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I love it ! always missed the blue uniforms in Thief 3 ! the first time I saw a city watch man I was really disappointed because of the poor, brown uniform...

Yes, I really love the book idea. I'm not sure we should display the Thief in action since we're a first person perspective game. It may lead the player on a bit in that respect. We do have that lovely Thief model... , but we'll get to see it on other Thieves thank goodness.

If we were really ambitious we could do a nice 3D hud showing our Thief getting ready for a long nights work. Since Doom 3's frontend is already 3D it wouldn't be much of a problem to implement, but it could take awhile to do right. Like you'd have the options lining the left side of the screen and you'd start out in the center of your apartment/hideout. Clicking start would have you walking automatically (and in first person) to the door, opening it, and pushing out into the black space beyond. Going to options, which would be where you set your controls, video options and other miscellany, would have you walk over to a workbench where the thief polishes and tweaks all his tools. Loading a game or selecting an FM would take you to a bookshelf where it'd bring up the book...similar to how we'd do it ingame. Like I said it's ambitious, but it could be pulled off with a little work. I could do the map fairly easily, but we'd need someone to help with the programming.

This looks really great. I was already worrying because the picture did lok strange a little bit on Springheels first post, but now that it is embedded in the setting it looks really good and fitting.

Judging from the placement of your light entities in one of your earlier shots I'd say your room is too big, about as big as a good sized grand dining room at least. Judging from that I'd say that your paintings are about 15 feet high and cuz of that the texture is stretched way beyond the size it should be. Until you get used to building to scale, rightclick, go to char, and throw in the hazmat guy to use as a measurement when you're building your brushes. I did the exact same thing when I built the first thief_room map. But the picture itself is excellent, and when it's properly sized it doesn't show any pixelization whatsoever. Edit: This will help you out a bit. Look at the size of the light entity in relation to the painting. The brush itself is only 36 width 58 height, when you're working in Doom 3 you'll usually spend most of your time on the 2 or 4 grid.

http://www.3dtotal.com/ I've stumbled across these during one of my little internet searches and practically fell in love with them at first sight. What we have in these individual texture packs are the perfect raw materials for just about any type of texture we could ever need. As I said to Fingernail, it'd be like the modellers having some basic undetailed human shapes to start with and detail as they please, and could get us to the mapping process in almost a 3rd of the time. But (there's always a but) it does make us reliant on another persons product, and it does take away a bit of the creative process that we all enjoy. While we still be styling and detailing it to our specifications it's still someone elses hard work we're using. That and the issue of even if we CAN use them in our mod is something we'll have to ask about. There are pros and cons to using them. The pros being quick, easy, high quality textures that can be bent to our specification with minimal effort (the things even come with bump and specular maps). The cons are...well...it's not our own work, it costs money, and there's the chance that they won't allow us to use their textures in a mod no matter how different they are from the original textures. So what do you think? Speed and quality or slow and homebrewed quality?

I was getting it as a copy, but when I played the first level on the cemetery, it was so scary that I went the next day and bought it. I must say I haven't regreted it. What I also love is, the textures really look great. If you look at that military base level and check out the walls, or the hulls of the airplanes or the street, everything looks as if it was in heavy use. Doom is much cleaner and sterile. When you look at the textures in the base it all looks nice and clean. Of course there is the occasianal blood and the props are tumbled around but still it looks as if it were just unpacked fresh from the factory.

I'm starting to play around with Builder Priest concepts. This is the first one I've come up with, but it isn't drawn in stone. Some things I've thought about: Metal is almost a religious substance to builders, so even the priests should wear some metal. So I gave him some chains and metal shoulder plates, among other things. Hammers are their holy symbol, so even the priests should carry one, and be able to use it in melee combat if necessary (though less effectively than the guards). I presume we will want them to throw fire like the original games? That's easily done. Should they do it from their hands? A wand? Or perhaps the hammer? I was also wondering if we should give the priests other abilities? Someone mentioned a shining hammer in another thread, what if the priest could use his holy symbol to light up the area around him? Anyway, all comments welcome. Edit: Ok, a new version, Oct 11th I've made the shoulder metal smaller and more decorative. I've also given him a hat and more robe-like clothing. The strips at the bottom of the robe are decorative metal, and there are metal plates on the scarf-like things hanging from his shoulders. A ceremonial hammer completes the outfit. It could be used in combat if necessary, and could also function as his wand (which always struck me as too 'magicky' for a builder). What do you think?

hm, to be honest I don't like the red areas in the 2nd screen. IMHO the first screen looks better...the red stuff just doesn't fit.

