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On the wiki you can now find an explanation about Character Sets in Maya. Pick me!! For this guide i used the forger builder model on which i created the same animation rig as the citywatch. This way it's easier to exchange and make adjustments to the animations on different characters.

The dark mod has come along way. with dark radiant released and many Thief FM makers out there along with the hype about this mod in the thief community maybe You guys should add in some new parts of the forums. For editor Discusion, and just general mapping. along with coding and stuff. so there is help here for the mappers that are at work learning and using the D3 editor. just a thought it would be a good move to create a really good base of DM editors for the release. it would help us solve the problems we are having and get better as we talk about it and learn the editor. also maybe a FM concepts forum to. to talk about ideas for good maps and for ppl to req mappers and coders for DM projects... i think its the right move. it would also bring a lot of new people interested in the mod's comunity on a daily bases. maybe we can steel some of the fm makers from the first two thiefs haha. hopefully. theres alot of amazing FM's out there for the first 2.

I've had some reservations for a while about some of our AI models. Oddity's models are so excellent that the other models simply can't stand next to them without looking bad. The difference in quality is just too great. While models like the nobleman or townsfolk might look ok in another game, when you put them next to one of Oddity's characters, they stick out like a sore thumb. I still don't have anywhere near enough modeling experience to create characters from scratch, but I've gotten pretty proficient at cutting, pasting and tweaking models that already exist. Going back over the 'templates' thread from a while ago, and remembering Ascottk's suggestion of cutting and pasting body parts, I went ahead to see what I could do. It turns out that the modeling isn't actually that bad. With access to all of Oddity's models, it isn't too difficult to cut, paste, and modify existing pieces to create a lot of new characters. Altering the UV maps and textures is actually turning out to be the most time-consuming bit, but I've had enough practice making character skins so I know what I'm doing there. I've already created a new nobleman character (below) and have modelled a blacksmith, tavern-keeper and generic townsfolk (all of which need texturing). These will eventually need to be rigged, obviously, but by next summer, if no one else has stepped up to do it, I'll see if I can learn that as well. Here's an example of the new nobleman character (the head is just the priest head stuck on, and there are a few texture tweaks needed). Compared to the old one on the left, I think it's clear that using Odd's models as a template is the way to go. I've made enough changes that, though it looks good next to an Oddity model, no one is going to think it looks just like a copy of another character. Another benefit is that I can add lots of accessories that can be swapped in and out with nodraw skins, and I can split up the meshes so that it is easy to use .rgb entries to create a lot of variety without the need for extra texture files. Once these new ones are rigged (which might not be until next year) I'd like to eventually replace the non-Oddity character models.

I'm working on some character models at the moment, and had an idea about character heads I wanted to get feedback on. Currently, the attachment system for hats/hoods is hit and miss at best. Because the position of the hat is based on the body model, regardless of which heads are attached, it's hard to get it positioned in a way that looks good. What is perfect for one head could be floating above another head or clipping into a third. To solve that problem, I had an idea. We need new heads for our AI anyway. What if I made them with headgear already attached, but added a nodraw skin for the hat part? There would need to be two def entries (one for each skin), but only one model to rig/animate. That way, the hat can be positioned perfectly, but the author can also use a hatless version (it would have been cool to have multiple hat models attached and just swap them all with nodraw skins, but I'm not sure that's possible with the way nodraw works). I don't think this will cause any problems with the hat registering as solid even when it isn't drawn--hats are set to be nonsolid to projectiles (and the blackjack), and I can't think of any other case where it would matter. But perhaps I'm missing something, or someone else can think of a reason why this wouldn't be a good idea.

Hey guys. The forums have been successfully upgraded, although it took longer than I thought due to some extensive mysql queries that had to be run. This version of IPB is the newest, and it includes changes, new features and more. Please have a look around! IMPORTANT: Since a lot of the client-script files have been updated it is mandatory to empty your cached files from this forum. You can either empty your browser cache if you want to (check the settings), or you can do a hard refresh (this is usually done by holding the Ctrl-button while you hit 'Refresh'). Yes, the skin is currently toe default IPB skin, but this will be changed ASAP. It takes some time to update the changes in the original darkmod-skin, so please be patient. If you spot anything out of order (e.g. bugs) or you have suggestions or general feedback, please use this thread. Because of a new CAPTCHA (Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) system introduced in this version, I have now disabled the manual validation process of new members. Cheers, ~m2

