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great, when do i start ..and what do i start with. I wouldn't mind doing some character stuff, models, textures and concept designs. you will have to give me some polygon limits and texture size limits ..just so I know what to use.

I think there is a problem with putting something back. It is the physics engine. My guess why this doesn't really work in any game (none that I remember at least) is that it requires special coding to provide for it. If some object is standing in a i.e board, the character can not reach it really. So this means he he blocked by the bounding box of the board. To take the object the code simply looks if the player is near enough and then removes it from the world into the inventory (or players hands). If you would have to put it back, this would mean that the player would have to be near enough. But the bounding box prevents this. It would require a high precision to place the object back. But I think we can do this by either providing a seperate button OR by assuming that the player wants to put it back if the view vector and the distance is in a position near enough of the original position. We cimply must store the original location of the object and replace it in the case that one of the above is true. The nice thing is, that, if we allow this, we could even programm the AI to recognize moved objects. It could work like this. The player takes an object (i.e. a book). When he wants to put it back the object is placed randomly within the original region. If the player holds the button down for a longer time, the object will be adjusted and shift to it's original place. After a certain time it will reach the original place but that takes time. If the object is carelessly placed then the AI could recognize it. If the player takes the time the AI won't recognize it afterwards. What do you say?

Here's the first character for our Mansion Pack. I'm modelling the clothing after late 15th C. fashion.

Hi Alan. I'm the Lead Artist for the project. Your portfolio looks very good, and although we need to wait for Fingernail to get you set up, I think it's safe to say we could use you. The more modellers at the moment, the better, and I could use someone else to help me out with character art.

Ah, I've updated the links in that post so that it links to the new wiki site now: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=128770 For your convenience: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?...ng_The_Dark_Mod The SVN URL is: https://darkmod.homelinux.com/svn/darkmod/trunk/

Yep. Never, ever, ever outline the top lip with a darker colour than the center line. The center of the mouth should always be the darkest part, and the lengthiest part...it should always be longer than the top and bottom lip, especially on a male. Also, I notice that while the rest of his face seems slightly tilted to the left, his nose is staring straight at us. My best advice is to always work from a reference, until this stuff comes naturally. Still, there is definitely character and mood there...that can count for a lot.

Try removing the outlines from his lips, and relying on their colour and also shading (under the bottom of both lips) to distinguish them from the rest of the face. I think it will improve the look a whole lot. He character really comes across. Well done.

Take this as your startup guide: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6694 You'll need TortoiseSVN and checkout the Mod using that software.

I actually like the idea of a compound bow - don't they give you more force in a smaller bow? And it's definitely in-character.

I'm with oDDity on the proportions issue - with models of women, I call it the Titty Model effect. You see models of women wearing nothing but shoulder pads and a helmet, wielding gatling guns. Hell, on CGTalk there was a character wearing high-heeled armor boots that stopped at mid-thigh. She was, naturally, topless and wearing a metal thong. I hate stuff like that.

Ahh, but what I'm saying is that it's not meant to unbalance the game. It would be included as a fun immersion adding experience by the fan mission author to allow the character to get the tools he needs to play the mission. It would probably be the top objective of the mission. 1. Stop by the shop to get supplies for the job 2. Make your way to the Builder Cathedral and find a way in. That kind of thing. It wouldn't have to be there for show, but rather as an integral part of the mission...but again, only as an alternate to the pre-mission loading screen that Goldfish submitted. If the mission couldn't believeably use a shop, or the FM designer doesn't want it...use the original style preloading screen.

I was going to wirte to say that I couldn't commit to doing any characters, and I'd do some other quicker easier static mesh stuff, but that's some great character concept art Springheel has got there, and I'd love to have a go at it. I'm currently doing half a doen characters for Nightblade - a different engine, I know, and I've never worked in the quake/doom engine, but it's all pretty much the same workflow anyway. I take it you need a full set of animations as well? In Nightblade we're just using the default UT set with some customs ones added as needed, but I doubt you can do that with Doom. I have some characters up here, some hgh res some low. http://kappelmeister.tripod.com/cg/

Awesome, oDDity - I am so sick of seeing poser models. People dont' realise how much style there is available for representing the human body. You can always tell a poser model. Notice how you can always tell a Sims2 model. They have their own styles. We should make our own. I was wondering, oDDity if you were interested in modifying those humans to make our own kind of style, to base all the other models from. Eg. I noticed in the Thief 3 concept artwork, the style of everyone was this wierd, tall and lanky style, even in the face. It gave the artwork character, and a consistant, unique feeling across all the pictures. BTW - how nice to see a female modled with very REALISTIC proportions. If there's one thing I don't want to see in our game, its more unrealisticly huge bouncing breasts and impossibly thin waists. Enough games do that already. Besides, I don't know how anyone finds that attractive...

I'd like another job, since the modelling of the thief is nearly done. City guard would be very fun. I'm also cool with some equipment as low-key work - they'll be way easy compared to character modelling.

Variation on your theme. What it might look like on a character.

