Introduction
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The purpose of this document is to help to achieve the goal of creating a good,
coherent, contemporary, detailed, and impressive "TechDemo" level for Ca3DE.
Therefore, mental images are sketched as an aid and guideline for artists and
programmers.
If possible, all work should be executed such that, as a "side-effect", also
a small game can later be derived from it (e.g. one or two DeathMatch levels).
Therefore, although this document does not contain a full background story,
its themes and scenes might well be included later in such game-related work.
This however, is more a desireable side-effect rather than a requirement:
It has already been pointed out that for a TechDemo, game related stuff (like
a story-line, coherence, ...) is pretty neglectable.
Definitions
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A "Theme" is a superordinate, overall description of an entire world or
environment.
A "Scene" is a specific location within that world.
A Scene often consist of one game level, or a series of game levels.
Typically, one "Texture-Suite" (or "Texture-Set") is created specifically for
each scene, used for texturing the geometry of the levels of that scene.
Although for our purposes (creating a TechDemo) one or two ideas for Scenes
would be sufficient (thereby skipping/omitting the definition of an overall
Theme), a Theme helps nonetheless with creating such Scenes, and with shaping
them.
The Theme
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Chronologically, the theme should be located in the near to mid future,
say somewhere between 2030 and 2300 a.D.
Geographically, we choose a modern country or state of the western world and
culture. Germany would be fine, but also the (northern) USA.
Spain or France do already have a different, specific culture that's not quite
so "neutral". The same restriction applies to countries of the far east,
and virtually the entire rest of the world (more or less).
Incidently, the theme should be "before the disaster":
Everything should be nice and intact, OR the disaster must only have caused
small damage on the environment (but e.g. made all people disappear or killed
them, as for example in Stephen Kings older book "The Stand"
("Das letzte Gefecht"), or many other end-time books or movies).
The reason for this is that a destructed or damaged environment and buildings
often tend to be much more complicated to create and model than still intact
ones.
The Scene for the TechDemo
--------------------------
For the TechDemo, the scene should consist of two essential parts:
1. An indoor part that is a (recently abandoned) laboratory building (research
complex), possibly still in "alarm condition".
This is where the TechDemo will start, where all the main effects will be
hosted, and where the main part of the experience takes place.
2. An outdoor part that is somehow accessible from within the lab building (by
some means of exit). This part should geographically be as big as possible,
and simply demonstrate the terrain feature of the engine.
A lab building was chosen because it permits for a large degree of artistic
freedom, while we still can have effects like for example broken, swinging
lamps.
Besides that, many existing textures and models (of the DM MOD) can probably
be re-used within a lab complex (pallets, pipes, weld-tanks, ...).
Please consider the FOLLOWING as TREND and IDEAS, not as a fixed descision:
Here is a quote from Kai from the forum in this regard:
> [...] Like in "Metal Gear Solid Twin snakes". [...]
> warehall for material with an elevator, different types of base enviroment,
> most quite modern, shiny surfaces, but also normal rooms like a prison,
> a small auditorium, toilets and equipment stuff like plants in the upper
> stages (and shiny reflections on the marble floor)
A quote from myself, when we still talked about a "museum":
> It should, for example, contain a long aisle that forks into separate rooms,
> where each room will be "filled" with an effect later.
> The map design should be pretty flexible in order to be able to add
> additional rooms (for more effects) later, and have rooms with variable size.
> Another constraint to keep in mind is that the rooms should be separate from
> each other wrt. PVS. That is, even from the center aisle it should be
> difficult to (be able to) look into several rooms at once:
> This allows for more expensive and complicated effects per room.
> (Note that doors do *not* help with PVS visibility!)
Other keywords:
Doom3, NaturalSelection, light or heavy industry, laboratories,
but NOT space-ships.
More details about the indoor part (lab building)
-------------------------------------------------
The building might have multiple storys, possibly including some open areas
inside the building where one can see across multiple stories (e.g. from the
ground floor up to the roof floor, like in a stairwell, but bigger).
This is just an architectural-value side-thought, though. No expensive special
effects here, which are supposed to be in separate rooms anyway.
More important is that it has an exit to the outside, into a big terrain that
possibly leads to a harbour/beach/ocean.
(Thinking about it: If the TechDemo becomes really good, we do not even need
new DeathMatch maps for now.
)
Kai has already indicated that the colors of the lab will mainly be held in
green, gray, and blue tones, as is appropriate for a lab.
At the same time, it is possibly intended to use all colors of the rainbow for
the light sources.
More details about the outdoor part (terrain)
---------------------------------------------
The terrain should be as big as possible. That means that the lab building is
either moved into a corner of the available map space, or located underground.
Underground location requires a careful and thoughtful construction of the
exit from the inner building to the surface, e.g. via stairs, ramps, lifts,
whatever, ... (??)
Also an observation platform with big glass windows that breaks through the
ground from below (elsewhere, separate from the exit) would be cool.
BE CAREFUL, THOUGH: Terrains can currently not really have holes in them!!!
This means that we might be better advised to create a building with a
smaller floor space in a corner of the map (compensated by multiple stories).
Underground storys are only possible by moving the terrain height below the
lowest floor, OR by not intersecting the terrain square with the building...
Besides that, the shape of the building can be arbitrary.
Possibly the easiest solution is to lower the terrain below the lowest floor
of the building. NOTE that this does NOT truly permit to make floors that
really get "under" the terrain, and the lowest basement floor should not be
too far below the ground floor.
The terrain texture is to be created with TerraGen.
Suggested Assignments
---------------------
Kai deals with the texture suite, and possibly the static detail models.
Alvaro deals with the level geometry (especially the indoor geometry of the
lab building).
Stefan (Dodger) deals with sound and music.
Carsten deals with the new entities required for good effects,
and the outdoor terrain issues.
The broad concensus was that Ca3DE needs a TechDemo for future releases, in order to present both its technical and artistical features better than current releases do.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
