SDK del Doom 3

Parece ser que el SDK de Doom 3 estará disponible a partir del próximo mes, ya que están trabajando a la vez en otros proyectos. Sin embargo sí hay unos pocos avances.

El paquete tendrá editores de todas clases: sonidos, modelos (podremos crearlos con más de un millón de poligonos), IA y GUI de mapeo. Aunque todavía tiene algunos problemillas, como que al crear las películas no funciona el sonido. Oh, y al parecer el motor soporta vehículos y el kit incluirá un mapa con un vehículo de ejemplo para los modders.

El editor está siendo desarrollado por Raven Software para la creación de Quake 4, y la falta de estabilidad es debida, según Robert Duffy, a que Id Software metió mano al código encargado del GUI.

El resto de información que tenemos sobre la conferencia orientada a personas interesadas en hacer mods que se ha celebrado en la Quakecon es esta:

The big question: When will the Doom 3 SDK be released? Duffy said they were aiming for sometime next week but added, "Don't quote me on that," as they are also working on other projects that may push the release back. The SDK will include the game code, phyiscs code and more.

Along with the SDK, id plans to release a web site link with some tutorials on the tools that was written mainly by Harris.

Also, a patch for the game itself will be released "relatively soon" according to Duffy, mainly to deal with a couple of multiplayer exploits that cropped up.

In addition to the level editor, othe mod tools for Doom 3 include the sound editor, the script editor (all the AI in the game is handled by Doom 3's script code), the particle editor, the articulated figure editor (used to create ragdoll skeletons for the game's character models) and the GUI editor. Duffy said the editor was actually created by Raven Software for their work on Quake 4 but that the editor is a bit crashy due to id Software's own work on the GUI code (most of the GUI code is done by hand in Notepad, according to Duffy).

Even though the gameplay doesn't lend itself to vehicles, Doom 3 does support vehicles and when the SDK is released a sample map will be included that will have a six wheeled buggy in it, which will help with mod makers who want vehicles in their mods.

The movie making and demo capabilities of Doom 3 are rather limited at the moment (demos at the moment don't support sound, particles or the GUI code, according to Duffy) which means folks wishing to make "machinima" movies with Doom 3 may have some problems at first. Nilsson does plan to release some tutorials on how they made the non-interactive movie portions of the game. However.

The biggest hurdle for mod makers interested in full total conversion like games for Doom 3 is the artwork, admitted Duffy. He said most of the artwork in the game started as a 3D model and things like character models had over 1 million polygons before they reduced them down to be used in the game. id plans to release exporters for programs like Maya and some sample character models for the game in order to help mod artists with their work.