RPGista

Fantastic work yet again, I barely have any free time these days but I still had to try this one out and things are going smoothly... Its a pity I wont be able to go any further today but it just seems like a brilliant little tutorial so far; the fact that you decided to bring the uving to something similar to Dark Radiant style of texturing is a really nice touch! I personally like the textures used which is also a kind of silly but important factor to actually want to get it done; sober, useful materials true to the theme and visuals of the mod. I really like the sound of your master plan, you seem to have a great grasp of what a complete idiot (like me) trying to start modeling with some focused information would need; if I can get all of this, I plan on working on a map model with emphasis on architecture, which I think could be fun and also useful for me in general. Work is in the way though, so I have to take it easy. Im particularly interested in getting to know a bit about the process of making that complex room for part 5 of the tecturing tutorial, if you could include some of that work in the tutorial itself, that could be really useful I think. I know that you also plan on making a tutorial for the actual modeling proccess later, so if it is included there, then of course, dont worry about it, I can definetly wait, no need to work two times on something similiar. Modo does have a very nice mechanics to control each and every little action in detail, graphically too, so I can see why you would miss that. Its one of the features I most like about it, how you can just use a tool, and then confortably tweak it perfection, with accuracy, before applying the change. That is a must for me, and a problem when learning Blender (but I'll get there!). Thinking of Splines, have you ever heard of T-splines for Rhino, its one of the tools Im experimenting with right now, if you ever modeled with hard surface nurbs, you'll know this thing is amazing; might look like smooth polygon meshes mechanics, but when applied to nurbs, you get a lot of control and power... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kYdmBfmh4M Anyway, going off topic - keep up the great work, I'm really interested in this and Im sure many more will be too!

Im curious wether this will be a more generic intro like the previous modeling run down, or a hands on example (maybe texture a cornice or window?).

Actually I was referring to techincal modelers mostly, they are the ones where precision is a must, and though Im really used to that, Im also trying to explore the free form, "more or less" modeling process in subdivision. A lot of a precise design workflow can be simulated by things like working with a grid, simmetry, arrays, etc. It would be cool to be able to use 3d more as a sketching proccess in the future, but I digress... Is your modeler of choice Modo, by the way? PS: I was thinking more about creating your own Blender tutorial topic where you could post your proccess instead of here - the conversation kind of carried on here, but it would be easier for people to find the tutorial if it had its own forum topic.

Thanks for the incentive. Indeed, its a lot about the way to aproach the construction of the model, in subdivision modelers you have to have almost the opposite design aproach as in most technical ones, which are based on extruding accurate 2d shapes and then adding subsequent detail with extrude or boolean operations, everything done with reference to other geometry (hence the huge importance of robust, profuse snapping). It blew me away to know you were able to model that sculptured object in a few hours! Amazing technique, and i was also fascinated with the window, which is exactly the type of modelling im looking to learn right now, a mix between organic shapes and regular ones, with geometric operations such as the air openings in the middle of it. Very interesting stuff! Looking foward to the texturing section! Oh and by the way, clearly this needs its own topic, dont you think?

I understand the "more fluidity" argument, but i still think theres something unbalanced by the way they walk, specially when seen from the sides. They appear to be sitting on the air, both the legs and arms go a lot more foward than backwards in their cycles, and overall the mocap seems to have been taken from someone trying to be very stiff - the original one seems to make the characters slightly more focused, and they seem to have heavier grip to the floor, imo. It is really nice seeing those making their way to TDM though, this is fantastic.

Looks very nice indeed, awesome work.

Hey, thats awesome indeed - most of those accented letters could be used for the portuguese language, to get rid of those annoying little squares. Im talking "á é ã", etc. We seem to be missing ^ as in "Avô" (grandfather), but I should look into it to make sure, its been many years since grammar classes...

