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Some great ideas here, but also some potential difficulties. I really like the idea, from a players perspective, of experimenting with different playstyles, character classes etc, and it would certainly boost the replay value of the game immesurably. Deus Ex did this sort of thing very well. The biggest problem is that it means a hell of a lot more work for the level designer. You have to make sure all of the difficulty settings are their for each guard, item and AI in the level, and you have to playtest the map on all the difficulty settings and playstyles, and tweak the map(s) until the balance is right for each setting, in terms of AI placement, item placement, and whole sections of a map might play well for a sneaksie thief ghosting the map, but could end up being ludicrously easy for a thugish killer type player, and the mapper might need to make major changes to geometry if things aren't working out. As a level designer who can only devote a few hours a week to designing a map, the more options there are, the longer it will take me to build something that works for everyone, but those with more time might not be concerened about that So someone like me (who favours fairly realistic game design and playstyles) will probably make maps that are biased towards ghosters, but can still be finished by more noisy, violent players (but at a cost). I suspect individual level designers, like me, will follow their own biases and prejudices when designing maps, and while I would like to see more RPG elements come into it, the extra workload might turn a lot of designers off... So I think it is probably better to wait for version 1 to be released before experimenting with the complicated stuff... Renaming difficulty levels would be the easy part I imagine...

Will it be possible for us mappers to take away his hammers? I look at the prelate and think "mage". I need mages and other magic using people for my map... Also, would it be possible to turn any character model into a "ghost"? Just a see through version of itself? I'm still new to Doom editing, and don't really know the capabilities of the engine and whatnot... I just really want to use that guy as a mage

Has anyone herad of Parkan II? I just noticed it today and suddenly want it...bad. I heard Parkan Iron Strategy was good too, and you can download a demo, unfortunately my internet just got capped (went over the 20gb limit) which is absolutely fucked. Should be uncapped tomorrow, so im gonna get it then. Apparently its already out, but on their forums someone said that the US version should be out in december, that means January for Australia..ugh. Anyone know anything about this? Russians especially should hehehe...

I'm not sure being part of a project called 'Garrett' Loader is appropriate for us anyway. It suggests we're somehow affiliated with that character, when we are not.

WHat's the point in slapping a placeholder walk and run on them? We need a proper animaitor to start the real animations. And we have no AI prgrammer either. You're only counting an AI as 'fiinshed' when it's in the game with a placeholder walk,run and attack anim? That's stupid. Eiother you count it as 'done' when it has it's full set of animations, or you count it as done when it's finished being modeled and textured, but you don't couint it as being done when it has one or two basic anims on it. Rigging would also be the job of the animator. If we had a proper one I'd just hand them the textured character.

The names are the one you posted in the inventory thread here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=163038 I can easily change them, they are defined in the map's worldspawn. The "gui::yyyyyy" variables are interacting with the SDK code, things are kept very flexible. The parchment, title text and position are set dynamically by the code, depending on which menu is visible. Just give me the graphics and I'll handle the code changes - some might not be trivial, but we'll get there.

Actually, that sounds really good Ishtvan, I think it would also add greatly to replay value to have a playstyle system. That was something that Deus Ex sort of had, in that you could customise your character, choose your skills and weapons/tools, and play them game in some very different ways. If you did something similar to the Dark Mod, you could have it so players who want to run around as a big thug who wants to commit numerous felony murders can do so, those who would rather sneak around unsean can also do so, and mappers could give different rewards for different playstyles. It would add a lot of freedom to the game, but would be a fair bit more work for coders and mappers I guess...

dear oddity You are right ..yes ..in starwars world they could have crafted so much better storyline, twists etc. BUt this is not aim of Lucas i believe. Think He is rich, (he was rich before movie making) he has his own sound system (thx) he has his own special effect house, and he has his own digital camcorders (spesifically designed for him) .. I mean he established this industry in some level. And when you model a character you are modelling from your own mind and living and even hating style (which i like most:)) but i CANT judge your creations. This is how you see the life . Also im feeling so lucky whenever you release a model in Dark Mod everytime you are redefining "modelling". It s so good to see and follow your path. Because you are different. Your style is making you unique. I m not saying your way of modelling is the ONLY way of modelling. No but i Like your modelling way. ALso Lucas has his OWN filmmaking skills. Noone is saying he is master of writing or inventor of twisted climaxes. Noone shouldnt expect this qualities (actually his first movie was pretty rock on). And forgive me WHo the hell are we and saying ? he couldnt have done better. No .this is his art. He created this form of filmmaking. We have only two choices "like it" or "dont like it". That should be the way of watching movie. You are visiting a person mind's room. In that room there are MANY MANY thoughts( film ratings, budgets, agreements with the publishing company, potential target audience response, pleasing the hardcore fans and also add new bees to the storyline..) And it s pretty hard to Please everyone with just ONE movie. But from the reactions, boxoffice numbers he almost accomplished one impossible task. (and one personal note.."do it all by oneself" is a sickness that im suffering as well BEST

