Skaruts

This looks quite nice with some paintings, I think. Not so nice with some others. I might make a new model for these.

Thanks guys, it seems to be working properly now. As an added bonus it also seems like I don't need to restart the game anymore when I change the skin in DR. Is there any reason why some skins in the default file don't have the "skin" keyword? Like the "builder_godisangry" one is just: builder_godisangry { // ... } builder_godisangry_torn { // ... }

New problem: now all the skins I defined for the triptych are not available on other paintings. Seems like my skins file is interfering with the default one and now only my model can have those skins. The layout of the file is still the same. I just copied all painting skins there and replaced with this for each of them: skin landscape_ruin01 { model models/_skaruts/decorative/wall/triptych_01.lwo painting02_L painting07 } skin landscape_ruin01_torn { model models/_skaruts/decorative/wall/triptych_01.lwo painting02_L painting07 } skin artist { ... etcHow do I make it so it doesn't override the default file?

Ah wait, it's working. I was checking if the skins were listed by going to "choose model" on the already existing triptych. Skins don't get listed in that one for other models either. They do get listed when I create a new model, and so it's working as intended. I think I need to change the UVs though. I made them thinner to accommodate for the thinner frame, but it looks cut off on some skins. I was afraid it might look a bit squeezed if I didn't do that. Will see how it goes.

That seems to not work. I just noticed, they do work in-game as well, but only if I restart it (which shouldn't be required, afaik). They're still not on the model browser though... Isn't there something that has to be done with the material?

That's the reason why I wasn't too inclined to fix the models myself. I figured some of that geometry might be serving a purpose I'm not aware of. Well, one could still remove the backside polygons, I guess, and leave everything else as is, or something. I think, more importantly, those models (the mansion ones, at least) could use some fixing in terms of gaps and z-fighting. I noticed some misaligned vertices here and there. There's a gap in wall01 for example: And some z-fighting in wall02 (those lines move as I turn the mouse or move around): I think that's z-fighting because I changed the brush behind them white and the lines remained orange. It's barely noticeable (or not at all) if you play with high AA. I can't paly with AA (because old PC), so I notice this at times. (And after I tinkered with the model, it disappeared.) I also noticed some strange things going on with the geometry in the paintings model. The armchair1 model on the other hand seemed pretty much perfect.

It's inside the general skins folder. Like I said, they show up in the skins browser, and in the painting itself but only in DR, not in-game. So that means DR is finding the file, at least, and that what I put in there works, at least that much. This is what's in the file, by the way: // ska_decorative_wall.skin skin execution { model models/_skaruts/decorative/wall/triptych_01.lwo painting02_L painting03_L } skin landscape_ruin02 { model models/_skaruts/decorative/wall/triptych_01.lwo painting02_L painting01_L }

Problem is the skins aren't working... They show up in the skin browser if I force the skin property into existence, but they don't show in the model browser (there's no little plus sign next to the model) and when I choose a skin from the skin browser it gets put on the painting in DR but then still doesn't show up in-game. All I did was I created a .skin file with a few of them, but from reading the wiki I couldn't figure out what else needs to be done.

In blender at least that's actually as easy as selecting those faces and pressing F, and it joins them and keeps the UVs in place. You can also use a "to quads" functionality to un-triangulate the whole model, but it doesn't work in many places, at least in those models. Although a problem with blender that I've noticed is that blender's .lwo importer doesn't seem to import all the UVs properly (or there's a problem with the UVs, I don't know which). The front faces of wall01 and 02, for example, have all the UV-vertices in the same spot. Somehow, if I leave them be, it works when exported, although I noticed in one case that the scale of that texture came out different. EDIT: And by the way, to make the process easier, one thing I did was to select parts of the model that are assigned to each material (you can do that in blender at least), separated each of them into their own model, worked on each of them separately, and then joined them all again. Made it less confusing to work on the model.

If the goal is to attract more attention to TDM (I suppose it's the goal of any official channel), then it might be worth working on adding new videos to the channel, but that has to be done with some amount of frequency, so that YT's algorithms also favor the channel. Perhaps videos could be made whenever stuff happens in TDM: when a major update gets released (maybe even major DR updates), when something important gets implemented in the engine, when a new mission gets released, etc. I think mission trailers, like NeonsStyle suggested, could be a great way to have somewhat frequent content there. Otherwise people will just forget the channel exists. Of course the nature of this channel doesn't favor consistent frequency of uploads. Uploads will only ever be as frequent as stuff is happening in TDM, and as frequent as the effort that's being put in making videos showing that stuff is happening. No rush, though. I think it's to be expected that Let's Players and Modders will attract way more attention with their own channels than any official channel ever does, so there's that too. But I think official channels can give things a little push when the hype is low.