Thanks a lot Renzatic, this is looking fantastic, Im learning already, even though most of my tests are going on on other software, still battling my way into Blender. I'm thinking about using your configuration, Modo is not reeeally the most confortable modeler for me, but Im still more used to it by now then Blender's defaults. Thanks for that too by the way. Thing is, I intend on using modelers mainly for building world geometry/architecture, it has to be something useful for my own professional gain otherwise I simply cant invest the time anymore, thats why I keep jumping from one modeler to the other, they are just useless for any kind of serious duty architectural work (not to be confused with architectural visualization, which is basicly importing the finished CAD model and adding furniture, lights, textures, etc, for rendering). The only one that gets close to being useful is Modo, which has decent snapping abilities (not even close to the ridiculously easy Sketchup, Bonzai 3d or Rhinoceros), and seems to have a nice renderer, but like others it is commercial and you kind of have reserves in commiting to them, because even though I can use it for "educational" purposes, I cant really expect to work in a place that has that particular program. Seems Im in a bad place, because all confortable, easy to use modelers dont seem to be up to par anymore (Wings, Hexagon), the ones I do know how to use are parametric/nurbs modelers which are not meant for game modeling, and then there are the big boys (Modo, Blender, 3D Studio) which are really a chore to learn... Anyway, sorry for the rant, just have to persevere I guess.

Mount and Blade - It has some awesome elements, the realistic setting (no magic crap, no phantasy star kind of insane medieval weaponry, no tiring fantasy lore), the combat system (which works a lot like TDM's), some simple but very interesting looking cities and villages, and the whole army fights which can get quite exciting; it has no story, you just wander around, interacting with a statistics based world (even the npcs are just statistics, with randomized speech), all there's to do is to become a merchant with an army or to plunder countless places, for the heck of it. You just wish there was some kind of objective, something to make all the carnage "meaningful" (but I always think its amusing how we become quite the despot when playing strategy games, you just send the soldiers to their deaths without even flinching, and find yourself chasing fleeing enemies without mercy, or killing huge amounts of nameless people as if it was the most fun thing you could possibly be doing). Dead Space - huge production values and awesome art direction, sounds, design... but just becomes arcade action after a promising horror beginning, complete with shoot the asteroid and boss stages mini games. And having to go around the whole ship to fix the smallest things... That stuff is just so outdated, the "space janitor" thing. All you hear is "we just found out this ship is infected by some crazy monstrosities and we are all in shock and barely survived the first wave - why wont you go by yourself deep into the ship's entrails, every possible basement level and maintenance dead-ends, pumping fuel, turning on shields, getting rid of "something" blocking the machines, shooting asteroids, turning on some lights, finding some batteries, collecting scattered pieces for some computer to work, oh so now they cut the air supply, please deal with that", etc etc etc. Couldnt finish the game, its just too repetitive for me, pretty soon the thrill was gone. Oblivion, Gothic kind of action, sandbox rpgs - never thought I would say this, but I just cant bring myself through the slow, predicatable path of going from lowly squire/fugitive/village boy to the baddest, most awesome warrior ever in the realm, anymore. You have to go around selling rat meat, rusty weapons, having to face the frustration of hitting someone on the head with an axe to score... 1 damage point (oblivion, literally). Just give me a proper, trained hero and let me go about my business, please.

That splittable, mergeable, growable triangulated patch also would be really cool... DR's nurbs patch is nice for certain geometries, but this one is so much more versatile and controllable it seems, you would feel tempted to create the whole map with them (specially because they have soft move, to control all those vertices organically).

Lovely! I'll be downloading this soon as I come back. Thanks a LOT!

Xarg - Thanks, glad you liked the mission and some of the effects in there. The crypt took a lot of time to work properly, its great knowing some of you guys had the intended experience. I've never played Max Payne, but your idea sure is interesting to me. The initial plan was to have an outro sequence like the briefing one, with the hero coming back to the lady's room, she would be asleep and he would just place the ring next to her, saying something like she could never know about what really happened that night, that would be the way to end the mission; but we couldnt find a way to put it there, and I had no more time to be experimenting with stuff at that point. Having pauses in the game for "cinematics" in that style of storytelling (graphic novel, which I think works in this game, its basicly an illustrated "readable") would be something I would be certainly interested in doing more, if I knew how.

Also got stuck a couple of days ago on some very laggy areas, couldnt play normally. Just downloaded the 1.1 version, lets see if my computer can handle it better.

Indeed, I really like the creativity invested on the building forms. Texturing streets (in my little eperience) is always a problem, specially when you have wide streets like that (with a lot of surface to cover) - maybe you could try a grittier cobblestone texture? I tell you, if we had CoD's Radiant painting/blending of textures and decals, all the problems of creating richly textured surfaces as a mapper would be over.