OK, started up DR empty. Create coffee table. func_static_1. Create bottle. func_static_1. Rename DR folder to disable and also the config on in docs & settings. I'm downloading the snapshot. Don't know where the info is on this. I recall reading something in forums recently that wasn't in the issue I had which is very recent (only days old) One glitch with XP is when saving, select a folder & click, Folder opens and files list. Whatever file happens to fall under the cursor is instantly highlighted. Can't stop it. This means the filename in the save box is changed so the download would get saved with the wrong name, eg, darkradiant-0.9.8pre6.exe becomes darkradiant-0.9.7pre6.exe almost without noticing if you are not aware of it. I have to copy and paste the name.

dear oddity and darkmodders actually i have read this forum before going to movie. I hated last two movies. Very bad writing, very bad acting.. And i was hoping from this movie a total failure. BUT it s not a failure. YES there are serious acting incompleteness, very amatuerish dialogues but come on. .this movie is good. Seriously good. Special Effects ...They have everything... beatiful cityscapes, very long beginning shot of space fight scene, very good character animation..and LAVA... man it was total satisfaction for me. I mean what you want more i dont get it... Beautiful space shuttles very good fighting scenes. I mean this movie is not a Fincher movie, not a proyas movie, not a Kubrick movie. We are not redefining the science fiction or human intellect.. You CANT expect their movie directing quality from Lucas. But in Lucas world it was very nice executed. The weird stuff is Acting. I mean they are not stable. YOu can sometimes seeing a OK performance and the other sentences although coming from the same mouth, totally suck. On the other hand i have respect Lucas in terms of endless devotion to Computer Graphics and bold steps in digital movie making. i worked in Hollywood, in couple of movies as a director's assistant, and i do know how we were praying after every shooting . How will the shot come up from the film lab..Are we gonna have a chance to fix it in post? what if it gets too dark..?When Lucas was giving support to digital vendors others were making fun with him. He at least just for this deserves respect. Not may be as a extremely talented director but as a great filmmaker who seeks for better technology. Lucas is not stopping changing the narrow minded hollywood traditions. Yes he is sometimes over romantic( you cant blame him for that) , sometimes he is even childish. But he is forcing his crew to discover unknown oceans of digital film making...I really like his expressions in each shot. Especially when the last fight scene starts Lava erupts at the background and there is a beautiful tune in orchestra. I mean i enjoy this kind of editing tricks ...It s a style. YOu can hate it or love it. But the visual compositions are truely breathtaking. Color correction for a digital movie just amazing. ANd i really love the final battle scene. Obi and anakin fighting on a sinking construction everywhere is burning with hellish colors and they are visible with their colorful lightsabers. I mean for me this is just so lovely to see. That long shot is still in my eyes.. In last two movies digital keying was very visible. This time it s really blended. And in the shot when Obi wan riding that awful sounded creature, 3d matching concepts redefined. THis is my opinion.( i have seen so many blurry 3d matchings, cheated 3d matchings). sure I will get DVD when it s out. I will watch every effect scene again and again. There are so many details, so many tiny figures moving doing something..... (but those lightnings coming from hands were awful...i would have make it better in After effects:)) And in some way Lucas connected everything. It s a complete circle right now. Im not a StarWars maniac . i have my miserable life and im trying to fill it with good images. And this movie really added lovely images to my memory.... But you know me. Im a positive guy. best

These will do for the other character modelers when they can be arsed doing some more. For generic people like these, I prefer to model from photographs of real people wearing real historical costume, so I can get the most accurate detail in both model and texture.

Well I'd say it already is! This is a public part of the Dark Mod forums, and I posted it at Shadowdark. I just figured it was a silly editor test, sort like my barrel drop and guard drop vids, so nothing to hide.

