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Posts posted by Snehk
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The fourth game wasn't as bad as people portrayed it. Sure it was rushed (like, extremely rushed), but it was an interesting game on it's own. It offered great level design tools, scripting and many other things that allowed it to be played as a quasi-rpg game. Every once in a while, I'm getting back to it just to make myself a short single-player rpg campaign and have some fun with it (You can also play it as a multiplayer quasi-rpg game if a scenario is built like that!). In addition, the campaigns were excellently written, Gauldoth's being my personal favourite. I greatly enjoy HoMM IV's character progression and all the various classes and sub-classes your heroes could get.
The fifth game felt more like a comeback to the golden formula of the third game in the series, along with some things taken from the fourth. I only played it during a time when I had no access to HoMM IV and earlier. It wasn't a bad game, just flat out dull compared to what was before. I haven't played any further games in the series, so I can't really tell anything about them.
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I love The Elder Scrolls series. I've started with Morrowind when I was about eleven years old, and I'm still casually playing it to this day. The game has extreme depth and excellent world design. This game will always remain a huge inspiration for me! (I've played all of the games in the series, but I just love Morrowind).
A honorable mention: Heroes of Might and Magic III. An excellent strategy game with very interesting storyline and interesting yet simple character progression.
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A little step forward.
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A little work in progress concept art inpired by Hammerite Haunts and Revenants.
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Digging through my old stuff, I found some photos from Wieliczka salt mines. I wasn't a really good photographer back then, so there are some imperfections on these.
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Check this wiki article, it might explain it.
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Uploading these pics in a new post, so they won't get buried without bumping the thread.
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Moved to new post.
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Time to get crazy. Ye auld Sicklehammer! Prepare for a devastating blow comrade!
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The sword got textures made by Admer456:
And here's a thing made entirely by Windawz:
They are members of TWHL forums and my development studio, and they are working with me on our current project.- 3
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While I'm busy working with other stuff, I'm definitely going to finish my FM some day (this take with much more modeling, I highly prefer modeling and modular level design over brushes).
After years of writing experience, I think that a good plot will definitely help shorter missions. It doesn't have to be a long spanning story, but either a complete chapter, or something bringing just a notion of a theme or motif. It doesn't have to be over the top, or completely delving into steampunk cruel world. Subtle touches of different themes and ideas are definitely more welcome than something literally shouting "I am an evil thief in a cruel world stealing from bad people!"
Let's take the plot of my FM as an example. The story is rather simple: someone wants you to steal a valuable gem from docks. Next, a direct reference to the series: a ship comes to the port, full of undead and disease (Thief 3), and is matched with Darkmod's inquisition (mentioned in several FMs). The quarantine is put up (Thief 1 - Old Quarter). Now the player has to get into dock area, do what the client wants to, optionally check what the hell happened on the ship, and leave.
That's it, the basis for a short/medium length FM is there. What's left is to flesh it out with details, nuances and subtle references.
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The engine can hold quite a bit, but the project has a low poly aesthetic. This + making most models low poly will ensure it'd run smooth even on ancient devices.
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The project that it was primarily made for is a Half-Life modification, so I'm trying to save up as much as I can. This may be repurposed as a moveable or I may detail it more later on.
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Wow, my last post here was back in April!
Anyways, as I mentioned porting assets from my current project to TDM, here's one work in progress screenshot:
It was meant to be a part of a view model, and as such it has exactly 316 tris.- 2
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I wanted to get the proportions and general idea what would go where (see it from within the editor) first, then take care of the visuals. The tiles visible from inside are an effect of texturing not finished yet and I'm not sure if they'd stay there in the end. The building is already split into several sections and player would have to find his way around to reach everything. I'm going to search for reference materials and I'll definitely check prefabs and modules.
Thank's for your suggestions!
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I think that I've finished designing the main layout of the warehouse. I'm yet to add more finishing touches to it. Texturing is still highly WIP, but I'd already chosen textures for all the rooms inside.
That's how it looks from the outside. I'm going to add some windows to lighten the area inside.
The entry has got some support beams holding the roof.There are some wooden beams outside as well, so get your rope arrows ready!
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Thanks! I wish I had a phone that I could take photos with much earlier, because we've made some large scale constructions and other cool things as well several years before.
Now that I think about it, I may one day take photos of our workshop. The place is old and cluttered, there's a lot of machinery and tools scattered around. It could be useful as a reference for craftsmen oriented missions. It's not a "truly modern" workshop, and we still have some pretty old equipment,
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My father is a carpenter since a few decades. I had helped him with his work since early childhood, we've made a lot of constructions and furniture in our workshop. I started taking shots of the stuff about two years ago, so I'll post them here. They're mixed quality, but someone may find them useful one day (warning, large size photos!).
