Survival Doom - A Tech Demo Released!

[Sinfis]

Hi everybody!

Survival Doom is a mod for GZDoom. The traditional FPS, that we all know, has been changed into 3rd person shooter with prerendered backgrounds and static camera angles, just like in the famous survival horror game Resident Evil.

After a very long pause with development of the mod I realized that I'm never gonna get this mod finished as I planned - the whole Hangar level with real RE style puzzles. I simply didn't have time to develop the mod anymore, and I'm sorry about that! But because of the many positive comments I got earlier, I finally decided to put out the mod as a technical demo so the other Doom modders can use it for learning and take elements from it and maybe even develop it further.

Backgrounds have been modeled, textured and rendered with 3ds Max & mental ray, and characters have been modeled, textured and animated with 3ds Max & Biped.

The mod contains the first room of Hangar and couple of zombies in it. There are also some spots where you can get info by "using" them.

FEATURES:
- Resident Evil style gameplay (prerendered detailed background images and static camera angles which will change with player's movement).
- Player can really carry different kind of weapons (instead of just that generic rifle)
- Fully animated 3d-models for player and one type of a zombie.
- Player is able to aim with the laser sight, holding down the altfire button.
- Inventory system that allows player to reload weapon manually when the magazine is empty (thanks to Wildweasel!).
- Synchronized dynamic lighting with 3d models and background images.
- New HUD with RE style EKG.

Edit 2013/18/12: I've now made a page for Survival Doom in ModDB. Now you are able to download the mod there! I hope that the link will be permanent now!
See the mod in ModDB here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/survival-doom

Gameplay video:


Here's the old gameplay video for some comparison:
http://youtu.be/VPj05WPGqVw

I'll publish soon some wip renderings of other Hangar rooms so you can see what I was about create for the mod but never got it finished.

Questions, comments, criticism and suggestions are very welcome and I hope you like what I've done!

[wildweasel]

This does look like an interesting take on Doom itself, btu I worry that the fixed camera angles will irritate me. I like how you got around the perspective issue by adding laser sights.

[Nash]

Wouldn't it be better to make the maps actual maps instead of pre-rendering them? IMO, models and pixelated pre-rendered art just look ugly. It was one of the things that put me off when I played PC ports of RE and Alone in the Dark 4. Plus with real-time maps, you don't have to worry about actor clipping.

[Cutmanmike]

I liked resident evil when it was like this. Keep it up

[Sinfis]

I prefer those prerendered backgrounds, because it's possible to use neat graphical tricks, like bump and specular mapping, reflections, refractions, etc. with them. Besides, I want to be as faithful as possible for the genre survival horror, especially for the Resident Evil series.

Edit: Thanks, Cutman, I will!

[Snarboo]

How does collision work using prerendered backgrounds in Doom? Do you use texturing tricks so that the image looks correct at a fixed camera angle while still maintaining proper collision, or do you use invisible sectors with the image rendered on top?

Edit:
Actually, I'm not just curious about collision, but also occlusion. How do you get certain parts of the background to render over items and actors if they happen to be in the right place?

I have to say this looks pretty impressive! I'd love to see more. :)

[Dreadopp]

Looks pretty interesting. I am liking the screenshots.

[Sinfis]

How does collision work using prerendered backgrounds in Doom? Do you use texturing tricks so that the image looks correct at a fixed camera angle while still maintaining proper collision, or do you use invisible sectors with the image rendered on top?

Edit:
Actually, I'm not just curious about collision, but also occlusion. How do you get certain parts of the background to render over items and actors if they happen to be in the right place?

I have to say this looks pretty impressive! I'd love to see more.

The level has done normally in Doom Builder, except all the walls, floors and ceilings use the Sky-texture. Then, the backgroundimage is rendered into the Skybox at a same direction and angle as are the cameras in Doom Builder. Of course the cameras in the Doom Builder have to be exactly same position, height and angle as they are in the backgroundimages.

[Ryan Cordell]

Hey, this looks pretty dang interesting. Keep it up.

[TypeSaucy]

Resident Evil, Doom Style!? awesome, cant wait!

[Snarboo]

The level has done normally in Doom Builder, except all the walls, floors and ceilings use the Sky-texture. Then, the backgroundimage is rendered into the Skybox at a same direction and angle as are the cameras in Doom Builder. Of course the cameras in the Doom Builder have to be exactly same position, height and angle as they are in the backgroundimages.

Nice, and a very simple solution!

[Nash]

The level has done normally in Doom Builder, except all the walls, floors and ceilings use the Sky-texture. Then, the backgroundimage is rendered into the Skybox at a same direction and angle as are the cameras in Doom Builder. Of course the cameras in the Doom Builder have to be exactly same position, height and angle as they are in the backgroundimages.

Hence why you aren't worried about clipping/occlusion - it's already doing it automatically.

I really have to admit... this is a clever trick. Never thought of it. Props to you. :)

[Sinfis]

Hehe, thank you Snarboo and Nash.

However, my problem are objects, that can be both behind and in front of the player, for example those benches on the blue carpet. I think the only solution for that is I set the cameras so that the player won't get behind them. But, columns, for example work fine, because they go until the ceiling.

I think the objects, that are always in front of the player, could be done with HudMessage...

[Psycho]

Wow this looks cool. Can't wait to see this completely done. Nice job Sinfis.

[lizardcommando]

Oh wow. That's really impressive. I never would have imagined seeing something like this in Doom. I can't wait to play this.