pataran
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Posts posted by pataran
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Cool! Great work on him. Any plans to re-make the creepy little golden child?
Could be a possibility, right now I'm gonna focus on the Mech Beast, if he is implemented successfully by me and probably some coders you can fully expect a golden child =p. That little thing really scared the crap out of me in thief 2. My first reaction was what does it do?? Is it a friend or foe? I thought it was initially just a statue.
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Here we go with the smooth modifier.
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Thanks a million for all that info, however one thing. When I use the smooth modifier on my whole mesh and press 7, it shows a huge jump in poly count. Does that matter any?
Nvm I was getting meshsmooth modifier mixed up with smooth modifier, thanks alot man.
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Looks really cool, great model for only a couple weeks of learning max.
You are probably confusing 'mesh smooth' with 'smoothing'.
Mesh smooth (modifier) teselates your mesh and makes it smoother by adding more polys.
Smooth modifier just makes the lighting appear smooth across the polys that are currently in your mesh. So you can apply it to the shoulders and they wont have all those squares from lighting but they will still have the same poly count. That's what you want to do.
1st, select mesh and add smooth modifier. maybe ramp it up (starts at 30) to maybe 60, see how it looks. Then select the polys of the 'ribs' over the tops and give them a smoothing group # of 2 instead of one like the rest. That will leave a sharp edge where they meet the shoulder pad (if you want that, it would look good). The smoothing group number will be at the very bottom of edit mesh modifier when you collapse the stack.
If you extrude again you will get those 'rough polys' again and will have to resmooth.
OK, now you can get smooth and sharp where you want. But Doom3 doesn't work that way, it will all be smooth (or rough, I forget the material file snipet for unsmoothed).
To get a sharp edge on a smoothed object for Doom3 you actually need to select those polys and detach them from the mesh.
So smooth whole mesh. Select any faces in groups along hard edges and detach. DON'T weld the verts again or they smooth.
Then select the main mesh and reattach the sub meshes (but don't weld). Then you get sharp creases in Doom3.
Practice a bit and get something in DR so you see what the effects are. Then finalize your mesh. Then rig it, then animate.
If you rig, then decide you want a sharp edge you will have to rerig all over again. Major pain.
Thanks a million for all that info, however one thing. When I use the smooth modifier on my whole mesh and press 7, it shows a huge jump in poly count. Does that matter any?
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AI probably average around 3000 polys, but they also use a simplified shadowmesh of closer to 1000 polys. The number of shadowcasting polys is really what matters in terms of performance.
Are you sure? When I opened the gaurds head model the head was over 900 poly? Is the rest of his body really that low poly? I'm very new to modeling so I'm trying to figure out how to fake the detail properly.
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VERY NICE!
Would love to see it textured
(of course after you smooth it out)I'm trying to figure out how to smooth it out without having crazy amounts of poly's. Right now I'm about 8,000 poly's but when I try smoothing to lowest I can get it is like 12,000. Is that acceptable for a model?
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Whoah, nice stuf! Some surfaces need smoothing on the shoulders and on the head.
Do you plan to make it a working AI? If you have the skills that would be cool.
I made it low poly purposely in most areas, once I learn to bake a high poly version onto the low poly you probably couldn't see the edges at all in game. Optical illusion I guess. As for my skills, this is the first 3d model I've ever made, I learned 3ds max 2 weeks ago so I am sure I can learn to animate it, etc. The AI however would not be up to me =p.
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I think he deserves a return don't you think?
It's in early draft/concept phase. When creating him I wanted to add a little more flair since the original mechbeast was so darn ugly. I still haven't optimized all the poly's nor subtracted some pieces yet. Feedback or suggestions welcome.
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Hey Darkmod Team, I've been learning 3ds max and practicing hard to build cool objects. I actually have a surprise model that I'll show in a week or two that I think you will be pleased with. However one question, the wiki says that you should try and shoot for the 5,000 poly mark if you are able to. My questions are, if the poly's go much over 5,000 what can you consider to be a good enough to run well? Take in mind this model I'm creating has lots of curves and gears. This model is also intended to be used as a sparse enemy npc, so its not spammed all over the place. Just so I can get a reference, how many poly's are you averaging on a guard model?
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I don't think that MP effort will ever produce anything reasonable either.
But I do think that 2 player Co-Op in Thief could work. Not with the old engine, but in something like TDM or whatever Thief 4 will use. If you have to work together it would be great fun. One distracting a guard whilst the other steals something, one turning off an alarm at one side of a building so the other can get into a vault and so on.
It's been beta released lol.
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Hey Dark Mod Team, all is going well on my end as I have made alot of progress on my map so far. It's gotten quite huge but still needs alot of detail at the moment. So far for the textures I've been importing them into my map manually. The thing is, I have alot of these textures. Maybe I can get some kind of collaborating done with a team member such as Springheel(art director) so we can get all the textures standarized to prevent confusion for when I release this map in the future. I think just trying to overwrite files like Greebo told me not to do earlier would be a bad idea, especially since text has been changed in the material files. Maybe I need all the Dark Mod assets and to be placed as a beta mapper so my texture packs won't conflict with the full dark mod texture pack. So maybe if I upload my map and some of the textures the Dark Mod team can evaluate what to use and how to utilize it for my map and future maps. Maybe you guys can PM me? I have quite a large(unfinished) map to show.
