Doom 3 BFG and mods

[motorsep]

It took me a while, but I did it - Doom 3 BFG mod launcher. With a click of a button preps Doom 3 BFG to be mod-ready, and runs the game with mods. I prepped a few mods already.

I guess it's something like a "give back" to the community :)

Check it out http://www.kot-in-action.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28 or remove this post. I just don't really know where to post it besides Steam.

[DanielGibson]

Am 04.08.2014 03:34, schrieb motorsep:

It took me a while, but I did it - Doom 3 BFG mod launcher. With a click of a button preps Doom 3 BFG to be mod-ready, and runs the game with mods. I prepped a few mods already.

I guess it's something like a "give back" to the community :)

Check it out http://www.kot-in-action.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28 or remove this post. I just don't really know where to post it besides Steam.

No Source? What exactly does it do? Does it need changes in the engine? The Windows Binaries are pretty useless for me :-P

Cheers, Daniel

[motorsep]

Lol, why do you need source all the time? :) It's a totally standalone app written in C++ for Qt5. I just need to figure out #ifdef in Qt5 for Linux, so I can adjust some code and make it usable on Linux.

All it does is it allows you to extract resources in one click and monitor the progress. Clean up all that mess if you want/need to, load mods using menu. In other words it makes it easier to do what can be done using cfg files and console/cmd args.

Plus people don't need to bother any longer with mods. Download, extract, play.

If people even play Doom 3 nowadays and care much about Doom 3 BFG, I will add mod authoring tab eventually, so modders can just select their mod, and author it for distribution.

There are a few issues I discovered running mods (something I think we fixed, but I am not sure; I thought it was working out of the box) - particles don't get binarized, and non-binarized particles have culling issues.

[kortemik]

I think some of the old mods were supposed to be dll based, and that's why the sdk came out in the first place for doom3 so we would need to come up with a solution for loading those

[motorsep]

And they are. But RBDoom3 or any other fork will never be able to load them. The only way those mods can be reborn is if mod author either releases code and come one incorporates it into RBDoom3 or mod author would do it himself.

So it's only possible to run non-SDK mods with BFG.

[motorsep]

I don't think anyone cares about modding Doom 3 BFG along with RAGE nowadays :/ Maybe a handful of people who hangs out here. What kind of times we live in? :(

[BielBdeLuna]

Motorsep. do you think we could use pk4 in a new way? like an injector.

so we could distribute pk4 mods and in order to use them, we could have a execution order "addPk4" that would extract the assets from the pk4 to the the fs_game directory unless those same assets are not already there.

as well as having a "subPk4" execution order that would substract those files in that fs_game that are equal to the ones inside the pk4 (but not the ones that are different), so it would simply delete them out of fs_game directory.

what do you think?

[motorsep]

I have one question - why?

The assets are not the same - only def/af/pda/materials/scripts/particles are non-binarized. Particles should be binarized, but RBDoom3 doesn't binarize them. So why bother downloading pk4 and extracting it, when you can download zip, unpack it and play?

I am entirely missing the point :/ If RBDoom3 had support for resources being "transparent", mods could distributed as one .resources file and run as such.

[BielBdeLuna]

can you open (or for that matter create ) *.resource files? as I gather from what you said Doom 3 BFG mod launcher does extract the resources for d3bfg that the mod uses from d3 isn't it?

[motorsep]

You lost me. What people want is to A. Download a mod that just works with BFG, B. Run mod with a click of a button. That's why I wrote the launcher. All you need to do is download a mod that is already authored for BFG and play it.

Since RBDoom 3 BFG doesn't do anything about making resources "transparent", stock Doom 3 BFG won't be able to run mods. You need to extract assets from .resources if you want to run the game with mods. So if mod uses any stock content, it needs loose assets. Otherwise you will have black cubes instead of monsters or weapons, and blue walls/floors.

[BielBdeLuna]

yes, so having the capacity of creating resource files could serve the same purpose that back in vanilla d3 the pk4 had. isn't it?

[motorsep]

You can already make .resources, but that won't help - virtual file system needs some overhaul so that fs_game .resources can be loaded in addition to base .resources. Plus, I don't think you can author .resources for mods at this time.

I still don't get what's wrong with running loose files? You still distribute pk4 or .resources inside .zip file. So whether you unzip .pk4 or a mod folder, you still have to unzip it.

[BielBdeLuna]

well no need to zip a pk4. you can have all the assets in a single file, just drop and go. if we could have d3bfg run with new .resource files in the fs_game directory that would be neat.

[motorsep]

if you look at how files in general, not just pk4, distributed over the Net, you will find that they are all in .zip archives.

So even if you have single .resources file, you will have to zip it, upload it and people will have to download .zip, extract .resources and copy it to where it needs to be - in a mod folder next to base/.

So why jump through hoops? As it is not only Doom 3 modding / mapping scene is dead, but BFG's modding scene never took off. So instead of making something no one will ever use, maybe it would be a good idea to port best of old mods (SDK based and non-SDK based), spark up modding using Doom 3 BFG and worry about small details when there is actual real need for it? :)

[BielBdeLuna]

why port old mods? like what, port Sikkpin to d3bfg? I'm not Sikkpin nor I have his knowledge.

beside why do you always block any futre thinking. jeez no one but you have good ideas or what? don't you want any improvement? all improvement must come from you or what? what higher ground do you stand in?

