peter_spy
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Posts posted by peter_spy
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These are gameplay-oriented tricks, not standard practice. Doom 3 might have used it in some sections, but neither Thief series, nor any other non-stealth games use that on a regular basis.
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Well, that's what the color range standard is for. It will look a bit washed out on every screen, but there won't be any pitch-black parts, and users can adjust brightness and contrast as needed. All games and movies use that. Some games use that night vision system too (like Thief reboot), not instead of ambient light setting, but as a complementary measure.
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That ambient lightning part might be a bit confusing for newcomers. Ambient lightning is good, not only because it brightens the pitch-black areas. It also works like color range standard for movies and television (e.g. movies never use 0-255 color range). It allows similar experience for people using different brands and models of hardware. There are millions of combinations of monitor brand, model, Windows color profile, graphic card driver and settings, and the in-game gamma setting. Ambient lightning is the easiest way to take it all into account.
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Btw. long ago, there was a mod for Mount and Blade called Polished Buildings, the author made an excellent tutorial on modular buildings. English translation is a bit rubbish, but you'll get the idea:
http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/0/09/Modular_MountBladeMod_01.jpg
http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/a/af/Modular_MountBladeMod_02.jpg
http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/9/93/Modular_MountBladeMod_03.jpg
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That's 6 materials. I guess apart from the two decals which probably use one texture per material, the rest has to use at least two 2 textures per material, glass probably uses more (cubemap etc). You can be efficient with big textures, e.g. you can divide your mesh into interchangeable parts, like in the exploded view. Of course that requires a bit more planning. E.g. these parts use one material per set:
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Well, that's the usual workflow, you have to maximize the efficiency of 0-1 space and yet allow for some flexibility, but with as few textures as possible. On that note, I wish unwrapping wasn't such a chore, it almost feels like punishment for the joy of modeling...
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What I meant is this window uses 6 materials, so at least 6 different textures (probably more like 12, e.g. diff+normal, diff+spec):
While in other engines it's more efficient to go like this:
One mesh, one material, diffuse, normal, spec textures. Material instance for lit version with additional mask texture. As you see, this one also uses mirrored UVs to save space, which is a very good idea (not sure whether older engines support that).
AFAIR, using multiple textures and materials increases drawcalls, impacts loading time, and wastes video card memory, especially with non-square textures. To minimize the impact, I always used one texture space for the whole model, and one material, if possible. Two materials (glass, stone) for the window would be fine, 6 seems a bit too much.
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Question about the multiple textures/materials on meshes: I was taught that using multiple diffuse and other textures for one mesh is generally a bad idea, performance-wise. Meshes from UE-based games like UT3 or Gears of War use one texture space for e.g. window frame + glass. Things get a bit more complicated with Thief/TDM and multiple surface types, but I always addressed that by using the same textures in cloned materials, just changing the surface type and assigning the material to proper parts of given mesh (wood, glass, stone etc). In TDM's mesh browser however, I see simple meshes like windows having multiple tiling textures with 5-6 materials, with stuff like dirt or AO as a separate texture and material. Are you sure this is efficient?
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Gigagooga released new ambient pack not so long ago, high-quality stuff overall.
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I got a basic cubemap material ready, but this one looks like it works better with specularity, so I'd definitely use it, thank you. A subtle glow map for key items looks good too. I don't even have to use textures, just grey solid color is fine.
As for the lightning, I've done some experiments and I'll probably stay away from real-time shadows as much as possible. Right now, I'm at the AI and "gameplay lightning" stage for my first location, and I came up with a few ideas. I want to have some player freedom in putting out lights, but the setting is more Victorian and steampunk-ish rather than medieval. The setting is either recently abandoned or overgrown (not sure my modeling skills will suffice here, I was never too good with organics). Using skylights, windows, and other types of "lightning from outside", along with moonlight / before dawn setting is much more interesting visually (baked lightmaps). In terms of gameplay, those light / shadow patterns are also more interesting to traverse than the run-of-the-mill omni lights. Player freedom takes a hit here, but I hope that will be a minor casualty. Further tests will reveal more
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Alright, after banging my head against the wall for an hour or two, and seeing how bad I was at level design, I managed to block out something that will look like a small warehouse. Everything is temporary here (except walls and most walkways). There's no lightning or AI, next step will focus on main gameplay.
