As I was about to go to sleep I got this idea and I had to get up and do attempt it :)

Unfortunately, it's rather dissapointing! Here's a 2.6MB video, right-click and save-as, else it might just appear as gibberish in your browser:

http://www.faqtion.org/crap/qportal.wmv

I figured, to make a portal where you see into the other room ala Prey, but not exactly like it... just similar - you could screenshot the destination room, and make this a texture. Then, add that to a .WAD and name it something like *portal1 - this way, it'd appear wavy like the teleport texture, yet you'd clearly see it was your destination room.

Well unfortunately it seems you can't scale the teleport texture, I tried. The result is ugly tiling, and a less convincing view of your destination. So I just mirrored a vertically-reverse image of the screenshot (512x512 texture), and tried that - but that's silly, too.

Ah well. If you could scale tele textures, though - you could just "crop" or "zoom" to where you wouldn't see the tiling, yet still get a glimpse of where you're about to go to. 

I tried that in an old map and could never get it to work well 

you could also copy the whole architecture around teleport destination and place it behind the teleporter if there was enough room for it (and if r_speeds allow). This could look very realistic. There would still be a problem with monsters and items though. 

Could you make the warping less obvious if you took the screenshot using FishEyeQuake? 

You can scale water textures, but the main problem you'll encounter is that all water textures are resized to 64x64 before you factor in the scale factor of the texture. So a 256x256 texture is first scaled 4 times smaller before it is transformed. If you use a 64x64 texture and stretch that to fit the surface, then replace the texture with *portal without changing the scale factors.

You still can't translate a water texture like this, which is a bit of a pain. The final problem is that the warping gets much more excessive when you scale water textures, but it's worth having a look to see if it's worth doing.

NB: I tried this out using a func_wall for the water brush, I don't think it should affect rendering, but try that if it doesn't work otherwise. 

animated (+) textures instead. Switch the opacity levels of the same image between frames. Results could be interesting. Good Going on the concept. 

Lunaran: Well, after your comment, I checked the Doom3 texture set I converted into Quake wad format, and I have to admit that many of the textures already have "pre-implemented" shadow zones...

No no no. Look, uh, how did you do the conversion exactly? 

Hadn't thought about using animated texes - a bit more work, but would be better, yes.

I took the screenshots for the portal texes using Panoramic Quake, actually.

Also, the issue with actually constructing brushwork behind it is - you would only be able to build portals into/against walls - and at that point, it would probably just appear like a fancy door or entryway. But if you use it with a texture, you can place the portal almost anywhere and make it funky like portals are. 

Oh, you wanted to know how I converted the Doom3 hi-res textures into Quake wad format ?

OK, I'm not used with hi-res textures "naming", nevertheless I will try to give you the method I used.

First, I noticed each textures are composed by a set of tga files: there are

- the normal file that is the texture in itself: no shadow, no relief, only a flat colored image
- the 3D-fx file, that is completly blue, and I guess it is used for relief rendering in game
- some others that are completly black or white (what is the use I don't know), but I didn't use them
- some contain only 'lights' (on a full black background)

Well, let's start:

Take the 3D-fx file an convert it into grey scale. Increase contrast by 40%, and decrease brightness by 40%. Now you have the "relief" of the texture

The use this file and make a full overlap with the normal using transparency (set relief file transparency up to 65%)

Now take the resulting file and adjust brightness, contrast: this part is really not easy, because it depends of the rendering you want to obtain. This is the hi-res converted texture file.

If you have lights (fullbrights pixels actually), now you have to select the light part only and overlap this with the hi-res converted texture, with no transparency, on the exact point it has to be located.

Make some bluring around the lights part in order to avoid visible pixel break on the texture..

Well, it is almost done: now you just have to reduce the siwe by 2, and convert it to the Quake Palette, and load it in a wad file...

there are also some tricky things when you have several part of the texture in different files: more overlaping manipulations are required.

BTW, it is very difficult to find an automatic scripts to do the job on a full set like Doom3 texture set....

I hope it was clear ;P 

It would be clearer if you didn't pick a silly naming convention.

For example, the map you refer to as the 3d-fx texture is actually usually called the normal map, while what you called the normal map is the diffuse. :D 

 

"3D-fx" that takes me back. "But will it run Quake 2?" I remember my na�ve younger self enthusiastically chirping in the local PC World. 

Please, calm down everybody: if you read carefully the begining of my previous post, I said I'm not used with hi-res texture naming conventions... I already know that I'm a french morron, blah blah, blah... but in anyway, thanks for this helpful clarification... :P 

Yes, thank you for explaining how normal-mapped textures work to me. I've never done any work with the Doom3 engine so I have no idea how any of that works.

Take the 3D-fx file an convert it into grey scale. Increase contrast by 40%, and decrease brightness by 40%. Now you have the "relief" of the texture

This is what you did wrong.

Like I already pointed out, the green channel of the normal map isn't oriented like you think it is. Full white in this channel is for normals pointing down, and black is for normals pointing up. Thus, if you grayscale the normal map, you're not going to have a relief map that follows the typical convention of light coming from above and a little to the left, you're going to have one of light coming from below.


Thus why your textures look like that. 

...the sarcometer I installed last week just burned itself out :) 

...the sarcometer I installed last week just burned itself out :)

you may want to turn it in for a higher grade model that can handle higher readings than 'common' if you plan on reading O'Rourke, Mencken or Waugh anytime soon. 

i wonder if this is why the shadows are upside down when you use ambient lighting in d3? 

Do NOT buy an American made sarcometer. They may be cheaper, but I heard that they cannot easily handle the highest levels needed for life in Britain. 

The sarcometers made in the secret weapons plants of this country are superior to any other free country's. 

the ones in non-free countries were all sold to them by the CIA anyways... 

Do NOT buy an American made sarcometer. They may be cheaper, but I heard that they cannot easily handle the highest levels needed for life in Britain.

still under the impression Jaguars are still being made in Coventry . . . it's a little sad. 

the only the thing we have left is the sarcometer! 

got waging war to sustain your economy. 

got waging war to sustain your economy.

http://www.mises.org/story/1428

But at a cost of half a trillion dollars, the idea war is an economic stimulate is a much tougher sale to this generation than previous. 

correct, althoug the article does warrant reading.

In all three cases, resources are diverted from the productive economy of wealth creation to the destructive economy of war-fighting.

The key phrase there is destructive economy. Many people profit off of such things...