Epifire

That section detailing the flying buttresses reminds me of the exterior of the Hammer cathedral in TDS. The precision with the perspective framework is a fantastic added touch. I had made some considerations for creating modular cathedral parts (sometime in the distant future). A 2D breakdown granting technical direction and possible thematic elements would be invaluable for something like that.

This is the core reason I'm not even making a mission based out of the city. Well that and there's just so many city types now, I think it needs to get shook up once in a while.

U'm does he have any unpacked asset folders in the core directory that could be interfering with the ones contained in the PK4? That's honestly the only time I've seen that kind of thing happen.

Once these release it's truly out of my hands at that point as to what people want to do with them, or if they want to kitbash/modifiy them with other existing assets. As for making additional skins, it would be difficult (but still possible) without using Substance Painter. Though I don't recommend it as most the control comes into play with smart masks and real time preview adjustments. I don't give out source assets (highpolys and working files) as a matter of principal, simply to maintain and supply legal grounds as the valid owner (should the need ever arise for it). It's a standard I uphold across all mods I've worked on but to that end I only share the final release versions for that reason. Once these files (among probably a hundred other bits of models) make their debut in a collaboration FM, I'll be seeing to a public release for community use.

Thankyou! Definitely doing a pingpong for themes between that and TDS in my art. Well the source files can definitely be edited to create additional skins later from Substance Painter. At current I had no plans of additional skins but it's still open should there be a valid enough reason in the future.

Aight, well I wasn't planning on showing these till Lord Edgar's Disappearance shipped but we have enough home grown goodies still left in there as a surprise. Made up a safe set to flesh out the mechanics for two different kinds of safes. There's a standing floor version and a wall mounted one. The set is designed specifically for having fully script controlled mover actions. credits to Goldwell for scripting and recording this wonderful gif There are single and dual lock optional doors, with locked and unlocked clasps for scripting as well. So like four optional doors to use for both safe types.

That's really good to know about the difficulty spawnargs. I'll have to write some of this down when I actually do up my own FM (someday?). Something else directly pressing in some recent work I've been trying to do. Long story short, I need a Sub Surface Scattering shader. I feel like it should be possible but I'm not one to judge as I can't make them myself. Does anyone have an existing shader program available that could apply a kind of thickness based highlight from local point lights to said object?

Alright I think we're getting somewhere. So this begs the question what happens when we hit escape during a mission load? Would we insert the regular menu, or maybe have the active player preview blurred into the background of the menu elements? The latter totally being an HL2 trait, but having the option would be cool. I think the code/scripting elements would be comprised in the same method. You'd just be targeting the actual player position when a mission is loaded. Whereas when just the main menu is loaded on startup it could run through one or more entity plotted positions in your startup map. I know I most certainly would use this in my own work if I had the option to do so.

Now this is my kinda menu! A couple things I'm curious about is exactly how this is setup and how far it increased load times? Naturally you'd have a the core level it's taken from gutted and saved out as a menu map. Keeping only the components and key areas that are required to be visible. If you ever wanted to go a bit more in depth, you could have a camera path track like what Unreal Gold's menu used for a flying camera. Maybe a bit of nostalgic flare!

I don't think it's exactly needed that we have a menu rework, but high quality material elements layered in would be badass. I'm a big fan of mission themed menus. I don't think it would work so well with id4 load times but I'd love to setup my own menu maps with an active camera view of the world (yes like HL2 ).

Generally I've noticed ase files tend to store redundant file data whereas a lwo file is usually more slim. My main thing is the plugins I've tried with Blender were pretty buggy for ase, combined with the fact I didn't want to manually have to edit paths afterwards. In my time working with models on the id4, lwo files are just present less headaches as they've been more straightforward.

It looks like those viewport shots are primarily relying on a phong shader. I'd be interested in seeing what he'd do in TDM with proper normal maps applied in the final shots. @freyk If he is interested in getting into any kind of modeling, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand getting him setup with exporters and stuff to use. Or just any general advice if needed!

From where I'm sitting, as long as they are indeed free to use and there are no qualms about it being added to the content base; then I'd suggest a import/export with Blender. Lwo files are even better yet as long as you're able to get decent smoothing on export. They're a fraction in file size compared to ase, which is why I use them so heavily. That and it just happens to be the only plugin that works for finalizing my meshes out of Blender. Shoot me a PM if you want me to take a crack at converting some of those for you.

Some great looking art there. The first one really gives off some original Thief intro movie vibes. Too bad I've got my own FM work on hold right now else I'd jump right on board with any kind of collaboration to offer. Definitely will be keeping you in mind for recommendation as I continue work on other projects here. Also I'd be thrilled to see a personal page with more of your illustrations if you had one available.

