especially in the good ol days of Blood, Duke Nukem etc, those games had fantastic team-based play with co-op.

I totally agree with your take on current team games like CoD, i hate the way that enemies continue to spawn until u move over a specific trigger, or how it's always your name to "take out that sniper". I love your idea that guys will get over excited and go on ahead, as long as it isnt scripted like 'man kills bunch of enemies in this scene so he moves ahead and a gun turret rips him up, so now the player is aware of the turret'. Too many times it seems your the first person in the que unless something bad is ahead and then someone else goes infront to get slaughtered.

i call it the "Star Trek extra theory"

-Truffle Shuffle

PS. I think i'd be happy if just for once i wasnt the only man in the army the enemy is worried about shooting.

With Quake2, the first Makron may have been destroyed, along with the defenses, but it's never said that the Marines didn't control many of the parts. Most of the people in the dropships were dead, remember?

Nor did you kill the Stroggos species, you were one man on an entire planet, you're telling me all the enemies were on one route? It's far from mopping up the stragglers. Just as a war isn't always over once you take the capital.

Anyway, I think we're reading way too much into a storyline that never really existed. Personally, I wouldn't care if Q4 had an awful storyline, if they can convey the feeling that you really aren't fighting alone, then awesome. (For the record, CoD and MoH, while great games, did not make me feel like I wasn't doing everything. You couldn't advance until only you would take out the enemy.)

I want to see stuff like lines and lines of men, all mowing down respective Strogg, and you're not stuck to your little route. (DDay CoD) Occasionally see other guys go bezerk after getting a few kills, charge ahead and tear shit up, while you're doing the same a few rows down. Not "Marine, go kill him so we can advance. Marine, go blow those up and take out the guards" so forth.
This comment was edited on Dec 31, 00:39.

From what i've read of the story it seems to be the weakest thing since Quake's first incarnation "your a marine..." Just placing the guy after Quake 2 and saying "oh there's another makron now and you've got to fight your way through to him now" thats just pathetic. In Quake 2 you take out (trying to remeber here so forgive any small mistakes in the details) the interplanetary defences, power plants, communications, etc etc so by the end of Quake 2 the invading forces should control the major stategic locations making the anhilation of the last of strogos a forgone conclusion (just mop up the straglers) how is Quake 4, with this plot line, going to be any advancement to the series? It wont be, this could very easily and really should be nothing more than a mod for Doom3.

Why should Quake 4 even follow Quake 2? There has been no correlation in any of the other incarnations...
Quake 1 = Shub Nigrath (spelling from memory)
Quake 2 = Strogos
Quake 3 = Multiplayer only

Now Quake4 diverts back to quake 2 all of a sudden simply becuase its the cheapest and quickest way to pump out a new triple A title. Raven can re-use all the Doom3 textures/Sounds etc at a small fee and save months of early development time. But this is Raven's forte, there is a "Raven's guide to making computer games" somewhere and i'm sure it only lasts about 5 steps.

Personally if Raven are intent on recycling the Quake franchise for a quick profit then i would have much rather seen Quake 4 continue on from the original Quake.

-TruffleShuffle

Well, one of the things that most people that like Doom3 are really sick of hearing is that it is too dark. But that's not because people are just being picky. It really was too dark. The flashlight or gun thing was stupid. The triggered monster thing over & over & over & over & over & over & over & over & over again was really stupid. If I ever see another imp again, I might start screaming, not out of fear but frustration. Where was the spidermastermind? How come the Cyberdemon was so stupid-looking with a tail coming out of its head? IT's Head? And then you can't even kill him without the soulcube, so he's about as useless to gamers as the endgame creature in Quake1. There weren't any people stuck onto spikes or anything like that except a twitching torso, and that was it. The only thing that we see that is remotely scary is just before the two-headed creatures arrive & that guy is stuck up on the ceiling screaming. That was cool. But that was it. Hell was a joke. In Doom2, hell is brightly lit, orange with flame everywhere. It doesn't make it any less scary at all. There are people be tortured all over the place. Here, it's just a place, void of color, still pretty dark, but at the least the monsters have different skins I guess. I also expected the demons not to do that red-fade-out bit. I thought that I was banishing them back to hell, but now that I was in hell, they would just die.

