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I noticed awhile back that LWO files are a fraction of the size of ase's. Ase's are easy to edit and export for me so I don't mind using them personally but looking at file sizes I'm amazed. My chest2.ase is 454 kb. I found a couple conversion programs and forced it thru to lwo. The file size is about 55 kb. Might end up larger as those files aren't correct, getting the correct textures applied is a pain and the Max export program I found only gets one material into DR. So I was curious to give Lightwave a try if for nothing more than exporting LWO's. But it looks like the company that makes it is working on a new version and there is no demo available. The 3 chest and lids files total about 1.27 MB's alone, That is only a fraction of the models I've made so if I could cut down file sizes by 75% we could probably trim 10 MB's easily. ------- Well, I just checked by zipping them up and they compressed to 167 kb, so I guess that's not too bad after all. 255 kb of lwo's only compressed to about 129 kb. So I guess as far as zipped files go they really do compress well. I'd still be interested in checking Lightwave out though if any body has any leads or an old demo around.

Had a problem with the web server yesterday that led to a crashed table in the forum database. This has now been repaired and things seems to work again. I was on travel so it took a while before I was able to fix it. Merry Christmas!

I can get on the main forum now but still get an error when trying to load posts. Anyone else?

Yes, you are still viewing The Dark Mod Forums I've just finished the upgrade of our IPB Board Forums to the latest release. Packed with new features, rewritten code and all that. Have a look around. The skin is currently the default one, but will sooner or later be converted to a darker skin, to fit the Dark Mod universe. Also note that the forums have been moved from http://modetwo.net/darkmod to it's own sub-domain: http://forums.thedarkmod.com - all forum links will still work tho, thanks to Apache's rewrite-plugin. Please report any bugs, requests and comments in this thread. PS: The forums will run a bit slow the first hours as the cache is being rebuilt.

Just a heads up that the header images are now missing from the top of the forum. I suspect due to domain forwarding or something like that?

Have I been hacked or is the site being rebuilt or hacked?

Hi Slightly cheeky question, but it appears I have no where else to turn..... I tried to get some help on D3 world and have spend days searching the internet, mod wiki and D3 world - but nothing I have found so far has worked. Would anyone here please be kind enough to send me a .blend file of any model that they have successfully exported as a .MD5 mesh & anim and then been able to create a .af file from? I have spend days on this now days and days. I have my Chicken modelled and animated and it wanders around and occasionally stops for a peck and all is great So then I think, OK we need to create the ragdoll now, so we load up EditAfs and spawn the Chicken AF into the map, and instead of a lovely T-pose and adding joints and bones where the joints and bones should be, I have basically a chicken in the shape of a melted wellington boot I'm beginning to thing it the bone set-up I have done that is wrong, but Ive spent so long on it now, its difficult to see the woods from the trees. I even made a really simple stick figure with just a few bones and that suffers the same problem Any .blend files or advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Just wanted to say, Hello! From reading through various posts in the forums it seems like a great community and I hope to become a part of it. So I got the hankering for some Thief as of late and stumbled on TDM through some googling. After purchasing Doom 3 through Steam and instaling TDM, I have been nostalgiacly playing through many of the FMs and have also decided to d/l the Radiant editor and start making a mission, maybe many, we'll see. As it turns out also, I just started (today!) my 1 week vacation from work and intend to dive in to the Radiant editor and am currently going through the A-Z wiki on it. A bit of background on me, I 'used' to work in application support till the economic crash a couple years ago and was laid off and am now running a machining center at a local machine shop, using Mastercam daily, 2D/3D stuff and have always wanted to make a mission/game, and decided since I've always enjoyed the Thief series and stealth gameplay so much, this is where I would start. After getting to my third year in Mechanical Technology I changed my major to Information Technology (should have went with straight Computer Science but ahhh hindsight). I've always loved building things and designing things and also really enjoy computers, art, audio, and the entire visual experience as presented to a user. I have created a couple playable maps before using the older source engine editor so I'm vaguely familiar with 3D modeling, skyboxes, lighting, AI pathing, etc. That's been over 10 years ago though. I got familiar with 3dsmax, ProE, Autocad, and Mastercam in my first major during school so that helps a bit when familiarizing with a new editor and as previously mentioned I've dabbled around in the Valve Source editor. I'm also very much looking forward to the Crucible of Omens campaign created by the marvelous talent at TDM and would like to help in any way I can once I'm familiar with the Radiant engine. I can also do many many voices, I've often thought about moving out to Cali from Indiana and finding work in voice-overs, voice acting, etc. All this started as a youngster with little friends, time on my hands, and imaginary friends. Wow that's hard to admit. So anyway, I've been working on a shadowy Garrett voice, and can do guards and some women characters with old, old english, gruff, slippery, sneaky, terrifying, voices and personalities. Just thought I'd mention that as it may be a way that I could contribute early on and would also enjoy. So anyway, too much about me and not enough A-Z wiki, back to the tutorial! Glad to be here and hope for good things to come.

There is a great site out there that I use often when I need a little guidance when modelling: Blender Cookie Last I was reading this tutorial and thought the statue would look good in the mod, I was getting pretty tired of seeing the st. Lucia statue over and over again. So I asked if the statue could be used for the mod and they said yes! Turned it into an ase model with one lod stage, here's a pic. If you already want to use it for a contest mission send me a pm.

Yeah, but, no, but, yeah, but... To all the experienced: What is the best 3d modeler? I'm thinking these are important considerations: * Open and free. (yet, as of yet, maybe nothing free and open exists that isn't a giant mezz?) * Standardized (as much as possible interface-wise AND native or working export/import-wise) * Simple to do simple things; Reasonably simple to do more complex things. (encouraging to beginners in that they can create a sphere pretty handily; and then maybe tweak it with a bit more experience; and then more and more with more and more. But not a huge learning curve right off the bat, unless there is just no getting around that!) * Well documented * Established or at least not teetering on the brink of extinction. All of the above are considerations, if the best over all is not free... so be it. Please declare it to be the best and that'll be that. Unless you need to invoke some Lucasville SG super-sw that runs on super-hw -- I'm not wanting to talk about that so much.

When I look at the list of .lwo models, I come across some odd names I don't recognize, like "tub(see tools household wash_bin).lwo" When I try to load them, I just get an unrecognized file error. What exactly are these models and why are they named that way?

I've updated both the Blender ASE import and export scripts to work with the newly released 2.53 beta. I've also fixed a few bugs. Links in their respective posts have been updated but they are also included in the tutorial below. Google Doc modwiki.net The Dark Mod WIki If there is anything that isn't clear or needs illustration let me know. It's a Google doc so it's almost like a wiki page and I can make immediate changes.