Duke Nukem 3D Modelling Project part 4

[The Commander]

You can get some of the effects that you see in the above picture in duke now. They just wont look renderded like that though. You can make see through water now as easy as placing a sprite in Mapster now.
And reflective windows can be made with a build mirror trick.

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/DukePlus.rar

[Hunter_rus]

Originally Posted by LiquiD

How come I see people playing this with dynamic lighting already? Check out youtube on the stadium level.

When can we expect to be able to have that in an update?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HAwpKdopM58&feature=related

Yes, there's no dynamic lighting, it's the Bloom tool. It doesn't always work right but you still can check it out.

[escapist]

(Work In Progress)

[NightFright]

It's better. Just get rid of that Titney Fears-look on the face soon! *LOL*

Regarding the bloom shader: I would rather have a switch in EDuke32 to turn this effect on/off as I wish instead of having to use an external file. Maybe TX considers doing it some day. It's not that important, though.

[The Commander]

Oh wow. How do you really know what she looks like though? You never see her face.
lol

[NightFright]

Sprites like that *HAVE* to be extrapolated, of course. Personally, I am glad when there are opportunities to also get to see the reverse of the medal!

[Mr.Fibbles]

what is the current poly count on that?
ie, is it possible to increase that? I am thinking of the face more than anything. I know people don't look at the face but it certainly stands out. and her arms are rather thin and "shapeless" shall we say. (those elbows and it looks like there could be more polys on those arms)
It looks great, but those are my critiques

[alandog]

face can be improved later, concentrating on the mesh would be useful right now. I think the model is really improved, the body looks much better now. the arms looks somewhat thin, especially the elbow looks strange.
however, I think that it's a matter of minor improvement before the model will be complete, good work!

[LiquiD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAwpKdopM58

I worked out its a bloom feature which gets enabled by the numpad1 button. It's pretty cool but i'm getting a weird picture on picture bug of the same screen.

So that was rendered in 3dsmax? Is there anyway they can get that detail into duke3d hrp?

[Roma Loom]

Of course this is a render. The level mesh was taken out of map-bsp-3ds conversion, texture aligning work applied, normal, gloss, refection maps created, HDR environment for ambient light set and the sun adjusted. the batty was put as it is.
As for getting some features to the engine.. unfortunately only reflecting surfaces are doable. Lighmap is probably impossible to implement. As for dynamic lights - I've heard it was done by one russian guy but I dunno when I'll be able to see it by myself and if he will releae it to the public...

[Radar1013]

Originally Posted by NightFright

It's better. Just get rid of that Titney Fears-look on the face soon! *LOL*

Regarding the bloom shader: I would rather have a switch in EDuke32 to turn this effect on/off as I wish instead of having to use an external file. Maybe TX considers doing it some day. It's not that important, though.

I'm pretty sure all you have to do is press numpad 1 and it turns off/on.

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

- I've heard it was done by one russian guy but I dunno when I'll be able to see it by myself and if he will releae it to the public...

Where did you hear that from?

[Roma Loom]

This is basically a test release for NightFright. However I consider it final just because I'm pretty tired of experiments with so called lightmaps. I can say that the idea of using one global texture for duke's hands plus detail textures (as lightmaps) with "detailscale" set to 1 is good. I'm using one acme 1024x1024 hand texture and two 256x256 lightmaps for frame 2576 and 2577. So the next step is to redo all the hud weapons making them all using one texture for hands with genereated individual lightmaps. Lots of work I have to say. I'll try to contact Parkar to ask him for all HUD weaponry source files...

2576_tip_hand download

P.S. I've created the lighmaps using my old CRT display so I'm not sure for hand coloring. Feel free to adjust the color on the lighmaps until I check them on good display.

[The Commander]

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

As for dynamic lights - I've heard it was done by one russian guy but I dunno when I'll be able to see it by myself and if he will releae it to the public...

Not what I herd...

[NightFright]

The tiphand seems fine to me. I see no need to change it further.

[Radar1013]

Originally Posted by The Commander

Not what I herd...

Okay, can someone clue me in about this dynamic lighting stuff actually being supported?

[Roma Loom]

To prevent any speculations I have to repeat myself - I only know that one guy for whom I'm doing some stuff implemented some dynamic lighting into polymost. I haven't seen it yet by myself, but I belive it just because it's pretty doable. One thing that's nearly to impossible to implement in polymost is lightmapping.

[NightFright]

Well if no lightmapping is supported, we might as well remove the lightmaps for the tiphand for now. You can keep them for later readding, I guess.

[Radar1013]

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

To prevent any speculations I have to repeat myself - I only know that one guy for whom I'm doing some stuff implemented some dynamic lighting into polymost. I haven't seen it yet by myself, but I belive it just because it's pretty doable. One thing that's nearly to impossible to implement in polymost is lightmapping.

Dang, i wonder if he actually does have it. What's the guys name?

[Roma Loom]

Originally Posted by NightFright

Well if no lightmapping is supported, we might as well remove the lightmaps for the tiphand for now. You can keep them for later readding, I guess.

No. You've got me wrong - I meant lightmapping for the level geometry. The current pseudo lightmaps for the TIP Hand model are functional. Read carefully my post with the download link. If you remove them lighmaps for the tip hand you'll get flat unshaded and unhighlited hand.

[NightFright]

OK. Then everything remains as is. As I said, no changes are required.

