oDDity

Hmm, yes, but the reason they're simple s becasue you're knocking them out in 10 minutess and not modeling any detail in. I know you're probably used to relying on textures for detail, but with normal maps you have to model the detail in a high res object. There's no deadline to get all the furniture finished by this evening you know, so, pace yourself)

I have no idea if there is a normal map plugin for max or where to get it. If you model high and low res versions of your model (they should fit over ecth other as closely as possible), then you can upload them to the FTP and I can generate a niormal map for you. You could also use the renderbump tool in Doom 3, but I haven't been able to work that out yet.

Great work Atti. You do realise that you're supposed to make really high res, smooth versions of these to take the notmal maps from? I don't know how it's done in MAx, but in Lightwave I'd subpatch and freeze the model before generating the normal map. It's better to model the high poly version first rather than the other way around though.

Yes, I'd never even heard of this artist before. It's given me some ideas for modeling...

Well, the neck is too thin and the facial features need some more work, the rest is excellent though. I hope you've got Fprime, those radiosity renders would be pretty painful without it)

Good, well let's just plagiarise all the lines from the THiefs then That's a little brainpower saved for a start...

How about we do a Mafia/Driver style menu, a model of our thiefs room, which the camera floats around, as you hover the mouse over the 'exit' text the camera moves to the door, you hover over the' load game' text and the camera moves to...wel I haven't worked it out yet, but you get the idea.

Yeah, he takes cash for now, then its you watch, you car, your house, your fiance.. . :lol:

I know, but the diffuse and normal dds versions are only 500 kb, and the spec is 100kb, I suppose I could make them all 512x for the final game - that would mean a total of 300 kb per picture and 30 polys. I have over 1500 MB system Ram and 256 on my graphics card, so I'm not naturally very considerate. :lol: BT - the noamal map is called frame_local and it's definitely there.

OK, I upped the model and 2 skins. In DDS format since I'm still on this damn 56k and TGA's are 3.00 MB each. SH- Just upload the images to the FTP and they can be used as skins for the picture model. I'll do one model portrait size and one landscape. Also a smaller one with a thinner frame. Combined with all the different paintings and frames that should be enough variety.

Are we allowed to use lines form original thief, as long as we record them ourselves? Lines can't be copyrighted, surely? There are some great classics like 'Come out out! We won't hurt you....much. We all have our favourites.

I think they're all excellent, very professional THe recording quiality is first class as well. It's great that you can get these people to give their time for free (but then I suppose a lot of actors spend a lot of time between jobs)

Bosch for some strange reason chose Christianity for his religious subjects, and not a hammer or builder or trickster i sight) Maybe SH could come up with something along the lines of the typical Renaissance religious art, but depicting something a little more appropriate for the THief universe (or whatever it is we're calling ours) I could come up with a dozen of these very quickly, and I'm sure that's all we'll need. Fm authors can easly change the skin.

I was just woindering how they can get away with using THief elements in their game? So, as long as you make a game using the Dark engine it's ok to do antything you like, but if you use another engine to make FMs then it's illegal? Has anyone actually contacted Eidos and asked them about this, or are we just assuming they wouldn't allow it? If they said it was ok, would you guys actully want to start using Thief names and laces?

Bosch's painting are all religious though, and don't really fit in. I don't think there is a copyright issue actually, don't copyrights automatically expire after a certasin amount of time and things come into the public domain? Since the pictures I'd be using are all from 3-400 years ago I don't think there would be a problem. THe works of Dickens already have no copyright attached to them and are freely distribuitable on the internet.

IN fact, we'd have to go the whole way and have an animation of the player lifting the book, opening it etc, it would get very complicated, let's just stick with the page turning for now I think, a more complex animation can always be done later.

OK Spring, you want to do the picture and frames in this format, since that's the way I've UV mapped it. I can do a few different picture models of course.

BTW, what is the policy on using fine art in games? THis is a portrait by Rembrandt, but I don't think it'll be a problem since it's not a commercial project, if anyone asks us to remove them, we easily can. I think the Dutch masters are particularly fitting for this sort of game.

Good Spar, becasue the lockss in the middle of doors was fecking stupid. I thoght I'dn start doing you some pictures to hand on the walls BT, these are easily skinnable, the frame and picture is on one image, snd the mdoel is only 30 polys. Normal maps rule for this sort of job, makes 30 polys look like 1000s. I'm doing some tapestries and other wall adornments as well.

YOu could make that look almost identical with two polygons. an alpha map and a normal map.

This is just another shot you might want to use, I think it shows it better than the last one.

Heck, if you're going to put that much quailty and detail into the necklace, I can't wait to see the rest of her You'll be able to convert that pretty much intact using an alpha map as well.

Won't we need our own thief's hand and arm in the animation though? Can't you just use the torch or some thing from D3 as a test model until out thief is finshed?

YEs. I'm sure it ;ooks even better in game, with the real time specularity. Just on the subject of doors - does anyone know what the reason for the central doorhandles/locks in T3 was? Will there be any problems putting door handles and locks on the right/left side of the door like normal?

THe first one would be fantastic without the drumkit, it just doesn't fit into the rest of the piece at all. It's like you're in an atmospheric gothic cathedral city, and then suddenly someone start playing a late 20th century drumkit in the background. THe recording or mixing of the drums is not right either, it sounds like it's off in the distance, whereas the rest of the instruments sound full and close. I don't think it needs the drum track at all actually. There's also a bit after midway where it gets loud all at once, like it's suddenly pumped through a distortion filter for a few seconds. Overall it's very moody and thiefy though. THe drums fit in to the second oneo more, but they need to be a little louder in this one and the synth that kicks in with the drum needs to be a little louder as well, but it's mostly sounding great so far