Question for all you fellas regarding difficulty options. Is it possible to have variable scenarios and condition states (for script objects in a world) that respond to difficulty settings? I was thinking to myself how it would be to have different doors, and world features that could be enabled (or disabled) depending on if you were playing easy/med/hard, etc. Maybe people do this already and I haven't seen it? It does seem like a less linear way of adding more play through value by changing the actual scenarios based off the difficulty. In this sense you could funnel, or even bottleneck areas to increase the challenge presented to the player. That grate or sewer access could be locked in a harder playthrough, whereas it's open on easier difficulties to provide more options. Or you could take it a step further and have whole environmental changes that are set to be visible or removed. Maybe a pain to setup but the result would be pretty cool.

If I were to have enough control on the frames I would try and make a longer simulation. Find a low point in velocity (somewhere in the middle of the simulation) and split the animation frames and loop them back to the start. Practically what you'd do to seamlessly loop a gif. Then again I don't know how the organizational tools are for that kind of method. In theory it's simple but if the tools don't permit it would be practically useless to attempt. You'd heard my previous thoughts at animations machines in the past, but I am serious at getting some fundamental animation skills down eventually. I just didn't know if I was gonna try for Blender or wait till I move from Softimage to MayaLT.

My Blender skills are pretty rough but considering Vertex anims aren't near as much of a pain as adding bones, I'd be really interested in learning this method. Animations are the one thing I'd really like to press more in my skill set. Probably targeting cloth simulations to start with, but I'm really curious as to how this would look with a fully sculpted out cloth asset (like a flag or a curtain).

If you need any help with retopo on those I might be able to help with getting your target poly values. Softimage and Topogun have some nice features to aid that. ALSO, if you're seeing some highres models (like a 1m polys or more) I can probably finish it up and get you a lowres that's textured. As long as I have the highres anyway. PM me if you're interested.

For sure. I was definitely seeing it as a 2.06 (if we can get to it) kinda feature. Personally that's my favorite iteration and usage of the ambient world method. But I think that only applies to an FM you're building rather than adding that to the list of already complete FMs.

Part of this Noodle is how the mapper has setup the ambient darkness levels in their map. By default most mappers here will have this base, "darkness threshold" well within a comfortable spectrum for their play style. The problem is that some players like a darker ambient than what was decided to ship with the map. What you're talking about is something of a hard mix filter for the screen. I think it would be a great addition, but I'm not sure that can be harnessed with the current graphical methods in TDM. A more likely option would be the ability to override the ambient darkness values (since I think there's specific code to target that entity by name?) with a parameter that ensures values would be no brighter than x or darker than y. I could be all wet about that, but I'm pretty sure that's the only method that could work effectively for user customization.

Yeah honestly I'm kinda wondering how the Stanley Parable beat that. The new version isn't even a mod, it's an actual game paid with cash now... Then again people (including news outlets) have their select favorites.

To the first response. I thought we were just adding in different languages as an additional plus right? Like, if we had the opportunity and a willing user to help out but I think that goes in stride with the rest of the mod. That being we're really only able to add things where we have viable opportunity. Maybe I'm just coming in late for the debate and not getting the whole picture but we're not a major studio; we just kinda take those options when they present themselves. For achievements I'm really curious how that would work. I honestly feel like some should be attached to well supported FMs/campaigns over neutral ones that trigger from any mission. Mainly because some achievements are pretty specific whereas others are not. That also begs the question of how you would implement that to the Moddb version. Unless support is being discontinued from moddb, you're making client changes that can only affect steam versions. The dilemma as I see it is that TDM is taking a transition and different features (and different members) are on the fence over the new changes. Things like making an official TDM game (payed for as an actual studio) simply cannot be done on a mod this old. The FMs and sorting out royalties would be absurd and it's just a bad practice since it's pretty much shouting, "cashgrab!" to any onlookers following the mod. To be fair I think donations could work with the new steam based version, if it was dealt per FM (in the downloader options). Say an author opts in for donations, we'd have details setup for them that would be implemented as another button element for the mission screen. This is the only way I could see that working. Because older FM authors (and people that aren't even here anymore) still are unaffected and remain as they were. Whilst we grant another option to support more content moving forward. It's not imposing on the consumer either because it's purely optional too. Kinda a way for people to give a little love to a game we've all poured our heart and soul into. Just ideas but I think it has some leeway to supply some greater longevity in content for the future.

I have a feeling it will remain a cult classic but one I'll be happy to see as long as it's true to it's origins.

Excellent video Goldwell! Really good to see something updated vs outdated information. Any possibility we'll be seeing this pop up on the TDM twitter account guys? It's a lonely account, it hasn't had an update in a while.

I'd watch that. I loved Turbo Kid, not sure if I ever saw Kung Fury tho.