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on prefab rails:
doom3 is remarkably weird when it comes to prefabs. some areas have full mapobject (prefab) railing, some areas have railing completely made out of patches (more common) and some are a mix and match. i would find it more easy to make railing in 3ds max (you can just use the spline tool and don't need to fiddle with ugly patches). thankfully, doomedit has a feature to export brushwork as an obj so you just need to import the the obj brushwork into your 3d editor, make your railing and export. Good tip necros. The prefabs are largely a bit questionable anyway, since you can make a lot of things yourself in a matter of minutes... I guess prefabs can be useful for things like shelves, ladder/handrail combinations, typical lifts, and maybe certain GUIs. The computer/console arrangements are probably also handy to have a prefab for, and just modify that, since they look a little time consuming to get exactly right. A lot of common things already come as entities, I saw.
People have been saying that you can also start making terrain out of patches, then export that and tweak / reduce polycount in a modelling suite, then re-import as a mapobject. more on prefabs,
a lot of computers and machines are prefabs and an even larger number are not. when i first started, i kept searching through all the models looking for things i'd seen and coming up empty. in the 'objects' category of textures, you'll find textures that can be used (unsurprisingly) to make objects out of brushwork. a lot of the fancy consoles were built this way with patches and brushes. about terrain, i personally find it stupid to make terrain with patches if you've got access to a 3d editing suite. i have an old version of bryce (version 3) that i use as a fractal terrain generator. i export the greyscale heightmap bitmaps into 3ds max and use the 'displace' modifier on a plane that has been subdivided. this yields a terrain that can be modified for higher or lower resolution. tbh, since i skipped the quake3 era of mapping and went straight from quake to d3, i never became attached to patches like those guys who did a lot of q3 mapping and i can't stand them at all. they are incredibly fiddly and texturing them is an absolute pain. i build everything out of models when i can. besides, building things out of models and then blocking out the area behind with caulk makes vising and portals much easier to handle because the surrounding brushwork is so simple. gb: Thanks. Do I just put the clean.pk4s in the base directory or do I have to rename/unpack them?
necros: Rails aren't the problem. But it kind of sucks that all interesting shapes (rocks, flesh, outsides) are made of meshes and can't be made inside the editor easily, like in Source games. Anyone know how I can make models from Quoth custom map objects move (like a body sliding along the floor or something)? I seem to recall seeing it somewhere :E
negke: I think you should rename the clean materials pak to zzzwhatever.pk4, so it is loaded after all the normal paks (alphabetically sorted). It goes in the base folder.
I unpacked the models/ folder from one of the pakfiles because it has the mapobjects, and you'll probably want to unpack the sounds as well. Individual files override things in pk4s. Ne_tower by Necros was Quoth-based and had a body dragging. He should be able to fill you in.
as for the knight drag, it's actually from when preach coded in model support. previously, you couldn't assign a model to a func_ because the game would complain about not having it precached.
there was supposed to be a func_train_point made specifically for assigning models, which is what i would have used, but that entity is actually broken, because it's still coded to set the func_train_point as SOLID_BSP which is not allowed with a http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60352&start=36 was made with a func_rotate_train.
preach added the ability to assign a model to (i think?) every entity. unfortunately, he didn't allow for models on entities that have SOLID_BSP (ie: func_train) which is why you can't use a func_train for this. it's been a year, so i don't really remember the specifics, but essentially, you set up a func_rotate_train + path_rotate entities exactly like you would if you were building a rotating train path, except you don't specify any rotation (but you could, if you wanted to-- the model will rotate just like it would if it was a bmodel). once your rotating train entity and paths are set up, just set the 'model' key to the path to your custom model. finally, on your func_rotate_train, set the target field to 'null' (or anything that is not used). this is because the entity does not work unless target is set, but since we have the model directly on the train, we don't need to target anything. you can also tie custom models (via mapobject_custom) to bmodel movers via rotating entity functionality as well. you could, for example, make a lift with torches attached to it. note that you'd need to use mapobject_custom instead of the normal torch entities because torch entities are made into static entities and static entities cannot move and they also automatically emit the fire sound which may not be good since they will be moving around. as you know, you target a func_rotate_* entity to rotate_object entities in order for those to rotate. you can also target any other entity in the game (including monsters!) and the rotating entity will also move them as well. for an example of this, check out sm156: http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60375 for a map which uses this behaviour. there are two boats that drive around with rocketeers stuck inside them with the rotate_train trick so they don't fall out as well as droles attached to a flying airplane type func_rotate_train. i posted the map source for it in post #10 of the thread (or just get it here: http://necros.quaddicted.com/temp/sm156_necros_map.zip ). that when you attach mapobject_custom entities to a func_rotating_train, you can't rotate it. this is because entities attached to the rotater this way won't change their angles when they rotate, they only change their position.
so you'll have models that just slide around. if i had read the responses, i would have seen purple's post and wouldn't have had to retype all that. lol. ^_^
Heh so it is a bit more complex than I was hoping. I was trying to avoid rotating stuff as its such a pita :p
Still, the amount of fun I've been having playing with various triggers and relay sequences, it was kind of inevitable it would come in at some point... Thanks for the posts though will try it out. Nice to be reminded of the exact map I saw it in too :) Is it possible to use some func_moving_object with skip textures applied to not-quite-all sides of it to simulate dragging a model? I recall levitating a Shambler once in one of my speedmaps using a similar technique. But, then again, my recollection isn't what it used to be :)
well, if you are using hipnotic or quoth, you can just use func_movewall with func_rotate_train as they are fully invisible.
but i don't see why you couldn't put skip on a normal func_train. I'll admit that at the time of release I knew that using custom models on func_ type entities was tantalizingly close. However, it was actually a side effect of code that guarded against unprecached models on the first frame (where it could be prevented). The main application I had in mind was to combine it with the newly added fixed-angle sprites for alpha transparencies, to make lifts with mesh floors or similar.
