Replaying Doom 3 - Must have mods?

NoxTek

NoxTek

The Geek Redneck
Joined
May 27, 2002
Messages
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This thread was originally started with me asking for [H]elp making Doom 3 look it's best with the most advanced graphical mods and enhancements. It's since evolved quite a bit with mention of several different mods and texture packs.

To be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR here, this thread is about the ORIGINAL 2004 release of Doom 3 and NOT the bastardization that is the 2012 re-release (aka Doom 3: BFG Edition)

As of November of 2012, the general consensus is that the following combination will get you the best Doom 3 experience:


Below is a quick rundown for those who are moderately familliar with how Doom 3 and other id Software 3D games work, if you want a more detailed set of instructions I suggest you read this thread over at the Steam forums. :D

Sikkmod is a graphical enhancement to Doom 3 providing effects like HDR, motion blur, depth of field, soft shadows, and varying methods of occlusion mapping. You install it as a 'mod' just like you would any other.
The Wulfen and Monoxead texture packs are just that, texture packs in the form of ..PK4 files... just drop the .PK4 file into your Sikkmod directory. The Venom menu pack provides a MUCH nicer looking menu system to the game, but isn't totally necessary. The Trent Reznor sound pack replaces many of the retail Doom 3 monster and weapons sounds with those originally designed by Nine Inch Nails artist Trent Reznor.

Installing Sikkmod is as simple as unzipping the zip file into your main Doom 3 directory. When you're done you should have a Sikkmod directory inside your main Doom 3 installation directory.
Installing the menu pack, texture packs, and sound pack is as simple as dropping the .PK4 files right into the Sikkmod directory.

Make sure once you have all of the above installed you set the following options in Doom3\Sikkmod\DoomConfig.cfg:

seta image_usePrecompressedTextures "0"
seta image_useNormalCompression "0"
seta image_useAllFormats "1"
seta image_useCompression "0"
seta image_preload "1"
seta image_roundDown "0"
seta image_forceDownSize "0"
seta image_downSize "0"


Also you may want to go ahead and setup your resolution and aspect ratio in Doom3/Sikkmod/DoomConfig.cfg as well:

Find these lines:

seta r_customHeight "xxxx"
seta r_customWidth "xxxx"

Change the x's to set your resolution. Now find this line:

seta r_mode "x"

Change the "x" to "-1".

Find this line:

seta r_aspectRatio "x"

If your screen aspect ratio is 16:9, change the "x" to "1".
If your screen aspect ratio is 16:10 or 15:9, change the "x" to "2".


Lastly although you can launch Sikkmod via the Doom 3 'Mods' menu, it's much easier to have Doom 3 load the mod immediately at launch. You can do this by adding "+set fs_game sikkmod" to the Doom 3 launch shortcut (or the Steam command line options if you've purchased the game through Steam).

Want the fancy framerate killing Parallax Occlusion Mapping? Go into Doom3\Sikkmod\GLProgs and you will see several different directories, each one is for a different type of texture mapping. I suggest 'POM' - so go into POM and copy the two files inside (interaction.vfp and test.vfp) back into the main GLProgs directory. Now watch as Doom 3 gets a whole lot prettier and consequently brings even today's mightiest GPU to it's knees.

Once you're in the game you'll probably want to go into the Sikkmod options menu and play with the options. You can enable and disable things like HDR, bloom, soft shadows, motion blur, DoF, etc. I highly advise you to turn Soft Shadows and Depth of Field OFF, they will absolutely cripple your framerate.

I could continue on typing up a huge tutorial on how to get all of this setup, but someone's already done a bang up job of it over at the Steam forums so if you need some help getting it all setup I suggest you start there, but please feel free to ask me any questions either here or via PM and I'd be happy to help!


Here are some videos of the mods in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMy0Xt4K9A4

WARNING - SPOILER: Final boss battle + end credits :D

Here are some screenshots of the mod in action:




Now dammit, why the fuck did I open this locker?


HELL. Holy crap, Hell really seems to show off the mods like nothing else. Pay special attention to the rocky floor... man, I hope when I go to Hell I get to wear shoes...



Bawce:
 
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look for a ultra settings mod there are plenty out there. as for duct tape mod that kinda ruins the game for me thats why you have a flashlight
 
Yea, go [H]ard or go home. Who needs a stinkin' flashlight. Play it the way the developers made it; in the dark.
 
thepirat said:
I like it so dark, I usually play Doom3 with the monitor off.
Click to expand...

peh try playing with no monitor no keyboard or mouse just a gameboy and The Adventures of Mary Kate & Ashley.

Now thats Doom the way it was meant to be played. Shit my pants in the first 10 minutes.
 