Alright, the forum has successfully been upgraded to IPB version 2.2.2. If you have any comments, bug reports, suggestion or general feedback, post it here. IMPORTANT: Since a lot of the client-script files have been updated it is mandatory to empty your cached files from this forum. You can either empty your browser cache if you want to (check the settings), or you can do a hard refresh (this is usually done by holding the Ctrl-button while you hit 'Refresh'). Cheers, ~m2

I will upgrade the DarkMod forums this Friday to the newest IPB version. This will hopefully help us stop the spammers from signing up so we can get rid of the manual authentication process. The forums will be unavailable for some time, and the skin might not look normal after the upgrade. Just a heads up. Cheers, ~m2

As usual, he has the basic animations (idle, walk, run). The helmet/visor is on the main mesh (can't control how it goes on the head rig) so when he starts work, he puts the visor down & vise-versa. * committing meshes/animations/textures atm . . .

He's the least realistic character of the bunch & he's . . . um . . . weird . . . Nothing a texture makeover can't fix . . . I hope animations (pathetic): idle, walk, run EDIT: Not on cvs yet (connection time out)

She's a little slim animation-wise (idle, walk, run) but she's ready for action. NH, we'll need female voices soon I borrowed & tweaked the thief's legs, added those mitten_hands (needs to be tweaked), and chopped off her head. She might need additional mesh for the inside of her dress.

Maybe I'm just drawing a blank; maybe this is impossible. Do we have any of oDDity's original character models or templates or basic bodies or anything I can open and play around with in Blender? Thus it could be either ASE or LWO. I know they are md5anims, but is there a converter, or any other possible method, if in fact we don't have the originals? I checked the doom3world Blender forums, and while there is apparently an md5 importer, it doesn't work for md5anims. If none of this is possible (which I'm doubting, because somehow all of this character work going on recently wouldn't be possible... I think?), then to Dram: how did you make the little bust statues in the mansion out of a character?

Composer to composer forum @ finalemusic: http://acf.finalemusic.com/ This fairly new & isn't very busy at all. http://www.music-web.org/forum/index.php Better organized & a lot busier. So this would be a great place to introduce ourselves It has music theory, composition showcase, music encyclopedia, & more.

Okay I moved a few files around relating to the thief, and moved all the thief stuff out of chars.mtr, so just do a full mod update. Or check your CVS emails for details. Hopefully this should be a lot simpler. Here's how it works; tdm_ai_thief.def contains the materials now (which have been removed from chars.mtr) Since the model in the def file is also called tdm_ai_thief, all you have to do is see that the def file is tdm_ai_thief, and you know to type testModel tdm_ai_thief to test it out. Also, you know that everything specific for the thief must be under ai/thief under the models folder. models/ai/thief contains the models, anims, and textures. His sword material (and anything else that's shared) have been left alone for now. Well that's it. Also I resized the thief to match SpringHeel's chart. If everyone is happy with the way things are going with the thief, I'll do all the other characters. If so, I got ascottk's permission to overwrite his builder model and elite model with my resized versions, just so we are absolutely sure the match the sizes shown in Springheel's chart. Then ascott will move in and make his edited (headless, mittenhands) models the same size as the ones I upload.

cool i knew brown barn spiders are worth something.

well I started this one as a portfolio project, but after completing the highpoly model I thought he'd probably also fit into the darkmod world. Of course this wouldn't be a generic guard, but rather some kind of personal bodyguard for aristocrats or something like that - some kind of status symbol for the extra rich, because he's from the southern countries and trained very well. just tell me what you think. I'll finish him either way though, since he'll be for my portfolio.

After some fund raising we were able to get a IPB perpetual license which makes us able to upgrade from an unsecure 1.3.x board to a fully updated 2.0.4 board. Feel free to poke around and look at the new features etc. The skin is reset to the default IPB one, because the old one won't work on this version. We'll get working on it ASAP. Happy posting!

