games like doom 3, quake 4, and other id tech 4 engine games share a style im really interested in but confused on how its made. its a mix of metalics with rounded edges and a grimy sheen over it. in the engine, it looks really good but when the models are shown out of it, they look very dry and awkward. just look at images of the doom 3 cyberdemon and you can see a huge difference between the model in game vs it being rendered out of it. is there any way to emulate this style in blender?

>>1010887 (OP)
>it's another thread by a zoomer who just downloaded blender and hasn't even bothered to make a donut asking how to make nostalgic game graphics

Just nuke this dead board already hiromoot

>>1010887 (OP)
>im really interested in but confused on how its made.
Part of it is art style and part of it is new technologies, many of which are now commonplace or improved upon. Read up on the development of those games to better understand what was novel at the time.

Also harsh shadows. I know Doom 3 gets memed a lot but Doom 3, F.E.A.R., and some others had particularly dark shadows for the time.

>>1010893
thank you. im new but wanted to start with animations similar to that time. i remember bump mapping and per pixel stencil shading were also involved

photographic textures
normal maps
specularity

>>1010887 (OP)
This trend of style over substance ps1 ps2 ps3 style makes me want to blow my brains out. Most surface level braindead imitation, sitting on decades old laurels that were made with true passion limited only by technology

>>1010916
I did a lowpoly game without trying to imitate psx or whatever else. Just came up with certain style I liked by experimenting and applying what I knew. Now I'm playing around with more ideas, but better and with more depth and interest. I think one of approaches I want to try most for the next game is high poly with abstract chunky shapes and NPR smooth shading and minimal palette. Bonus point is: this style highlights that one of appeals of lowpoly is chunky shapes rather than lofi-ness of it. I mean those kinda "exagerrated" cartoonish or abstract shapes are something that gives an impression of lowpoly even though they're smooth and curved. I've actually seen people mistakingly calling similar styles lowpoly even though polycounts are high.

>>1010902
IIRC Doom 3 uses bump maps, a bit more limited technology than normal maps.

>>1010918
No, Doom 3 uses true normal maps and is one of the earliest games to do so. Its distinctive plasticky look comes from the way it approximates specular

>>1010922
>
i see, thank you. how does is approximate specular that gives its look? all the examples on youtube for normal maps show the shadowing and the model as far too detailed.

>>1010930
'Doom III' together with 'Half Life II' is a early examples of direct x 9 'shader model 3' graphics, it has a fully scriptable 'pixel shader' (often reffered to as 'fragment program' in documentaion).
If you could go back to then from today you could do very modern 'PBR' looking graphics using 'sm3' as everything you need is there already, you'd only had to known what to write.

Today it'd be common knowledge and easily done but back then this was new and many people jumping into shading had to learn the basics from documentation for offline rendering
as this stuff hadn't been exposed for the masses to play around with like this and there was a learning curve before masses of people could start contribute to do it smarter.

But ultimatly The normalmap was expanded/unpacked in the fragment program with the same 'normalize((normalTexure.rgb+1)*0.5)' way we still use.
You do specular via some formula based on 'NdotH' like we've done since Blinn/Phong in the 1970's, the blinn specular formula is availible everywhere, don't remember it off the top of my head.
you just don't do it in the fancy nice way that gives it a proper 'long tail' falloff like current used models such as GGX, you just stop at a more naive (and computationally inexpensive) stage.

If you want softer falloff from lighting calculations against a normal map wihtout using ambient light probes etc just let the light wrap around further towards the back of the model to fit your taste.
Valve used a method called 'half lambert' that was/is very popular it's just 'NdotL*0.5 + 0.5' and make the model look like it is in a space that is bouncing light onto it from nearby surfaces.

>>1010932
pic related is an example of adding in more convincing ambient on the cheap by wrapping the light using 'half lambert'.

>>1010932
>>1010933
thank you, this helps alot.

>>1010887 (OP)
Rounded edges.

https://modwiki.dhewm3.org/Modelling
https://modwiki.dhewm3.org/Texturing
>>1010887 (OP)
you'll have to use an older version of whatever software you're using
>no gamma correction
>diffuse+specular materials
>blinn phong with an exponent of ~10
>specular intensity of 2
>512 resolution for characters
>half that for environments
>2000 tris per character max
>use BSP brushes for environments
Be careful with the specular textures, they have a tendency to blow out easily. I recommend a brightness of 10%-15% for skin. Remember to color them with 50% of the inverse of the diffuse texture to counteract the gamma space blending
>>1010918
It uses normal maps, some assets have bumpmaps but they're filtered into normals and blended with the existing texture

>>1010887 (OP)
the stuff I'm doing here might interest you, quite a few posts on it: >>1011138

How do you even begin to model model something like this?
How do you get the pixel perfect chamfers and bevels? That seems really useful for mipmapping

>>1015168
To get pixel perfect stuff you just snap to a pixel-aligned grid

>>1010887 (OP)
Switch from PBR to specular workflow.
>delete principled bsdf node
>add a "diffuse shader" node and "specular shader" node
>connect them with "add shader" node
>treat the color input of specular shader like a strength value (by default it will be incredibly strong so set it near black)
>if you have a specular map, connect it to the color node
>if you have a roughness map, invert the colors and connect it to the color node

>>1010916
but ur a retared tendie wanker with the asthetic senses of a 3 year old, most ps3 games were ports of stuff weitten fot the 360 and there is amost nothing in common style wise between ps1, ps2 and ps3. The truth is your a bullshit artist who was not even alive when the ps1/ps2 shipped, have probably never even used one. Stop lying and being a phony shit spewer from reddit or even better just go back there with your hipster gamecube

>>1010916
>style over substance ps1 ps2 ps3 style
ps1 and ps2 had some of the greatest libraries ever known you really are an utter cunt

>>1010922
In fact, Far Cry is the first ever game to showcase an early normal map asset. Just by Crytek in form of a screenshot

>>1010887 (OP)
You have to look at a screenshot in photoshop, specifically how each channel looks and setup materials that have the same value. If you want the same type of colors then the best thing you can do is separate each part and collect colors from those channels to build gradient maps in photoshop you can use for texturing. You have to use the non-pbr for this otherwise those colors will look desaturated.