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I agree that clive barker's undying was a sleeper hit. It had incredible atmosphere.
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One game that really scared me was,
Quest for Glory IV, Shadows of Darkness: The ending of QFG3 spooked me. QFG4 (the sequel) takes place in a translvania-like land. Complete with vampires, undead, and some really creepy Hexapod creatures. There was this old monastery where these demented monks did some evil rituals. You, being the hero, have to break into it and look for clues. But theres a stone hexapus (a six armed cephalopod) that comes alive and grabs you if you don't have the right means of entry. That always scared me when I was younger. The death screens and the dying music changed to a really dark mood.
I've played two very scary mods.
They Hunger by Neil Manke: A half-life mod that puts you, an author driving along the countryside, trying to get ideas for his next book, gets struck by lightning, causing the car to roll into a pond. After swimming out of the pond, you find yourself in a cemetary. Its empty, except for the occasional body, and than, finding your way into a morturary, the radio talks about strange phenomena happening and the shit hits the fan with zombies EVERYWHERE.
TH also makes fun of its self, from time to time, but for the most part, it scared me first time playing it. Neil Manke and his crew are working on a hl2 game called They Hunger, Lost Souls, and I can't wait. http://www.blackwidowgames.com/
(original they hunger: http://www.moddb.com/mods/they-hunger)
Afraid of Monsters: Directors Cut: Another half-life mod, and oh my, is it scary. You play the role of David Leatherhoff, who is addicted to these new painkillers. At the hospital, in a bathroom, taking the pills results in a 'bad trip' (which you play through). Waking up, its night time and the place looks abandonded. Time to find a way out of there.
Theres 4 different endings. http://www.moddb.com/mods/afraid-of-monsters-dc
The thing I like the most about AOM:DC, is that its kind of a generic horror. Theres a lot of spooky enemies you'll fight, but its mainly just you trying to find a way to escape. Theres no disease or alien invasion, its just some kid who takes painkillers, trying to escape from all the horrible things. I highly reccomend this.
Haha, I've played that mod and got the bad ending. Yes, that was an amazing horror mod. Did you know the mapping and design was done by a 14 year old. 0_o
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A lot of the creatures you describe can be made in the editor with brushes with exception to the monkeys. The models and creatures wont make TDM scary but the map will so you cannot really just ask to make TDM scary.
Lol, I never asked to make TDM scary in that way, I was trying to ask if we were going to have the horror assets from Thief and what the opinions were on scariness in Thief. Maybe the glow sprites can be made in the editor but I don't think the mechanical gaurds can be. What was your favorite Thief moment?
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I just had the disappearing brushes problem too on my last dmap (don't know if it's related, but I got about a dozen "node without volume" errors this time). One brush is entirely see-through, and another has a gaping hole in the center. I doubt the problem is that they are too thin. I'll try grid snapping.
Pataran, did you ever solve your problem?
No man I didn't =(, sometimes totally replacing the brush works but sometimes not. I have no clue what causes it but I do get chunks dissappearing as well. I noticed sometimes you can walk in it if its big enough and all sound cuts off. Could this have to do with the editor trying to automake visportals or something? Anyone have a clue how to fix this?
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Hey guys, I've been editing quite a lot recently and decided that I want my 2-3 part mission to be set with castles mixed with pagan influence. In thief the pagans were hugely influential to the atmosphere with their strange druidic mysteriousness and the way they always gave people the fear of the unknown. What I mean is as in levels such as "the maw" or "trail of blood". Do we have or are going to make pagan assets and models? You know, ape creatures, those little flying fairies, eyeball plants. Or the assortment of creepy creatures such as the trees that attack you, scaring the bejesus out of you? I really liked the weird and creepy aspects of Thief and would like to make a mission inspired by that. So far I am only using Lucia's assets so I'm not sure if we have this stuff yet. What are your thoughts and opinions on it? If you liked the feeling of the battle between nature(pagans) and man(builders/hammers), what parts did you like most? Do you guys think its essential to our thief inspired universe to include these things? I don't know, but to me I would really love to see a return of the monster portions of Thief along with those extremly creepy robots preaching the builder gospel from Thief 2. Nothing scarier in Thief 2 than hearing the those metalic clanks in the darkness, then all of a sudden hearing that charging terminator sound as your about to be annilated. Those wierd elements combined with the steampunk universe was what sucked me in. The weakest parts of TDS was when it just played only as a castle sneaker, what saved that game for me were the pagans and the "cradle". So lets focus alot on the horror aspects guys!
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Nah, the compression setting should be fine. The "downscale" was scaling everything down and making it very blurry (try compression at "2" and see that it won't change much
Hmmm, I see, your spot on! Thanks Tels, that was the most helpful piece of info I've gotten from anybody so far in fixing my problems.
