Have any wads exceeded quake 3 level of textures/models?

[invictius]

I've only seen md3's and no higher in gzdoom wads. I guess textures can be of potentially any quality but gzdoom simply isn't advanced enough to show off graphics one would expect from the quake 4 idtech engine and up, correct?

[wildweasel]

Apparently the number 3 in md3 is an indication of how good it looks, now. Why hasn't someone invented the md9 format yet, so we can please those people like OP who just want to know that we're pushing the envelope of pushing the envelope?

[invictius]

Apparently the number 3 in md3 is an indication of how good it looks, now. Why hasn't someone invented the md9 format yet, so we can please those people like OP who just want to know that we're pushing the envelope of pushing the envelope?

Surely that's true in practice when it comes to commercial games at least?

[wildweasel]

No. Do you ever actually look at the things?

[jdredalert]

I've only seen md3's and no higher in gzdoom wads. I guess textures can be of potentially any quality but gzdoom simply isn't advanced enough to show off graphics one would expect from the quake 4 idtech engine and up, correct?

You should take a look at Zanieon's Hunter's Moon. There's a lot to see there in therms of graphics stuff (including some Doom 3 enemy models).

[leileilol]

MD3's can "look just as good" as a "MD9" - only in screenshots. When the animating comes, the cracks will show and it'll all crumble apart in skidding vertex morphing embarrassment, and that's not even scratching the surface of the inefficiency of vertex morphs on hi-poly models and no good way to optimize them for modern 3d hardware or crush them in memory usage. This is where the "it'd be cool if a 3d!" ends.

Note that only two commercial games on licensed id tech3 used MD3. The rest had a skeletal format (usually based off the unfinished MD4 code, like Elite Force's MDR or Ubertools TIK).


Also quality is subjective. It's very very easy to "exceed" an old game's art quality, but can you exceed art direction, aesthetic (i'm trying for a better word here) and creativity? Higher graphics aren't everything.

[Matt]

aesthetic (i'm trying for a better word here)

Genre emulation?

Harmonious synergy of elements?

Thematic coherence?

(I feel like I know exactly what you're talking about but can't think of the words either)

[.ex.inferis.]

Cohesion, perhaps? Feels to me like that would be the right one. Higher graphical quality does not necessarily bridge the gap towards making everything coalesce together in a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

[Matt]

That could work too.

And I'm reminded that sometimes there can be a little too much of it, cf. every other "milsim" genre game in the past 10 years that is just the same US soldiers with advanced alphabet soup guns saying radio alphabet stuff in a desert.