Starting to Model for TDM

Modeling Software

Most modelers on the team use Lightwave or Blender. Anything that can save in either .lwo (prefered) or .ase format is acceptable, however.

Making the Model

You will need to make, for each individual object:

• a highpoly model. Anything from 50000 to 2 million polygons. This has lots of detail.
• a lowpoly version (see dimensions below)

The detailed version is used, by Doom 3 or another tool such as ORB to generate a normalmap with all the detail, so when lit, the lowpoly looks much higher detail. See Renderbump for more information on using D3 to generate normalmaps.

Your model needs to be tripled before being used in game, or D3 will spit out tons of warning messages.

Model and Texture Dimensions

Aim for approximately 5000 polys for significant AI, and less than 1000 for most common objects. Generally, objects that might only be used once in a scene (like a well) can have higher polys than objects that might appear many times (like lights or chairs). Round objects (vases, plates, etc) should have a minimum of 8-10 sides (depending on the size of the object) to appear fairly smooth. Less important parts of an object (like the legs of a stool) can have fewer sides to keep polys down.

Texture sizes go in powers of two: 2, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, much like monitor resolutions. D3 will automatically rescale textures that are not in powers of two, which could stretch your texture and waste processing time.

Naming Conventions

Please give your models a distinctive name: instead of "kstatue1.lwo", call it "statue_knight_kneeling.lwo". The first word should inform the mapper what the object is, and then descriptive words can be used afterwards. That will keep similar objects grouped together in the list.

Where to Save your Model and Textures

Models should be saved in the models/darkmod tree. See Model Folder Structure for specific information about where to put things.