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RPGista

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Everything posted by RPGista

  1. Simple and works great.
  2. Indeed, very good texturing... I like the subtle warp effect on the glass, and specially like the metal work, how it stands out on its own. Great job. Just be careful when mixing this with stock furniture, as most tend to have texture maps with lower resolutions.
  3. Brilliant indeed! Just reading your roadmap makes me tired, I really admire your effort and talent, man, I mean, Ive been wrestling with a concept map for months now, and its barely more than a few skteched scenes. Good luck with it, looking great so far.
  4. To all people chiming in and trying to argue this issue from one side or another - I know the intention is good, but please stop. This is a thread from bikerdude announcing his stepping down from tdm and giving his side of the story. We all expressed our surprise and our feelings about that, and since then some of the people actually involved in the whole affair came here to express a bit of their feelings as well. Its clear now that this whole thing is the result of a long series of situations that went on mostly private within the team. We were not involved in any of it and thus have very little knowledge to judge anything. I guess its cool and all to try and bring the converstion to a "lets just forgive each other" scenario but Ive noticed that some people are going for a dismissive stance somehow implying that this is all due to a bunch of primadona mappers bringing down a well meaning contributor, when we know this is not accurate and that those guys are a lot better than that. Just because most of the people involved chose to keep their feelings largely private and refrained from adding too much to this discussion, it doenst mean they are not justified in their position, that it doesnt need to be considered. I think this is getting a bit too emotional right now.
  5. You can keep the custom assets as individual pk4 files. All the folders and files are in the pk4 package, and you can place them in your mission folder and take them out easily, without them having to be extracted everywhere.
  6. I really appreciate that Dragofer, being a big fan of your work - yours is actually the mission Im currently playing, Riverside, and its just amazing. Its true that we need a lot of nature assets here in TDM. It wasnt something I was able to do before, but Im getting to a point where I can bring in some useful original resources for our mappers... Now that you mention it, I should probably just release things as I go, instead of waiting for the WIP map (which, by the looks of it, shall take a good while to complete). But aha! just a small correction, the model shown here is actually a menhir, that phallic shaped stone monument. The dolmen will be coming shortly and its a bunch vertical of stones in a circle holding a big horizontal one that would be the "roof". It looks like a proto-house. I started by modeling some using photo references, but there are several gorgeous ones that you can get from 3d scans online for free. I have a few that I did some work on. Gonna be releasing something soon for us. Cheers, man.
  7. Very impressive. I love the idea of having as much interactive and realyime physics as possible in tdm.
  8. Hmmm... I do like the effect, and if I understood it correctly, you wouldnt really need a whole new character per se. Considering they just move when in complete darkness, and are frozen where they stand when light shines on them, you would actually need the "entity" to exist (either its a real AI entity if you can code that, or a collection of clever scripts, that would track and get near the player when in darkness), and the visual representation of it would be a few static models in different poses, that would show up and be still whenever light is on. The modeling side of it could easily be achieved with a good rigged statue model exported several times in each of the needed poses. Actualy Ive got just the thing... http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13926-rpgistas-mapping-and-modeling-thread/page-12?do=findComment&comment=411281 But if you are interested in that, you would need to adapt your story so as make it about a single menacing statue that will hunt the player down (instead of a bunch of them like in the video).
  9. Yes, you can set keyframes manually, sure. The "whole character" option will keyframe the whole skeleton everytime you do it (instead of just the bones that moved). But it is, as you say, optional.