Going down another passage. Here's a PDA. There's an armor. As soon as you pick that up, you can count on an imp or two. Ho-hum.

Oh well. Doom3 SUCKS!

This comment was edited on Dec 29, 19:00.

Zeph: That'd be sponge, not Spooge And yea, I admit I'm only arrogant when I know I'm right, so it happens kinda often. *ahem*

Actually, I was even impressed at some of the maps people are making with the engine, it seems there is no effective limit to the draw distance with Doom3. (The cityscape, while obviously couldn't be done with a Doom3 level of detail on each building is amazingly large, and the mars landscape with the 2 Doom guys is nothing short of amazing) I'm now left wondering if Source sticking to a BSP tree is really a huge mistake for the types of maps they were making, and for the general future of the engine.

The only thing Source really has over D3 is it's accurate pre-rendered lighting thanks to sticking with BSPs. You can do ambient lighting in D3, or have one huge light that doesn't cast shadows, so it's not like lighting these outdoor areas are going to be impossible (hell, look at the sunrise/sunset video. First time I've ever seen that in a shooter, although that red is a bit off. Amazing effect with the shadows.)

Zeph: I still disagree you with D3 = piece of shit though But yes, Raven is promising Quake3 style deathmatch. I don't care if the single player is Pong with bumpmapping, if they get the speed of Q3 in Q4 DM, I'll be the first one to buy it. Doom3 is even doing 16 player multi - I saw a couple servers with 13 people, though God knows the quality of the game.

So YOU'RE the guy who's be causing the industry to pump out tactical squad combat and WW2 games en masse?

Give me a good WW2 game over a good Sci-Fi game any day True of movies and books, too.

______________________

Tango: I know what you mean, I'm that way with RTSes. Games like Starcraft I absolutely can not even play due to the setting, and Warcraft is even pushing it. Just so happens that Rise of Nations is one of my favorite RTSes.

So YOU'RE the guy who's be causing the industry to pump out tactical squad combat and WW2 games en masse?

Sincerely,
Jeremy Dunn

None of us know what was in the minds of the ID guys when they made the piece of shit commonly known as Doom3. That said, Quake4 has always promised that it will have normal multiplayer servers just like Quake2 & Quake3 so that there can be 16or perhaps more players. Quake4 has always promised larger areas with lighter maps.

Sponge provided proof positive that the game did not have any map-size limitation. The city-scape map boggles the mind with its size, if that is indeed real at all. It does show scale & it is immense. Counter-Strike would stop to a crawl.

Anyway, Doom3 itself proves itself capable of large areas. The first time to you go to hell and there is that huge skull and those gargoyles. It isn't immense, but it is larger than most of the rest of the game. It's perhaps half as large as an offical Counter-Strike level, but completely open, and vertically taller than it is wide or long. Most importantly, it is bright.

The final battle scene in the game shows a larger map, fully visible with brightness, loaded with objects and textures, and runs on any machine that runs Doom3 even though the distance from corner to corner is probably 5-8 times longer than most of the rest of the game.

These are not FarCry or SeriousSam sized maps by any means. But they do prove that the normal battleground-sized multiplayer map is certainly possible and that's what we will get. The maps will probably be just as large if not larger than the maps we played in Quake2 & Quake3. So Wintermute's point is mute.

Sponge did provide us with actual information in his argument. That website of modders dedicated to proving that Doom3 can do things and do them well is a group outside of ID software, just like Raven is outside of ID software. ID wanted a corridor crawl. It does not mean that the engine is incapable of more because the game was mapped as a corridor crawl. The community is proving that the engine does not have the limits that Wintermute believed the engine had. Sponge provided evidence of this in action that can be researched further for verification. If Wintermute actually wanted proof that playing in a large map could still sustain 30FPS then he would have dug deeper. Instead he just argued about objects & textures when the game Doom3 itself shows at least 2 situations in which large rooms full of objects and textures allow the same game experience as the rest of the corridor crawl.

