[Resolved in TDM 2.0] Untethered Dark Mod

[Tels]

rich: I added your material definitions and did some general cleanup, adding other missing things. Thanx!

 

Since the lists of missing lights and material shaders on the wiki are now quite outdated, I removed the light/s part of the list and will replace them soon with a new list.

 

I did not use your light texture replacements for two reasons: Some of them looked quite different to the original, esp. the biground one. Since this is used in almost all our lights, we need to make sure it matches very closely, otherwise the appearance of FMs will change, possible even influencing the lightgem (10% difference in brightness might make a real difference). Also, the original textures are only 128x128, and we want to raise their quality at the same time.

 

Here is a screenshot showing how low-resolution that actually is (each white square is one pixel in the light texture):

 

 

So we want to go to 512x512 (we can always scale them down again if we want). Esp. important for light textures that contain shadows (like grate lighs etc), as these structures suffer esp. from the low resolution.

 

Sorry that I didn't post this earlier, it escaped me that you probably are not following the internal thread.

[Tels]

There are a few things that are really hard - like creating a new zombie + animations. However, we also have a few jobs that won't take any decent modeller more than 10 minutes.

 

These original D3 models are used in some FMs:

• models/gibs/brain_2xb.lwo
  
• models/gibs/gib_left_arm.lwo
  
• models/gibs/gib_left_leg.lwo
  
• models/gibs/gib_right_foot.lwo
  
• models/gibs/gib_torso.lwo
  
• models/gibs/left_waist_pork.lwo
  
• models/gibs/lup_leg_pork.lwo
  
• models/items/shells_ammo/shells_large.lwo (this one is doubtful, unless the FM also reskinned it, it will look out-of-place)
  
• models/mapobjects/caves/caverock1.ase
  
• models/mapobjects/hell/mancroom/bars.lwo
  
• models/mapobjects/lights/cagelight/cagelight.lwo
  
• models/mapobjects/tables/bunkbed/mattress.lwo
  

All these are very low-resolution, and use very low-resolution blocky D3 textures. Your job would be:

 

* recreate these with a higher detail (if nec.), in a format you choose (LWO or ASE is fine, our engine can now load replacements in a different format if nec.)

* use stock TDM textures that match closely the original (if possible make it look better OR create a new texture (possible one texture for all the GIB models)

* Post the results somewhere so I can merge them.

* reap praise and hear fanfares play for you, virgins will be optional

 

Here is one I did as a 20minute hackjob in DR from a brush (we won't use this, tho). You can see the texture already looks close, but better, even tho the model itself is not good (it's a brush, so concave). I am sure a real modeller can do much better in half the time.

 

[demagogue]

Yeah those would be good specifically for people that want to get their feet wet modeling, they can start with something more simple.

[RPGista]

Well, organic models are not exactly easy to model or texture, but untill "decent modelers" appear, I can try taking one of the simple ones here and have a go at it (like a foot).

[demagogue]

I have an important announcement to make to everybody. As I get more information, I will probably make a dedicated thread about it eventually with details, but for now I'll make it here.

 

One of the issues we've had with a standalone package is the copyright issues of dealing with replacing the old D3 assets with new standalone assets, and of course since I'm the resident lawyer, people sometimes come to me with questions. So I went online to do a little research, and I ended up sending an email to a public interest group on digital liberty rights that seems to deal with these kinds of matters, asking some questions. And it seems the group was so interested in our situation that they've decided to take on our case! That is, they've got a lawyer and two interns doing research for us to make sure our standalone release package will be above reproach as we work on it, and they'll put out a good research report for us and we could be in some media releases they put out about the future of digital liberty. This is very cool, folks, and I think it gives us some cachet. We'll be like a poster child for digital liberty in modding, which I know many of us here care a lot about.

 

Anyway the group is called New Media Rights: http://newmediarights.org/ . Some of the guys and gals working on our case may be posting on our forums; if they do, let's be sure to make them feel welcome and that we are very appreciative of the work they're doing for us!