What about random events that don't even impact the Thief but only provide active "wallpaper?" Like a guard spitting into a plant on his route every tenth time, AI taking a wizz, or a ravenous zombie loosing it and briefly trying to eat its own hand and then sobbing? A cat attacks a rat, or three rats attack a cat. A tree beast or its DM alter ego eating a patch of magic mushrooms while the Thief watches in the dark? What if you took every character AI for the Mod, and only added one line of scripting for some random thing that would accentuate each one. Would such a project take a great amount of time? Its a big list Im sure but then each one is only getting one change, so it is something that could be worked on a little bit at a time and you could still enjoy the work immediately. Im going to investigate this when I get to the part of GTKRad school that talks about AIs and scripting.

Yeah, make that all one surface. But around 2000 for such a large, feature item is fine. That's less than a character model for our mod. But if every object is that high poly, we would run into trouble.

Greetings! Let me first give you my story. I had my dad's old dell latitude C840, I was curious about Linux and the machine had a broken fan and kept crashing in windows from overheating, so I checked out an Ubuntu book at my school's library, installed it and I liked it a lot, never overheated, (at least enough for the powerdown failsafe to kick in). Well bout 2 days ago, after my lappy was running fine at school, either the ram, ram slots and/or mobo are dead (The evil capslock blinking 10 tens, than shuts off). So now I'm in the market for a new laptop, and I have about $700ish to spend. I think a few of you guys talked about your linux laptops, playing tdm on them (was it Komag?) and so I'd like to know if you guys know any good laptops that can install with Ubuntu pretty good, and if possible run doom3 well. Now I have my desktop that is my hardcore gaming machine, but if possible, I'd like to play TDM on my laptop, because I usually get a lot of sudden mapping creativity at school (of all places!) and I think it would be cool to be able to just put em down, plus vacations, I can have a portable Darkradiant :-D. I don't know how feasible that would be with my price range to get a laptop that can run doom 3 due to it being quite the hardware tester even to this day. I've looked at Dell's Ubuntu laptops and also I've been thinking about getting an Ideapad y530, but it has a shitty onboard video card and probably won't run doom3 at all. My main reason for this laptop is for School, Finances maybe, I'm also trying to teach myself Python, and play some classic old games in WINE like fallout 1 and 2. But If I can manage to get a lappy that can play some doom3, I'd be more happier, but if not, I'll still be good. I think I might register on the ubuntu forums as well and pitch my Q there. Thanks,

This is where the whole "gameplay vs. realsim" kicks in. Events that are truly random and screw you over kind've suck. That's why our character doesn't have random brain anneurisms and heart attacks that cause instant death for no apparent reason. So we make some concession that rewards the player for being careful, where if they look carefully at the boards, and boards at the edges of carpets, they will be able to predict which spot will be creaky. Moving slowly might work okay, but then you'd pretty much have to move as slowly as possible when on carpet or wood floor whenever there were any AI around. There would be no more well-timed quiet runs across carpet, because you'd probably make a huge loud creak with no warning if you tried that. Also, IRL even when you're moving very slowly I don't think it's that easy to avoid a creak. Sometimes you put just a little weight on and it creaks, and if you take that weight off, it creaks again. This could be total BS, but I lived in a house with hardwood floors for a while, and it seemed like the boards where the grain lines were farther apart were more likely to creak than the ones where the grain lines are closer together. (There may be a physical reason for this but I can't put together a good argument right now) Also, as people have said, boards near the edge of the wall are probably less likely to creak because the end of the board is supported there.

Sounds like my kind of madness. Im new to editing, I got as far as the first floor of a family home with T3ED but since I discovered that GTK Rad is available for free plus VTMs Ive given up on TDS. Ahh dreams... Little touches like the ones you describe can make a big difference. I had a similar one on TTLG about recurring characters. e.g. I want to make a vampire character, one that the Thief encounters in different FMs, in different contexts. First FM, Introduction, two Masters of the Dark meet and briefly clash. A few FMs later, they cross in the night, a cameo appearence to keep the relationship err, warm. Then later a real humdinger, a mission where the two are allied, maybe against a Hammerite jihad against the undead and anything else creeping around. Doesnt have to be vampire, maybe a Drept type or another Thief, some big shot wizards or royalty. The characters could be made available for the community. Also, the characters history could be posted on a website for updating, the local Hammerite Undead patrols incident logs on the vampire or something. For an FM to be included in the official history, it would have to adhere to some guidelines, cant kill off main characters, cant change the storyline too radically w/o informing someone. Developing a rich storyline and world history opens up new ways of creating realism that dont necessarily require a ton of re-coding or scripting. Just seeing that vampire in the middle of an other wise unrelated FM will build a stronger sense of immersion, cause you saw him doing something evil a month ago in the same area.

