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Well, having solved all other world problems, Im glad your government can now tackle this issue... /Violent game loving Canadian

another wip shot. most of the work is done, only some details on the armour and the hands are missing or not completed. however I noticed some problems with the model in D3 - textures that fit together quite nice in the 3d apll don't fit in D3 and some uvw-mapping issues on the "sword-loop" - nothing important though.

In my opinion it should be something you attempt on down the road when alot of the other animations are done and some of the central gameplay mechanics have been finalized. As cool as it could be, there are too many potential problems that could arise or guff up other areas of the game..for something that seems so simple at first glance, it makes itself central to the gameplay just by it's presence. You'd have to redo alot of stuff just to make sure the animations are played in key, like setting ladder rungs exactly the right length apart so that the hands will match up with them while climbing, lockpicking would have to be done with your nose smacked against the door, and..well..alot of other things. If it can be pulled off dymanically without changing the pace and feel of the game then I'll be all for it, but like we decided before I think it's time best spent elsewhere...at least for now.

Ahhh, but we can have a player shadow in doom 3 without using body awareness. However, it will involve creating animations for the Thief model. If you play around in Doom 3, you will find that you can play in 3rd person if enabled through the console...you can also enable the player shadow in both 1st and 3rd person through the console. When playing with the shadow on in 1st person, the game just creates the shadow from the 3rd person model. Perhaps you could run some tests in D3 by working in body awareness. The assets are already in place. In the long run though, I don't think body awareness is worth the losses..unless it could be proven that we can somehow avoid all the problems Ion came up against. It might also contribute to a loss in performance as well.

I find myself agreeing with odd on the design, but i am wondering one thing, how will this scale with various resolutions, or will it remain the same size no matter the resolution. If the latter, then there are going to be problems with the clarity of many parts of the hud on lower resolutions.

I know that usually it's better to port early, but in this case we can assume that most of the code will at least compile, because we are working within the confines of Doom 3. So the most problems we can expect with maybe some filesystem stuff (though that is abstracted by D3 already) and some compiler incompatibillities, but these are easier to sort out. I develop all my programs usually first on Windows and then port them over to Linux because MS Studio is much more convenient for development.

Would be nice if you could show it. Since this is not nailed down right now, we can still eave this open and not close down on a solution to early. Yeah. The model anims would be good, because Cory can work with them once they are finished, and this would be another big step forward. IMO the arms are currently not so urgent. And which weapon anims are this? The bow and blackjack? Since we currently have no use for the arms, I would prefer to have the priority on the guard model and then the weapon anims, so we have one feature finished, instead of opening a host of problems and none finished.

Here is an example of some of my work: my Mercenaries mod. Some information, which is also included in the readme file... Mercenaries Beta 1.0 ==================== 1. Load the mod from the Doom III Mods Menu. 2. Load a map 3. Open the console(ctrl+alt+tilde(~)) 4. type: "spawn mercenary" 5. Have fun Features ======== - Monitors self-activity - Idling, Following, Attacking, etc... - Follows the player around - Keeps a minimum and maximum distance - Decides weather to run or walk - Catches up if the player gets too far, is out of sight, or is unreachable - Attacks enemies - Handles crouching, strafing, and running attacks - Is extremely accurate and powerful - Regenerates health - Fastest regeneration rate when idling, followed by following and attacking - Unique look - Bald head, zsec body Tracking the Mercenary ====================== All Mercenary output is written to the console. Minor beta problems =================== Many of the places in the single player doom 3 maps are not designed to handle AI paths. If the mercenary cannot reach your position or if his distance from you becomes too great, he will quickly spawn to your position and catch-up. The effect is a little weird but it's not permanent. If you lose your mercenary, which sometimes happens, just spawn another for now. **************************************** ************************* **************************************** ************************* Link: http://www.freewebs.com/coryv/Mercenaries.rar If necessary, I'll post up more later. Thanks, Cory

I wasn't a massive fan of GTA or Vice City, they were fun for an hour or so but got incredibly repetitive after extending playing. The new one seems to fix alot of the problems the old one had, and adds alot of spice to the mix....I might have to check it out when it hits the PC scene.

Damn, I'm gonna need drool cleanup on aisle me! I agree for the actual shot maybe the lighting could be such that more of the face is shadowed. I don't think the sword looks out of place. If you had a sword hanging from a frog at your left hip and then turned into an archery stance with your left leg forward and hips 45 degrees to the right, the angle of the sword would probably look just like that. You could maybe adjust the frog on the belt to move the sword a little farther back (towards the back), but then you would run into problems running when it banged into the back of your leg. Maybe we could adjust the frog position back a bit just for this shot though.

Edit: I only wanted to discuss this problem... Mainly here in Germany we solve problems when we speak about it... mainly...

