Darkness_Falls

I think the neck looks too wide now. Reminds me of a football (american) player ...

I agree with SZ. Let's not use them if there's any risk of copyright infringement. Sounds are easy to remember and pinpoint when you've heard them before. There's an alarm sound in an N64 game that I swear I've now heard in about 3 different commercials and 2 different movies. Other sounds I've heard (even tiny ones... like little *clinks* or *rattles*) from other games seem to pop up in other media, as well. Hollywood execs might not play TDM, but some of our players will definitely watch Hollywood movies. And our players might think it's weird if they heard a TDM sound be very close to or exactly like a Hollywood sound. Even shifting octaves or applying filters wouldn't be enough to "hide" the sound in many cases. Would hate for them to report to Hollywood people they know or otherwise 'investigate.'

Oh cool. Yeah, it really looks like a neat place...

A DeviantArt photo-manipulation copyright policy (where you have to get the photographer's approval before posting photo-manipulations on DeviantArt) led me to get the photographer's approval on my alley. (I admit that I probably didn't need his approval, but DeviantArt's policy is vague and got me slightly concerned, so I wanted to lean on the safe side.) Here is the approval I received a couple months back. Just posting this here for our project's records:

Thanks ascottk Springheel has a sticky thread in the art section that has some concept art for reference: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=189

I don't like the new noisemaker as much, but like that it's kind've mechanical. I made the mistake of giving the old noisemaker an echo (not really a mistake... kind've a by-product of the process), so I know we'd need a new one eventually anyways. If I were to re-do my noisemaker, I'd add a mechanical winding at the beginning and wind-down at the end, eliminate the echo and tinker with the sound it eminates. I prefer the knocking sound in the old more than less meaty ticking new, but that's personal taste. I was trying to reproduce the sound one might hear with my noisemaker concept (Post #56) I could grow fond of any mechanical noisemaker because it'd be 1000x better than 4th of July firecrackers popping (T3), imo.

Awesome!

Okay, yes, that is what we talked about long ago, as I remember you saying exactly just that long ago, Sparhawk. Fact: You would see your shadow being cast by a side-stepping leg, too. Fact: We've agreed it's a polish thing that we don't have time to worry about.

Tilt was a tad exaggerated. I will say, "head tilt with mild upper-body lean". There's no way it's a side-step in T2, imo. I could be confusing it with something else, but I swear I also remember posts like, "The T2 lean is impossible in real life; you'd go off-balance" -- yet it is possible and no you wouldn't.

B/c it's a T3-style lean and doesn't correlate very well with the T2 style head-tilt I thought we were going to implement. It may not be exactly T3, but it sure reminds me of it. I'm not about to re-install T3 and do side-by-side comparisons to see how right or wrong I am. I admit that the times where you'd notice this lean are more the exception than the rule, but it's just a polish thing. I understand how it puts it near the bottom of the list to fix, and that's fine. I would've thought it would've been a lot easier to just head tilt and very slight upper-body lean in the first place rather than do a whole side-step.

I know, but what we see the model's shadow doing or what we see in a mirror is T3's lean Thankssss oDDity... At least its something though.

Obscurus - I was not submitting my definition as one that should be scrutinized and possibly used by the IAU as the definition they should adopt. Like I said, it was simply an example and I'm not an astronomer. Using precise things "such as" volume, or diameter, or mass, or its orbitate or rotation qualities, or its shape or composition, etc. should at least be considered to help define what a planet is or should be. I don't know what criteria should be used, but having definites like that is what I feel are needed. I was only giving examples.

I know what you're saying, but there is no escaping the fact that a consumer video camera used for home movies has a distinct quality about it that makes it look like a home movie. When you pan the camera, I see distinct home movie qualities about it. The way it adjusts to lighting in the environment cries out "home movie". Etc. No matter how carefully you plan everything, as soon as you shoot the video, it will look like a home movie. Look at any one of those "funniest home movie" video shows on TV and they all look like video cameras filmed them. Look at college student projects on public access TV; they use a Sony camera for $800 and you can totally tell. I feel it's a direct by-product of it being a cheap camera made for consumers. The Blender comparison isn't really valid since both programs can create high quality renderings to help make them look indistinguishable. The nature of a consumer-level video camera, though, is that the sum of its parts makes it impossible to produce the quality of the more high-end cameras. IMO. If Steven Spielberg all the sudden uses a Sony Handycam as his filming means and it looks indistinguishable from one of his normal films, then I'll believe you. If drewb50 used a $650 Sony Handycam for his project, then it will help me believe also.

