RPGista

This will help immensely. I will go for slightly higher poly count for the skull then.

The skull seems to be fairly low on polys. What was the agreed procedure here? If I were to retopo the mesh with snaps to vertex, how would you even be able to tell the original and the remake apart? Am I to make a distinct one, meshing wise?

Yes, I can try to retopo it. Modo can open lwo.

Hmmm... I like my odds against some of those static models. I'll try tackling a simple one next - perhaps the chain, or the skull.

Ok, so I just need to have the CM mesh there, give it the texture, and it's already working when in game? Also, if I were to test this, how would I go about making a model into a moveable entity AND a proper weapon with damage levels, speed, etc? This page is titled how to add new weapons to AI but there's no other info than how to attach different, existing weapons to characters by changing and arg (http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Adding_Heads_and_Weapons_to_AI).

Springheel has been making efforts into creating new gameplay videos to expose the fun features of the game. The biggest obstacle for new promo material like that seems to be simple lack of people - this is however something the literally anyone interested could help, as long as you have basic knowledge of video editting, a good pc and an eye for details. It would be interesting to see someone make some presentation sequences with full settings - I would do it myself if my laptop was any better.

Yes, show us, I would be interested in seeing what you or anyone else are working on in the background.

It's up to you guys, but I dont really see why that fact would be of any concern - there was a beginners contest, there were three new missions released because of that, here's the news, check them out, that's all people will care about, imho.

Well, it's just a suggestion, but I think it would actually be beneficial to distinguish between the contest missions and any other that might also be announced, so each have their own entry. Looking foward to the articles then.

Thanks guys. Springheel - thanks for the tip, I think that trapezium CM will do nicely in this case.

So I was browsing around the ModDB page and I noticed that the contest missions are featured in the screenshot section with no description that I can find, and are untraceable anywhere else - wouldn't it be interesting to have it as a (late) news article that a beginner contest happened? I think it would be good for people browsing the mod over there to realise not only "experienced" mappers are taking a stab at creating missions... PS: Maybe also a reference on the official page? This is not really plugging our missions, but news are news, could be good to call a little bit more attention to the mod.

While I work on the head above, I decided to finish one of the WIP models I had going on, a warhammer. Im fascinated by them (in a bad way, they are terrifying), and I guess they could be useful for certain warrior characters. This one is a low poly, meant to be a AI weapon only (or prop), the texture is a placeholder, this would perhaps be close to the "used" type of hammer found more ordinarily, but I'll create a polished steel one, with some decorative work, for an elite/noble class (would it be interesting to see builder warriors with warhammers besides their mjolnir-like ones?). I thought a simpler, game ready model would be a good change from all the frustrating trial and error that is character modeling/tweaking. The model is 332 tris, the shadow mesh 93 tris, but I'm stuck with the collision model - how should I do it exactly? Is it like the shadow mesh - create an extra layer and texture it with the collision texture? If so, where can I find it? Could I just reuse the same model as the SM, or should I make it even simpler?

Like those shapes and specially those ring handles. Great work!

Another attempt at creating a head, this time a "robust" man type (someone athletic, strong). The texturing is a test - there are issues with it, mainly the ears, the eyebrows and parts of the beard. The head, with eyes, teeth and mouth, has around 1000 triangles right now, but Im still in the proccess of optimizing it, and I also need to finish the neck (have to study hey they are done in tdm). And one without shadows

It is awesome to see the WIP in game, amazing work!!! IF (and only if) you are still looking for suggestions (and considering all the changes that are necessarily going to happen anyway): I really like where this is going, thanks a lot for posting the pics.

I had this problem often, it seems to happen mostly on small brush solids (I have plenty in my map, things like fences, wood planks, it even ruined my stair railing, I now see - there are several corruptions that actually made past my eyes and are in the released map right now). Just to make sure, the latest release (1.7.2) shouldnt suffer from this problem, is that right? Or is it common to all versions?

There are a bunch of corner stones (models) available, and I would only use brushes to create regular, brick like corner intersections (don't play with brushes too much, cutting them and intersecting them or having lots of small pieces can get you strange results and glitches). For all decorative and structural elements I would suggest the use of patches. If you want to do something like this: What you have to do is to create a patch plane, then give it "thickness" (all inside the patch menu dropdown), which will give you a patch prism composed of 6 planes. By increasing or decreasing the number of control points (again, inside the menu there are options) you can then move the vertexes and model the blocks organically. Remember to always give all planes the same number of control points and tessalation level (otherwise there'll be gaps between them), and after modelling and texturing them, make them func_static so they'll be grouped and it'll be a lot easier to select them later.

Yes, pretty cool, but if you handt said anything I would probably think of a witch or something.

Yes, brilliant work!, the head (like Diego mentioned) feels much more natural and realistic, I like everything from the proportions to the expression.

+ Melee combat: AI tends to be passive and robotic in melee fights, throwing a single blow and then clearly waiting for you to fire yours. This is to be expected in light of the mechanism used in TDM for combat (multi-directional duel), but maybe some randomness could be inserted in there, so there could be occasions where they would swing two or three times in rapid sequence, and then wait (a breather) for your counter attack - exactly like the zombie character, with the difference you can actually block the blows instead of dodging them. This could be, if deemed as a desirable feature, another "skill set" type for enemy AIs (could see potential for violent villains or masterful swordsmen one might face in missions). PS: In fact, has anyone tried to give an armed character the zombie's melee routine? My guess is that it would be an interesting experiment, as the zombie is capable of timing your aproach and swinging in antecipation, swinging blows of different speeds and reaches in fast sequence and is overall quite agressive in nature (can't block though). I would be more than willing to beta test any experiments on this front, if needed.

It was probably me. I also did the same, challenged the person to a fair duel, but the point remains, the AI in question seems to have an ordinary melee skill set and the challenge wasn't that great. The "dramatic fight moment" element that could be explored in missions also reminds me to bug grayman another time and ask for a bit of experimenting with TDM's melee mechanics - AI tends to be too passive and robotic, throwing a single blow and then clearly waiting for you to fire yours. Maybe some randomness could be inserted in there, so there could be occasions where they would swing two or three times in sequence, and then wait (for a breather) - exactly like the zombie character, with the difference you can actually block the blows instead of dodging them. Anyway, just thinking out loud...

Hmmm... Never watched the tv show, just the movies. They are brilliant in terms of artistic vision, but the stories might not be everyone's cup of tea. I would highly recommend (both movies) if you like sci-fi in the Blade Runner kind of style.

Visually I see impressive work on orderly architectural language and very good use of textures between elements! Like Diego says, an immersive environment is a lot more noticeable and overall enjoyed than level geometry alone, the only thing missing for me really is dirt, debris and uncontrolled vegetation growths scattered around in some of those areas. Glad to hear it is almost finished!

Oh, ok, but you probably mean opening up the fan itself, right? It's not something I can just do by accessing the fan inside the laptop and spraying somewhere, is it? Thanks for the tip.

This is one of the experiments I was working on regarding head accessories for women. It thought a nun character was necessary, but I dont know when, if ever, I would be able to actually create a complete game-ready model like that... The face is also new, a heavily modified (and simplified) template free model (wanted a rounder face than the current noble woman's one). The hair is missing, and the clothes are still too high poly, but it is just a test anyway. This is quite slow though, and perhaps I shall retreat to simpler works in the near future (architecture pre-fabs), also try to see if its possible to create hats and the like for some of the female heads without needing to modify them at all (just an extra mesh), that should make it easier to put them in the game without the whole re-rigging thing. Reference: