Our type of “old school” is a very different breed than the type encountered in today’s “old school”. Yes, there are similarities; We too have upped the action, speed and gore, but not to the extreme lengths seen in the new Doom game. Our levels are built for exploration, progression and environmental puzzles. These are our main qualities. Phobos is closer to games like Half-Life or Dark Forces/Jedi Knight in spirit. Just like Classic Doom, these games are types of First Person Shooters that have all but vanished. We truly are a different kind of oldschool.
Motel
(view original)
Post a comment
I wouldn't have told that this is Doom 3 if I saw this without context, great work!
Don't know if the current set up of the scene lighting, is right for the following idea but that tree in the foreground? IMO is a perfect candidate to use fake projected shadows (simulated shadow maps) using a blend light, doing this you can make it seem, like those alpha tested branches are casting a shadow.
If you don't know, this "blend light" is achieved, using a light set to projected, no shadows, no specular, no diffuse (not sure if is needed to disable those explicitly), with a texture whos image is a representation of the tree branch's, a simple B&W image (a inverted alpha channel), the light material is the most important part, it needs to have the global keyword blendLight and a blend stage set to filter/modulate, at lest for shadows.
The engine will not treat this "light" as a light at all, but just as very simple projector, as almost zero impact on performance, compared to real shadows and real lights.
Forums.thedarkmod.com
I did this when I was messing around with idtech 4 my self and wanted a tree to cast a shadow and it worked wonderfully in a test scene, it even casts the shadow unto moving objects!
I don't know in this case, because is a night scene, if is a good idea but is something to keep in mind and perhaps it could be used to simulate moon light casting tree shadows?
There's some catch's thou, one the shadow obviously looks softer than the stencil ones (like shadow maps would), but that can be made less "bad" by using a high rez shadow texture and second it does not move if the lighting in the scene moves, unless you script the light entity to move with it.
Btw idSoftware didn't used this type of "light" that much in doom 3 but they work just fine and if I'm recalling well, I think they used one to simulate shadows cast by the drop ship that the player comes in.