I confess that's a lesson I've been learning the hard way... I uploaded it here. I ended up reverting the shadow model to yours, as I realized there was really no point to what I was doing with it. The extra detail would only be noticed if the wall had no adjacent walls or nothing covering its sides, and I don't think you designed that particular one for that. So with that it's at 1154 tris. I decided to leave the side faces on the upper part of the wall, as they help deepen that nice little crease between those modules. I also aligned the back of the top-most and bottom-most faces to the grid in DR, as it's visually less confusing to look at (I think), but I didn't touch the front. You can place both the original and this one side by side, and they still tile perfectly, as far as I can tell. Didn't touch the origin either. Also fixed some vertex positions that were causing some tiny z-fighting and gaps. Now... hopefully I didn't make any fatal mistakes. I've just now started learning the ins and outs of the engine and I never dealt with .lwo's before. The process was just importing it into blender, remove some geometry (preserving UVs as they are), make adjustments, export it.

Wouldn't mind having this myself. Would it have to load all the textures? I would suppose it would have to load only as few as could fit in the the window. I agree that it ought to be optional, though.

On one hand it's down to habituation, as I used to make some mapping on the Source engine and you have transparent tool textures there, but it's also quite annoying to me when, for example, I'm covering a bunch of props with monster clips, and it starts getting hard to travel around the map and see where is what. Filtering off monster clips at that point might make me forget where I already placed some of them. On the other hand I'm also a bit averse to having to access menus for things I can have to use frequently. It's also useful for studying other people's maps, though: (me studying Melan's Fauchard map with some experimental textures on)

Wasn't quite planning on that (mentioned it as an afterthought while editing the post). But I'd keep the origin in mind. This was just a curiosity thing. I might not mind helping out if anyone ever tries to do that kind of thing though. I just stripped the model. I've tried making modules for other personal projects (not TDM) and failed miserably. Springheel did a hell of a great job making these modules look good. I'm a lousy decorator. I always get stuck at the part where I need to make a boring plane look like an actual wall...

Well, I noticed they have quite some excess geometry, though. It got me curious to see how much, and so I took mansion01_wall01 and tinkered with it for a while. I managed to reduce it from 1830 tris to 1194 (-636) while also raising the detail of the shadow model a bit (+48). You can see a comparison in the image below. Maybe there's some good reason for some of that geometry to be there, but I stripped this model of anything I thought wouldn't ever be needed. Also fixed some gaps. (And btw, I can give you this model if you want. If you ever think of revamping the models to do this kind of thing, it's one less model to go. ) (Updated image with a non-triangulated version of the original.)

That's all good to know. I myself though it would be better to just extract whatever single files I needed. Extracting all the pk4s would take too long, and I generally prefer keeping the integrity of the original files intact. I modified some editor "tool textures" to be translucent (clips, nodraw, visportal, etc), which I had tried a long time ago and failed, so I'm only overriding those. I also created a new one for sealing brushes behind modules, that stands out more among everything else, so it's easier to spot gaps between geometry and models. I'm also mocking about with 3D models, but none of this is project specific.

Well, that worked. So that was my mistake, I was unpacking everything into folders with the name of the pk4s, but it's the folders inside them that have to be in the darkmod folder. No need to delete the pk4 though. Whatever is in the folders seems to override them. Thanks. That'll be useful indeed.

If I delete the pk4 and just keep the folder with its content it doesn't work. DR doesn't detect any of it. I'm keeping the folder (in this case tdm_models01) in my darkmod folder, right next to the prefabs folder. Also tried renaming the folder to have the .pk4 extension itself, but also didn't work. Same results for the tdm_textures_base01 folder. I'm not trying to change any of the game's files, I'm doing a custom texture/material and a custom model, but the only way DR and TDM seem to recognize that they exist is if I pack them into the pk4... Or maybe I don't have to put them in a folder with the name of the pk4? Hmm.. gonna try that.

It used to be possible (at least up to some 4 years ago, last time I was around here), but now it doesn't seem to work. I keep having to pack stuff into the pk4s every time I change a custom texture or model or else DR and TDM don't see the changes, and that's quite a bit annoying and unwieldy. More so because it forces me to shut down the game and DR before packing, because they seem to lock the pk4s while running and 7z goes kaput if I try to use them while locked. Is it still possible to do?

Thanks for mentioning that, as I was forgetting those. The ones I saw in the videos aren't in there, but turns out they are under create model and I was only looking in insert prefab.

Are all the modules supposed to be available out of the box? I made a fresh install of both TDM and DR, and it seems as though a lot of your modules are missing. Under architecture/modules I only have 3 folders: ext_stone02_plain, interior_set01 and interior_set01_short, each of which only have around 4 to 7 prefabs in them. You showed a lot more stuff in your videos.

I haven't been paying much attention...

Don't know if it's been posted already, but this is golden.

Hey everyone. It's been quite a while since last time I was around here... I was wondering, since we're all likely fans of the Thief series here, if anyone knows/remembers if there were any love letters in any of the thief series. If so, I would like to read them, and mayhap quote them to a certain girl in my life, if I find them useful. At the very least I'm looking for inspiration for medieval fantasy sonnets. I think I remember there being correspondence between lovers, but my memory is not of love letters but of intrigue... I was wondering if there are any in TDM missions as well. Problem is that googling "thief [tdp/tma/tds/series] love letters", doesn't yield useful results... Wouldst thou helpest me, gratefulness shall befall upon me.

There's also this. I don't know if anyone here was a fan of the old ones. I sure was. It seems it's being developed by a team of people who believe the old mechanics were great and are not outdated, and seem to be trying to stay true to them.