  10. Ok, so Im gonna post a WIP tutorial on how to export MD5 models and animations from blender to TDM. Its pretty rough, I will be polishing it as I go along: A couple of guidelines: - The mesh needs to be valid and clean with triangulated polygons; - It must be UV unwrapped and have a material applied (with one texture image); - Apply all transformations and modifiers before binding it to the rig; - No more than four joints may influence any one vertex, as far as vertex weights go; - Mesh must be parented to the rig; - Rig must have a root bone called origin. The origin’s translation on Z should normally be zero; - You can use the material file’s actual name as the blender material name, which will save you the need to edit the md5mesh and change the shader name manually afterwards; Quick step by step: After you model your mesh, uvunwrap it and apply a material to it (name it after your material in TDM); apply all transformations or modifiers. Build the rig, by creating a root bone, and from that, extrude all other bones (in edit mode). Rename the root bone (as “origin”). If the model was imported, make sure you delete all existing vertex groups. Parent the mesh to the rig (ctrl+p) with automatic weights, this will create vertex groups for each bone (make sure you dont rename them afterwards, the vertex groups should be named the same as the bones). To animate it, create a new action (rename it as “idle” or something), turn on automatic keyframe, activate keying set as “whole character” (optional?). Once you have your animation ready – make sure the action is selected in the dropdown list (doesnt hurt to select all the keyframes in the action editor window as well). On 3D view, in object mode, select the armature and then the mesh. Export (with the rig, the mesh and the animation selected). Place the md5mesh and md5anim files together inside the folder structure you need for your FM (example: models\md5\nature or props, etc); The md5mesh needs a material file (like any ase or lwo model) and a def file. The material can either be created specifically for the md5mesh and be set inside blender (as the material name) or you can edit the mesh shader manually (by opening the file in a text editor) and refer it to an existing material – find this line in the file and place the material name inside the quotes (you will need to do that for each mesh in your model): mesh { shader "materialname" The MD5 model will also need a def file, to be placed in a folder called def. The def file works like this: // your model name, description and author (optional) model yourmodelname { mesh models/md5/yourfolder/yourmodelname.md5mesh anim idle models/md5/yourfolder/yourmodelname.md5anim } entityDef atdm:yourmodelname //will define your entity name { "editor_displayFolder" "Animated Props" //or any folder you want to create in DR "spawnclass" "idAnimated" "model" "yourmodelname" "start_anim" "idle" //will start your anim "idle" automatically } This setup works for a "static" animated model, something like a bush moving with the wind, in a looped animation. The animated model, once placed inside your mission folder structure, will be available inside DR (remember to have your mission and TDM referenced in DR’s properties). To place it inside the map, you need to create it as an entity. This can be confusing, because the model (as a static model) is still available in the lists, but placing that in the map instead will result in an error and it wont show up at map start. I dont know exactly why that is. Im not 100% sure about some of the steps, any improvements or mistakes in the guide, let me know.
  11. I was looking into it, you can check the thread I made, Im gonna post a rough setp by step there right now: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19391-md5-models-and-animations-blender/ Its not that complicated, but there are a few things which you are trying to do that I didnt go into. I think for the chain to work as a physical object you will need to make it a ragdoll. I have no idea how to do that.
  12. Are you going for modeling, mate? Sounds good! If you are still considering it, if you havent already started learning your way around Maya, I would recommend you try Blender instead. Not only because it is free and open source, and because of all the online help, but because it is capable of pretty much anything you might want to do and it is also pretty light on your hardware, to boot. I mean, Im using an office laptop right now, several years old, integrated graphics card, and I can do all my professional work with it (as far as modeling for architecture) without a problem, including rendering. Some really heavy modeling can be an issue (stuff from a million polys onwards) when you have my kind of hardware, but any up to date system would be up for a lot more than that no problem. Very rarely would you go very very high poly if you are modeling for games, unless you are working with character sculpting and or environment/landscape modeling, or maybe when fooling around with 3d scans. Even then that are several steps that you can do to make it workable, and that is regardless of what software you are using. Anyway, just wanted to point that out, in case you are still wondering. I had a tough time learning it but now I have a blast, it is awesome. If you are commited to maya, Im sure other guys will know more about its hardware requirements
  13. Love the idea of community patches! Wish this will be a continued effort, and I like the choices you made here in terms of gameplay features (basicly the throwable holy water, and more freedom on wether or not you want to extinguish light sources (I myself barely do it, but Im sure a lot of people would like to experiment with that)). The blackjacking will have to be tested, though, because I always saw it as a small weapon that is only effective when you catch them off guard, it doesnt look or feel like the sort of heavy club that would instantly KO someone no matter what hes doing, because of the sheer blunt force. But I guess it does go in the direction of more "consistency". Either way, personal opinions apart, really glad to see this available to the community, Im sure people is gonna have fun using it!
  14. I kinda am with Obs here, though I do understand where everyone is coming from. Its common these days to see a lot of emphasis on formulas, you see that when you are starting to study film making, all the "pillars", the "golden rules" of storytelling that are supposed to make your story more appealing, to make sure its considered good. I actually like that, I think its interesting to try and identify what makes people in a certain cultural environment tick, and its specially important when you are talking about a commercial product where you need it to have popular acceptance, as a matter of fact. But for me its all about that romantic moment where, when it comes down to it, its you who ultimately decides what you really want your creation to be, and even though everyone creates stuff hoping everyone else will love it, the truth is that when you are free, you create it for yourself, and other considerations take a back seat. There are plenty of good answers here already so all I wanna say on the subject is that I would like to see more and more unique FMs. Not in the sense of distancing itself from others, coming up with crazy concepts, but rather by having that personal taste that you can feel when playing. Sorta how Sotha and Obs put a lot of effort on the challenge, the sneaking, or how Melan and Biker invite you to explore. Springheel and Demagogue talk about human tiranny. Things like that. Oh, and dont push yourself too hard, trying to master too many features in one go. Focus on the gorgeous architecture, or the patrol chess game, or on the dense plot. Dont try to make them all perfect in a single go. Its just too much pressure for your first work, and you *will* burn out. The rewards for creating FMs are modest, and you should do it in a way as to be a positive experience for yourself, and hopefully others.
  15. So lovely... Looks so nice with the dark grey environment, and that water. Brilliant. A lot of good work lately. Sppoks, that homepage screenshot is amazing.
  16. Well, the feet model I just provided you with is very well made, and is free to use. I already cleaned it from all extras and exported it from the blender original file. All you need to do is to import it to your model and replace the existing feet meshes. You dont need to sculpt or do anything else, apart from making a low poly version, which can easily be done with automatic decimating. They might even be uvmapped already, I didnt check. There are two different poses, a normal one and another with fingers apart. You can even keep the existing model if you want, but I see no reason whatsoever not to use this free asset to create another version of the model. Its very little extra work for the gain in quality. If you need any help, let me know.
  17. Thanks boys. Like I was planning, there shouldnt be too many materials, so I guess I'll have that going for me. The idea is to go for many meshes, and save on the materials. The fog helps with visportals, but I wasnt quite sure to what degree I should have the scenery broken down into separate models. Specially since the fog culling could possibly work better whith individual entitites, but I dont know that for sure. There's that definition of what the renderer can see at a given moment, but usually I refer to scene as what the mapper wants you to see happening inside a limited space. In general this would mean whatever is contained inside a visportaled area, that is readily available to the player to navigate in or look into. For example, I have a map with a big exterior scene that is broken down by invisible visportals, but it is supposed to be a single "scene". The portals are there to help when you are exploring the area, by closing off parts you currently cant see, but from the middle its all a single space. It might also refer to things that are taking place in there, like triggers awaiting the player, AI patrolling, special light setups, etc. These add up to the performance level of that area in particular. This is not a technical term, so sorry for the misunderstanding.
  18. In terms of the engine, lets say inside a visleaf, what is better for performance: a ) 10 models x 10K tris each (1 mesh for model) - all single models are scattered around the room; b ) 4 models x 25K tris each (2,5 meshes per model) - meshes are scattered around the room, but are grouped into 4 models; c ) 1 model x 100K tris (10 meshes per model) - meshes are scattered around the room, but are grouped into a single model; In all situations, you would have a total of 100k in a scene. Models would share a couple of materials between them. I might use vertex blend, so other materials might be introduced. So far Ive been working with an ambient light and a fog. Are tris culled regardless if parts of the model are being rendered on screen? What about calls, are less models better? Or are smaller models better, even if there are more of them? What about when you are going from one visleaf to the other (also with the same amount of models)? Im putting together some exterior scenes together, and wanna make sure I manage the models and meshes ok. Because of the amount of work and some of the effects being used, I would need models with as many meshes as you can get away with. Either way, unique models will be released as single entities when the work is done.