[Hendricks266]

Originally Posted by escapist

(Work In Progress)

Please don't lose the source to this. Nuclear Winter has a special version of this babe with the pole gone and chains extending to the ceiling.

Also, there is a tile somewhere that is just the bottom of the pole broken off. Make that too.

[alandog]

sure he won't lose grip on this he has been working on it from weeks, and I noticed he change is avatar, so he is still alive...

[NightFright]

New pics from the Britney Spears/Hayden Panettiere stripper maybe?
Oh, and BTW: Always remember to BACKUP your work, especially after you are finished. It would be tragic if something like the lost slime babes happened again...

[alandog]

yeah, I'm really curious to see your progress...

[NightFright]

If there is any. But take your time, it's the last really "big" model missing for Ep.1. It cannot hurt if it is REALLY good...

[Hendricks266]

I converted the rocket to an MD3.

[Hellhammer]

there is someone who's working on lightmaps for duke3d hrp?

[Tea Monster]

Unfortunately not. There has been a lot of discussion on the topic, and everyone who seems to be knowledgeable about coding says its relatively easy to implement, but nobody actually goes ahead and does it. I don't know if thats something about how the build engine is coded, or the new polymost engine is coded or if just its a case of everyone else has better things to do. Not sure.

There are rumors that one of the coders had some kind of lighting system up and running, but no details have emerged.

Deeper Thought did a funky light patch that does sector based lighting, its really cool, but it doesn't work with existing maps.

So, short answer: no.

[Radar1013]

Doesn't the tip hand model by Roma Loom use light maps, and the light map is DEFed as a detail texture or something like that?

[Tea Monster]

Yeah, but there is no support in the engine for what you would call its "real" use.

[Roma Loom]

Originally Posted by Radar1013

Doesn't the tip hand model by Roma Loom use light maps, and the light map is DEFed as a detail texture or something like that?

Yes. We can call it lightmap (i'm not sure though if detail texture's blending mode is the same as for the light maps in the engines that support it) - but it's for the models only. We cannot create the lightmap for the level geometry. It will require the implementation of any kind of light tracing technology into the engine to render the lightmap (which is quite a long (few hours) process. Or convert map files into any full 3D format geometry (which is impossible to perform automatically without manual editing and polishing thus forcing us to illegally distribute converted maps) and render lightmaps in any 3rd party application.

[Tea Monster]

I don't know if it would be possible to pre-render the lightmaps for the 'standard' DN3D levels and distribute the lightmaps with the HRP. It would depend if they could be 'slotted in' afterwards to the existing DN3D levels, the same way that replacement textures are now. It should be possible somehow, though I don't know of the mechanics of it. Then of course you need some form of lighting system.

Its not much point talking about it though, as nobody who is able to do anything about it is going to actually make it happen.

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

Yes. We can call it lightmap (i'm not sure though if detail texture's blending mode is the same as for the light maps in the engines that support it) - but it's for the models only. We cannot create the lightmap for the level geometry. It will require the implementation of any kind of light tracing technology into the engine to render the lightmap (which is quite a long (few hours) process. Or convert map files into any full 3D format geometry (which is impossible to perform automatically without manual editing and polishing thus forcing us to illegally distribute converted maps) and render lightmaps in any 3rd party application.

Wouldn't it be a nice feature to give to modders, at least?

[Tea Monster]

It would be a wonderful feature to have, just to see duke in next-gen glory sometime before DNF comes out. The thing is that we need someone who knows XNA or OpenGL and can do game programming and has the time to put all this stuff together. So far no takers.

[Hellhammer]

duke 3dhrp + lightmaps = the best remade pc game of all times

[Radar1013]

It would be also cool if we could get transparent water...

[Tea Monster]

Unless you were very very clever and could re-write large parts of the rendering engine, you would need to re-do a lot of the standard included levels, which is currently verboten by 3DR.

[Tea Monster]

I know this isn't the thread for this, but does anyone know if the build engine tags each separate sector wall? I know it must do to keep track of what sector goes where when it renders it, but is there a number for each wall and so forth?

Just thinking as there are scripts to export BSP's from Blender. if you could get some kind of script that would convert Duke's map files into a standard 3d format like DXF or OBJ, then you could theoretically (very theoretically) import the map into Blender/Max etc and render out the map. Then you would have to run a script that would split the individually rendered tiles or walls out so that we could feed them back into polymost.

Then you would need to tweak Polymost so that it put each rendered tile back into the map replacing the non-rendered tile.

I'm just putting this forth as an idea.

EDIT: Ooops. Someone has already done something similar to this with D3 and HL2.

It seems (I've not done any level editing with D3 or HL2) that some of these engines use something other than the old BSP structure to vis their levels. Some of them (supposedly) use ASE files, which can be exported from standard 3D apps. Would it be possible to mod Polymost to do this? Then you make the converter to convert the map files into ASE files, light map them in the 3D app of your choice.

The lightmapped ASE files would be distributed with the HRP. When you launch the EDuke32 with the HRP, it would know to look into a folder called 'ASE' or similar and pick up the ASE file rather than the map. That would save us mangling the original Duke maps, which 3DR say they don't want doing.

If you see anything wrong with this please say so.

[Tea Monster]

Just to let you know, if we had normal mapping and dynamic lighting, the models might just look a bit more like this:

[Broiler1985]

Originally Posted by The Commander

And reflective windows can be made with a build mirror trick.

How to do this?