I probably could have added a 'NON_SOLID' flag to the func_ entities quite quickly, but I wanted to convince myself first that there was no way to automate the process. The uncertainty remained, so the idea was left unfinished. As a quick straw poll: What would be the preferred implimentation? � Create new classes for non-solid entities � Add a flag which sets such entities non-solid � Add the flag, and set it by default in the fgd file for _point classes � Add a flag, and create a new wrapper class which sets the flag then calls the regular code(aka throw it all at the wall and see what sticks) � Break all existing maps by making func_ non-solid with a flag to make them solid again I also have this idea of fiddling with the modelindex so that you could create a BSP hull model to make it solid and still have another model visible using just one entity, if I can just sort out the entity issues. That might change the whole plan... well, my first instinct is that _point versions should automatically be SOLID_NOT because i was surprised when the func_train_point failed with a model. the thing is this would be an inconsistent behaviour because things like trigger_*_point MUST be SOLID_TRIGGER.
ideally, it would be better to just make a func_train_entity instead of having to abuse func_rotate_train. oh and i'd also update the hipnotic rotation code to take entity angles into account when being targetted by rotaters. (possibly with a flag to toggle that behaviour). The _point versions are supposed to be exactly identical to the regular version, so much so that they even strip the classname of the _point extension. They only exist because of limitations in worldcraft which prevent creation of a point entity with the classname of a solid one. I'm pretty sure changing them now would break maps.
I don't see why you couldn't make rocks in Doom 3 the same way you do in Quake.
When you're finished, turn the entire terrain into a func_static and turn the simple room around it into caulk. For parts that the player can't interact with, there is some key that lets you make the func_static nonsolid which supposedly saves RAM because no clipmodel is needed (I think). You can then export the stuff (obj) and tweak it in Blender all you want, but for rough terrain, just to get the rough outline and scale, I don't see why you wouldn't want to use triangles or patches. Just to approximate it in the editor and get a feel for it. You asked me to share my expert doom 3 mapping knowledge (lol) so here is other random stuff I found out while mapping: - Shaderparm7 is used to set green/red lights on the door frame models. 0 is red, 1 is green. - I ripped the frame and door models from id maps and tweaked them to my needs. All the doors are models as far as I can see, so are the matching frames, all nicely on the grid and on the Z point. The glass inside some func_doors is a func_static hooked up to the func_door with the "bind" key, like "bind" "door1". This makes the glass follow the door's movement in a master/slave way. - Like Necros said, two ways to make consoles. a) models (in the mapmodels/com folder I think, look at the communications map - com1 or similar); b) brushes for the straight parts, patches for curves, small brushes for the guis. - GUIs: For the model consoles, keys gui1, gui2 and so forth point to the gui files... for handmade guis, simple patch mesh turned into a func_static with common/entitygui texture and placed roughly 1 unit in front of the physical screen, can target stuff it should activate and "gui" points to the gui file like guis/comm1/sentrybot.gui is the panel that says "Activate sentry", for example. There are a lot of those. - Mapmodels can have different skins; for example, skmachines/skcube.lwo can have "skin" set to skins/skcubedirtred to create the red version of that thing. - Sounds are placed in maps using the speaker entity. - Glass is simply a material. - Two ways to make sky: a) like in Quake, slap one of the sky textures on brushes and b) portal sky, still looking into this last one. - Lights; brightness results from the size of the light volume, as well as the color, where white is full brightness. You can assign textures to a light source, such as "texture" "lights/xray02". - Entities under "movable" are physics objects, these drop to floor automatically. So do monsters, but not weapons for example. You need to place the weapons and ammo in the position you want them to appear. - Decals are put on simple patch meshes of the desired size and shape and placed roughly 1 unit above the surface. - Textures can be resized pretty freely without looking bad, so you don't have to build gui screens or decals at a certain size. Rather click "fit" in the surface inspector. - The scale of everything is comparable to Quake, so is step height etc. - You can load different mapmodels by creating a func_static and choosing models/mapobjects/whatever.lwo (Radiant will pop up a file browser). I'd be interested to exchange testmaps and knowledge, hit me up on irc maybe. http://kneedeepinthedoomed.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/sotox2.jpg http://kneedeepinthedoomed.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/sotox3.jpg My knowledge of Quake C is zero and I'm still learning the ropes entities wise, but for the kind of stuff I'm thinking of doing a func_train_model kind of entity would be great :E
For stuff like making it rotate or whatever though I'd wouldn't know what to suggest, I don't know what the technical limitations and such are really. A map can have a script assigned whose main() function is executed at level load. Scripts can directly address func_movers for example by their name. Some GUIs (shutters gui for example) can execute functions from the script when clicked (called via shaderparmX, usually documented in the GUI script itself).
It's a lot like QuakeC. Tutorial worth reading: http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3144 Guys, quick question:
In Q3 I saw Also: what if I create a custom i forget how that works but you could find it in the teaching old progs new tricks thread.
you can use this for models that are already used in the game. afaik, it is impossible to use custom models unless you REPLACE a stock model with a custom one. at that point, you should make your own mod because it is unrealistic to ask a player to overwrite a stock model with a custom one and then delete when they're done playing your map.
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