OK, no duct tape mod... I never did see the point of it anyway. :p
 
Blue Falcon said:
I recently mentioned to a friend that I was thinking about replaying Doom 3, and he insisted that I should get the [H] ModPack
Click to expand...

Never heard of it.

I'm not a huge fan of the flashlight mod. It's not like the game is horrible as is. It was made to make you choose between the gun and flashlight. Doom 3 was very polished from the get go. It doesn't seem like mods would make it "better" only "different". I did like the expansion pack Resurrection of Evil even more. Only because the encounters were more interesting.
 
Tried dozens of graphics mods; in the end, the one I was happiest with was this tiny 4kB shader replacement (plus a few homemade lighting tweaks). Make sure r_lightscale is set to 3.
 
Blue Falcon said:
I recently mentioned to a friend that I was thinking about replaying Doom 3, and he insisted that I should get the [H] ModPack but try as I might I can't find any evidence of one existing from a casual search of the forum.

So if you were going to replay the original Doom 3 what mods would you use? I'm assuming a duct tape mod is pretty much a given, but what about graphical enhancements/texture packs?

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

You should install the Resurrection of Evil exp too. It finishes the story quite well and adds very interesting new stuff to the game.

Never used any mods for Doom 3, so I can't recommend any.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
Tried dozens of graphics mods; in the end, the one I was happiest with was this tiny 4kB shader replacement (plus a few homemade lighting tweaks). Make sure r_lightscale is set to 3.
Click to expand...

This is what I ended up using... amazing what a little shader replacement will do. I tried the 'Extreme textures' mod I linked earlier but it made everything look too shiny - almost like everything was wrapped in saran wrap or something.
 
downloading mods for later...

Just finished Half-Life 1 earlier in the weak (very long and drawn out game)
Now starting Unreal 1! patched at 227g
 
Blue Falcon said:
This is what I ended up using... amazing what a little shader replacement will do.
Click to expand...
I've packaged up the other tweaks I'm using. It contains
- The HDR Interaction mod
- Light sources on weapon effects (muzzle flash, impacts, plasma balls, etc.)
- Some shader map replacements lifted from a parallax mod (don't remember which...)

The parallax textures don't give you parallax on their own, but they really give the HDR shaders some depth. And the sight of a plasma ball flying down a dark corridor is just phenomenal :) .

You can download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IFIAYASI

If you have your own autoexec.cfg, add the line "seta r_lightscale 3" (if you don't have one, the mod will set this for you).
 
Any of you guys have screenshots of these graphics mods? I'm interested to see what they look like in action.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
I've packaged up the other tweaks I'm using. It contains
- The HDR Interaction mod
- Light sources on weapon effects (muzzle flash, impacts, plasma balls, etc.)
- Some shader map replacements lifted from a parallax mod (don't remember which...)

The parallax textures don't give you parallax on their own, but they really give the HDR shaders some depth. And the sight of a plasma ball flying down a dark corridor is just phenomenal :) .

You can download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IFIAYASI

If you have your own autoexec.cfg, add the line "seta r_lightscale 3" (if you don't have one, the mod will set this for you).
Click to expand...

WOW! Verah nice!

I happen to be in the level with the 'service lift' (I think it's called Enpro Station) and you can REALLY tell the difference when you send for the lift and see it coming along lighting up the walls. Really slick looking! :D
 
Screenshots taken with FRAPS on the system in my sig using Doom 3 1.3.1 and the patch LuminaryJanitor provided a few posts back in this thread. Thumbnails link to 24-bit PNG files...

 
Im playing the game without any mods and the game still looks good, before and after shoots with the mod would be nice too see the difference.
 
Blue Falcon said:
Screenshots taken with FRAPS on the system in my sig using Doom 3 1.3.1 and the patch LuminaryJanitor provided a few posts back in this thread.
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Ah, those shots (#4 in particular) just reminded me of a mod I forgot to include...
http://doom3.filefront.com/file/Enhanced_Doom_3_models;89133
Basically, just smooths out that huge pointy bit on the imp's head (and the same for a couple of NPCs, I think).

BTW, it's a good idea to extract all these mods (.pk4 is just a renamed .zip) so that you can see when they conflict (i.e. change the same file). And it makes it easy to tweak if you feel the need, since most of the files are in plain text.

Which reminds me of something else you might want to try (if you've got a fairly good PC, that is...). Once it's extracted, go to Doom 3/<mod_folder>/materials/WeaponLights.mtr and delete the "noshadows" lines. My 4850 choked on it, but my new GTX580 seems to be faring a bit better :) .
 