I'm sorry this took so long, but I've just restored the forums from a backup I took on saturday. The forums were 'hacked' by a script-kiddie yesterday. I saw in the admin logs that he logged in with one of the admin accounts (probably after 'guessing' the password with some brute force script). He then edited all of the admin accounts and removed their access to the admin control panel (acp). Then he edited the forum description and wrote a text saying we would get acp access back for the total amount of $100. Right. Anyway, since I had to restore a backup of the database, some posts/threads/PM's and new users were wiped, but I couldn't do anything with that. I don't think this guy did anything other than removing the admin powers and editing the forum description when he was in the acp (all operations in the acp is logged), and he had no access to download the database. But just in case I urge you to change your password on this forum, and other sites where you've got the same account name and password. It's better to be safe than sorry. All admins are instructed to change their passwords to a hard-to-guess one. The password should; not contain any words found in a dictionary contain atleast 8 characters or more consist of characters, numbers and signs in a good mix consist of both lower- and uppercase characters/signs Also, always LOG OUT after you're done in the admin cp, and don't click on links in threads when logged into the admin cp. If an intruder fetches your cookie, he can access the admin cp. All admins have lost their acp access. They will get it back once they have changed their password. Please PM Fingernail when you have changed your password. Also, the acp is .htaccess protected with a username/password, and I've given the login info to Fingernail.

What's the plan for the main character animation? Since we have an awesome character model and there's going to be no third person (thank you!), i suggest we go the way of Thief 3, in one of the few things ISA had the right idea (but still managed cocked it up. Riddick's was done well), and have no view weapon models/animations and have the camera in the player model attached to specific camera bone. This way we can have full immersion by being able to see yourself and we can also have a player shadow. To get this to work nicely there'd need to be some extensive animation blending. What are Doom 3's capabilities of animation blending? Doom 3 uses IK so that's good (no feet cliping through ground).

Hey everyone, I visit this place alot and have recently started wanting to mod. I use maya and photoshop. I know how to create normal maps, I can layout UV's (without a fuss!) I'm pretty much just interested in characters, though I can create the UV maps for the objects if need be. I can work on texture maps as well, but their not my strong point. My msn is sanguine_fate@hotmail.com here's some pics from my site (Coronach.org) there's also some texture examples, and photoshop pictures there too. high poly head highpoly hands normal mapped head I kept reading on this forum that you guys had all the modelers you need right now, and then I read on moddb that you were still looking, so I figured I'd sign up here and see if my services would be welcomed.

Jeez, I'm really loving the forum community for TDM. I mean, the replies I get for my topic is damn amazing. I jus post a topic asking about a release date, and I get 50 replies talking about wether or not we should add a bloody sword to the game(I personally think you should, as it came in handy when I got cornered). And im getting tired of people saying "If you get caught, or if you run out of flashbangs to use to run away with you dont even deserve to be playing the game" or something like that, I mean, not everybody spends so much time playing a damn stealth game so that they never ever get caught, plus a sword, and (my favourite weapon by far in any theif games) the bow, added more replayability, so you could always replay the game and just try to rampage through the level, or sneak, but be a bit more brutal, using the aggression to pick off your enemies in the dark with the sword, or bow, or (I almost forgot another useful tool) the blackjack. If theres one this that I dont like about the forums its that I cant figuire out how to reply in a topic... or maybe thats just my problem for being so stupid, but either way, can somebody please tell me before I have to start a new thread everytime I want to say something?!

When I look at oddities character models they are really looking great, as probably everybody agrees. What I wonder though, is as how they will look in-game. Remember BlackThiefs problems with the Zombie skinning? Because the models are mirrored. So I would suggest to start skinning at least on one character from Oddity to see how they turn out when they are ported into D3. I would really hate to loose that great look of them, but we should get some experience with this.

I don't want to stir up anything controversial here, but seeing since we're in a bit of a tight spot in the modeling department right now. I was wondering if anyone would be upset by the thought of using the Thief 2 character models as a base to work off of? Just a hypothetical question. If I were to have those models in .3ds format and had a plugin that would let them be imported into blender, would anyone be interested? They could be a good starting point and by the time we were finished they would be completely new models anyway. This includes the blackjack, sword, and bow hands. I'm not suggesting cheating, but just building on these as our guides. We really need some Thief like models imported to get development moving along. All hypothetical of course.

I was just looking on blender.org to see if a new version is available and I found out that there is now a plugin that supports character modelling. I know that there exists a plugin that would create heads/faces based on parameters so that you can easily create different faces with a few minutes. I guess this character plugin is similar but for entire characters. Since we have not enough modelers right now, this might help in creating basic characters at least. Something like Oddities templates. And of course the advantage would be that we would have a consistent look (though I'm not sure that a consistent look is needed on characters or rather if this should be avoided). Edit: I just read the various releaselogs to see what has been added to the new versions. It seems Blender now contains good support for UV mapping which may be good for skinners. So it might be worth to check this out nevertheless.