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I will start on the noble man if that’s ok with you springheal. what is my triangle limit for this particular character? I will use a 512 by 512 texture size and can I use the unwrap uv's in max for the texture projection ...or do you use a different method for the game engine ?

Please forgive my ignorance but what do you mean when you say brushes ..I have never heard that before. I understand the rest of your comments….this is exactly the reason I want to work with you guys so I can learn a little more about the transition of 3d 2d elements into a game engine

Polygon limits? For maps I'd go about 8000-10000 brushes, with about 15-20,000 tris in a single scene at most. For models you'll have to talk to DeepO or Oddity, they know far more about that than I do. Texture sizes...our average texture is about 512x512, rarely lower than 256x256 and never over 1024x1024 since the engine automatically compresses any texture larger than that. Keep in mind that all the resolutions have to be divisible by 2, like 128x512, 256x1024, 512x512, ect... You should be able to get the hang of it pretty quickly, since you're already good at modelling everything here will come second nature to you.

And I forgot to add. This option would probably be of high interest to ghosters. They tend to come up with all kind of crutches to get around the engine limitations because it does NOT support putting stuff back. Especially when playing on higher difficulty levesl this could be interesting. And I think if we are able to put an item back, we should make use of that for the game as well.

I think there is a problem with putting something back. It is the physics engine. My guess why this doesn't really work in any game (none that I remember at least) is that it requires special coding to provide for it. If some object is standing in a i.e board, the character can not reach it really. So this means he he blocked by the bounding box of the board. To take the object the code simply looks if the player is near enough and then removes it from the world into the inventory (or players hands). If you would have to put it back, this would mean that the player would have to be near enough. But the bounding box prevents this. It would require a high precision to place the object back. But I think we can do this by either providing a seperate button OR by assuming that the player wants to put it back if the view vector and the distance is in a position near enough of the original position. We cimply must store the original location of the object and replace it in the case that one of the above is true. The nice thing is, that, if we allow this, we could even programm the AI to recognize moved objects. It could work like this. The player takes an object (i.e. a book). When he wants to put it back the object is placed randomly within the original region. If the player holds the button down for a longer time, the object will be adjusted and shift to it's original place. After a certain time it will reach the original place but that takes time. If the object is carelessly placed then the AI could recognize it. If the player takes the time the AI won't recognize it afterwards. What do you say?

Oh God noooooooo, what have I started. :lol: If loot is distinct enough from junk like in the orginal games we really shouldn't need it. I don't want to say I'm vehemently opposed to loot glint...ahh hell, I am. I think part of the reason they had to use loot glint in Thief DS is because they shared textures between so many different items that everything blended in, but that shouldn't be a problem for us. I have a few alternate suggestions as I don't think it's fair to drop it completely as I'm sure some found it quite useful. My first suggestion is to have a distinctive loot texture that will allow the player to learn what is valuable quite easily. I think with the doom 3 engine we also have specular maps on our side, so junk can be completely dull when compared to loot as well. Sort of like having loot glint, but just not the obvious kind. My second suggestion is that perhaps loot can also have an extremely subtle glow..could that be done with shaders too?

That's right. I was looking at the sample screenshot that BlackThief provided for his textures and the characters of T3 look rather gameish. The models from T2 looked much more lively despite the poorer gfx engine.

Not necessarily. I'm sure the FM community at large will be more than happy to build their own custom content. Much better to provide a solid set of IK bones and walk (etc.) animations that can be customised than multiple variations on everything. It is, aftar all a (sort of) fairly streight forward proposition to plonk a crayman model and skin on top of a zombie bone-set and call it a beasticle. I hate to be the nay sayer (again) but we really should be concentrating on getting some basic characters in the Dooooom engine, getting them animated and ironing out all the problems as a priority. Hows about applying some thought to character animation and poses springheel and Darkness Falls. Something a bit like a story board (but for individual actions) that can be used a guide for key frames. How about giving some detail on the existing concepts. Or providing side and front views to make the modelling process that much easier.... Grrr. I really don't like making this point over and over because the concept art that you guys are producing is a treat. They really do look fantastic. But these are parallel tasks that can be taken up at pretty much any point. There are mission critical tasks that need addressing first. err, yeah - anyway. what the other guys have said. The grey and green colours are a bit alien-eseque. Are these things blind/poor sighted or do they have big reflective eyes for seeing in the dark? Big crayfish tenticles would be cool for feeling your way around in the gloom. Spiders. I want Spiders.