[motorsep]

I didn't ask "why port old mods". I asked why go into troubles fixing .resources system and making it easy to author mods into .resources, when modding scene is dead. There is no difference on good PC whether you use .resources, pk4 or loose files, as long as your HDD is defragmented.

Tinker away, I am not stopping you :) I made launcher because I saw people on Steam wanted to play old mods on Doom 3 BFG. I tried authoring some I thought were good and doable, and it worked ok. So I made launcher so people could try playing old mods and stop complaining how crappy Doom 3 BFG is.

If you want to take concept further, be my guest - engine's source has always been there. I don't have time or skill to make that happen.

As for sikkmod, unless someone makes new Cg shaders and add whatever is needed into BFG rendering pipe, there is no way port Sikkmod directly.

As much as I hate to say that, but Doom 3 scene is dead. There are couple of guys poking at mapping and modding, but there is nothing on scale of Skyrim and will never be, due to constantly shrinking user base. It's a sad fact and I am not sure how can that be avoided and changed.

[BielBdeLuna]

there is another "sad fact" for your list of "sad facts" that you talk so much about, there is people in the community that insist constantly on the deadness of the community instead of cooperate with the community.

[motorsep]

I am just being a realist. I cooperate with community by sharing the insight and short coming. I guess it's not good enough, but I don't care.

[BielBdeLuna]

yes, you don't care, that's the sad point.

[motorsep]

it's life.... and life sometimes has its sad moments.

[DanielGibson]

Everyone following this repo gets all of your messages.. so please stop it. Thank you.

[motorsep]

You might want to delete this issue. Every time I try bringing something to the play all I hear is bitching and moaning about blocking someone's dreams and not thinking big.

[vibgyor]

Realism is fine, but you're just coming across as a pessimist, not a realist. Instead of arguing here, which is only for bug reports and pull requests, not for arguing about the futility of putting effort into an open source project like this, because that is more pointless than improving the engine. Let's face it, most open source projects start out as a hobby project. Most people don't put effort into it because they think it will change the industry or something, but because it's personally satisfying to them. Open source would never have been successful if it was about money and marketing it to a mass audience, because it's not. It's always been about the benefit of the community. Why do you think John Carmack made his tech open source? It never made any business sense, and hell, he had to do some serious convincing to the company to let him release the source code. It was all about the community. Good feelings and all.

So instead of trying to let everyone down, let's actually work together and improve this engine, whether or not anyone is gonna make use of it. And if you want to make it mod friendly, a lot more work needs to be done than making a closed source mod launcher. Let's actually improve the codebase, port Doom 3's built-in tools to this one, and document everything, such as the SWF GUI system. wink wink, nudge nudge

[motorsep]

John Carmack regrets going GPL. Check his Twitter.

There are many examples where GPL isn't really for money, but it is. Anyhow, if it's for personal learning and such, then someone needs to stop whining and just try making what they need.

Oh, initial Quake GPL release was not only for learning, but specifically for small team short on cash use it to make money. It would be nice to know the history ;)

[vibgyor]

I wasn't specifically talking about GPL, but whatever. I was just trying to break up this argument and explain why we do this, even though very few people are gonna care about our efforts. I just want us to stop fighting and get on with our lives. If you don't feel improving RBDoom 3 BFG is worth your time and effort, then fine. You are trying to make a commercial game after all, and this certainly isn't the tool to use, especially since UE4 came out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember you saying you migrated to UE4 for Phaeton. I don't blame you. I did the same thing for my project. It's worked out for the best. However, that doesn't mean that I'm gonna stay away from BFG. This is for fun, not business.

[motorsep]

Lol, no.. I can't migrate to UE4 as I have no knowledge about art pipeline and insides of the engine. Plus, UE4 has no game code (and I mean complete game that just needs art), DOom 3 does.

I have improved early version of RBDoom3 into Storm Engine 2, putting into it $$$. Funny thing is I offered tr3b to work on features for pay, and for profit sharing - he refused. And perhaps I understand him - he wants most credit for the work he's done.

I am staying with BFG engine until it proves to be damaging to use. Once of the reasons I began learning C++ is that this place never willing to help, not for money, not for free, not for fame, for nothing, unless it's what they want or it directly goes into RBDoom 3. And I have a game to make, sorry. Somehow that's being evil in the eyes of FOSS community.

[chungy]

This issue tracker is for RBDOOM-3-BFG and nothing more. What annoys most of us is how you have personally hijacked it for your own purposes and advertisement benefits. This particular issue has absolutely no bearing on the project itself, it's nothing short of spam.

Nobody has anything against you making a commercial game utilizing the engine (be it this one or your own fork). Personally, I wish you the best in succeeding in that goal because it will be really cool. The only thing, however, is that you should refrain from advertising your projects in inappropriate channels. You may use your own blog, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and everything else that's out there specifically for that purpose: this issue tracker is not one of them. (Hell, if you really want to, you could shill out a story to Slashdot when you release your game, they'll probably love a headline like "First indie game using the Doom 3 BFG source code.")

Just please, stop posting irrelevant details here and annoying everyone that watches this repository. By watching it, they signify they are interested in RBDOOM-3-BFG topics, not necessarily your own. There is certainly overlap, but you have other legitimate channels to use for Storm Engine 2 and the like.