RPGista

Sweet window man, I really like the stone texture and the metal plates... The whole process is very interesting!

I think its also a lot about production pipeline - I'm good at nurbs modeling but they are very awkward to translate to meshes, so they are in fact not suited for 3d gaming, where you should have a good control of how much polygons you have and where should the detail go, manually. Hexagon seems like a easy to use, hands on modeler which can probably model anything you want, if you can get the hang of it, it's probably worth it to use a program like that (even if unsupported by the gaming community, meaning without plugins, etc), and then using blender for the exporting procedure, as it has the community tools. Its about what you feel good using, I cant really get my head around 3DS or Blender's modeling mechanics for example, but Im feeling confortable learning Modo steadily, it would be ok then to model anything on that program and then use Blender for the rest of the process - which means you dont need to master the whole process in one tool and be confined to it, you can do your modeling here, your UV mapping and texturing there, and then use this to convert, etc. I wouldnt mind taking a look at these, they are free after all and if you feel confortable learning them, great.

I disagree. Extremely "volumetric" textures such as some of the cobblerstone ones are very hard to use, the visual impact of having so much artificial depth into the images and their perfectly regular outlines is a very bad graphical issue which makes them look out of place in many situations. I would argue that bump maps look good when they give "texture" to the difuse image, but not when trying to simulate depth/3d too much, IMHO. If you are looking for suggestions, I would very much like to have more of this kind of textures - gritty, dirty, aged looking stone work that is common place on medieval architecture, with semi-regular stones walls mixed with mortar (forming a solid shape, the mortar is not sunken like in most of the TDM textures available) - Im having trouble finding subtle stone textures (without drastic bump maps that create way too much shadow and make patterns very visible) with already an aged feel to it (so you wouldnt have to be reusing decals all the time). Very good cut, noble stone work (notice how they are in fact, always different, never repeated stones because they are not bricks and are not formed in molds): Ordinary construction, mortar based construction filled with poorly cut stones (same level, not sunk as in brick construction!): EDIT: I like Arcturus' texture, I just wish the stones werent so polished, had a "drier" and grainier feel, for example.

Yeah, just take a look at the basilica's floor plan, theres a main nave (in the photo), and then several chapels of different sizes and shapes connected to the outer naves, some are shrines to be seen from outside, others rooms to get into, etc. I dont have a scale so I dont know its size exactly, but this is the biggest church I've ever seen, anything bigger than this would just be unreal I believe, so this might be a good guide for you - it shouldnt be too hard scaling down what you have to something similar in proportion, then work on the detailing from there. It might be a good experiment, scale it down and see if the feeling of awe you are aiming for lost anything, my guess is it wont at all. And yeah, I guess there's no other way around it than assuming this as the main cathedral! , and if detailed right, could indeed become a prefab others might be interested in adopting in their maps. I would recommend you taking a look at the online documents I refered to on the inspiration post, they have detailed information on this type of architecture.

Damn, the scale... This takes "monumental" to a whole new level! I'm very intrigued, like everyone here, about this building, it's awesome when someone tries something really bold and pulls it off, even as an experiment. I see you even have a dome over the transept, which is a pretty nice touch. St. Peters Basilica The question still remains, how would such an immense space be used for gameplay purpouses, but if it's more like a space to set the mood of the game and to help create the TDM "mythology", then we dont even need to make that question. Still, I think such a building begs for its own materials and a LOT of attention to architectural details. Like St Peters today, maybe your cathedral shouldnt be about ordinary sermon (with the preaching altar at the end and the public listening in the main nave) - the distances are too big for it to be practical - maybe it could be but a huge monument building housing a very important relic (like that altar in the photo) and smaller shrines/chapels around the big connecting space, then the scale would make more sense in terms of use (but only if you want to really question that).

Actually its quite a good texture as far as the materials look, I think what people mean is that the image itself is too "small" (= too little bricks inside the image tile, no matter their resolution size), which means it is going to get extremely easy to recognise its pattern in a wall, because of excessive repetition. I dont know what's the general guideline for textures, but I for one find it much better when texturing buildings in the game to have "big" textures (more information inside the tile, less "resolution") - ideally you would have a single image for the whole wall, and there are a couple of those available in TDM already (Im actually using a single texture per wall in a few cases and they look very interesting to me). EDIT: Just saw Baddcog's post. Think of it like this:

Took a look at some videos of Hexagon and it seems like an interesting/easy to get a grasp on kind of modeler, reminds you a lot of Modo, I like this kind of direct modeling programs that are about ease of use and fast creation over complex modifier based ones like 3D Studio, it's just easier to work with, if more limited. So is it really free, the license wont run out?

