Epifire

Oh sorry bout that. More in part to my funky naming conventions but it's in my uploaded stuff listed as charger_mast_001. It has one skin and loads in two texture sheets, which should all be in the epi-repository. But yeah I look at it now and the name is seriously jank.

Just finished up some wood arch work here. I felt the hallway was still too bland structure wise. I think what I might do is maybe have lights, ropes, chains and other stuff hanging from these to change it up? Who knows.

My plans are to use this for those, "iconic" locations where it would benefit the most from long dramatic shadows. The other thing too that I've figured out is that as long as the light can be set in a good position the wall or surface it's casting to really doesn't matter for topology's sake. As long as the fake-bake shadow is ran from the same angle (as the light entity to the actual prop in-game) the game takes care of the rest. I really wish we had some kind of modified light entity for this. Primarily so we could denote a target mesh that would only receive light (without the texture). Then you could place a single directional light in DR and assign the mesh along with the appropriate soft shadows texture. The best part is it's pretty easy once you know what angle you want to run with. There's usually just a tad bit of tweaking in editor to make sure the shadow doesn't float but can be traced from the base of the object it's casting from. I'd be willing to toss together a tutorial about it just to show people the basics of it. Only thing is it would be from Softimage rather than Blender.

Finding a good method for some fake-bake soft shadows... Extremely situational as the bake lighting angles in Softimage must match the mesh to light node position in the level. Otherwise it's not really too accurate. What I can do is think up a fairly simple angle with my mesh and a wall. Then I go into my modeling app and duplicate the scenario with a bake plane as the wall to receive the shadow. Bake it out and then run it through a light. The other obvious problem is I have to use two lights. One to cast the fake-bake shadow and the other to simulate the lighting source in front of the object. It's a small workaround but it would be extremely helpful to have a special means of flagging a certain mesh for the light to, "skip" rendering the light image over. Otherwise I will stick with using two lights for now.

Looks really handy. I for one have never really made a Skybox or cubemap for that matter. I feel like alignment and seams would be a complete pain to work on by hand. Handy dandy tools to make the process easier is always a plus!

Ah yeah, great points to start out with. It probably would be under the heat haze program that I'm needing. To be fair I really don't want to do a lot to it, I mainly just want to get the distorting with some slight color variation. Kinda like this example here... With source that's literally just a diffuse and normal map with a additional block to define that it's a refracting shader. I'm not looking to do a lot more than that really.

Gonna be trudging through materials to find appropriate definitions, but does anybody have good references they know of for a refracting material? I'm wanting to make some glass with specific cuts and angles that would distort the image behind it. I should only need a normal map and some diffuse information as I'm assuming, but I haven't actually done that in this engine yet. Shortly I'll be baking some glass here, but I was kinda hoping some of ya'll has some tips as to good glass makings. Should be fairly straight forward after the modeling portion but I'm more curious as to what goes on for the glass warp. Most the materials I've already looked at use more generic methods, whereas I'm wanting to use direct input maps to control the distortion/specular effects.

Also as a note, it's super easy to transfer files and screenshots as I've found out. I've tried stuff with Skype before and it's slower than molasses. Kinda one of those things you can chat and toss stuff back and forth if you're working directly with someone on a project. I did that when working on a simple mesh a couple nights back and it worked great. Good for quick feedback.

I just bout lost my stuff when I saw all that magnificent stone for the road.

Currently Me and Bikerdude were trying to setup the servers before I went offline for a while. We had Xarg and Goldwell in there last night, so we're starting to get more people involved. I myself just leave Discord running for whenever I'm online.

Want to chat with the folks here while working on that new FM? Or just chill with fellow TDM goers? Look no further, we now have Discord! Download! https://discordapp.com/download Can be ran through browser optionally TDM Channel: https://discord.gg/0pXtSX7AX7m2noV9 Bump this thread if this link needs refreshed! The chat app is completely free and is geared towards us gamers. So unlike dumb things with Skype or Teamspeak, it's simpler and is easier to navigate. We're hoping to get a standardized chat room (with various categories) in place where people can talk one on one about projects, or just for coordinating on playing online matches with folks here from the forums. Took me a while to get around to this as I was offline for probably like a month before getting my internet back. So pardon my dumbness of most things interwebs! Otherwise if you have any requests for specific channels you'd like to see added let us know. We're just getting things setup for the first time, so currently it's still a little bare.

It really doesn't pay to be a guard in this game. Downloading now.

Well one thing to note. If you're going to go with a lot of blue colors, mixing with harsh reds can be an issue. Dark/diffused amounts of green is a great way to offset red so that your blending doesn't produce purples as much. I found that out when working on my very red corridor scene that blue and reds have a strange tendency to look overly bright and colorful when combined together. The example here you can see the green almost comes off as more of a grey but it makes the darker parts of the scene more subtle... But if using green it's usually much less noticeable, and preserves your reds more. Just thought I'd throw that out there as something to keep in mind. This may help you a lot when transitioning torches for instance, from an indoor scene to an outdoor location.

Super! That's exactly what I was needing, strange I didn't run into that earlier on my search in the wiki. Other idea I've had in mind for more lighting control... Can we use animated/scrolling textures cast through a light as a material? I had this crazy idea about having a smooth transition when opening or closing a door. This is a tangent I ran off on earlier when I decided I'd cast some shadows through a light material so I could have soft edges. The idea is to bake a shadow of an operating table (when finished) and then bake a really creepy shadow of the silhouette to cast with a light for the final result. Then I came up with the idea of a door way or moving objects in shadows. On second thought something like a fan shadow or something would be super beast with this. As stop/start times wouldn't need to be timed specifically. All these ideas, it's no wonder I get so side tracked.

Oh well that's a screenshot of Wolfenstein: The New Order which utilizes all Megatexture detailed surfaces. As most of you already know I'm going to attempt a Megatexture (or several thereof) for my current project. Wolfen-NO has all that overhead room for extreme detailing so all they have to worry about finicky blending options for the world details. I'm not completely certain how their actual toolset works, but you're supposed to be able to slap anything onto a surface and then just save the details into the Megatexture you have loaded for your current level. So no matter how detailed the material is in the editor, it all gets baked down into diff/norm/spec information in the end. What interested me in this decals bit is having other options. Say for instance if I just wanted to make a cool detail for one part (without making a whole texture sheet for that part of the map) I could just add decals per instance where needed. The obvious downside to the Megatexture's all unique surface detailing is that it's huge in file size no matter what. My plans are to only commit large geometrical faces (that are being tiled). So I'm more like Megatexture v0.5 as far as the theory is concerned. The optional decal method is just really handy if you're trying to sidestep the massive undertaking of manually created Megatextures.

Do elaborate? While I'm going to be heading up the idtech5 texturing process in all unique surfaces, I'm curious as to the other method for smaller instances?

So much work leading up to this, I'm just dying to show all that I have in plan even for this demo. There's two other planned sections currently that I haven't shown yet. The lower Laboratory section and an adjacent vent shaft leading out from that point. It'll be short and sweet but I'm banking on presentation over game length for this bit. My hands are tied when it comes to some other aspects, so you'll be seeing me reaching out for some assistance down the road no doubt. It's bold but I have plans for a single, new NPC that I cannot implement completely on my own. My hopes are that you guys like the core of this mission so much I can get some help to bring it into fruition from it's demo state. Only time will tell but I can't emphasize just how cool it is to work with people here on something as fun as The Dark Mod. Even if I do end up getting on at some studio, I see myself helping with small projects around here on the side anyway. EDIT: OKAY okay, this should probably be it for a while. I'm detailing some of the existing images now that are finished so they can be passed onto the painting later on. Either way it sure beats the plain ambient occlusion maps. Behold, diffuse details! Specular details and proper dirt shall be added later, but this is much closer to the what the ending product will look like!

Hey guys, when I need to start sending the Castle Lab to folks for testing is there a standard method for packing a mission easily? Like right now it's kinda a pain because I have to go and rummage all my content folders to pull out all the models, skins and anything else I've customized for a level. I was looking in the beginners guide and they just covered compiling. Are there any pack tools that just pack by in manner by used assets in a level? I know we had something similar with BSP stuff back in my Source modding days. I mean I can certainly just smack all the contents into a pk3 but it'll get really time consuming to do that a lot for iterative testing periods.

This is pretty awesome for something just out of the box. And it looks like they even offer software to easily combine your own sounds to mix and balance if I'm not mistaken? The sounds interlacing in some of these (especially the factory) really remind me of some Thief levels with the Hammers. I'm not one for using other pre-made assets whole sale (because I'm just that stubborn to learn myself). An application to aid in this process sounds a lot better than hassling with the crude layout in Audacity. I do want to pick up FL Studio when I do make the plunge into sound work. The dream is to make games for a living and do sounds work as my hobby, but that'll have to wait a while longer. This may certainly help a lot in the meanwhile. Many thanks for posting!

So my progress has been slow as I've been working more on special side projects for other mappers around here lately. But I've been experimenting with different (very low) amounts of fog in the staircase. I'm also done with the major structural portions in the staircase tower, so now it's down to creating a maze out of it. Gonna bust out the walls, create blockages and most generally just not make it an easy, straight shot to the top... The dirt is a lousy placeholder until I get around to the texturing pass. It's going to look loads better when detailed as I'll be able to paint over geometry edges and have very fine amounts of dirt/debris. I'm looking forward to getting to the texturing but at the same time I'm scared of how it's going to hold up in my attempts to combine lots of smaller 4k images into several fairly large ones. All together I'm not entirely convinced I can make a megatexture out of it without the proper tools. Though heaven help me, I will have most of the large surfaces left as unique surface details. Even if it does increase the load time, I'm pretty sure my vram can take it. How that holds up on other rigs outside of my own demo test is a different question though. NOTE: Besides the dirt, everything is being shown in normal maps and ambient occlusion only. No special diffuse details have been added in yet.

