Doom 3 - Architectural Renderer of Choice?

[oluv]

-== POST EDITED by FORUM MODERATOR ==--

 

sorry, i didn't want to propose the use of warez or something, my intention was only to show that it would physically be possible to play the game also offline, as some creative crackers demonstrated.

 

i know that many complained about having to go online if you want to play the game, and this really sucks.

[IC]

I know this isn't the place for a rant but here goes anyway........

I went to play HL2 for the first time in a week at 9:30 on Friday night.

After connecting to Steam, I got a progress bar saying that my files were being updated.

My extra slow internet connection was then busy for 50 minutes then I got another progress bar saying Half Life 2 would be ready for playing in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later, I started playing. I gave up promptly having completely lost interest. That's probably the last time I'll play the game.

 

All I want is to finish whatever I'm working on and to be able to play a game for an hour. Experience ruined!

[Richard McCarthy]

LOL yeh, I know what you mean, STEAM is a real disappointment.

By that respect, I think you will love FarCry more... beautiful tropical paradise, awesome scenery, guns, monsters, bad guys, and explosions, and no crappy authentication service to deal with. What can an office working stressed out guy ask for more!? it's like a holiday and wetdream all rolling to one..!! .... erm. ah hem. back to the discussion....

[mrcamper]

Oh guys! http://www.archengine.org

 

We've been using the Unreal engine for 8 years, albeit heavily modified in-house using patented proprietary tools but,..... We routinely push 2-3 million polys but can get up to 6 million with a heftier PC ........

 

Top end system is a AMD FX-55, 2gb ram, Nvidia 6800 Ultra, Shuttle case for portability (+/- $2000)

[randalltmoore]

while we talk

 

others do

 

http://www.exavior.com/apt/index.php?intro=true

 

THIS IS INCREDIBLE

 

question: why would you need to license the engine.... ?? you wouldn't

just buy the game...make your virtual world with a fly through path... then pump it out through your video card at wicked HIGH REZ to a HD camera and BINGO...you've got a realtime walkthrough in HD

 

better yet...post the map online and let the client connect from any interenet connection (asssuming you've set your client up with a comp box with the game to connect with) and let them walk through it in realtime instead of giving them a video

 

Personally.....I'm trying to use a game engine for custom car races...here is a promo....

 

http://www.archetype-productions.com/media/music-videos/custom_races_large.mov

 

the potential is unlimted...make custom vehicles, maps and textures and your set...

 

BTW: anyone know any JAVA programmers ?

 

I need one to help me modify the source code (which was given out with the game...as they allow people to MODify this game....gamers don't think about modifying for commercial profit.... I do :-)

[C.Vestal]

randalltmoore,

 

We are busy testing/perfecting DeepCreator from RightHemisphere.

I will have my guy with Java skills check this out next week. These are really cool demos!!!

[C.Vestal]

ooh. this is a mod. nevermind.

[randalltmoore]

please don't think that I'm creating the car "mod" for the gaming community. it's not a mod in that sense...

 

I need a java programmer to help me MODify the code to allow for certain features that will make it far easy to accomplish what I want.

(race 3 cars at once and record it to a replay mode, etc...)

 

any help would be very welcome and appreciated.

 

I cannot speak for the apartment complex mod for HL2, although i think they are going mroe for machinima, than a commercial selling point with this tech....

[realt]

I started to use game engines to visualise architecture way way back (1997ish) and during my diploma at Oxford Brookes back in 2000-2001 I did a major study (kinda like a thesis) on its practical implications and limitations.

 

at the time there was a company using a propriatory game engine - archinmage (unreal engine) I think it was

 

back then I was using the original half-life engine (not source)

 

the technique was interesting, but limited by the capabilities of the editor.

 

I undertook some research within the school after the completion of my study and was introduced to Halli Bjornsson, who at the time was the head of a company that was developing a 3D game and we talked about the possibility of using the engine to real-time model architecture. Unfortunatly the company folded and the game engine was never really completed - it lacked fundemental aspects required to accurately model architecture and the editor was even more clunky to use than the half-life engine.

 

There were also several problems with the quality engine at this time, it was being constantly out-performed by competing engines (at the time unreal tournament out-performed and out-featured it)

 

Halli seems to have gone on to form a company around the ideas and his engine - real-time through game engine.

