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peter_spy

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Everything posted by peter_spy

  1. peter_spy
    It would be very interesting if you could elaborate on that.
  2. peter_spy
    On that note, I'd kill for some more Builder background and concept art
  3. peter_spy
    I'm not sure this analogy will work here, but here goes It's like you don't have to be an electrical engineer to "program" your washing machine. Or you don't have to be a programmer to use a computer. And, from the another perspective, it's like modeling by entering XYZ coordinates of every vertex by hand. Can I do it? Sure! Do I think it's a reasonable way of work? Absolutely not
  4. peter_spy
    That's why I'm not expecting TDM Team to write a sophisticated node-based material editor, or any material editor for that matter, I wish ID did it properly back then, just like other companies did (at least those who made their engines available to the public). And also, I don't need to dabble in code to understand, more or less, how scripting works, or how graphic pipeline works. Your perspective concentrates only on your approach and your particular experiences, which are not common, I think. Most people want to dedicate their time to practice one, maybe two specialties. Learning is fun, we get it, it's obvious. But not learning everything, and that also should be obvious. Level design already requires you to be a jack of quite many trades, and being jack of all trades, and master of none ultimately will be visible in your work.
  5. peter_spy
    I thought it was obvious that I meant average editor user, a level designer, who is used to do everything by the means of user interface, as opposed to writing code, learning syntax etc. And this is completely normal, other game editors out there have graphical user interfaces for as many things as possible. It's faster, it's one less obstacle to struggle with, and one less potential source of errors. Also, noone's expecting game editors to be modeling packages, just as noone is expecting it to be sound editing programs. This is where all aspects of game design come together, and while the external assets (sounds, textures, meshes etc.) are created in external programs, the way the engine handles them is internal. And those tools have to be accessible as well, to streamline work, to allow faster learning, and to minimize errors mentioned above. I know idtech4 is an in-house engine, and art + programming teams' collaboration in big studios is a normal thing, but defending code writing in this day and age is a bit ridiculous, especially for amateur personal projects.
  6. peter_spy
    Slow but steady progress I decided to iterate a bit on the roof section instead of rushing to texturing phase, and it paid off. It looks better and it should be more versatile to use (more on that later ). I'm also pleased with the polygon budget (700 poly / 1400 tris). I managed to stay pretty low without compromising the silhouette too much. Althought that meant some tedious work and deleting faces player will never see. With proper smoothing and normalmaps, there will be a more complicated shape going along these edges and faces, so it will look more complex than it actually is. And, less polygons means easier unwrapping, so that's always a good thing. Using symmetry helps a lot in controlling the texture space as well, so I can see whether I'll be using mirrored UVs or not. Roof, sure, but arches and wall sections could benefit from more unique space
  7. peter_spy
    No problem HMart, I'm not an English native either, so maybe I wasn't clear enough I'll try that editor in the meantime, although previewing materials is not a big problem: I work on a source (.xcf) file in Gimp which exports flattened image to tga automatically, so I just iterate, pres Ctrl+E, and use reloadimages or reloaddecls command in game to see changes. You're writing from a perspective of a programmer who's used to that stuff, not an average user. An average user doesn't want to write anything, because: a ) it's super slow, b ) possibility of screwing something up is multiplied by 10 000. People would just want to plug in texture sources, fiddle with sliders or enter numbers using certain range, check the result, and move on to next task. IMO we should include ASE format for models in all workflows as well, as it's more common. People are more likely to be using Blender, Maya, Modo or 3dsmax, where formats like ASE, OBJ or FBX are part of standard export workflows (e.g. Unreal engines have been using ASE and FBX for years).
  8. peter_spy
    Thanks HMart, but I think there was a little misunderstanding here I was talking about material editor as a part of DR interface, like 3dsmax's compact editor: I think especially for new mappers lack of UI editor for scripts and materials is quite intimidating. Like, if someone's been using unreal engines up to this point, he or she may never needed to write a piece of code.
  9. peter_spy
    Gnomon just uploaded a ton of great videos on YT. These workshops are awesome, but pretty long overall. The presentations are like 20 minutes per person though, so you can watch it in smaller chunks too.
  10. peter_spy
    If you're talking about UE's terrain tools, that would be a huge undertaking. If you take a closer look at this, it's a whole subsystem, where you can control the height, density, throw in tons of material layers etc. Having DR turned into UE would be cool actually, but I hope noone's seriously expecting it from TDM Team And speaking about modern functions, there are more pressing matters IMO, like having GUI material editor for example. Although again, I feel that might be a bit too much to ask for.
