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Well I read in another post o the forums here that 7500-8k polys is the target for characters. I'll have no problem whatsoever getting to that level from the current 30k It's never a good idea to have large details like the belt buckle just a flat plain with a normal map, it's always best to have some basic geometry there as well that more or less follows the high res shape. That's not a problem though, there's a plugin for Lightwave call qemLOSS which does just that job. I'll have to get this textured and normal/spec mapped and into Doom to see what the final effect will be. I currently have no idea how god/bad/average it will look inside the game.

If you find something out then you should probably download this http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=255 and incorporate it there to test it out. My next plans are to figure out how to change the buttons, and how to let the SDK do something for me.

I'm a rather enormous fan of the Thief universe and would simply love to help out on a project like this. Of course, I've played and own every game in the series. The Thief games have also been the only ones I've ever actually replayed again and again. The specific area I would be offering any services in would be writing/concept design. Would I be correct in thinking that Macsen is your only writer at this point? If he is, I believe things could benefit quite largely from a second head for the same task. I am hardly a journalist like Macsen, and have only a modest number of written works to offer as any proof of worthiness, but my DeviantArt account does hold a few things to peruse (Be sure to check out the story). I am fully free and available to dedicate myself to this for the next several months to be sure. Starting next school year, though, I'll be making the transition to college and I simply cannot tell you how much time that will claim -- although chances are I will still be perfectly able to work. What say you, folks? ?

Not really related in line with what we were talking about here....but I just mocked this up for fun. Someone at the ionstorm forums asked if we were going to change the name or just leave it as "The Dark Mod". Thinking of how Eidos and Ionstorm may take to us creating a mod inspired by one of their intellectual properties, I felt it would only be fitting to call the game THIS. On a half serious note...*L* I think I might even like that name. HA. @ pakmannen: Wow, I love that mock up. @ Springheel: I see where your coming from. The inspiration for that idea came from the idea that the fans will be creating prophecies in a sense. Fan Missions are essentially adding to the story. Kind of mystical and fantasy oriented I suppose, but it's also in line with the Thief universe, just approaching if from a different and I think more cerebral direction. Kind of quiet and reflective, like the game itself. As more fan missions are written, it would be like the prophecies unfolding. Just some thoughts to ponder. Anyway, enjoy my silly mockup.

While we are gonna distribute his textures, we're gonna be using them within the mod so we're safe. As long as we have an artistic purpose for them, and aren't throwing them around on another free texture website or comp CD, we can use them however we want.

yeah some good stuff. what about copyright though? I couldn't find anything about that - do we have to contact them and ask for permission or are they just free for everyone - commercial or not commercial?

Yes. You should talk to Fingernail about that. He can give you access to the teams forums where we have the concepts and everything.

Yes, context . It's free.

I think I remember seeing you around on the ISA forums back before Thief 3 was released, that render of the Thief jumping the wall looks really familiar (and absolutely completely amazingly awesome). I'm impressed, everyone else is impressed, and you're already a member of the team as I write this. Welcome to the team, man..hope you have fun.

I did this for Phantom a few weeks back, it'll tell you everything you need to know getting textures into the game...along with links to an indepth normalmapping tut. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=101 It sounds like you've already found the proper way to add a light, you just didn't switch to the renderer so you could check it out in realtime. To do that just hit F3 to switch from the cam to the renderer, and then F4 to enable realtime updating so it'll apply all your lighting information. When you say premade room do you mean one of Id's maps? For that you'd have to find the name of the texture you wanna replace, open pak001.pk4, track it down in there, and replace the 3 dds textures with your custom one. But that could lead to some really funkified results cuz their texture could've been applied to the wall in some weird way which might stretch and distort yours out of proportions if it isn't the right size, it'd be better just to make your own simple room in the editor for testing purposes. To do that all you'd need to do is make a texture set and use a generic name like Wall_Test01 or something like that. Plop it in a certain folder for easy access like base/textures/darkmod/test, make the appropriate .mtr file, then build your room using it. If you like it you can just rename the 3 textures and move it somewhere else, if not you can just make another set with the same name and overwrite the ones you have in the test folder. The next time you reopen the editor it'll have the new textures already in place to check out. I do something somewhat similar to that. If I find something about the texture I don't like while I'm working in the editor, I'll close it and zip up the current files, change it to fix what needs fixing, then just overwrite the files with the new texture and fire up the editor again to check it out.