Well, organic models are not exactly easy to model or texture, but untill "decent modelers" appear, I can try taking one of the simple ones here and have a go at it (like a foot).

Do you foresee some kind of repository where people will post this stuff, their captures? Assuming some of it could be useful, of course.

Some pretty fascinating points there Demagogue. Wont have time to expand on anything right now, but I must say I find the points you are making to be most useful and inspiring concepts, that I wish I had thought about in such a clear way when I first started thinking about my own little "story" (FM), would have been a lot bolder, perhaps. We should definetly have this in some kind of storyline theory wiki article, for future reference!

Damn, I thought that was a pic of Modo for a second, nice work! Now if only we could have some of the same interface.... I've read through the entire tutorial so far, incredibly detailed and funny, easy to read - just like a basics tutorial should be IMO. Awesome work. Its just unfortunate Im not having the kind of time to really sit down and catch up with Blender, thats why I started using some of the same concepts and exercises on Hexagon which is now freeware and I found to be pretty confortable to just model, even though its limited for anything else. Like I said, it was pretty nice having the example and the explanations to put some of the knowledge I had together - and believe me, even if I have a little bit of experience in modeling itself (very little), I'll need all the help I can get as far as anything else goes, texturing, optimizations or design choices, putting it in the mod... So far Im really liking the voulmetric work, bumps, and how to get them there in an economic way. Cant wait for more!

Raymeld - sorry to hear about the problems, glad you were able to enjoy it somewhat. Quakis - That was a pretty interesting read, thanks for taking the time to writte a review (I see some amusing maps in your blog for old favourite games, will be sure to come back).

Im no expert, I have a limited experience playing stealth games when compared to some of the players/mappers here, but it seems that most TDM missions follow a tradition coming from Thief 1 which is basicly to have a complex, stationary world with key challenge spots, with the story/text having the role of adding to the atmosphere and/or give you hints as to how to overcome the said obstacles. I think this was a great innovation at the time, to have an open map that you could explore and aproach from any angle, with a fixed story line that would help you populate that world with your imagination (it was certainly different from the older FPS formula of starting in A and having to find the "exit" in B, with all obstacles being a deterrent between you and your objective - though some of those were very creative, like Hexen, which demanded you to be going back and forth in a HUB like world system, revisiting parts of maps and putting the puzzles together). Having plot-nodes in TDM that organically change how the world reacts and how the story unfolds would be extremely interesting - there has been, from the missions Ive played, very few adventure-style physical puzzles so far, Im thinking of the lens puzzle in Heart, or the dispatching of the villain in Score, but even those were in essence a "check objective" thing (though there were future repercutions in Score for having "solved the puzzle"). The majority of the missions will rely on stealth challenges and the thrill of overcoming AI's perception, with very little done in the way of world interaction. Again, this is not a problem per se, just a different design aproach and gameplay choice. Making a map "responsive" does require you to multiply the work, specially if you really want to make people feel they got the full experience even though they actually went through half the map only. It simply is a more "wasteful" aproach, requiring abundance of creativity and solutions for the same problem; when thinking simply of different physical routes the player might choose, each with their own visual identity and challenges, I think the tendence will always be to connect them again later to a central point, from where possibly you could choose again; this will keep a central core to the mission and will also make sure the player experiences key points of the map, because they are shared by the routes. I think if such a system were to be widely (and realistically) used, with key situations having actual consequences in the game world and allowing for the story to progress, support for it would probably be quite necessary - a good number of mappers (the majority?) do not have the coding knowledge to do much outside what Doom/TDM was streamlined for; a set of "scripted sequence" prefabs for example, with the basic functionality needed to get a working IF mission, could go a long way (wether its actually scripting, or objectives entities, etc), something like "readable that opens door", "put object here and npc will come and initiate a conversation", support for an actual player-npc conversation system (with access to inventory, to triggers, etc.). Anyway, things the majority can use. I tried hard to come up with a few simple solutions that I would be more than glad to share as "prefabs" - a door that when unlocked turns neutral npcs into agressive ones (you are invading their home); a npc that flees from you and asks neutral npcs for help, from then becoming agressive to you; "conversation" sequences that make AI do a couple of actions and then send them into a path network. I think having such a repository could go a long way into allowing more mappers to get small storytelling effects into their maps, even if we are still not talking about a totally different gameplay style yet. Having to create each step from scratch, or having to try to reverse engineer complex maps that might have the same effect you are trying to create for your own story, is a hugely time consuming task, rather frustrating, necessary one but simply keeps you from actually focusing on the story itself, and rather on the mechanics of it all.