hmmmmm, not for Doom 3.I have some Jedi Knight Stuff, and possibly some call of duty maps. As I've kinda tried to show in my stuff, I understand the Doom 3 Engine and mapping ect, I just don't have anything in it yet (I got it pretty late, just recently finished) If you'de like to see some of the others I aughta be able to show some. (note: along with texture I also do interface art, and understand .guis) If you have MSN we could discuss more

I'm currently reading though a shitload of stuff at that iddevnet site. It's going to make our jobs a lot easier. I don't loke the look of that AI scripting section though, have we got someone who knows C++ really well, and could write the (I imagine) very complex AI scipts our AI will require? Anyway, I'm glad my sections about characters aren't quite so enigmatic. I'll try to figure out how to get a completed normal mapped and animated character into the engine. edit: the link to the SDK seems to be broken though...

Please guys, stop with the praise already or I be unable to squeeze my swollen head though the door of the computer room, and you won't see any more work Having said that, this is the best model I've ever made (which isn't saying much since I've only made about 12) but I suppose I have Springheel to thank for the inspiring concept art.. I think the key to success on projects such as these is enthusiasm and a desire to learn new things and improve on whxt you previously thought you were capable of. Springheel - yes, it was a toss up between expensive satin shoes or sandals, but I can't see him wearing big armoured boots. This all looks fine and dandy as a static model, but I can see problems with animatng it. All that cloth around the arms and legs makes it very difficult. The animations would have to be very stilted. Unless it's possible to animate it in a 3d app with real cloth dynamics and then export it to the doom engine complete wth the new animatons. I dn't know yet if doom will only recognise vertices that have been animated by bones.

Thief uses stereo sound, but all the sounds are recorded in mono. It's all about how the engine is constructed. Not how the sounds are recorded. But yeah, we should decide on a format. The Doom 3 sounds seem to be in the ogg format. I don't know much about that, so I'll leave it to someone who does. Otherwise I too vote for 44.1 Hz, 16 bit.

Good Idea, DF. We rarely ever talk up here on the public boards so it wouldn't be surprising if people thought we were sleeping on the job. Right now all the real work is beginning on the mod, everything else we've shown thus far has been a mockup to garner some attention and test out the engine to see if it'd fit with a Thiefish theme. Updates will more than likely come a bit slower but when they come they'll be alot more showing than what we've posted before. Right now I'm currently in the process of working on the 3rd texture pack and the accompanying mockup map to show em off. I'm trying to aim for a bit higher quality than what I've done before, so I'm taking my (sweet ass) time making sure they're nice and sexy before I finally let em loose. The slow release of the SDK could almost be considered a good thing, since it's allowing the programmers to plan a solid foundation for what they're gonna be tackling in the near future. Needless to say we're going nice and strong, and I expect some really cool stuff once the SDK heads our way.

And can't movies be made with the in-game engine? That way we can use the model for cutscenes.

Saturday, August 14, 2004 id Software Keynote Comments 14:16 PST | RosOne QuakeCon would not be the same without John Carmack's traditional speak to the fans. This year he couldn't attend because yesterday his wife Anna Kang gave birth to their first child Ryan. Instead of him standing on the stage and talking to the crowd a DVD was recorded and played back during the event. Many exciting topics were covered such as the next generation hardware, id's next engine, Quake 4 and more. After that a Q&A session was held with some guys from id Software. Here are some details: The SDK should be released a few weeks after the patch comes out. Pre-production of the DOOM movie has begun in Easter Europe. The next game will be a FPS, mainly a single player game. Nothing more has been revealed yet. The Mac version of DOOM 3 still requires some work. No release date yet. There is no publisher set currently. The Linux server is done. It will be released soon. More keynote coverage can be found here at AMDZone and at HomeLAN Fed.

