Doom3world

Get some more polys into that rock wall on the left you lazy sod. :p

Seriously though dude, that's looking stunning.

edit: Constructive criticism ahoy!

I've fixed those ugly faces on the pillars as I wasn't convinced about them so someone else noticing meant I couldn't keep ignoring them. I'm right on the limit performance wise in the area hence the frugal use of poly's, but I'll have a look at beefing it up a bit. Also in the last couple of days I've been doing some more tweaks to my sikkmod config that fix up a couple niggles not visible in the screenshots.

Now, back to work on some more geo!

What are you targeting as the performance limit?

I don't have any hard numbers as far as tri counts or anything like that, as with sikkmod disabled every area runs at a flat 60fps on my PC (core2 quad q9550, nvidia 280gtx). I'll be setting up preset quality levels of sikkmod to make sure that if you could run q4 and haven't upgraded since you'll still be able to play, for example only film grain and vignetting work on intel gpu's. I test in 1080p with all sikkmod settings enabled (except SSAO) and am targeting an average of 50fps idle (no monsters visible). The latest shots are optimized and hit the target with a low of 50fps from certain angles and around 35-45 in combat with explosions and what not going off. The area I showed about 6 weeks ago covers a smaller area with less detail but isn't well optimized at all and runs at 35-45 fps. No doubt it wouldn't hurt to add a few more poly's to those rocks, I'm just being frugal on surfaces such as those so that I can get away with more brush detail in the walls/floors.

I've definitely got my work cut out for me though as I've got much larger areas blocked out that need to hit the same quality/performance targets. I also need to be aware memory use as I've been able to find very little on what hard memory limitations there are and given the level will essentially have 4 maps worth of textures, a lot of static models, ~12 enemy types and probably close to 35-40k brushes by completion, I need to be conservative where I can afford to be.

Don't worry about limits, we spend half our lives at our jobs worrying about making sure it runs at 30fps on a 360!

Have some fun, I think some areas in my map it's about 500k tris, although I still get 60fps at 2560x1600

I'm trying to push the limits, but I'm not going to be silly about it If I wasn't using sikkmod I'd go as crazy as possible with tri's and probably be a lot freer with my use of lights. However for the level to be playable with effects such as SSAO on, I need to be a little more restrained. You and tron have a point though, tri counts aren't my enemy here, but I do need to be very strict with my lighting. Of course sikkmod is scalable and not everyone needs to run it at max detail, but I do want to make it run as well as I can while still making it look awesome. Hopefully this is something potential employers will appreciate of course.

No major update today, but I thought I'd share a little teaser screenshot of something I've been working on.

Screenshot

The lack of updates doesn't indicate that I've slowed down work on the project, in fact I'm presenting a playable section of the level next week as a university assignment and have been focusing on getting that sorted. There's a hell of a lot in the pipeline at the moment and (realistically) in the next couple of months I'll finally have some really cool stuff to show.

Update time!

A lot of the areas in the map used to look like this but now look more like this. I may not have stuck to my weekly update idea, but that's a story for another time... right now it's time to show you guys some new stuff!


Canyon bridge goes boom.


Air Filtration Facility


Air Filtration Facility part deux


Zombies!


More Zombies!!


Fighting Tactical Transfers

Screenshots are just a small taste of what I've been working on over the last few months. I'll be posting some really cool stuff very soon,I promise

Awesome work

Amazing, perfect, i want play this !!!

HOLY SHIT!!!

That looks like a cool map bkt. Great screenies. I just bought Quake 4 a couple weeks ago and would be interested in playing your new map. Can't wait to see the finished product.

The screens look really polished man, good stuff.

Some feedback about what you're showing.

* Do you think the screens feel a little too much of "I've seen this in Quake 4 already?" or if that is what you're going for (and there is nothing wrong with that) you've done a good job.

* Did you not want to step outside the comfort zone a little and try something a bit different to break away from the darkish tones?

* The tones of what you're showing on the interior and exterior feel very close together, maybe for that outside section you could make it brighter so that it contrasts better against the interiors? Also what about increasing the vista distance on our outside parts and giving the player something really nice to look at that goes off in the distance making the world more immersive?