I like it very much, particularly the nice amount of details, the non-orthogonal buildings, and the canal idea, of course. Only thing i would suggest, based on a place like Venice, is to have sections where the buildings walls are the actual canal (no sidewalk buffer between constructions and the river), which can create great variety of situations like small pprts around a corner, bridges crossing the river on several heights, areas so narrow the opposite facades almost touch, etc.

Either way, I wouldnt be too worried about not being able to complete the mission in one go. This is one of the few maps out there that took me several tries before I could finish it, just take your time, be thorough and dont forget to read everything you can for clues.

@ Melan - Thanks, the main action takes place on the other side of the wall actually, where there's more architecture. This patio being an optional space inside the mission. You can see the facades are lit, in the background. A very wide no-shadow spot light (2-3 points higher than the ambient) is lighting all those facades just a bit, to simulate bounced moonlight. There's a lot of work to do on getting the light level right though, so I'll stop talking about my mission so much untill then haha. @ Komag - awesome, going to test that tonight!

I'm sure this probably has been reported before, but I'm getting consistent crashes while using the animation preview window, after a while it just freezes and crashes... So far this has been the only issue I found in the newest version.

That alien looks really good though, particularly for a first exercise. I really like the hands and feet, very well detailed and interesting/realistic anatomy.

Spam (and its related "industry") has got to be one of the craziest imbecilities ever conceived - who in their right minds would go to a forum on his free time, be tricked into reading some poorly constructed ad and realise, "Yep, I really need to buy me some viagra and/or enlarge my penis, I mean right now", or some such nonsense. What idiot could believe that flooding the internet with this trash would actually get people to buy more?

Very good posts. Sorry if I dont have time right now, but perhaps you have heard of Following, from Christopher Nolan? It was I think his first "major" film, about a writter that decides to follow people in order to observe their lives (in a kind of clandestine way), untill he actually meets a thief that goes around breaking into houses, but not just for stealing... Its an interesting film, a good photography and a bit of his trademarked "formally unusual screenplay".

@ Nosslak - I know exactly what you mean, nice to know that you kept at it, it was worth it! The thing with subdivision is that it's good for creating complex shapes and aproximations, but only solid models and "water tight" surface models are actualy meant to be used for serious technical modeling (example: ), so its hard to spend time learning them. Anyways, have fun with the zombie, would you say humanoid shapes are easier to do in zbrush, instead of building them face by face?

Thanks guys. Indeed, no light gem (I never play with them anyway, it's a lot funner not knowing for sure if your hidden) but I took some damage getting down there, so we see the health bar. There'll be a fair amount of complexity in the map, that's basicly what I set out to do, a small, simple but richly modeled mission. Well, its not that small/dense anymore, but thats basicly because the spaces need to be of a certain size to allow for AI movement, that made the whole thing grow around 20% from initial models (not in rooms, just in size). The textures are indeed almost all from the cobblestones group, they are the only ones that can really remind you of irregular stone masonry mized with mortar, which is the main construction method for the generic medieval building. Most of the brick group is not adequate at all to the visual style I was going for, Im afraid, they are often either regularly cut stones (very unusual for anything but major buildings like palaces and churchs, and even then...) or are that kind of "loose stone" mix, mostly used for non-bearing walls, We are also kind of short on granite, gray materials, which tend to look the best in my eyes. Wish I could create textures, but anyway the cobblestone ones and a lot of the wood ones are incredible, I like them a lot. Nosslak, nice catch, definetly forgot to add a frame to the botton part of the window. @ Sotha - I was having trouble getting parallel lights to work, untill I imported a working one from a Katsbits tutorial level. The biggest problem with using them (or big spot ones, for that matter) is that you have to be careful with your modeling work on the facades, and the building volume itself - cut brushes, intersecting brushes, some models (specially if intersecting with world geometry), they all have high probablities of screwing something up and you end up getting all kinds of light artifacts or strange "leaks". It took me weeks to solve one in my opening room, because I had no idea of the source of the problem (basicly ditches the whole offending building and remade it entirely out of patches). It will render amazing complexity, as long as you remember to keep the geometry simple and create most of the details with patches, patches are a life saver, they work flawlessly everytime.

Here's a very non-revealling pic of my first map, it shows the use of moonlight to create dramatic shadows over the game world and make it pretty hard for the player to cruise around protected by continuous darkness. This area in particular is still going to be decorated (mainly vegetation, it's an abandoned back patio), but at least it's a peak into how the project is striving to look. The point was to create a somewhat realistic looking world, with more of a gothic/medieval feel to it than the victorian/steampunk visuals that is usually associated with Thief or TDM. Beware that the light levels are still bright, for testing purpouses, it should be dimmer on release. Good news is that the ambient light + constant moonlight + scattered lights combination (apart from the decent complexity of many buildings and rooms, and some big open areas) are not registering a very big impact on my play tests so far. Since a lot of decoration is still missing, say around 50-60%) and also some AI (so far I've placed around 60% of them, without paths yet), my fingers are crossed I wont run into any major performance issues - my laptop is medium to low range by now (was good back in 2009), so if I can make it run normally on mine, most people will also be able to. PS: Im looking for info on how to rotate the Moon position hehe - as the default skybox renders it to your east, and my parallel light comes from north-east. The pic seems to have lost quite a bit of quality on upload... Does the forum also compact images when attaching?

