Porting Duke Nukem 3D

[OrangeWedgie]

I plan to start a project to recreate Duke Nukem 3D with Zdoom, since the Duke engine has become rather lackluster with Eduke32 and DukePlus. Two major features I can think of that are not in Zdoom, to the best of my knowledge, are subways and the jetpack.

Is it currently possible to implement moving sectors similar to the "subway" sectors in Duke 3D? If not, how difficult would that be? As for Jetpacks, I imagine that could be scripted in?

[Xaser]

Unfortunately, true moving sectors are simply not possible with the current Doom engine. [wiki]Polyobjects[/wiki] exist but they are extremely limited in their capabilities. This is not likely to change in the future without a complete engine overhaul, which is less likely than DoomScript.[/injoke]

There are a number of methods for doing Jetpacks, of which recreating Duke's could be as simple as temporarily giving the player the ability to fly. I'd suggest taking a look at [wiki]ACS[/wiki] scripting. It can do this kind of thing and then some.

Might I suggest, however, doing a Duke-themed original project rather than a direct recreation. If you re-do the entire game exactly, one may as well just play Duke.

[OrangeWedgie]

Well, I want to recreate the original game so it's available on a better engine. =P

I don't see how it would be that much more difficult than poly-objects. In the Duke engine, a subway must exist entirely within one continuous, uninterrupted sector. This is because sector overlap of two visible sectors caused problems in the original game. It would be a matter of creating a cluster of sectors and moving them in unison like in Duke.

Barring that, could it be done with a large 3D modeled car (in GZDoom) moving along a path? I've not done too much with Zdoom yet so I don't know the extent of 3D model support.

[Xaser]

I admit I'm not familiar at all with editing for the Build engine (though I know Duke's version is slightly more limited than other Build games), but I know that ZDoom's polyobjects aren't quite capable for recreating the kind of tricks you'd find in Build games. The main limitation of polyobjects is that they can only extend from floor to ceiling -- a wall, essentially. It's impossible (without incredibly hard-to-manage hacks) to make a regular sector (i.e. a box) move.

You may have some luck with models in GZDoom, though. You may have to play around a bit to get it to block correctly (as in, you can actually enter the subway car but not fall out the sides/walk through the car walls) but it's very doable as long as you can find a suitable model or two.

Good luck in your endeavors, though. A big project you're planning, no doubt. But ZBlood has been done, so who knows?

[XutaWoo]

But ZBlood has been done, so who knows?

Then again, it's about as accurate as a blind goat.

[Zippy]

I don't see how it would be that much more difficult than poly-objects. In the Duke engine, a subway must exist entirely within one continuous, uninterrupted sector.

In ZDoom, PolyObjects can only reasonably exist (that is, without rendering artifacts) in one subsector. Which means if you want it to not bleed you need to place the PolyObject in a single, convex sector that it never moves out of. That's a sector that has no internal angles greater than 180 degrees. So, the subway in Duke3D cannot be done even as just a solid PolyObject since it lays within a hollow sector whose inside is practically all angles greater than 180 degrees. It can't be done without rewriting the fundamentals of ZDoom's rendering engine.

ZDoom != Build. PolyObjects aren't anywhere near close to being moving sectors.

[Graf Zahl]

Well, I want to recreate the original game so it's available on a better engine. =P

Sorry to disappoint you - but the Doom and Build engines are far too different. Unless major parts are redone ZDoom will not be able to handle Build levels. And that simply won't happen.

[randi]

Well, I did have the renderer going. *cough*cough*Seagate*cough*ahem*

[Amuscaria]

ZDuke

[OrangeWedgie]

Totally unrelated to the subways, but it looks like Polymer is going to replace Polymost. It would be nice if the renderer turns out to be portable to zDoom. I know the two engines are very different, but some features already came from build so I can still hope for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Jtp_YJ8R0

According to forum posts, it still has enough bugs that it isn't in the released binary version, but can supposedly be accessed via SVN.

[Rachael]

Don't hold your breath. The biggest issue with the DOOM engine is that many older wads take advantage of rendering bugs that have existed in DOOM since it was released. This even includes some IWADS, including Heretic, and Plutonia, and TNT, just to name a few. While porting such an engine would be a nightmare in itself (because the variables and references would be named differently, not to mention it wouldn't even be compatible with DOOM variable structures!), keeping it backwards compatible with everything would be even more so. It might actually be less effort to write a new renderer from scratch, than to port one from eduke.

[PlayerLin]

I know if zDoom supported Build engine/Duke3D will be awesome, but......

Why don't use eDuke32? It IS already ****ing awesome.


EDIT : Wait, do you want to recreate all of Duke3D? I think it is illegal and will be shut down by 3DRealms. If fact, 3DR don't like any projects that using their game's materials to other game engines and they'll shut it down...

[Rachael]

EDIT : Wait, do you want to recreate all of Duke3D? I think it is illegal and will be shut down by 3DRealms. If fact, 3DR don't like any projects that using their game's materials to other game engines and they'll shut it down...

Not that we need half a dozen more game clones ported for ZDoom (and yes, some of them ARE actually really good) - however - many already have been ported. Examples that I can name off the top of my head are Wolfenstein and PSX Doom, but I am sure there are many more. Anyway, point being, if it was ever going to be shut down, those mods would have been shut down long LONG ago and I know Afadoomer's Wolf clone is still running strong. Yeah, they might be illegal depending on how you look at them, but not so much that you couldn't even breathe a word of the idea. The way I see it, they actually help advertise the original games. I'd be surprised if Wolfenstein sales didn't spike when Afadoomer released his version of it, but I don't have access to the numbers so I wouldn't know.

Oh and secondly, last I heard, 3DR isn't really thriving right now... there are rumors that they are actually dead but I have yet to see that for myself.

[PlayerLin]

NOT all game companies care those clone mods...

Oh and secondly, last I heard, 3DR isn't really thriving right now... there are rumors that they are actually dead but I have yet to see that for myself.

Now they're just a smaller company and still alive.
http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/20090518_dnf_3dr_.x
Oh... NOT thriving is right, but not dead I sure.


Oh shi-... I'm off-topic again... *facepalm*

Whatever, if someone want to do that(DN3D clone) and not getting shut down or whatever something, I will be happy.

EDIT : I'm sorry I edited this post too many times...