Surface Beta

Name- Surface Beta
Author- Revenant100
E-Mail- [email protected]
Website- www.nextdimension.org/other/doom3

Description-
Surface is a test Deathmatch map for Doom 3 to see how well the engine can handle a fairly detailed and large outdoor area. I did not make the landscape model which is basically the whole map. It's a model used during the game (And only once), so I figured this would be a good model to test it with. I did not actually create the model, I just wanted to make that clear. I lit the level, added spawn points, filled it with ammo and weapons, and put it some decorations to make it look pretty. It supports all multiplayer modes, but only dm has been tested.

How To Install-
1. Extract surface_beta.pk4 to your doom3/base directory
2. Start Doom 3, create a server, and pick Surface Beta from the menu.

How to Uninstall-
1. Simply delete the surface_beta.pk4 file.

About Performance-
The goal of the map was to test Doom 3's capability of handling large outdoor environments. If you don't want to read this, basically the engine handles the map very well and should run just fine compared to the default maps. I play in medium detail in 800x600 with 2xFSAA and 8x Anisotropic Filtering on and Vsync off, plus bumpmapping, specular mapping, shadows, and high quality special effects on. Throughout the map I get the max 60fps that you can get, and it only lowers to about 45fps when you look at the whole map from one of the corners. Adding 4 Zsec enemies and shooting a constant beam from the plasma gun only slowed it down to 30-35 fps, so it should be able to handle fire fights with a few players on screen from the largest vantage point just fine. If you want a small performance boost of about 5-10 fps, then turn off shadows, which doesn't affect the visuals that much since there's only one light in the map casting a shadow. If you want a very large performance boost at the cost of visuals, turn off bumpmapping, which brought my fps to a constant 60 regardless where I was in the map. Overall Doom 3 handles this large outdoor area just fine.

Known Bugs-
1. There might be an issue where clients trying to join a server running this map will get a "Data not in sync with server" error. I have no idea what's causing this, but it's likely that this is a rather annoying bug with Doom 3. If this causes a problem with people joining your server, even if the server is not running Surface, just delete surface_beta.pk4 file. Playtesting on your own will not cause any problems, though.

General Tips-
1. Falling damage isn't likely to kill you unless you have very low health, but it can be detrimental. There are a few steep ledges in this map, which can be very easy to fall off or slip down on if you're not careful. An easy way to avoid this is to crouch before a steep incline and move forward slowly. You will move down it very slowly and shouldn't lose any health when you reach the bottom.
2. Learn to jump on the pipes quickly without falling off. Getting over them and navigating while on them is important to moving around the map fast.
3. Rocket jumping is not very helpful in this level, but it can get you to a few places people might not think of looking at right away.
4. The Berserk powerup is not really there to be used as a weapon, but as a nice speed boost so you can gather up a lot of nearby ammo and weapons quickly before it wears off. Of course anyone foolish enough to get close deserves a punch. And play a nice game of Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 while waiting for the Berserk to respawn.

To do (This is only the beta release, so I'd like to add some things later)-
1. Add some ambient wind sounds like you normally hear in the game when outside.
2. Tweak the weapon and ammo placements if needed.
3. Make the big dividing wall less ugly.
4. Vehicles in this map would seem like fun once the sdk is released.

Credit to-
1. id - Someone there made the large Mars outdoor area model and skinned it, so credit goes to whoever that was.
2. Maniax of d3euro.com - For helping test the map.