I cracked up when you brought up ninjas to support your point. Anyway, ahem, my point is not whether thieves can fight, but rather can guards fight? A thief should not be a straight-up match for even one typical guard, IMO. In games in general and FPS in particular it's quite usual for the central character to be far more powerful than the foes they face - but it's not generally realistic.

I was doing some character sketches at work, and came up with something for our Mechanists (whatever we're calling them). It's one idea...I want them to look like a combination between engineer, inventor, and mad scientist. edit:

It was this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...amp;hl=launcher Though on re-reading it I may have misunderstood. When I use the Start Mission menu, the shop screen loads correctly, but there is no difficulty screen (actually there is but it is very out of date and with no objectives), so I thought I was doing something wrong. Are you saying that's what everyone currently sees?

I guess what I am getting at is, OK you are aiming for a purist thief who doesn't train for combat (which I think is good), but I also think there should be the flexibility to have the player be an assassin (like Riddick in Pitch Black) - meaner than a simple thief, more like a mediaeval special ops guy. I am thinking of amaking a game where you can customise your character a bit before you start - you can choose whether you are a weedy little thief who will throw sand in your eyes and run away if caught, or a highly trained master of combat who (ab)uses his stealth and combat skills to commit a few crimes to pay a few bills. Or anywhere in between. My goal is to give the player choices on how to approach missions, and they will have to suffer the consequences of their choices - a big strong assassin type will not be able to hide as well as the thiefy type, will make a bit more noise, and will be too big to access some parts of the level, but will be able to take care of himself better in combat, while the thief will be able to hide and sneak much more effectively, and can get into some tight spaces no one else can get to, but will be absolutely stuffed if he gets cornered (he might have a flashbomb or salt to throw in a guards eyes though, so he can run away). Thus there will be different rewards for different choices - some loot will require brute force to get, some will require agility and cunning. I don't know how close you guys will come to what I am aiming for, but hopefully there will be a decent base I can build on, anyway, keep up the fantastic work, I am looking forward to the toolset being released!

http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=76531 Don't know if this is old news to any of you, but there is a fix called DDFIX for the Thief2.exe to use proper colours on new video cards; no crashing, no horrible bright banding, and no dithering. And another fix called Widescreen, that runs it at super high resolutions, with support for wide screen. I got mine running at native resolution - 1650x1080 Also the other main thing for me is I found a built in colour profile on my LCD monitor "Movie", which actually looks crap in day time, but at night time, it seems to more closely resemble the richness of colour I used to get from playing my CRT in the dark. Not quite as good, but not as washed out as the default profile. Enough to make me want to get back into playing the Thief 2 FMs again And as for Garrett's voice being too loud - edit cam.cfg, find master_volume, and replace the -1 with 1600. That fixes it.

Well, obviously you have to draw the line somewhere, but then again in a lot of games, the inhabitants seem to live in a world without toilets. Thief was always good with that - plenty of toilets there, and I guess mediaeval people would be more likely to empty a chamber pot out the window... but so many other games lack that sort of thing. For me it can really break the mood when you start to notice the absence of things that subconciously you expect to be there... I don't think having a bladder meter would add anything, but having guards stop to relieve themselves every now and then could be amusing, and could add something to gameplay (but it might be better as a scripted thing at a particular point in a level). A drunk guard having to empty his bladder every few minutes maybe :lol: I thought about having to eat to restore health - say after a period of time you lose a health bar or two, and you have to pinch some food and eat it to get your health back up to full, but that is probably going overboard, as i have to sleep, eat etc at some point anyway, I dont need my thief character to do so as well. But as far as visibility (and audibility etc) physics goes, it is an essential feature of stealth gameplay, and the more realisticly it is implemented, the better IMO

@Baddcog: I elaborated the gargoyle statue shader issue here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=160680 edit: and I totally do care about your models, they are always awesome. Actually, I'd like to see more of your models in the game, and I'd love to activate your lantern bot whenever I can find the time.

This bug might be related to an animation: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry163653