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I've checked the dark module thread, and that was exactly the way I was going to start - make a mod that'd serve as a base for my project and build up from that. Some things will have to be coded sooner or later to make it a proper RPG, but I'm not aiming for a large open world game, rather for something hub based.
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Anything that is missing or underdeveloped can be added or improved with enough coding and/or scripting.
I'm not planning to use any art assets from TDM except for those required to run the engine.
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Working on my own game was one of my biggest goals since I had started modding. I'd tinkered with many different engines, from id Tech 1 to Unreal Engine 4. About one year ago I wrote a design document for a slasher/rpg game with stealth elements and worked on it off and on since then. At first I wanted to develop it on Darkplaces (fork of id Tech 1), but then I moved to Storm Engine 2 (fork of id Tech 4 BFG). Coming from Half-Life modding and then older engines, working with numerous separate software, building levels with either brushes or models (or both) and having everything easily accessible feels much more natural for me than being able to do things only through an all-in-one editor. Sure it's convenient to have everything available in just one piece of software, but I prefer simpler interfaces designed for specific tasks.
Back to the point, a lot of game mechanics suitable for my project is already in the Dark Mod engine:
- Excellent stealth mechanics.
- Stim-response system.
- Greatly improved AI.
- Climbing.
- Item manipulation.
- Readables.
- Grid based inventory.
- Interesting combat system.
Porting it all to other forks would take much more time than developing on the engine that is already quite advanced, and which would get a huge boost with release of 2.06 stable version, so it seems to be a great base for my project. There are several things that I'd like to know first:
- TDM is mission-based, is level transition functionality still there or does it have to be brought back?
- What are the base assets required by the engine to run at all? Are they the same as for GPL id Tech 4?
- Would I be allowed to use base entity .defs and scripts from TDM? Not everything, but most of the world building entities.
- Would I be allowed to use TDM shaders as well?
The aim is to release a completely free, open-source game. This is a hobbyist, one-man-team non-commercial project, and I'd want to get to working on assets as fast as possible (once I'll finish my FM). All things possibly taken from TDM would be referenced, and any help from the community will be appreciated.
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I thought about making the whole ship using patches and brushes, but brushing out it's rooms and modeling out the exterior won't be a big problem.
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Changed the layout and rebuilt the warehouse in Black Death. It's much larger and split into three sections now, and there's a second floor where offices will be located.
The map is going to feature a fully explorable ship at some point. I think that plans of "The Northwind" would serve as a good reference for inquisition's ship, but I'm open for any suggestions.
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This thread will be dedicated to asking questions, sharing ideas and suggestions, and uploading assets and WIP screenshots of my fan missions.
All assets posted herein by me will be available for use in any fan mission project, as well as projects not related with The Dark Mod, with only restriction being leaving a proper reference to their author (me) in project's readme.Link to assets:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14OLDIzR3igIm-6-KEZfqKhcymp3MH2ML?usp=sharing
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Total conversion w/ Dark Radiant?
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted · Edited by Snehk
Yep, idTech4 isn't really artist friendly, but it's not that hard to get into it if you're not a coder. There is plenty of reference in the web, such as: idDevNet, ModWiki and The Dark Mod Wiki. Most of the tools You will need to use are built in the engine. DarkRadiant is definitely the best level editor that is available for this engine. There are also many different forks of the engine to consider, I'll describe some of them here.
The Dark Mod engine fork is a great choice if you want:
fhDoom engine fork is a modernised version of the GPL engine fork:
Storm Engine 2 is an improved version of RBDoom3BFG fork:
OpenTech Engine:
You may also consider RBDoom3BFG itself, though it's more oriented towards replaying the original game with improvements. The original GPL engine and Doom3BFG are highly inferior to other forks listed here, it is advisable to not use them unless it's for educational purposes.
You may also ask for help here: idTechForums. However, that forum is more or less visited only by several people (including me), so it is much better to ask here if you decide to use idTech 4.
I haven't used Source Hammer (GoldSrc on the other hand...), so I can't tell you what's different between these two editors. DarkRadiant is the best level editor I have used to this day, and I highly recommend it.
You can use anything that exports to .lwo for static meshes and moveable objects. For characters and animated objects, you will need something that is able to perfrom .md5 export. Blender, LightWave or 3dsMax will be useful (though Blender is the best bet if you want animated/character models for this engine).
Personally, I'm using Wings 3D for static meshes and moveables (non-animated objects with ragdolls/collision models). It matches the engine's scale 1:1, so an object that is 32x32x32 in Wings3D remains 32x32x32 in the engine. It also exports natively to .lwo, and is a nice subdivision modelling software. I'm building and UV Mapping most of my geometry in Wings3D and then export to Blender if I want to make animations. There are .md5 exporters available for Blender, so you can export models with animations into the engine with it.