Tweaked version of the warehouse is good. TDS was where I came onto the scene with the Thief games, so all the blue is definitely very reminiscent of Ion Storm's take on the game. Epi-Approved!

I actually miss the simplicity of my old Microsoft Sidewinder. Sucks to find out Microsoft shut down the Sidewinder series in 2014. I have the Logi502 but I'm not as hip with the button layout. The two buttons off the side of the left click are just kinda awkward if I bind them to anything but an inventory up/down selector. Otherwise if it's a weapon I always end up bumping them by accident.

Well if you ever want that certain brush based spiral staircase turned into a model... *whistles looking in the opposite direction*

For me it really depends on the project. A lot of the time I bank on themes and plots because I'm a details guy and most my inspiration comes out of those two. I generally invest most my time into the art aspect (as good art is rather time consuming) but gameplay is equally important to me. I'm extremely abstract in terms of my construction methods as sometimes I start working on some quick art pieces to anchor my themes in the level with. I also like to light things (at least with basic coverage) very early, as I tend to use that a lot for highlighting objectives and important areas. I try and pick out as much as I can with mood and pacing as early as I can as well. If I nail down exactly what I know is going to take part in the space I'm creating, I can leverage the rest of the development around that understanding. At this point I've done enough to know roughly what I'm expecting to do or see in my level, so if I'm not sure I don't work right away. This is a really big deal as a lot of people push themselves to work just because they have the time to do it. It's bad when you're unsure of your whole direction, as that often leads to redoing things later when you better realize the project. This isn't to say I don't take notes, or block out layouts. Here's a bit behind how my workflow for the current Castle Lab demo I'm working on... I had most the story to the setting scripted out in my head, but the basic jist of it is that you gotta steal a special device from a mad scientist. You're breaking into an underground lab through a vent shaft. This leads into the lab, and after stealing the device, you have to escape through a old access tower. It's a run down and unused part of the castle, so it's a maze of floors to cover. What's worse is Hadrian (the scientist) is onto your stealing of the device. Now what that boils down to is that the stair case surrounds a chain lift (elevator) suspended in the middle of the shaft. Hadrian in a fit of rage activates his robotic monstrosity (which was currently on standby on the central lift). Now with this behemoth slowly rising through the central shaft, you have to beat the mechanical monster to the top. The lift is slow and churning, but you've got a lot of stairs and obstacles to cover. So the latter end of this mission/demo is about the tension and practicality behind a narrow escape. That being said I still didn't have a clear idea what was needed to make this interesting. So I blocked out a stair case to start with... All this did though was let me know just how boring stairs get ascending ten flights to the top. Sooo I cut it down to seven total (which was far better than ten). But I had to mess around in my blockout version to get an idea for it all. Quite a good deal later (in the above shot). But having much more rounded/organic structural details aided the project as a whole. Then I realized I needed additional details per floor to break it up even more. So then I created a list of what needed to be done (so that I didn't lose track or forget!). Each number signifying an individual floor. "1: Intro and a lotta dirt (maybe cob webs?). 2: Continued dirt and then some barrels.3: Storage with lots more barrels.4: Wall shackles, maybe storage slots for bodies in the walls?5: Blown out ceiling from the floor above. Tunnel through the storage recesses.6: Blocked passage is resolved by a very small cat walk outside the windows (windows must be busted out for this!).7: There's a hole in the center of the floor with some makeshift bridge across it. The ending picklock scene is also here at the end." Short and to the point, but it covers most the major details I needed to keep track of. Right now I'm actually tackling the first floor and tearing out walls to put in a lot of dirt and debris. So it's not done yet but that's just a bit of insight on my current work I'm doing. But even still I've really not been hammering away with this near as much. Working on side projects with other TDM authors on their own work to break things up a bit. For a while I just had to set it aside after just slamming out the highres to lowres mesh work nonstop for three days. I'm career minded about all the game work but I have no team yet. When on your own, you've gotta find a stride that works for you. For me I know for certain I make super bland art when I'm feeling either uninspired, or just plain simply tired and wanting to unwind after a long week. We all have lives outside of TDM (most of us anyway ) but sometimes you really just don't want to build things on your days off. I had about two weeks of just brain mush moments, and just simply wanting to relax on my days off. And that's okay, because when I come back I just pick up at a suitable point and continue. Running yourself into the ground is the worst idea. If you're career minded like me, you may ask yourself, "how am I supposed to do this all the time like the pros?" But you have to realize most those devs aren't working a grocery job on the side (the games are their job). So it's easier to get burned out when you simply just don't ever seem to get a break. When you're working on games exclusively as your full-time job it's totally a different kind of scenario. You're not having to put in the hours when you get home, because you already did that at the office. So it's not my own excuse but my reasoning as to why I have to take purposeful timeouts. When you feel rested and are both mentally and physically able to handle both, then it's great. But you have to make room for the human factor, and not beat yourself up over it (so otherwise not being Epi) So there's my two cents.