Original doom patch texture mode?

Gordon

This is going to seem like a vary odd question but with all the hi-res textures that are being made would it be possible to make it so that you could use doom's patch process with Hi-res Textures so that yes we get the hi-res but using it how doom would put it together. Maybe have both options? i do not know how it would work and the hi-res textures are awesome. in some ways it would cut down on file size i think.

DaniJ

Reducing the file size is really the only compelling reason to implement this. Even then, its mainly about bandwidth and/or time to download, rather than size on disk. It might be a nice thing to add at some point but we've far more important work to be done first.

Vermil

I've asked DaniJ about this in the past, as from a Doom perspective, it seems like a pretty big oversight.

Allowing hi-res patches would allow Dday to theoretically apply hi-res textures in mods that make new textures out of the vanilla Doom patches (i.e mods that take one of the vanilla Doom switch patches and stick it on a new background graphic, to make a new switch texture).

But certainly, texture patches are largely Doom engine specific. Wolf3D engine games, for instance, don't have texture patches, though some Wolf3D mods do add a similar feature to get around limits on the number of textures Wolf3D can handle, by placing sprites over the top of textures in the same way as a two patch Doom texture. I admit that I don't know if Build has texture patches.

Deng Team are more likely to make such drastic alterations if other game engines also benefitted; remember the ultimate aim of Dday2.

That said, the material system will be dramatically enhanced in future with things like support for multiple layers; maybe external graphic features will be looked at then as well (I only say maybe, because obviously the material system is not the same system as the external graphic system).

That said, thinking about it, given that the material system will, ultimately, allow things like individual layer scrolling, how will we be able to make external replacements for such materials (i.e ones with scrolling layers, I'm aware that multilayer materials without scrolling layers would just be a standard texture) without external graphic support for texture patches (or layers)? You'd have to make a separate external graphic replacement for each scrolling layer surely?

Apologies if any of the above is difficult to read, particularly the last half; I had some difficulty writing it.

Gordon

the possibilities are endless with implementing dooms patch for hi-res but as DaniJ points out that is something that is not that important as there is more things that need to be done first but if it dose come in it will be a nice feature.

DaniJ

While conceptually similar, multilayer materials and textures composited from multiple graphics are handled very differently internally. Multilayer materials are implemented such that the layers support dynamic animation. You are indeed correct Vermil, that when support is implemented you'll be able to achieve something similar using Materials. The difference being that such a mechanism is significantly more useful than a fancy offline texture compositor.

Gordon

i think there is more things you can do with the patch texture process that doom uses with multy layered textures like have the back layer fade in and out or do almost all the kinds of lighting affects that sectors have but for the one texture. for instance you have a back light and you wanted to have just the light flicker to time it with the sector you could. but i know that when this gets implemented it will have all kinds of stuff you can do. i can even have it's own scripting done. the possibilities are endless.

DaniJ

Such animated things would necessarily be implemented at Material level. Animating textures by dynamically re compositing each time, for instance, when the opacity blending value changed, would be completely infeasible.

Gordon

i see what you mean but doom technically dose it already tho just not in the way we all think. Dooms sector light go up to 255 meaning 100% bright witch in term is just having the textures as we see them out side of the game but once you start turning down the sector brightness you are basically changing just all the textures and sprites brightness down by the amount you took away now some stuff dose not follow this as it's meant to be bright like when the chaingun is firing. Now to do this at just a texture lvl i would not know how to implement this in game using the doom patches.

in the off chance i am talking out my ass sorry but this is how i look at it.