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That model on the left looks exactly like Arcturus', but has more poly and less details, now that's brilliant...
If you recreate something from scratch, just by eyeballing the original model or screenshot, that's fine. That's your work. And you can get a bit more creative, so it's not 100% obvious which model you used as the inspiration (you probably won't be able to make the same textures and materials anyway).
If you're doing it just for testing, then sure, you can even use those apps for grabbing whole scenes with textures and models, for experimental purposes, I guess. Otherwise, grabbing dubious stuff from shady parts of the Internet isn't helping.
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I disagree on this point. I myself prefer a written tutorial over a video. Mainly because I like to listen to music while mapping or doing something similar. In this case, a written tutorial is much better. But this is mostly a matter of taste, so it would be best if both options exist.
I kind of like both, but I prefer them to be brief and concise. IMO, wiki is in dire need of short step-by-step instructions and brief explanations on how things work, with proper examples. Going through packages shipped with the game or inside missions isn't as useful as one might think, as you still waste a lot of time trying to figure out what was the idea behind particular solution.
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Well, they will be mostly notes and maybe some screenshots, as higher production stuff takes much longer to make and edit.
For the stuff you requested, light entities might be too advanced for now, as you need to know exactly what you're doing with textures, materials, and light properties. I'd leave that for now. Writing materials and scripts is basically programming, although materials are relatively easy when you just use texture source without any special instructions.
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So, these models are from other games but modified? Well, if you want to rip off other authors, do it at your own risk. People from the industry play games and mods too. Someone will notice it eventually, and will be furious about it – and they will take action to protect their assets. Besides, it's just rude and dumb. Want to have something? Make it yourself or ask someone else to do it. As for putting it in Dark Mod model libraries, that's a hell no.
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You may want to see this to understand how the folder structure works:
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Well, that's something. Rebuilding the whole map every time would be a major pain. Rebuilding lightning is basically recalculating lightmaps, so basically every current and last gen engine uses it. TDS had that option as well, but can't remember what for.
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Yup, that's a good start, somewhere around Oblivion or F3 quality level of lightning. Btw. what's the fastest way to preview and rebuild lightning? The DR preview is useless.
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Im sure I can get the same effect with an omni, using the method I described above. Give me an hour to know something up and tweak it..
You need to have a bit of darkness at wall edges and in the corners, and the light on all surfaces except the window needs to look a bit like a gradient. One omni light will be too simple for that.
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Projected, one per wall. One stretched omni with proper falloff would be easier to place, but probably harder to control. The wall with the window would probably be too bright as a result. Will check that next time. Good thing noshadow lights are cheap. A small subtle light at the bed frame would probably a good idea too. And yeah, the window should have proper skin, I forgot to switch it
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I don't have time to make a full scene right now but this could be a good start:
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I wouldn't worry about "realistic", I would worry about "interesting" instead
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@Judith: I think you have a valid point here. How would you deal with that? It didn't make much sense to me to have lit candles at night in unoccupied rooms, and I could only have the light from the windows reach so far.
Basically what nbohr1more said. Since this is not mission-critical area, you could make the ambient light from the window go at least to the middle of this room. Fake some light bouncing on both walls, floor and ceiling. Even this example from Sir Talbot's Collateral is too subtle. I was thinking more like this:
You have projection lights and bounce lights everywhere in this location. Generally, you have to start thinking about and using (faking) indirect lightning in your scenes. There's no engine, realtime or otherwise that will make well-looking a scene with direct lights only. Even architectural renderers like mental ray or vray use stuff like fake light-emitting surfaces near windows to get more light inside a room.
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One more thing: this POV in-game cutscene at the end, it's a very useful narrative/gameplay device. You should make a step-by-step tutorial on how to use this and put it on wiki, if it isn't there already.Nevermind, found it
Let's Map TDM With Sotha: The Bakery Job
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted
Speaking of walkways, whether using mesh or brush for stairs, as a rule of thumb they should have a sloped collision model to avoid that jarring screen shake when player goes up or down. Typically our brain ignores that kind of movement when we climb the stairs, but not on screen