  11. peter_spy
    Also, I don't know how about you, but I don't like just many assorted technologies just thrown in together. Like, mappers still have to familiarize with current state of the engine and the editor, and we're not even at the point of mesh tilesets done the modern way.
  12. peter_spy
    I thought it was caulk, and my first thought was to change it to a regular texture, but you probably tried that already.
  13. peter_spy
    This is just a wild guess then, but have you tried moving this scene around? Right now, it's nearby, almost behind the wall it's projected on, maybe looking at the wall and what's behind it causes this weird error? Again this is just me guessing, but if the scene was like on the opposite side of the map, so you can never look at it and the target wall simultaneously? If anything else fails, you could use an old trick from Dreamfall, where such "corridor ends" used just static images. It just has to be far away, and you could sell that illusion better by mixing static background with some meshes. Not to mention it would probably be good for performance as well. https://youtu.be/IzmKASiX0oI?t=5m22s
  14. peter_spy
    I don't know whether I get it right, I but see you have that camera in the same place where player can move around, and it seems the HOM effect occurs only when you look directly at it, regardless of the obstacles in the way. What about placing that camera and the view in a place that is completely sealed off from the playable area? Edit: Nevermind, now I see that it is in a sealed off area, but it still occurs when you look at it. It's like two skyboxes fighting for attention.
  15. peter_spy
    Last time I saw parallax effect in action, it made all things look like jelly. I don't think it's a standard effect in games, even nowadays it's used rather sparingly, as it's another texture, or at least additional channel for your GPU to process. IMO, more often you'll see mixed modeling/texturing techniques, like ground textures + clutter parts modeled on geometry and using the same material, because it looks better and it doesn't require additional texture. On my list of priorities, it would be more useful to add a fresnel effect for example, in a form of material stage keyword, so we don't have to use a program.
  16. peter_spy
    This may help you a bit, if you're burned out or struggle with your design goals or work schedule: http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/how-to-have-best-level-design-game-environment-year.php Also: I'll have to disappoint you on that front, I'm male. Judith is just a stupid nickname that was relevant to me around high school, but everyone on TTLG and Thief related sites knows me under that alias, so I keep it. I don't use it anywhere else.
  17. peter_spy
    Well, in practice it's not quite like that. If you open any UT3 or Gears of War map, you'll see tons of static lights, whether it's larger area lights, fake bounce lights, or light sources like lamps, with materials faking things like pulse or flicker. Dynamic lights are almost never used, except for flashlights or vehicles maybe. That said, I always kind of liked stencil shadows. There was something nice about them in Thief 3, and in the whole engine, however broken. I can back to playing T3 though, because of the movement. TDM really spoiled me on that front
  18. peter_spy
    Still, it all comes down to how it's done. If it's lightmapping, you'll need to take care of shadow quality settings for brushes and meshes, and pk4 size will go up because of baked lightmaps. If it's still dynamic lightning, what's the performance hit, etc.
  19. peter_spy
    Then this wiki page must be updated as soon as possible: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Basic_Material_File I based all my materials on that info, and new mappers may do the same. Edit: But that's also a good news, since adding texture paths to this section was extra work.
  20. peter_spy
    It's the two stages for ambient world light and frob highlight to work right:
  21. peter_spy
    I'm using this and the reference page from ModWiki, but for someone who isn't used to write code, that isn't enough IMO. There are too many things that can go wrong, and your ability to troubleshoot is second to none when you're just starting. I've been writing down the examples I managed to figure out, and those you all helped me with, in my WIP thread, so that may someday be used as a base of references for someone who doesn't want to learn GLSL.
  22. peter_spy
    I think it would be great to have a comprehensive material reference page in the wiki, with code and pictures, since these questions repeat quite often. It's a huge task, but it would be great to have something like this: https://docs.unrealengine.com/udk/Three/MaterialExamples.html
  23. peter_spy
    That soft shadow technique looks cool at first, but it's not that good for character shadows in those screenshots. The question is, how it affects performance, since the lights will still be dynamic? I guess it's just some kind of shadow interpolation? Not that anyone's expecting a lightmapping system from TDM team, that's enormous task, and it would generate a whole host of other problems My thoughts exactly. But shadows using alpha channel could be useful for stuff like grass or leaves, since faking organic stuff is a bit harder.
  24. peter_spy
    Welcome to the forum, Carlton It's true that there are many variables here, and it can be really overwhelming. But, 3d stuff is kind of a lifelong hobby, you can learn things at your own pace. The important thing is to practice regularly, e.g. I had a few year break in modeling and I forgot a lot of useful things.
  25. peter_spy
    ^ My god this material was hideous. This is how it's supposed to look: https://skfb.ly/67xtM Also, after some initial problems, I can say that the roof section is shaping up quite nicely:
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