Improving the ROTT engine!

[diakonov]

I had a great idea. I did a topic about making a mod based on ROTT. And now I know that, as I understood, 3D Realms forbid to do remakes of its games based on engines of other games. We simply can't make mods for other games like Duke Nukem 3D or Half-Life based on ROTT.

We have now the source code for ROTT. If we have the source code, we are allowed to improve the game, right? What about to improve it and transform it into a BUILD-like engine or on a truly 3D engine, like modern games, instead to continue using that old crappy engine?

Transforming the ROTT source code into a truly 3d environment, as I understand, wouldn't be against the copyright of the original game, since the game would still have its own unique engine, not from other game but only improved into a true 3D engine, with all the same features and content of the original game.

The content would be the same, only totally improved. That's it. Improve!

Duke Nukem 3D, as ROTT, is also an old game, and people are still improving it only because DNF is not yet finished. Why not with ROTT? But what I want to say is not only improve textures and create models, but also improve the engine of the game into a true 3D environment with modern lightning effects. Imagine it! ROTT totally improved, like modern games would be amazing! Is it possible to do this? To get, for example, Unreal engine and transform it into an engine totally adapted to be used by ROTT? Is it against copyrights?

With the improved engine, maps would be re-created totally based on maps of original game. I want pushwalls to continue to exist, as other cool features that make the game unique. All enemies, weapons and objects would be 100% 3D, not only sprites with 2D graphics. I know that it will be very hard to do this. It's only an idea I had.

But are we allowed to improve the engine? Or we are limited to use the old engine? I want to know more about this with details. I don't create mods or improve games, but it's interesting to know about this.

The same thing of improving engines could be made with DN3D?

[Blade Nightflame]

It would lose a lot of it's original charm though.

You can add a light system, model support or even rag doll, but you can't recreate the maps in a different format.

[diakonov]

So if we must use the .RTL or .RTC format means that we can't improve the engine into a truly 3D environment?

Well, at least we can improve textures and models and add effects.

[Blade Nightflame]

Well, you could, pretty much, recreate the maps in a different format.
HOWEVER, keep it to yourself. Don't spread it around or you'll get nailed by 3dR with good reason.

[Bert]

Using RTL/RTC doesn't mean you can't have a fully 3D ROTT. It's just a description of the level, nothing more. It's very easy (and fast) to load and convert it to polygons.

[Tea Monster]

I'm no expert, but from looking at how the Duke and SW ports went, as long as you use the original source as a base (i.e. - you don't just put a ROTT map loader into a Quake source engine) then you you can do pretty much anything you want to with it.

3DR have shut down people who use thier content in other engines. So you can take the ROTT source and make it use 3D models - that is exactly what the Jonathan Fowler port does for Duke Nukem 3D.

What you CANT do is to take all the tiles from ROTT and load them into the Dark Places engine or the HL2 engine.

If you have the knowledge of OpenGL programming to make it work, then Rock and Roll.

Winrott already has the improvements, or at least the most important ones.
- OpenGl support
- Hires textures
- Ogg music
- 3D models
- And a ton of extra menu options

[Exitus]

I'd like to see physics and the option of switching the sprites with ragdolls. ROTT is such a fast paced action game - even more so than Doom and Duke3d.

[Neuro]

Originally Posted by Exitus

I'd like to see physics and the option of switching the sprites with ragdolls.

Well, kid, I'd like to see God some day.

.