I don't envy you guys that have to work with the editor... at least when something goes wrong with code it's usually my own fault. (Although we do have our share of "systems we can't touch because the source was not included in the SDK" to work around). All the name strings that are assigned by default in the game take the form blah_blah_blah, so I'm not sure what effect putting spaces and slashing in there would have; maybe that is causing problems, but probably not since you said you got it working fine. Also, it might help to use the "signpost on a model" thing for a separate model that always works, (like a D3 crate or something) that you put next to /above the model that you want information on. I don't know about the target_tip entity myself, if it had to do with the frobbing system then you'd best wait for Sparhawk to answer. As far as I know though, we didn't remove any entity definitions, we added our own def file that should only add to the existing D3 definitions, not remove any.

I'll try it out. Edit: This seems to work fine, thanks Ishtvan for pointing it out. Makes me wonder though (I assume this is a question for spar): was the target_tip entity removed, and if so why? It could prove useful for sure. Anyway, all should feel free to stop reading here. The next off-topic portion is the result of frustration and Love of the Thing. For fun, I thought I'd write down exactly what transpired in trying this, a very simple thing to do. I call it, "Fifteen Minutes with D3Ed." Keep in mind, most of this is nothing new or special - it's always this way. ! Whoopee! The change worked for the bookshelf, but wanted to try for something that's not specifically created as a func_static first. Let's try the chair. But now, the orientation of bookshelf is screwed up. Why? Suddenly it's 90 degrees to how it should be. Anyway... so I change the chair. In game, now the chair is a black box instead of a black chair. Sure enough, it changes to look like that in the editor when I exit game mode. WTF? Delete shelf and chair and start over. Shelf is first not showing, so I clone it, and delete the original. (Note: insert "failed to create entity") messageboxes at random, the more, the merrier!) The clone is a rectangle of approx right size, but is not the bookshelf. Okay... create chair. Chair is a black box. WTF? Compile (unnecessary, but at this point...why not, right?) Editor crashes. YAY! Get back in. Bookshelf is still a rectangle only, and now it's a bit sunken halfway through floor. Interesting, since I didn't touch it. Ooops, that's right! I forgot about that "whereever you set the origin, you're stuck with it forever!" bug, YAY. Delete both and recreate. Two black boxes again. Hrm, what's wrong here? Launch the map - as I do, in the background, the black chair-box vanishes! LOL! That's a new one! Exit game mode, back in the map, now the chair-box is a single point, no bounding box, no model, nada. I think I've created a quantum singularity using D3Ed. Damn, where is Einstein when you need him. Perhaps I can find Stephen Hawkings instead. To delete the singularity, I use area select. And here's the best part. I deleted the map and started over with the copy I have from the CVS. Everything worked fine. Without a single hitch. Even though I did the same exact thing. I once read a study where rats were tortured with an electric floor in their cage. At first, they fought against it, jumping, running around frantically, etc. But in time, they stopped fighting. They just stood there getting shocked non-stop, without putting up any struggle. The finding was that the rats that became hopeless, and learned that they are helpless to fight, developed far more cancers than those in the control group. Interesting finding, that. Somehow I think it applies to D3Ed. God, this editor REALLY sucks sometimes. Badly. Hard to believe that such a buggy thing comes from id software, but then again, JC didn't write it. Say what you will about id games, they are usually not riddled with bugs and on the contrary, are rather stable and solid. DromEd has fewer (or less severe) problems than this thing. Best of all, it's moody. Sometimes it's perfect. Other times...

The editor definitely has more than it's share of problems. Many times, I can't change a texture or create a model - or at least it can't be seen visibly - until I save the work, reopen the editor, and reload the map. Then suddenly everything works. That is, if it didn't crash out, first.

Sure, playing with filters, adding noise, new layers, editing contrast/brightness, painting over... no problems. It would be really the best if you gave me some tasks, like turning a photo to texture or making a concept for something (you certainly don´t have concepts for everything, do you ?? ).

Hi, it's me again. So, what tools do you prefer or recommend besides DoomEdit for the DarkMod? Until now I used anim8or, but it seems that there are problems concerning the export of triangulated objects. What do you think: MilkShape, Blender or what else? Then, for creating bumped textures, I found the ORB-Tool. Seems quite ok, except that anim8or doesn't provide the corret object-files. For painting I try The Gimp. What else to I need? Ed

One thing I've never seen when it comes to the Thief esque mods like this or Thievery and Nightblade is any copyright problems. Are you able to get around this because of using a generic steampunk universe instead of the Thief universe? If so what about your use of Thief characters like Hammerites? I don't mean to troll, more wondering if there's any danger of the mod being threatened by legal action.

As long as we are not using any Windows API calls (or Microsoft extensions to the language), it should compile on Linux without any problems. Personally I think we should concentrate on getting it all working at all (while keeping portablity in mind) and once we have a solid code base, we can think about other platforms.

Btw, in case you run into any common problems, these threads on www.doom3world.org should be helpful: http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=6733 And this thread specifically for VCC2003 Toolkit: http://banditsteals.ba.funpic.de/d3files/

If you don't have any experience in Unix it is no surprise that you couldn't get to grips with it at that time. Now it is so easy that even my wife can use it without any problems.