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Ok guys I think I fixed the problem. I did what Tel said and that fixed the menu. I then turned off compresstextures by setting it to 0 along with downsize to 0. Now my tiles are rendering practically perfect with no blur whatsoever. I think the problem(from a noob perspective) was that for all my texture I put in game did not use compression at all. I didn't have a dds. file either, so I think turning off compression allowed the engine to show the detail of the textures, because before the game was forcing the uncompressed textures to compress, thus causing blur when textures when looked at from an angle or enlarged slightly
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I always wondered about this article - the images to me don't really show the issue at hand. Having a really hard time to see the difference between them
Unfortunately I read that as well, I could use it later to smooth some rough edges out but its not bumpiness I'm trying to solve. I mean its a minor quible for most of the textures, most still look great in game. Hey Springheel, why don't you send me a PM(tels too) and maybe you guys can look at some of the textures and help me set these up properly. I only just started using GIMP 3 days ago and I can hardly figure out how to do anything until I read alot of tutorials. Once I fully understand what I'm doing I could take the reins and bring them all in game for you guys when I have the time.
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Yes, deffinately a good resource and nice to know they OK'ed it. That was my biggest concern.
But what everyone else says is correct too. We are at the point of trying to fine tune as much as possible, part of that is weeding out the bad textures. We all know they exist, there is a thread specifically about that issue.
I think the way to go about this is to not commit them all, but first to test them, possibly have several people test them out. Then vote on which ones to include. Decide which ones need better hieght/normal maps and improve them BEFORE commit.
Then we don't add to the problem of removing them because only the best have been included.
Baddcogg, there's nothing you guys gotta commit on lol. They are just textures that I'm using for my map, if you guys wanna use some that's cool. I'm not saying use all these textures or you guys get nothing! I'm just trying to share my stuff because to me it would be massively unfair if I had textures in my map that no one could use and could possibly hurt the visual quality of other user's maps because the textures look drastically different.
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pataran, we certainly need lots of textures, esp. high quality ones. And having good diffuses is already a step ahead from not having them.
We certainly appreciate your work and contribution (despite all the "yeah but what if" talk above).
So, lets bring them in-game. How far have you gotten with them?
So far I've only been added textures as need for the HUGE map I'm working on. I have only about 7-8 in game right now and they seem fine. They def need formatting and fine tuning because I'm pretty clueless at it. But as you've seen on some shots some look really nice in game. Many have a cool 3d effect and the only thing I gotta do to fix some of it is to get rid of the spec maps. But yeah, been busy mapping so I haven't really formated them correctly etc, I did just enough to see some in game. The only bad textures or less quality ones from the packs are the rugs. They for some reason look awesome in the editor but they loss alot quality when rendered in game for reasons I'm not quite sure yet.
I've noticed a strange glitch when loading my maps from Lucia, it seems that the menu is super low rez, could it be that the mod is making me load the maps at super low quality, thus me imagining that the textures are showing lower than usual? Because in the editor they are absolutely crystal clear and shiny from the heavens =p
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From what I saw, the textures look like they were taken from many of the same places we already go for textures. Good photoreference images for diffusemaps are not hard to find. Hell, we were given four or five CDs full of "professional" textures a few years ago, remember? It's making good normalmaps that takes all the time; the usefulness of these particular textures will come down to how good the heightmaps are. If they're just greyscale versions of the diffusemap, then that saves us very little time.
Well from my experience, even quick rushing the textures looks FAR better than nearly all the textures I've used from St. Lucia, I really don't think you guys have really tried them yet. The difference especially in the tiles and marble is huge. I don't get all the doubt, the textures nearly give off a gears of war 2 level of graphics when applied. I've tested alot and they are definetly not the same level of quality as most of the free sites or professional textures you guys used. As for the taken images, unless you were eyeing the textures on the pdf's from the site and comparing, its hard to say if they are really the same textures from other sites. The thing is, there are plenty of brick, tile, marble, and wood patterns that will always look similiar in when viewed just in the browser. The greyscaled seem pretty detailed to me, with dark for cracks and lighter hues for pocket marks and fine details. No offense, but if you were "given" all those textures for free five years ago are you even sure they are professional textures? To me most are average and flat.
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Yeah, that sounds sensible and thanx to both you (for taking the time and the money!) and for the artist to give permission
Have you bought their entire collection?
As for the greyscale images, yes, that would be the heightmaps, D3 also has an internal "make normal map from heightmap" command one can use directly in the shader, but I think it would be better to create the normal yourself. That way you have more control over it
I bought 10 packs from them, each containing around 10-20 textures each. I have wood, european fancy tiles, a set of marble, a brick set, a cobblestone set,a set of skies, a rug set, and a set for plaster. Even with my low textures skills they still look 2x as good as our most of our default textures.
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Are they aware that the Dark Mod is primarily a toolkit for end users to create (and distribute) their own maps? It would be worthwhile checking this because there is a possibility that they may think "Mod" means a released mission or campaign with a fixed set of used textures, rather than a toolkit full of textures that other mappers can use.
"Are they aware that the Dark Mod is primarily a toolkit for end users to create (and distribute) their own maps?"
Yes, I fully explained this to them
Sneak peak of Mech Beast
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted
Hey BrokenArts, how is Nightblade coming along? If you need some assets in the future feel free to pm me.