[lowenz]

http://www.pcgamer.c...hange-its-role/

 

A Steam release of The Dark Mod in future is now more possible than before?

Edited July 12, 2012 by lowenz

[Tels]

http://www.pcgamer.c...hange-its-role/

 

A Steam release of The Dark Mod in future is now more possible than before?

 

Only when TDM is fully stand-alone, and this is still very far away - we have only made progress on the easy things (some material shaders, GUI files, scripts etc) but the hard things (animations + models + sounds) still are not replaced yet and no help is in sight.

[demagogue]

Yes, if anybody knows some talented artists that might be keen on modeling and animating for us, try to recruit them to the cause. Going standalone is a massive task and we could use some help.

[demagogue]

I received this email from Art & the NMR team, which was the legal group helping us stay legal when we go standalone. They have given us a helpful research memo with some nice tips.

 

As you all can see from my Off Topic thread, I have to raise money for my own law project! This is the nature of the beast of public interest law. So I'm in a difficult position to help much. But I wanted to post this to everybody, and I think people can decide for themselves as individuals if you want to donate something to NMR for what they've done. For people on the team, you have access to the memo, so know what they've done. (It isn't a great idea to make it public for obvious reasons). But I thought I'd post the donation request publicly also in case any of our fans were interested in donating also, as a way to contribute to the mod in some way. Also this group has dedicated themselves to helping projects like ours do what we do without compensation, so you're giving to a good cause.

 

Also if we'd like to pool together some money to donate collectively as a community, we can talk about that here too.

 

 

Hi Cade,

 

It's Art Neill from New Media Rights. We were glad we've been able to work with you on your efforts to make the Dark Mod a standalone mod. You'll be hearing more from us shortly on the project.

 

I'm writing to let you know that we are now open for donations from the public again after finalizing a new partnership with California Western School of Law, so I'd like to ask you to donate to New Media Rights. Despite the new partnership, our services to creators like you and the Dark Mod community are still completely independently funded, so we depend on donations from individuals.

 

Click here to donate now

 

Typically legal services in our field cost $200-$500 an hour, and every year New Media Rights gives away 1000s of hours of legal services for free. If you feel that you've benefited from our help and would like to ensure that our services are available to others in the future, please consider donating.

 

It would be ideal if you and some of your team members could give at least $100, but we are grateful for whatever amount you can give. Individuals and organizations donating $250 or more become "Founders" of New Media Rights and have the option of being recognized on our Founder's page. I

 

If you or the Dark Mod community can give more we can definitely talk about additional sponsorship and recognition opportunities, just send me an email with your ideas.

 

Please let the broader community know about the opportunity to donate, we are grateful for any contribution.

Once you've donated, make sure you've connected with New Media Rights on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. We also keep our community up-to-date through our newsletter that we send every 6-8 weeks: http://www.newmediar...org/newsletters.

 

If you're interested, you can check out this new video explaining our work, our new partnership, and why you should donate.

 

 

Thanks so much for being part of the New Media Rights community.

 

Sincerely

 

Art

[SeriousToni]

Why is the asian guy showing me the flip off?

[ungoliant]

Why is the asian guy showing me the flip off?

 

all this stuff is really important and awesome, but toni wins the thread.

[SeriousToni]

And that's how I became famous.

[CheatCat]

I cannot see any legal issues if you use your own textures and models.

[demagogue]

Yes. There are two catches. One is that sometimes you are forced by the game to use something that looks a certain way and you don't have much liberty to change it... like the light textures (a circle is a circle), or some code, especially the data files which literally require you to have the data in a specific format, etc. We can feel pretty sure we have protection for using or minor-tweaking these kinds of assets and files, but it's still something to make sure about.

 

The other catch is that textures and models do not grow on trees. We need artists to actually make these new textures and models and keep them at the high level as our other textures and models, and we can't go fully standalone until we get those contributions. So if anybody knows any digital artists that might like to contribute, we could use them.

 

Actually there are a couple of other catches too, but I think those are the two big ones.