* Out of all the screens you've essentially shown a few box rooms and some corridors, which implies some simply gameplay. Although I did spot what is to be a lift gui with some stairs, are you going to have 3D gameplay or more flat same level type stuff?

* Are you playing around with any post processing color correction etc? Something about the saturation feels off. I'm viewing this on my calibrated monitor so I know that's ok.

Can't wait to get my hands on it and give it a whirl. Is there any chance of a youtube upload showing off some scripted stuff or gameplay?

Keep it up!

Z

Thanks for the comments and feedback

My goal has been to evolve on Q4's look rather than revolutionize it. I wanted the visual design to be reminiscent of quake2's very angular brush heavy look. I've put a lot of time into adding more brush detail into areas such as floors which is far more evident when you play it. However I've had to succumb (sadly) to the reality that getting a project this size finished and within memory I've had to sacrifice some of the finer details.

I do yeah, but probably not on this project. The lighting isn't final and quite a few areas do need to be brightened up, but most of the screenshots I've just posted are from a very dark area I've just finished working on. In fact a whole section of said area is in total darkness, but it has been done to fit the tone of the gameplay for that area. There are 2 areas I'm yet to do that are a lot 'cleaner' and I'll make sure I brighten them up to help add more contrast to other areas of the level.

*edit* Also worth noting something is that due to HDR's gamma correction some screenshots look a bit darker than they otherwise would due to the the players weapon or a character standing in a bright light, darkening the background.

Duly noted I've been playing around with the lighting in the exterior a bit and agree that shadows need to be brighter, it's currently actually too dark for some fighting that happens there. I agree totally with you about increasing the scale outdoors. The player appears housed in at the moment mostly because the rock model looks a lot like it is, a box surrounding some brushes. It looks worse in game than it does in the screenshots and I do plan on coming back to it once I've finished off the main geometry in the level, giving the cliffs a much better profile and adding some features in the distance.

One thing I've tried to really emphasize is to have more 3D gameplay than evac did, although I admit, a lot of the combat is pretty straight forward, I've tried to have highlight sections of both shooting and non-shooting gameplay that are above and bellow you. You'll be climbing lots of ladders, falling down holes, jumping on moving platforms, dodging lasers and shooting flying enemies. I hope the gameplay isn't too simple, but I am making a level for a shooter after all

Indeed I am. The level's broken up into 3 main areas and a hub, each with a different visual design and Colorgrading LUT. I'm well aware that the red and blue tones applied to the interior shots are pretty full on as they were just prototypes more than anything while I was working with sikkpin to get the Colorgrading fully integrated. They'll very much be fixed before release. Also worth noting is that in those exterior shots I currently don't have any Colorgrading being applied, that red tone is all lighting.

Maaaaaayyybe

Fantastic work! Very strong atmosphere!

More square rooms for zombie

Nah, just a quick update to show you guys some of the stuff I've been up to lately. I've been focusing on geometry which is about 85% finished. There's still a lot to do once that's done, but the level's really taking shape now with 2 of 3 major sections completed.


Construction Site, main area. Lighting this area was very tricky. There tri count in this area is absolutely huge, so I've had to be very sparse on my use of lights to maintain 60fps with sikkmod enabled. This means that getting a nice broad cover of light was next to impossible, so I've at least tried to use quite bright point lights so all of the playable area is brightly lit.


Nerve Center, server housing. An area shamelessly designed to punctuate sikkmod effects. I've been making a point making all the new areas much brighter than those I've already shown, but I made an exception for this area because in motion, I think it looks way cool. As a consolation, I'll be relighting a bunch of rooms once the geometry is done to add a bit more visual punch to the more drab areas(I'll be upping the brightness ).

I've got some really cool stuff in the pipeline that I'm really excited to share with you all quite soon.

This is just wonderful, amazing work, great !!!

That's totally awesome stuff, man, I wish to play those maps

Now, that is nice.

I really love the diversity going on there, keep it up.

It's all the one map