Skol

It's snowing in Wisconsin, too It's friggen cold.

And did you know that if you have cranberries and you stew them like applesauce, you have something that tastes a whole lot more like prunes than rhubarb does?

"soft propaganda" is how all media works, though, and, I reckon, how much of communication works. Big House movies ARE controlled by a very small group of individuals, the rich and powerful. That's the start point of cultural hegemony. And I agree on the propaganda from the Pentagon, et al, but that's nothing new, just more overt (or covert, if you can't tell the difference. Can you say Bruckheimer?).

You guys are cool Thanks fyi, atlas mapping just puts all polys on the same plane and keeps them seperated on the UV map to prevent overlap, but otherwise it has no regard for how they connect to each other (unless they're already connected on an arbitrary plane) - I'm pretty sure most modelling apps have something similar.

Not intentionally, mind. It's just ideology on a global scale. We (everyone) either take it for granted and thereby reproduce it, or call its bluff.

Great, now I'm spamming the thread Another coupla questions, because I'm concerned about taking liberties I'm not supposed to take: I'm under the assumption that there aren't hi-poly models for these models (they're mechanical and don't require loads of geometry). Since there are a few curved surfaces, is it okay for me to either subpatch and freeze or smooth a few surfaces, maybe add a few dents here and there, and use that to generate a normal map? Second of all: as much as I like making UV maps (really, it's like a puzzle), will atlas mapping work sometimes? I understand now the beauty of surface baker, and in general would prefer to surface edit a model instead of going straight to PS and using textures from sources with FUD fair-use claims. basically: Am I allowed to create normal maps by upping the detail on the source model and Can I atlas map in conjunction with surface baker (will it be more seamless, at any rate)? (to clarify: I unwrapped one model using endomorphs, but this caused seams I hadn't predicted, and I'm looking for a quicker way to UV/texture)

Crispy, would you mind if I PM a few questions to ya?

Excellent, thank you

Aright, I've UV mapped and almost completed (diffuse) texturing on a model. That's gone good. But should I make specular/diffuse/height maps, or just a diffuse maps Normal maps? I don't know that much about radiant, so I'm not sure what it is you all need.

Thanks for the help. I'm back up and running with a clean hard drive (plus tools)

Actually, interesting new development: Because my computer's motherboard is faulty, windows has trouble loading at boot. It's always been this way. however, windows has decided that I've changed the hardware configuration so much that I have to reactive windows within 3 days. Since I've reformatted so many times, that activation key no longer works. So my computer has a life span of exactly 3 days. By trying to troubleshoot THROUGH windows, I have to buy a new license FOR it. Money grubbing bastards. Wow. I'm furious.

If you guys are behind on skinners, I have D3 & LW8 & Gimp, but really no excuse to use them. I know how to UV map (as in: I've read tutorials and clicked a few buttons), and I learn quick otherwise, although I don't have much to show except for some LW renders that demonstrates my knowledge of said button clicking. I'm very new to this. My experience w/ photoshop (and the gimp, by extension) is a couple of years. I've been following darkmod for a couple months, and thief for more than a few years (including dromed), and I want to help. So I'm wondering if I'm qualified, or, at any rate, may-as-well-be-qualified-enough , before I send an e-mail.

Really basic, I hope: A model is made up of polygons, which are made up of vertices. Each vertex has an x,y,z coordinate. A UV map is generated by "unfolding" a model into a 2d space, and giving each vertex an additional u and v coordinate (you can move stuff around on the UV map without moving it in actual space). So you can create a table, and make a UV map with distinct areas (e.g., top, bottom, sides, legs). Then you can draw on it. The top, bottom, and sides of the table can be basic wood, and the legs can have some decorative design, or whatever. If you've ever seen a picture that looks like this or this, you've seen a textured UV map (really, a texture map (the face) over the UV map (the polygons); I don't know if they're interchangable). The face model has been unfolded to lay flat, which is why the face looks so distorted. Most/all engines have vertex data with UV coordinates. The texture map (and normal map, et. al.) can be seen as a UV graph, so that a vertex of a model with such-and-such texture map can interpolate a texture across a face.

Only you are, in so many ways. I don't care if you can throw away your blackjack and use a chair instead, but you don't flag the mission for ghosting because your blackjack can be dropped. (edit: and next time, I won't make a typo!)

Why not just mimic thief and just keep the sword and blackjack? @Ishtvan: There are very, very few maps on Thief I have played that didn't have a blackjack, and you could still ghost them. It makes sense, to me anyway, IANAE, to have the base gameplay code mapped out before worrying about features in the future.