In closing, I'd like to say that Spooge's only fault was his arrogance, but he clearly won this discussion. Wintermute looks like an empty-handed, empty-headed, whiny little bitch next to him and nothing more.

I'll buy Quake4. It will probably be a lot more fun than Doom3. It would be hard for it not to.

Go play the Sims then.

Or not

Sponge: RTSs are the most obvious example. I am yet to find an RTS universe I prefer to be in than the C&C one. Although I'm tempted to check out Panzers.

______________________
We don't go to Ravenholm.

#59
Being able to render something green doesnt make it possible to make a open outdoor space. By handling I dont mean being able to render, I mean 3Dmax etc can render great scenes, does that mean that they can "handle" them? You would have to count frames per day or something, but hey, as long as they "handle" them...

You post a batch of mostly simple renders and claim that the engine can handle lots of stuff, thats as much proof as the "ufo pictures" are of ufos (the alien kind).

So if your whole argument is that the D3 egine can render some simple outdoor stuff, then you are right. My argument is that the D3 engine wont be able to deliver enough for whats needed for Q4, which includes open spaces that doesnt look like crap and that can sustain a firefight without droping to the fps of a kodak photodisc.

And "lie and whine"? Get a grip man, I stated my opinion that the D3 engine can't handle what I think is needed for a
Q4, thats neither whining or lying. If you could focus more on the argument at hand and less on your strawman attacks this might have been worthwhile.

don't mind unrealistic things (Xen aliens) but I prefer realisitic surroundings. Just me.

Go play the Sims then.

PZ
------------
Reading: Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol"

Tango: I know what you mean, I'm that way with RTSes. Games like Starcraft I absolutely can not even play due to the setting, and Warcraft is even pushing it. Just so happens that Rise of Nations is one of my favorite RTSes.

[edit] I can't type.
This comment was edited on Dec 29, 03:14.

So where the Hell is Soldier of Fortune 3?"

...and for that matter, where is Heretic 3 or Hexen 3?

But then we'll have "OMG T4rd5 come up with something new!!11"

Not too impressed. But then I'm increasingly turned off by games I can't relate to. I enjoyed DIII but Id take real world situations (even if it's 2000 years ago in Rome) over some alien environment / space ship any day. I don't mind unrealistic things (Xen aliens) but I prefer realisitic surroundings. Just me. Still, might check out the demo.

______________________
We don't go to Ravenholm.

"Glad to see Raven has work. So where the Hell is Soldier of Fortune 3?"

...and for that matter, where is Heretic 3 or Hexen 3? Now is the perfect time cuz D3 and HL2 are already out! They won't interfere with the sales figures!

<wasp>

Wow I must say this thread has really sparked an interest in this stuff, found a movie and map of a full sunrise/sunset cycle in Doom3.

http://dev.rosebrough.com/d3/euro/euro3_suntest.zip
http://www.pcgamemods.com/8914/

Needs assets from this forum: http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=57
which is a cool project about recreating scenes to show that the D3 engine is capable.

This comment was edited on Dec 28, 18:45.

space captain: Tell me, what needs to be added in order to be a "full featured game." Physics are working, and game logic takes a minority of the processing.

Also what's "low level" You can throw enemies in it, and they'd work. You can even play that one map with the Mars mountain in multiplayer. They are WORKING MAPS.

Once again, people say things without even thinking about what they're saying. You have no arguments, so you take your stand in your pile of crap, and start being sarcastic.

Christ, how many more inaccuracies am I going to smack down tonight (And for the reference, I'm only cocky when I'm absolutely sure I'm right.)
This comment was edited on Dec 28, 18:33.

Glad to see Raven has work. So where the Hell is Soldier of Fortune 3?