I like the running and walking anims, but not the leaning. It is too much like T3, imo; and I never liked that. It is not necessary to step-lean when peeking around a corner. If it were a thief in real life, that is just clumsy and exposing more body than one would, so it's not realistic. He also steps forward a little bit and he shouldn't, imo. Can we just take it back to the T1/T2 head-tilt lean style, and just tilt his head to the side? That version is just so clean, precise and tight. Not sloppy like a step-lean is. I understand this has nothing to do with the camera and light gem exposure. Regardless, if we happen to have body shadows turned on, we'd look down and see the thief's leg's shadow casting around the corner. Or we'd look in a mirror and I would shed a tear of pain and sorrow. It really pains me that much to see it so much like T3.

Yep. A planet's definition needs to be something like: * Has a volume of at least 27,832,317mi^3 (~375mi in diameter) +/- 2,000,000mi^3. * Is spherical or near-spherical in shape. (General elliptical shapes are acceptible as long as no one line drawn from any one point on the surface of the object through the center of the object to the same point on the opposite side of the object is less than 80% the length of any other line similarly drawn through the center of the object. Note: If an atmosphere is known to exist or if the celestial body is made entirely of gas, then the lines mentioned above shall instead be drawn to the known outermost portions of the atmosphere or gas body.) * Rotates on a single axis. The angle of the axis does not matter and is allowed to change over time. * Primary orbit is around a star or stars (e.g., binary star system) in a predictable or somewhat predictable manner (e.g., circular; elliptical). * Orbit can pass through the path of another celestial object's orbit, including through the paths of other planets or moons. * Has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape. Note: * Presence of an atmosphere or lack thereof is not a deciding factor. * Presence of moons or lack thereof is not a deciding factor. * Presence of rings or lack thereof is not a deciding factor. * Material composition of the body is not a deciding factor. * Existing or non-existence of magnetic poles is not a deciding factor. * Presence of life or lack thereof is not a deciding factor. Just my $.02. This is just an example! But I feel a definition similar to what I made above goes a long way toward making the definition a lot less nebulous than it is. I doubt the above would be totally bullet-proof either, but I'm not an astronomer. I would think astronomers could've done a lot better than they did. (FYI, the 'sufficient mass' one is not my own. It was taken from the IAU site.)

oDDity - In looking at the new definition of planet... do you think the criteria they created are written clearly enough to rule out any and all uncertainty regarding which objects should and should not be classified as planets? I'm curious what you think. You normally look at things in an absolute, logical and objective way. I'd be floored if you actually think these criteria are well-written and worthy to be in the next Webster's dictionary.

I'm confused. You're excited about a $4,000 camera (4K) being $20,000 (20K)? The Redcam is $17,500 MSRP, and the lenses are like $5,000. Not cool. Maybe you're trying to say typical movie cameras are 400K ($400,000)? I also wish I could make pro looking videos, but anything us regular consumers make always looks like home videos. It has to do with the quality of video camers. I don't think there's any way to make an $800 Sony Video Cam look like a pro movie, no matter how good the lighting or cinematography. It's just not technologically possible, imo.

I think we're agreeing actually. I say they left it too wide open (for interpretation), and you agree that things can be fudged. So we agree. You're right, this whole thing about it needs to be around "the Sun" is rediculous. A planet shouldn't be restricted to our solar system. There should be exact criteria set forth what is necessary to qualify and quantify a near-spherical object as being a planet anywhere in the universe. There are several ways it could've been made clearer We do call things what we want them, but I think most dictionaries aim to provide absolute definitions to leave little room for interpretation. As does science. What use is it to try to explain to someone what a "rock" is, only to find some people interpret a rock as a plastic ball, while others define it as a styrofoam sphere? The purpose of definitions is to try to get everyone on the same page. Not to play a game of semantics every time you talk to someone. Tradition playing a part in science could maybe be construed as religious-like. If science creates a definition for a planet that leaves no room for interpretation and it is accepted, and Pluto is no longer classified as a planet, then Pluto should be disqualified as a planet. The tradition of how I was taught in 3rd grade that Pluto is a planet should have no bearing on whether or not Pluto should always be considered a planet. (PS: I still feel their new definition of a planet bites.) I think you're confusing science with hospitals... Without science, you would have no clue how to make airplanes fly; computers wouldn't be here; the Earth would still be the center of the Universe, and flat; your car would only work if it was pushed down a hill; and you'd be reading this message by candlelight via a hand-written page I sent off to you a couple months ago. I'm not saying science should rule the day. But in terms of defining a planet, I think it's maybe best to use scientific observations and extrapolating the best definition based on those observations, rather than having George Bush and Putin deciding in a summit meeting how to define planets (political), or having the general population define it based on what they were taught in grade school (tradition).

