What's the best workflow for Doom 3 level design?

[printz]

Doom 3 level design is more complex than Doom 2, not just because of it being 3D and having more special effects, but also due to extra stuff you need to do to make your level work. Here's what I'm thinking of:

1. Brush (polyhedral block) drawing. The most basic and simple part. You place brushes to build your map, and choose textures (from the immense set, but also full of clutter, which you need to learn).
2. Patch (curved face) drawing. These are the extra level of detail introduced since Quake 3 Arena, which allows you to have non-flat surfaces. Unfortunately, this and 3D models (see below) lead to more work to do…
3. Perfectly optional: 3D model (mesh) drawing. This is more advanced and requires skills on tools such as Blender, then figuring out how to convert the products to Doom's format. But I consider it optional. I've seen good-looking custom maps made without any new 3D models, just recycling what id offered. 
4. Caulk (dummy texture) brush cover-up: patches and 3D models can't work fully as solid architecture, and they need extra work to help the BSP builder understand them. So you need to place blocks with the "caulk" texture just to cover the outside of any walls made from patches or 3D models.
5. Monster clip brushes: neither does the AAS (monster AI) builder know how to deal with patches or 3D models, so you also need to manually place monster clip lines all over the place where the architecture is NOT made of simple brushes. I think you may need to do it even more to optimize out ceiling detail and such.
6. VisPortal brushes: apparently the BSP builder doesn't optimize visibility for you, so you need to manually place such brushes between any logical rooms, usually in doorways.

 

Please tell me if I'm inaccurate with this information. I'm saying this by gathering tips from other Doom 3 modders. I didn't get this far yet, but I would really like to advance. I find Doom 3 more intriguing than Doom 2.

 

Points 5 and 6 seem really vexing because they require you to place special brushes all over the place, manually, to do stuff that the map compilers (node and AAS builders) won't do by themselves, for your map to be workable. Unless we manage to have a tool that knows how to automate that, what is the best way to design Doom 3 levels without getting frustrating? I definitely do NOT want to have to backtrack this much, deleting all the monster and visportal blocks, whenever I decide to change the existing architecture. Can I mitigate this by postponing monster and any interaction entities until the very end, after I've finished the architecture and I can imagine in my head how the game would play? I guess I can't help with visportals, though it seems to take a lot of room until it slows down, nowadays. But monsterclip blocks really sound like they can annoy me in the long run, especially when I have high detail.

[Tetzlaff]

That's a good order so far. After point 1 I would add basic lighting to the map, so that you can preview your brush architecture in real time, and maybe load your map in-game after a few rooms are finished. Walking around in the map always helps me to get the right sense of size and proportions.

 

Then, later in the process (maybe point 7) you do the fine-tuning for lighting, which is a lot of work, but it really pays off because you can do such subtle lighting in Doom 3, a large part of the atmosphere depends on it.

 

I agree that you don't need custom models to create great looking levels. They are just an extra. However I always come to a point where some custom textures come in handy (so over the years I collected an enormous archive of custom textures, modified and created many on my own).

 

Another point: ambient sounds. I tend to place fitting ambient sounds along the process of creating rooms and spaces, but you also could make it a separate stage, after you created all the architecture, detail and lighting.

 

Visportals are tricky, but they help a lot with performance. Though I agree it isn't as crucial as in 2004, because PCs  became much more capable.

It's always useful to place visportals inside door panels, so vis will be blocked when the doors are closed.

 

Placing monsters and items can come at a later stage, but some mappers start with it earlier in the process because they want to create and test specific combat situations.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Tetzlaff

[printz]

On 8/7/2021 at 10:42 PM, Tetzlaff said:

That's a good order so far. After point 1 I would add basic lighting to the map, so that you can preview your brush architecture in real time, and maybe load your map in-game after a few rooms are finished.

Oh yeah, I forgot about lights, those are as important as speakers (ambient sounds).