I think storytelling is a field with huge potential in TDM that hasnt been explored yet, so I would be very much interested in hearing what more you have to say about this style of gameplay. TDM has been tailor made for stealth "dungeon crawling" however and there seems to be little support for anything else, understandably. It happens to be in my eyes a great base for other kinds of gameplay (even action-puzzle like HL2, but mostly sotrytelling, as you pointed out) - has great combat system, physics and interaction, AI senses, and a good asset repository. It "lacks" things that would be important for an IF kind of game, though (again, because they were not meant to be supported in the first place): responsive NPCs (right now neutral characters have confusing reactions towards the players actions, when they do react), organic transition between neutral to agressive states in NPCs (things like recognizing agression, theft, certain actions (like player branding sword in front of them), etc), and maybe most of all, a variety of animations that would be needed for most interactive worlds. With all of this I mean to say that the potential as a plataform is definetly there (I even tried to lean towards a slightly different kind of gameplay with my own first map), but NOT for a single map maker; a team would be needed to cover all the new content needed to portray the story. HL2 had great NPC interaction... The way they would speak to you, acknowledge your presence with their body language and positioning. I suspect it is a great plataform too for IF games, and I'm going to take a look at the maps you mentioned. We dont really have that in TDM. I only played a couple of stages in Doom3 (couldnt be bothered), I know they have basic interaction too (things like npcs looking at you when talking), but I guess once understood, all limitations can be included in the design and worked with/around. The depth in story elements would require also good amounts of custom scripting, like you suggested. Again, this sounds like a project that demands a multi talented team - someone to create the world and possibly the artistic assets, and someone to create the mechanics. A fascinating story like the ones from those amazing adventure games you mentioned would need a lot of work itself, but that seems like the fun part to me! Last adventure game I had time to play was a small one called Seven days a skeptic, very cool single-man effort, but its a totally different plataform, obviously. FPSs as you know demand a lot of work on the world building, taking a huge amount of time from focus on the actual storytelling itself.

Dont know enough about modeling right now, maybe in the future I'll be able to help?

Thanks, glad you liked it. Those sounds should have quite a reach (so you can hear them even from outside the crypt), but I dont remember setting them to global or anything like that (what would explain you hearing them without any loss)... Should take a look. Also, seems you and some others are crossing the "1cm wide ledge" but thats just something I overlooked. The TDM character can unrealistically walk over very thin solids, and I forgot to make that detail non-solid. You can easily jump from the balcony to the derelict building cornice though. And you might be the first one to have successfully reached route 2 in your first playthrough.

This was awesome, following this small tutorial gave me tons of ideas as to how organize the little I know and get a small example ready (in Hexagon so far, just yesterday started Blender basics), here's what i got: It is very interesting to know how to do things manually, because you really have to use all the basic tools to get it done. I did use sweep however to get the perfect 45º angles intersection, just because Im a rigour freak, and still have troubles just doing things by hand in 3D. I used the same profile you described (half of it) and scaled a bit to create that botton molding. Modeling the moldings using your steps was really fun and very detailed, huge thanks for the effort, hope you finally got that rest! This will be handy for sure, thanks for all the tips so far, in the meantime, I'll go back to Blender. PS: Nice onomatopoeias hehe

Well, you were just playing the map a week or so ago (my map)! If you try to scare both ladies in there, they should flee (the lady should flee down the street and ask help from the peasants; the cooker should flee to her husband's bedroom and (hopefully) wake him up). They'll both stay put, screaming instead. That wouldnt be too much of a problem if the screams were louder, but as I pointed out earlier in another post, screaming AI seems unable to alert another AI a room away with alarm screams, even with the door between them open. Sotha pointed this out: http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=3100 It seems that if there's a certain flee point that any given AI is unable to reach (inside the respective team), chances are none of them will work.