Yeah, such as giving her some hips.... I didn't mean any offense in questioning whether the models were yours or not. ( I can't tell if you were joking with "the nerve" above). I was just impressed with the apparent quality of the models. I've seen people take, say, one of the Poser character model meshes and try to pass them off as their own work which got the Daz3d people upset. But victoria's hawt.

I see the points. I made him grayish brown cuz I didn't think something living in the ground would have much pigment in it skin. Have adjusted some colors: I'm also not a fan of 'woo,' but my assignment was to create a creature to give variety to FM builders. He's not based on a crab... just has pincers. He's based on the character roaming around in the caves of T1. PS - Please send me a picture of a Crayman. I guess I don't know what they look like.

These are available to any modeller that wants them (Deep Omega already has them for the Thief character). ODDity likes some extra room to be creative and really doesn't seem to need them. If an animator wants some in-motion concept sketches, all they have to do is ask. I know nothing about animation, so I have no idea what would be useful.

Not necessarily. I'm sure the FM community at large will be more than happy to build their own custom content. Much better to provide a solid set of IK bones and walk (etc.) animations that can be customised than multiple variations on everything. It is, aftar all a (sort of) fairly streight forward proposition to plonk a crayman model and skin on top of a zombie bone-set and call it a beasticle. I hate to be the nay sayer (again) but we really should be concentrating on getting some basic characters in the Dooooom engine, getting them animated and ironing out all the problems as a priority. Hows about applying some thought to character animation and poses springheel and Darkness Falls. Something a bit like a story board (but for individual actions) that can be used a guide for key frames. How about giving some detail on the existing concepts. Or providing side and front views to make the modelling process that much easier.... Grrr. I really don't like making this point over and over because the concept art that you guys are producing is a treat. They really do look fantastic. But these are parallel tasks that can be taken up at pretty much any point. There are mission critical tasks that need addressing first. err, yeah - anyway. what the other guys have said. The grey and green colours are a bit alien-eseque. Are these things blind/poor sighted or do they have big reflective eyes for seeing in the dark? Big crayfish tenticles would be cool for feeling your way around in the gloom. Spiders. I want Spiders.

I have just experienced this bug for the first time! It got fixed by Alt-Tab'ing to another window, then going back to DR. But then I searched around the forums and found this thread, and I got it in my head to try to reproduce the problem. This time the problem was a bit different, and it would never fix, so I had to close DR. I really like toggling 3D movement, but if that capturemouse fix mentioned above can be implemented it would be good. However, I've never gotten the problem before now, so I think it could actually just be lived with if necessary, since it's so rare an pretty much benign.

It's coming along very well now, but you seem to be trying to bevel all the detail into the main body mesh, rather than making everything separate parts. That's ok for a low poly character, (even then if you look at the UT characters for example, every detail is a sperate mesh)but for a high res one there is no poly limit, so it's looks better if you model all the detail separately. Studs, straps, belts etc. Also try not to make everything look so perfectly geometric, mess the verts around a bit. What program are you using?

I'm currently reading though a shitload of stuff at that iddevnet site. It's going to make our jobs a lot easier. I don't loke the look of that AI scripting section though, have we got someone who knows C++ really well, and could write the (I imagine) very complex AI scipts our AI will require? Anyway, I'm glad my sections about characters aren't quite so enigmatic. I'll try to figure out how to get a completed normal mapped and animated character into the engine. edit: the link to the SDK seems to be broken though...

That face is AWESOME. AWESOME. It has so much character, and is a really cool blend of realism and carachature (sp). By carachature, however you spell it, I mean how you exaggerate features, in an almost cartoonlike way. That is the style of the original Thief games, if you look at the movie artwork. This is awesome.

lol, we really need to quit reediting our posts and just start making new ones...I keep waiting for new responses and don't look up at the previous replies til later. I'm all for Spar's idea. It's easy to do and adds has a nice style to it. But the actual menu options itself still needs the most work...something beyond the font to flesh it out a bit and give it some more character. Like we could make it look somewhat like an old Victorian scientific journal. Leave the text where it's at but have a nice little diagram drawn next to it that's somewhat connected to the option itself. Like a diagram of an eye with a few very tiny lines of text drawn underneath it (that can't be read, but look cool) next to the resolution settings. Something like that, and maybe a few little notes dashed in the corners of the pages to make it look like someone was using it for research... Oh, and maybe assign page numbers next to the options to make it look more like a table of contents. For the FM's we could do a simple script that assigns random page numbers to them in ascending order..like... The Seventh Crystal Pg. 104 The Inverse Manse Pg. 206 Or even simpler, just make the numbers static and have the first FM on the list placed next to it.

Rats could go here too. I would also add distant church or tower bells. I was thinking today about possibly having the sound of a group of pigeons taking flight when our character enters and atic or opens a window or something. Belching fire, rattling chains. Chanting and hymn-like singing Mission failed, death, some kind of ambient sounds for puchase screen? We could also use some ambient sounds for the menu screens. A flickering flame sound and rustling parchment.