Doom 3 does look awesome in many stills, but it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't look so hot in motion. And it is a damn shame that almost all the levels look pretty much the same from what I've heard. But it is understandable given how precisely everything is textured and designed, and given the size of Id's team. It takes a lot of work to align all those textures and design stuff that truly rises to the level of detailed high-tech art that one might see in an anime movie. I dare say that above shot is even more detailed than Metal Gear was.
I wonder though... how many polygons it would take to model most of the above normal map details with actual polygons? I know ID did not neccessarily do that because of the polygon count, but rather because high polygon counts don't work well with stencil shadows. But if one turned off the stencil shadows, could all that detail be done with actual polygons if one segmented one's level properly for vis culling? That would be pretty damn spiffy.
Problem is modeling that detial though. Seems to me that we need a modeling tool designed specifically for creating flat sections to use in our worlds. A displacement map is not really suitable. But I think one could design a 2D tool where one places down 2d shapes and then defines the height at the vertcies, and created a displacement polygon of sorts which would be placed when one clicks on a wall just like one would place a texture. One could even add decals to said surface... signs for example, which would be placed as well when applying this displacement geometry to a wall.
Hm...
I wonder though... how many polygons it would take to model most of the above normal map details with actual polygons? I know ID did not neccessarily do that because of the polygon count, but rather because high polygon counts don't work well with stencil shadows. But if one turned off the stencil shadows, could all that detail be done with actual polygons if one segmented one's level properly for vis culling? That would be pretty damn spiffy.
Problem is modeling that detial though. Seems to me that we need a modeling tool designed specifically for creating flat sections to use in our worlds. A displacement map is not really suitable. But I think one could design a 2D tool where one places down 2d shapes and then defines the height at the vertcies, and created a displacement polygon of sorts which would be placed when one clicks on a wall just like one would place a texture. One could even add decals to said surface... signs for example, which would be placed as well when applying this displacement geometry to a wall.
Hm...