  19. Looking good! The normals are coming along, and the ropes are a nice touch. You could probably make them a bit thicker or add a few more loops so there'll be no empty spaces between the ropes and the body bag. Theres however a very strong seam going all the way on top of the body bag, did you detach the vertexes there? Hopefully its easy to fix. The uv seam should go along the side or the botton of the mesh. Since its a unique model with its own texture maps, you are free to paint over the seam and make it disappear. Took the liberty to download and prep a couple of great looking feet I found on blendswap. Here's the link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Al4XNpzYMsVvc2q4-Lzp7sr9oMo We'll need to credit cokufufixo They are already in the game scale, for you to use as reference (10,5 units high, about 27cms, as 1 unit in idtech4 equals 2,54cm). They are high poly for you to use and bake the normals. I did a simple decimating here in blender and could get them down to around 1000 tris each with little loss in quality, so you can go even a bit further in maya once you get them in place, etc. Ideally the whole model should be what, 3000 tris in total (Springheel)? PS: Dont worry about the process of importing the models into game for now, we'll be able to help with that once everyone is happy with the result.
  20. Sure, I know the feeling, I hesitate to delve too much on animation myself because 100% of what I do professionally (architecture wise) is about static models, so I should definitely be focusing on that alone. But Ive been looking into animations for TDM recently and I can help with simple stuff now. Have fun modeling.
  21. Hey chedap, I love the .ase exporter, it defaults to sensible options and gets the material right and outputs smaller files. I exported a new sword model I made, its not that small (around 4k) and it handled that beautifully. However, when I tried bringing in other models I was working on, I got this error while dmapping: "unknown token. 'MESH_FACE10000:' while parsing MESH_FACE_LIST". Obs pointed out it should be something with the exporter, and indeed, changing back to the previous one I was using, the models load in game without problems. Check out his post: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/9082-newbie-darkradiant-questions/page-328?do=findComment&comment=422955 . If it makes a difference, the models I was importing were on the heavy side, each had several separate meshes and the tris count ranged from around 5k to 15k (they are groups of trees). Hopefully this isnt difficult to fix? Thanks for this, its great work.
  22. That was exactly it! Thanks, my smart friend. Changing the exporter solved it.
  23. Hello Filizitas, and welcome. Hey, I quite like your model! I like the proportions of it, it looks pretty good from that point of view. Awesome start. I do think the feet need a bit more work, the anatomy needs to be a little more realisitc. You have the opportunity there to do a little sculpting if you want, the tendons, veins and bony parts, as well as the nails. But if that sounds like too much work, Im sure its nothing you cant find online, some free model with some cool looking feet you can basicly paste on your mesh. Good start with the texturing as well. I would however like to see the ropes as geometry, instead of a diffuse drawing. It will give the model a lot more punch. For such a fast model, great work. I noticed you dont animate, but since Springheel's references show the corpses in different poses, once you guys are happy with the results, send it over to me and I can rig it and pose it in a few different ways (unless Springs wants to do it himself). Sadly you work with Maya, and I use blender, that might make it a bit hard, but its worth a try.
  24. I guess its done? Just visited it and saw no problems at all. Its looking awesome, actually!!! That background pic is sooo sweet...
  25. Rooz - Have you read this tutorial yet? Should help you plan out your first few exterior scenes. http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=City_Street_Visportal_Tutorial A question, guys: Im getting an error when dmapping a map, it says "unknown token. 'MESH_FACE10000:' while parsing MESH_FACE_LIST". Never got this one before. I am trying to test a bunch of .ase models, they do load fine in DR, but this gives me no clue what is wrong with them and which one(s) it is.
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