Moved the waist up. Defined the torso more. The sharp angles in the arms are caused by the lack of polys. The arms are actually round but the cylinder I used was 5 sided, thus the square look. There's not much way around it, I'm already at 725 faces and multiply that by 2 when it gets imported to Thief, it's already a very high-poly model for the Dark Engine. But I did tighten them up and make them look better than they did.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. I have the utmost confidence in the Doom3 engine.

Quake 3's Source was never released. Wolf 3d, all of the Doom's, hexen 2 and Quake 2 have. We are discussing Game Source, which is the source that comes with the SDK's, not the full engine source itself. From what I have read. Quake 3 MIGHT be GPLed by the end of 2004.

I've been involved in a few UT/UT2K3 mods, and a few Deus Ex mods. Oddly enough, even tho I've been doing modelling and animation for four years or so, I've never been an artist before this mod. Hmm. As for releasing this if TDS gets an editor - we're all in agreement here. I'll lay it out flat: Doom 3 has an incredibly powerful engine. It is the first of the Nexy Generation. It runs more efficiently, can have bigger levels, and is built with future hardware in mind. Can you say specular and normal maps? How about full-on pixel shader control, even without an SDK? Normal mapping at a reasonable resolution? There ain't no reason to drop this project.

Well if you guys know what you are doing the Doom3 SDK release will allow for some serious alterations. I guess it'll come down to the limitations of the engine and, more importantly, the AI. If there is no TDS editor then the Dark Mod makes perfect sense. But if there IS a TDS editor then SP FMs will be made for it and Nightblade is already waaaaay ahead of you guys for the MP. It depends on the way it is done though. You have to realise that there would be massive crossover.

Apologies, but from your post... ...It didn't sound like you're quite as sure as you need to be. The SDK is not open source (GTK Radiant is not open source, only the GTK bit is) and GPL is the wrong license to use because of the reasons I have outlined above, and also because you can not link to closed source libraries (such as the Doom 3 engine) under the terms of the GPL. GPL is a wonderfull thing, but is is not the appropriate license for a Doom 3 mod (I mean that in a legal - you will open your self to cease and dessist notices from ID and the free software foundation if you do - kind of way). Sparhawk is on to a good thing to request clarification of copyright issues, but choosing the right license license requires a little care and attention. Good work so far, by the way. I'm looking forward to contributing some stuff to the project

Whoa, place lost alot of it's cheer since while I was away...now it's all gothed out. Anyway, new textures placed in a more properly lit room for your persual. I even threw in my ugly ass wallpaper texture just to show it off....still think it belongs in a bathroom. Pic I intend to throw in a fireplace near the center of the room once I get an appropriate texture in place. I also wanna make it less angular, but I figured it'd be good to test out the lighting engine so I made a few pillars and grooves to see how it'd do. I haven't imported Blackthief's paneled ceiling yet (hence no ceiling), but it'll be in there soon. I'll also try out his other wallpapers in place of mine, too.

All mods that are made are under the GPL, General Public License. I feel that all of you need to download the Quake 3 Game Source and read the agreements and install it to check out the code. This will give you a better idea of what to expect since from the beginning I could tell that none of you have actually modded for any games besides Thief before. This would be a really good idea. You don't get to choose a license, ID Software chooses it for you. If you make a mod for an ID Software game you HAVE TO release it for free, no questions asked. If you want to sell your mod then you need to buy a license to the engine and produce it all yourself and find your own distributor. I really think before you all get too involved that you need to take a few steps back and take a look at the agreements for ID's other game source that they have released. Quake 3 Arena/Team Arena 1.32 Game Source