Totally not true. Maybe for some; but not for me. I had Win98 for a few years, then WinXP Professional for the past however long it's been out. I think I got a new hard drive sometime within the past 4 or 5 years or however long WinXP has been out where I put a fresh install of XP on it; but I think that was like 3 years ago. And it wasn't in need of a reinstall; it just happened because I got a bigger hard drive that I wanted to be my "master." XP is still going strong after like 3 years. I have no complaints about WinXP Professional. Issues have been rare, minor, and easily fixable. The only problems I've had are when dorks like Sun Java forbid Microsoft to put a Virtual Machine preinstalled on the OS. My experience with Sun VM has been sub-par.

Have you got the editor in NOT fullscreen? (it's got problems with it) To turn it on or off, in doomconfig.cfg, put: r_fullscreen 0 or, make a shortcut to Doom3.exe and put this to get the editor into fullscreen automatically on start: (path to doom3)\Doom3.exe +r_fullscreen 0 +seta com_AllowConsole 1 +editor +set sv_pure 0 +set fs_game darkmod +vid_restart --Dram

We've discussed so many issues over the last 6 months, it's hard to be sure with out a search (and I can't be bothered) but I don't thionk we have decided yet. My personal opinion is that lockpicking is the most tedious of procedures in a game, and cannot be made interesting no matter what. It's only exciting to pick a door when there is a chance a guard is going to patrol past you at any second, so it creates a sense of urgency and tension. Having to pick a lock under any other circumstances by any means is utterly pointless and irritating, and the skill required to do it cannot be transfered to a game, wiht out making it a separate mini puzzle game (which everyione would despise even more) I think we should keep locked doors to a minimum (who locks internal doors anyway?) and only to areas with AI patrols. THe problems with having the hamds coming out, holding lockpicks like in T3, is that you have to have a 'suck in' animation to hold the player in the right position so the animaton lines up with the lock. No one here is a fan of sucking in. I always prefered to have to find keys to open important doors. Picling them always seemed too boring and easy asnd definite. I prefer the automatic door opening if you have the right key. Either that or you have to try every key you have, not having any idea which one it could be.

I don't hate Steam, I hate what they do to the consumers right, and how gladly pay for getting their rights chopped to pieces. How stupid must one be for that? If a guy hits you in the face and offers you with his other hand 3 Euros you would glady accept it and ask him to hit you again. HA HA HA! You don't really believe this do you? You know what they care for "public discontent"? Where is the disctontent? It doesn't exist. As long as the numbers are saying otherwise, "public disctontent" is non-existing. You know what happened when Schuessel (in Austria) invited the right wing party into the goverment? There were protests and demonstrations all over Austria going on for weeks and even months. And what did it cause? Nothing? They did what every good politician is always doing in such a case. They are sitting it through until the first hubhub dies down and after this nobody cares any longer. Now guess what the strategy for big companies is when they want to introduce new unpopular fetatures. Right! They do the same. They will fix the technical problems, so they can say "What do you complain? It works flawlessly with thousands of happy customers and unless you are a pirate you don't have any issues with it. Are you a pirate for complaining about this?" And you might read Goebbels diaries, because there are some very intersting thoughts on democracy in there. He is basically saying the same what I wrote above. They don't give a damn about "protests" or complaints, because this doesn't hurt. You just wait until it dies down and then go on with what you intended all along. So what? I anxiously waited for HL2 but I didn't buy it and I never will. I wouldn't buy it even if it were the only game in the world, because I prefer to have no game then letting me blackmail from these companies. And what has that got to do with Steam? Nothing! That's exactly the point! You are talking as if you were a sales rep from Valve. Sidetracking on issues that are totally unrelated to the facts. Nobody ever argued about which gameplay is better. There is no doubt about it. The argument is not gameplay it is consumer rights, but you keep on repeating propaganda as if you were paid by Valve. So? Given the success that HL2 had, you can expect exactly the opposite. because, as long as there is enough eye candy in there the kids will pay for their own prison. Just have a few minutes fun. And afterwards they start complaining and whinning "But we never wanted this and why are they so cruel?" And as Oddity correctly pointed out. It doesn't even stop pirates, but it cuts your consumer rights, one piece after the other.

Since you bought Half Life 2, that is really your problem. I can't understand why people buy this crap. There can be no game SO GOOD that I would put up with this. But as long as people pay for getting their rights cut up in pieces, there will nothing change. The only chance, we as consumers have, is to leave this shit in the bins until it rots. But it is enough for a company to throw in some eye candy and some physics and the kiddies go all "WOW! I MUST have this!" and buy it. Applying a crack is not really a solution. The only thing that works is, let it rot in the shop until Valve realises that customers will not put up with it. Because what will happen now, since HL2 already sold quite well, is that Valve will fix the "problems" by improving the cage that you paid them for to get it.