 

I feel that there is major potential in the market, but at the moment the architectural market can barely afford decvent conventional models; I have been researching techniques that make the whole process a lot more simple - but at the moment there just isn't the demand from architects.

 

with regards to the money that could be made - it unfortunatly depends upon the value of the market, not how innovative your idea was

 

cheers

 

T

[oluv]

i think the biggest problem with real-time models is the clumsy worklfow.

most of architects build their models in architectural software like revit or archicad or even autocad, then they export it into rendering-software like max or cinema and make all the texture-mapping, lighting, rendering. then if you want to make a real-time model out of it, you have to adjust your model, reduce polyongs, replace all plants, people, cars etc, with simple models or billboards, bake the lighting, export your model, then import it again into the game-engine if there exists an importer at all...

i think there is still a big lack of a dedicated real-time modeling package, that includes an own engine, which means, that you can do everything while staying in one program. you model, texture, light, and visualise in realtime in one single package. this would be a killer!

imagine, if you make changes to your model, the lighting is recalculated automatically (let's say it is a kind of radiosity-solution, which checks the changes first, and then only updates the parts where big-lighting changes occur, without having to recalculate the whole solution again. when changing a window in one room, there won't be much difference in another room or changing some small object 10 meters apart won't have big effects on another object). so you model and when you finish your model you click "bake" and can walk around it 10 minutes later.

i think there are applications that partly fulfill some of the tasks i am talking about. for example for me lightscape is a typical real-time application. you make your material and lighting-design while walking around in your model in real-time, you adjust materials and lightscape calculates the changes. lightscape would have had great potential if it was further developed, adding real modeling capabilities, and better graphic-cards support, and an actual user-interface etc.

i also like gile, which takes your model and with one single click unwraps it and bakes the lighting into one or several lightmaps and exports it into direct-x format. if programs like gile were part of a whole modeling-system, including an own built-in engine, they could be very successfull i think.

maybe we will get such applications in future. modo has quite advanced shader-models in viewport-preview, it also has quite a simple unwrap-tool etc.

let's see what future brings.

[Pablo Zurita]

That’s what I thought the first time when I started working on the predecessor to project I’m currently working on. Basically you did everything in our own package. It came with its own editor (but you could import data from other packages), the engine was integrated to the editor itself, the lighting was calculated in real-time and things like that. But after doing some usability testing we realized that in fact people don’t want something like that. They want to leverage the knowledge they already have, they want things to show up as they did on their renders. So that’s my current project is a 3ds max plug-in with an external run-time. The 3ds max users can start using the product right away after reading a few tutorials, tools are included to make the integration with already made scenes easier, and since the focus isn’t to run everywhere, there isn’t much need to tweak the geometry and things like that. But I have to agree, the problem so far is CG architects don’t find real-time demos very useful because they are too painful to make. Hopefully my current project will help solve that problem. I will make a video to show what I mean, and show some tutorials.

[JAMSURF]

Hi People ,

 

im new here , but can talk about the real time work for architects here

on spain is begin to bump . a lot work .

Real time is usefull , and not like video that we are making since years

and the experience say that after 20 seconds of architectural video , the

people is thinking on other things but seems to look at the video .

 

i use visuall digitalarts engine and is extremely powerfull . export from max

and see . on my webpage i have some examples online .and on their webpage

too .

there is a lot of engines to make real time . Have the posibility of use one

of that monsters of engines would be great ( doom3 , half... , ..) .i never had

the posibility except quake .

But there is other oportunities like visuall or quest .

 

http://www.rgb-infografia.com

[La-Z-CADtech]

Maybe not doom 3s engine but The new Unreal engine3 looks very promising.

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml

 

an di think half life 2 has HDRI capabilities

[FlytE]

It seems to me that it should not be difficult for valve to produce a kind of minimal dedicated server (the kind of all in one stripped down server that you would send to a dedicated server company) that will load a custom built level as a professional service eg:

 

1) create the model/level using half life2 tools

2) create a custom load screen/watermark

3) compile the level and its dedicated server into one .exe

 

4) client opens exe, server runs with your custom logo and you can walk round the model/level

 

 

Ok yes its going to be fairly big, but if all the unnecessary data was stripped from the server executable, and it only loaded your level with bare necessity controls, it should still be manageable?