[REMOVED due to the fact I was DOING IT WRONG, roofles.....]
 
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Not quite sure how these are going to look, since everything's kinda shitty on my monitor at the moment, but this is one of my favourites (though really, you've got to see it in motion to get the full effect ;) ).

Before:
shot00011tw.jpg


After:
shot000112.jpg


Before:
shot00009j.jpg


After:
shot000092.jpg
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
Not quite sure how these are going to look, since everything's kinda shitty on my monitor at the moment, but this is one of my favourites (though really, you've got to see it in motion to get the full effect ;) ).
Click to expand...

OK... I must be doing something wrong because I'm not seeing that kind of reflection from weapons fire. You just drop the .pk4 file into the base directory, right? Scrolling up the console after launching the game shows that LightingMod.pk4 is being loaded...
 
Blue Falcon said:
OK... I must be doing something wrong because I'm not seeing that kind of reflection from weapons fire. You just drop the .pk4 file into the base directory, right? Scrolling up the console after launching the game shows that LightingMod.pk4 is being loaded...
Click to expand...
Not sure what the default load order is; to be sure, I put it (or better yet, extract it) in a new folder /Doom 3/Mod/ and run it with "Doom3.exe +set fs_game Mod".

But it looks like the effect is working fine in your shots (specifically, this one) - you just need both the camera and the light source at relatively low angles to the surface (I'm crouching in the shots above). It shows up more as you get further from the light, or as the light gets closer to a surface.
 
Actually, looking at this shot, I'm not so sure. You've definitely got the plasma muzzle flash (there by default, I think), but I can't see much evidence of the light from the plasma ball (part of the mod).

On closer inspection, it looks like you might be missing the shader maps too, so I suspect it's being overridden by the default game files. My guess is that it loads in alphabetical order, so pak000.pk4 comes after LightingMod.pk4 (though loose files like interaction.vfp take precedence, so you've still got the shaders).

So either
- Put it in a mod folder, as explained above,
- Unpack it in base/, or
- Rename it to zLightingMod.pk4
 



Neat-O weapon light reflections.... uber cool!





Hard to tell from the screenshot, but his head is no longer pointy! :D
 
And here's some video that shows the shader/lighting in action (and also the enhanced models mod mentioned in this thread). Note how the plasma charges from the rifle and BFG cast light on the environment as they travel... uber uber cool and LuminaryJanitor is right, it makes a TREMENDOUS difference in game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63ZmiO8_RPg - Available in 1080p HD

And yes, for this video I was playing on super panzy mode - and yes, I suck. :D
 
That's more like it! Very nice video, by the way; the still shots don't do it justice.

A couple more tweaks came to mind watching that (getting rid of the corpse burnaway, in particular). I'll post them after work.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
Tried dozens of graphics mods; in the end, the one I was happiest with was this tiny 4kB shader replacement (plus a few homemade lighting tweaks). Make sure r_lightscale is set to 3.
Click to expand...

Luminary Janitor.. thanks ever so much for this information on that tiny shader replacement.. It made a huge difference in my game. Sheesh, I forgot how much fun Doom3 was. Im even playing it without the flashlight mod, a first.

Again, thank you.
 
Any way to play Doom3 at 2560x1600? I really want to go back and play it for the 4th time with the shader mod at high rez!
 
LordVampyre said:
Luminary Janitor.. thanks ever so much for this information on that tiny shader replacement.. It made a huge difference in my game. Sheesh, I forgot how much fun Doom3 was. Im even playing it without the flashlight mod, a first.

Again, thank you.
Click to expand...
Don't use that one, grab the one from MegaUpload a couple of posts later ;) .

Or if you can wait 3-4 hours, I'll try to throw together an update.
 
Screenshots look good. Makes me wish I still had Doom 3. I'm kicking myself for not picking up the Doom Complete Pack for $8 on the last Steam holiday sale.
 
After a bit of a cleanup, I've uploaded my whole mod folder. Here's what's in there:

- HDR Interaction Redux
- Tweaked models
- Some shader maps from Parallax Extreme
- Gibbable imps
- Shiny Blood
- Some ragdoll tweaks (not mine) that I can't find a source for...
- Light sources and shadows on weapon effects (muzzle flash, impacts, plasma balls, etc.)
- No gibbing with bullets / shells
- No corpse burnaway
- No bleedout / no starting with a Soulcube on Nightmare
- A few sound changes. There are a heap of unused alternative sounds hidden away in the original game, and I think I'm mostly using those, but if there are any more they're probably from the Reznor sound pack.

You can get it here. If gunfire and/or plasma spam is causing your framerate to tank, you'll also want this.
 
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