Doom 3 and outdoor / highly lit areas.

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

In article <WBEpd.23410$up1.15100@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, g@g.com
(Gary) wrote:

> I have heard rumours and read posts which state that Doom 3 CAN'T
> handle outdoor and highly lit areas (which are all over HL2), is this
> true?

I'm no expert, but a year or two back a games programmer with a
lot of experience with a well known developer (I won't name him because
I don't think it was for general net consumption) saw the leak and
commented that the engine wasn't built for an outdoor environment. The
shadowing and lighting relies heavily upon being restricted to enclosed
spaces.

However, given that hardware has moved on I've no idea whether such
(perceived) limitations were hardware or software related. Even though the
Quake4 screenshots look promising, you'd think that if the engine was up
to it ID would have put at least *some* open levels in D3.

Mind you, the transfer sequence in the rail-car showed a very impression
outdoor Martian scene which felt and looked wonderful after so long in the
claustrophobic corridors. So perhaps that was a glimpse of what can be
done and ID stuck to enclosed spaces because that's where they could show
off their engine at its best. After all, they must have been aware they
might be competing with HL2, and keeping D3 significantly "different" was
probably in their minds.

Of course it's more likely that I just think about things too much ;-)

Andrew McP

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:39:34 GMT, "Gary" <g@g.com> wrote:

>
>I have heard rumours and read posts which state that Doom 3 CAN'T handle
>outdoor and highly lit areas (which are all over HL2), is this true?

Actually, Doom3 can handle outdoor areas that can be as large as they want.
Being able to handle that area well is another story.

It was really meant for indoor areas in close quarter encounters.
Modifications should be possible to support outdoor environments, such as
using a simpler lighting and shadow calculations.

>PS - Please dont flame me, I am a HL2 and DOOM3 fanboy! Doom 3 has the best
>graphics ever (indoor & darker at least!),

Doom 3's graphics are only good if you manage to set the 5% and 95% colour
levels to a proper value. Otherwise, you will find that it's either too
bright or too dark - a fairly common complaint about the game.

Even then, you might have other problems - some video cards either don't
render enough light, or render shadows too strongly.

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

> Go play FarCry and see what outdoors in games can really look like
> Best AI as well.


Started it 3 days ago, looks awsome. A little "fake" if that makes sense,
plants look like plastic for example.

Running on following rig:

AMD 3400+ FX53 64
1GIG CORSAIR REGISTERED 400MHZ
6800 GT O/C to 400 CLOCK, 1.1 MEMORY
250 GB RAID

Video set to:
1280 x 1024
16 X MANUAL AF
4 X AA
EVERYTHING HIGH

Around 80 FPS average.

I prefer the HL2 graphics, they are more "realistic". The high and vibrant
colour in Far Cry makes everything seem toy like, not a bad thing!.

Gary.