I agree that their new definition of a planet is left too wide open. They had a chance to make something very clear-cut and they failed. Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with Pluto being demoted. But I want it to be after the creation of a very absolute definition of a planet that is not open to interpretation and that does not rule out our planets or any others like them. Politics, no; but semantics, yes. They really flubbed up the definition, imo. Bottom line... I hope they have a slightly more detailed definition somewhere, because as it is read at http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0603/index.html, I think that it might be flawed. What if there was an asteroid belt going through a Jupiter-like (or whatever) planet's orbit somewhere in the Universe. And what if there were numerous asteroids in that belt; and the belt stretched thousands or millions of light-years or some crazy thing. Each year that planet would end up going through the pathway of the belt; and each year it would hit new asteroids; but it would never clear it away. At least not for many many many years; or never. Are they saying it shouldn't be planet? Hmm... Oops, nevermind. I see they say "In our solar system".

Yeah, pretty cool! Good job!

Awesome. I say keep it. Sounds like a pagan-like spoon to me! LW is one of the hardest programs I've ever tried learning. It's not the actual modeling and creative parts that are hard, it's learning what all the buttons/shortcuts/menus do and where they're located that's tough for me. Once I got over that hurdle, it's a lot easier. There's many more things I need to learn with LW, but at least I can more easily make some of my ideas come to life. (Flash is similarly non-intuitive with regards to learning where stuff is and what stuff does.) I'm the same way. When it comes to learning new things, I need to see it sequentially without any steps missed. That's why when I try to teach things to others, I always try to meticulously list every step, no matter how big or small.

Thanks for the virtual memory tip, Sparhawk. I should've thought of that, too. Then again, I didn't think Windows would eat up my 10GB C:\ drive partition as steadily as it has, with patches, games and programs that like to dump files on there without asking me. One other hard drive hog that I hate is System Restore. I think it's normally set to consume the max amount of hard drive space it can... ~10-15% probably. That's a gigabyte of space for my little C:\ drive. No way do I need a month or two or three of restore points. So I go into Start > Control Panel > System > System Restore Tab, and then bump the disk drive usage down on each drive. I don't know what's recommended, but I put it down to like 2 or 3%. There's a way to see how many restore points you have, or how much space System Restore is using(?). Start > Help and Support > Undo changes to your computer with System Restore > Restore my computer to an earlier time. It'll show you a bunch of restore points you can choose from. (And then just cancel out if you don't want to restore a point.) Depending on your settings, it might go back months. I personally don't want that much space used for System Restore. (Note: I'm referring to WinXP Pro in my post. I have no idea if other Windows editions have System Restore info.)

Ditto, it's not too hard to do that, and I wouldn't. The last few posts should've taught you that you should use "-like" and "inspired" internally all the time, as well; because lawyers will take control of this entire site if they wish. And we haven't established well enough everywhere else the fact that we are Thief-inspired, not Thief. EDIT: I meant this in jest, Domarius, not a put-down in any way, shape or form

Probably sensationalized media, like how everyone else in America and the world seems to get factoids of information I think Ireland is a beautiful green fantasy-land with White Cliffs of Dover looming about. Scotland is a beautiful windy country with lots of fields of tall grass. The UK has lots of fog, but is rich with with British culture and monarchy. Honestly, that's pretty much what I've heard/seen on TV/movies or general marketing...

I still stand by my claim. This discussion shouldn't have even started. If you can imagine the hammer/gear in the Thief Universe, then you can imagine it in the Dark Mod. Parallels can be drawn because our project is inspired by Thief. Simple as that. If you can't imagine it in the Thief Universe, then you can't imagine it in the Dark Mod. Why such an analogy had to be so controversial is beyond me, unless my post was misinterpreted; which I'll take partial blame for not writing more clearly that I was making an analogy.