Greetings Everyone! I wanted to start this thread on behalf of the DarkMod team to help keep our guests informed on our progress; to let them know there's DarkMod life in the project even when it may seem there is none -- and to keep them updated as such. There won't be a set schedule as to when this thread will be updated, but maybe check back from time to time. Anyone can post here and I'm sure you'll hear from other team members here in the future. Although many visitors might already have http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/index.htm bookmarked to see updates on screenshots and concept artwork, etc., some don't have it bookmarked and may not know about it. Other forums actually point to our site here and I figured there might be some benefit to providing occasional updates here via this forum, too. As an update for our guests out there, I can say that I've seen a LOT of activity from our team members behind-the-scenes on this DarkMod project. There are many discussions going on and a lot of concepts being worked on. As a team member with a primary focus on artwork, I've personally created a few concept drawings and have seen fellow artists showcase some very nice concepts. Our programmers, 3-D modellers, audio experts, etc. are also very active in these early stages of the project. I want to assure our guests that there's a lot of DarkMod life behind-the-scenes that you might not otherwise see from the outside. We have a long road ahead of us, but we have an enthusiastic group working on this and I'm confident you'll be happy with our DarkMod work once complete. Stay tuned, as I'm sure there will be many more updates in the future! Until then, may shadows continue to guide your journeys. Darkness_Falls

Did you like the demo BlackThief? I couldn't tell if you liked or didn't like the fact that ghosting is easy. If anyone here gets the game and thinks about this thread, feel free to say whether you liked it or not. I'm thinking about getting the game and I feel someone who likes the Thief series would be a good resource to find out if it lives up to the stealth sophistication we know and love regarding the Thief series.

Or register here at the forums, so you can see the rest of the boards.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=159 The second post in this thread is the important one. The aim of this thread is to collect all information about what we want to do on a more detailed level but not TO detailed. So discussion about conecpt art should be here, but the information that this beast should be done shouild be posted there as well. You should also look through the document and add items in the lists, if you think that they should be included and I forgot them. For example: I listed a number texture themes and what each theme must provide for. If you notice that a theme, or a texture for a theme is missing, the list it, there so we can keep track of it. You don't need to be specific, but specific enough that we know what you are talking about. Of course even if you are an artist, that doesn't mean that you may not look through the other sections to check if we forgot something. If you decide here that you want to do a belcher but the coders don't know about this, you can not animate your model afterwards.

If you agree or decide something like that, then you should post it in my project definition thread, so we can include/remove it there. Not everybody is following all the threads, but we should all know about these things. That's why I started this thread. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=159 Usually I don't look much into the Art threads, because I'm not an artist and can not contribute much there. So most of the time, when I look at these threads, I just look at the pictures and hope that the first mod is appearing fast because of the great graphics. But I don't read all the postings here. I guess there are others as well and we shouldn't rely on this when deciding what we want and what not. Especially since a thread has only a limited time and after that only few remeber it and what has been decided. Don't forget. If you decide something here, then the coders will also have to know about it, to give it life.

Of course they make sense as a general rule on hardest - they give the game the ultimate difficulty. What's the point having a hardset setting which isn't the hardest because you're free to take as long as you want to complete the mission?

I'll work on these. PS: I just posted a sample environmental scene in the Art section: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...findpost&p=1795

You are free to implement whatever extension you want, once the source code is released.