Odd, havent seen that myself, in fact I was playing Lockdown (really nice mission so far) and the opposite happened, got into a chapel recklessly, the priest saw me getting in there, went to the door (while I hid), opened it, stayed at the door looking around a bit and then decided it was probably nothing, closed it and went back to his routine. A pretty good reaction by the way.

And I'm happy to say I was able to put that trick of making a building visible from a distance and it's working nicely, thanks for that! You can see part of the objective from afar now, that should give you an idea of the direction to follow. Was also able to get the parallel light working, that solved some of my problems. With a couple of (big and faint) spot lights, I simulated bounced light on some of the background buildings, which looks better than plain ambient light. I have to say that the game is extremely prone to light "leaks", whenever I fix one I create another, light where there shouldnt be, or blinking shadows. They seem to be tied to overlapping brushes. I've fixed them all now anyway (by basicly redoing everything around the problem). I think the biggest risk is making your building completely hermetic from within AND without (so it will contain all interior lights inside the rooms and also work flawlessly as a 3D object to be casting shadows caused by the moonlight). Since it's often quite complicated to create clean geometry for both cases, that's why I was getting problems, I guess.

Damn, just noticed those little welding details on the metal, amazing attention! Is the whole model done with splines Nosslak? Working with (sp)lines and surfaces (nurbs) is the main reason why I cant get myself to learn subdivision programs, I wonder which ones you use to come up with all these good looking models? @Springheel - in relation to what you say, welcoming casual contributions is also good because it becomes a repository from which someone with the rest of the knowledge can come and finish the job.

Maybe as good a time as any to lobby for a few more small talk conversation sets that the player could overhear (about kitchen matters, city events, or problems at work/court for noblemen (could be talking to himself), etc.); A set of greets from neutral AI towards the player could also be nice, things like "Evening friend... (realises the sword and equipement) ...I want no trouble..."; "Could you spare a coin my lord?"; "May the builder protect you my child (priest) /stranger (pious folk)"; "Please, leave me in peace"; "I have no time, friend / for the likes of you (noble)", "Good evening, sir, my name is Lady Evelyn, and you? (ladies)", etc. And a new set of sounds for characters that recognize the player (a "villain" character) - this could work for A score to settle, Thieves or Above the City - the character knows the player from previous situations and instead of generic taunts, could say things like "You?! Here?!", "What do YOU want from me, you devil?!", "How dare you, of all people, come here/challenge me?", or "Oh, I've been wainting to get my revenge on you/get my hands on you for a long time...", etc, etc. Maybe an old man set for Scientists and Builder priests and a young one for Thugs, Thieves and Guards?

Very cool... I would also suggest alternative orientations to the feathers like in these examples, maybe a more profuse amount around the face/mask (or the opposite, centered on the forehead, like in the last pic), varied sizes to the feathers (like in the first pic, the botton "rows" of feathers that have different sizes, ignore the huge top ones), or an asymmetrical composition (to one of the sides):

That's pretty cool nbohr1more, I'll take a look.

Very nice indeed, reminds me of those venice masks (love the city).

Always loved Conan, but I must say I despise any movie on him (didnt even come close to the new one), other merchandising stuff (series, games, etc) and most of the comics material too - the original Conan was a brilliant and valiant guy, with a sharp IQ and perception, cold personality and an interesting code of conduct. This is what is patent in stories like Shadows in the Moolight, Queen of the Black Coast or Beyond the Black River (which are all some of my favourite old comics adaptations too). The comics went on (when they had used up all the original material) to portray him mostly as a big oaf that is careless and loves mayhem and is that typical cocky, unbeatable "barbarian" that is far from likeable. Some of the new comics are actually good in portraying him as he was created (not the previous series upon this recent movie was based, from Dark Horse, but the Conan the Cimmerian series, particularly the first few issues), but overall his image was never really captured beyond the "great warrior that roams around a cruel fantasy setting" on the cinema. I see him behaving a lot more like the warrior in Valhalla Rising, if anyone has seen that movie (very good). I would say the best movies this year for me were The Tree of Life (amazing cinematograpghy), Melancholia (some brilliant moments), We have to talk about Kevin (mostly for Tilda Swinton, love that woman), True Grit and Black Swan (they are from 2010 but they only got here in the cinemas in 2011, so Im couting them, both are brilliant in different ways).