Oh yeah, you poor man, you've got the root of all evil (56K). Damn, I coulda...err.."Borrowed" it to ya. I looked in stores too, it's not there, you can't find it anywhere. It does'nt matter to me cos I got the original with original packaging (i love the original boxes ). BTW, Vadrosaul, I don't hate D&D rules when they are used in the "correct" game (like Baldur's gate 2 or something) but I absolutely hate when it is used in a firstperson style game - it NEVER works, cos it looks friggin gay when you swing, it passes through the enemy, but you "miss". It simply turns out to be no fun at all (aargh, in Morrowind for one, the guards would CONSTANTLY fucking knock you down, and at the start you could'nt even hit a friggin rat or mudcrab [mudrab! of all things a mudcrab! they move slower then a snail!]). That's why people like oDD, me, and Domarius love difficult games (reasonably that is) where ACTUAL skill is required and brains are required. I remember playing Half-Life and not even knowing what it was about cos it was so braindead (too easy makes your brain dissolve within your skull). I then played it later with minor...changes (ie: weapons of enemy do the same damage as my own) which made it hard but very fun (enough to keep me playing it for a long time). Just to sum things up, when I played Redguard for the first time (I was like 9) it was SOOO friggin difficult, that I got stuck sooo damn often (a simple answer, yet it was VERY difficult to find - Morrowind serves you the answers on a gold platter)and got extremely frustrated. Me and my brother played it at the same time, and at one point, he got soooo frustrated that he punched the screen and shattered the screenfilter (back then you had to buy them separate), i was like - lol. The funniest bit was when we actually passed it, cos it was friggin simple (unfortunately, I don't remember where this was, but I just remember the whole scene :lol: ). I'll record some in-game crap of the swordfighting and then post it here. Can anyone suggest a good program for this purpose which I can get for free? Much appreciated. Note: Dram was a Dark Elf Assassin in Redguard (yes, you do fight him and he's fucking hard [swings his sword at unrealistic speed though] - funny though, one of his lines was [when you swing at him but he blocks it] "well, I have had 200 years more practice" lol), so the name just shows how much I used to love the game (and still do)

Every time its brought up,someone thinks I'm on a crusade to write somethng out of the game. First up, I'm not talking about darkmod, I'm talking about games in general. Second, even if I was talking about the DarkMod, it would be an optional, FM author implemented feature. Spring, the player is the one on the end of the experience that the FM author is creating, so its not to hard to understand that a different set of guide lines apply. Book authors are free to write the book whatever way they want, but in the end the reader has to read it from start to end to get the full effect. If they jump in halfway through, they won't get the full experince the author was trying to create. This is no different. Finally, yes I agree that a settings page would solve the problem for the mod. But again, I remind you, I'm not talking about the mod. Look at the title of this discussion board guys. It says "Off topic", not "Feature requests".

LOL, ummmmmmm.......someone has my login I think -- or the forum's trippin'. I didn't write this. Considering this other thread that's going on (http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...st=0entry1247), I'd say something's amiss with the forum.. or someone's playin' gamez.

Blackjacking is not difficult in TDS, you can still run up behind AI and whack them befoire they know what's going on. (not a full on run, but a kind of run/stop/run/whack. We're endevouring to make this game as difficult as possible, and the blackjack is one tool that we intend to balance, where before it has just been thrown into the THief games without a second thought. We're changing it from a free, unlimited, permenant weapon that can be used to take out every AI on the map with ease, to ...well, you'll just have to wait and see.

We've had this discussion already. Check out: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...%20dagger&st=50

What about the user who will have the user number 200? They are going to feel jipped out of a free balloon.

Whoa, can we shrink that image down a bit? Images should be kept at a reasonable size on the forums...if they absolutely need to be bigger than 800x600, then we should use a link. The cathedral doesn't look bad, but that tower really looks familiar. Is it based on something? I originally thought of Orthanc, but I know it isn't the movie version.