Yeah, making it look more robed, and possibly removing the shoulder pads, would work better in my mind. His proportion does seem to be off by a little, possibly it's the length of the arms. The hand holding the hammer, if fully extended, would touch his knee. Not that it really matters, considering this is just a first draft. Heck, my belcher was missing a full bone from his legs. :lol:

Yeah, I really like that, too! It's a great compromise and like it better than the first one. It'll be cool to have the elite guard like this because you'll be able to distinguish them from the regular guards from a distance. The elite's will have the jagged thigh plates and the red stripe down the middle of their breast plate; the regular ones won't. We might strive for a distinguishing visual stripe or mark on the back plate also?

I don't know, I like the stripes. They make him look a little more ceremonial, a little more polished, and a little more dangerous. Changing it to solid colours makes him look very similar to the normal guard version. It was the decorative nature of the stripes that attracted me to the armour in the first place. As I said elsewhere, painting armour was quite common, historically. Here's the original picture I used as a reference.

I also like the hammer, but think it should have a larger head giving it the appearance of more mass and a more "dayammm, I would NOT want to be hit by that!" feeling. Perhaps the elite guards would have that hammer type, whereas the standard hammerites would have the typical hammer we're accustomed to? Maybe elite guards should be able to flip that hammer around at their discretion and attack our thief with the sharper side of the hammer to inflict greater damage? Say, one of every 5 hits would be with the pointier side? Having them occasionally turning their hammer around would also create a small pause in their swinging, allowing our thief to take a health potion, switch weapons, or have a better chance at getting away without being hit again. Good work, especially if it's historical. At first, I thought it maybe looked a little too futuristic, but if it's legit then that's cool! Maybe its the coloring that makes it look futuristic. Is the coloring authentic, too?

You paintd this yourself? Awesome! It would take me ages to draw something like this and it still would look like crap. My first face alone took 8 hours just for the simple pen outlines.

They're meant to inspire us, not make us copy them. As artists, we draw from many different resources for inspirations -- and nothing, truly, should be off-limits. We're not going to "use" that concept artwork in any way other than to inspire us to create our own. Heck, maybe some things will only get slightly tweaked by us to put our own 'stamp of DarkMod approval' on it. But probably not. If you can't tune the original concept artwork out when you're making your own stuff, then don't look at it... is the only advice I can give. To me, it's helpful to view these things and thought I was doing a favor by sharing what I found with others. If I'm going to be working on Kurshok- or Craymen-like creatures... or blackjacks or bows... I think it's best that I know a little bit of what the original ones look like and even see some concepts. From the DarkMod website, it states: Resembling Thief games would not be a bad thing, since I think that's why most of us were drawn to begin working on DarkMod in the first place. If Disney was going to make a new Transformers-like movie but didn't hold the rights to Transformers, are they not going to watch past Transformers episodes just because they're making their own spin on it? Heck no, they'd totally study past Transformers episodes and movies, and anything else they could get their hands on. Nothing would be off limits for their artists. It's all about studying what you're working on. If I'm working on tables, it's best to look at pictures of tables for reference. If I'm working on pillars, it's best to look at existing pillars for reference. Etc.

Brr...you must run these things by me first, and instead of an open free-for-all thread, you must assign individual tasks by PM using the format detailed on the sticky thread link, after people have volunteered. Since you are concept art, each task reference should have the following prefix: ACn followed by a four digit number, for instance: ACn0001 might be the main menu concept, etc. etc. And then you have to PM ME with the tasks so that I can keep track of who's doing what. Don't fall out of line, please. It's so difficult to keep things organised.

I'm sure most of you know but for those that don't the first official patch for Doom 3 is out.

I ditched the crystals idea and went back to the first idea I had several weeks ago. This was brought on by just now noticing the gem stone pictures in an earlier post. They inspired this.... I'm sure it could be dressed up to look much better than this. I just whipped this up in a few minutes, but it gets the idea accross. Like Springheel mentioned earlier, North is indicated by the red marker on the top of the sphere in a similar fashion to how they indicated North in Thief 1 and 2. The markers slide around the outside of the sphere. Now, imagine this with a true active light sphere and perhaps a tiny spike on top of each Navigation marker. It's basic, has features of both Legacy Thief and T3, but doesn't copy them exactly. Thoughts? Opinions?

Yup, I should definately change my handle to the minimalist. I have another idea that involves the crystal, but I have to go grocery shopping first. I think you'll like this idea better. It's not as minimal, but it feels very organic.

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.

Which would, of course, be largely pointless. Not much point blinding a guard half a block away. The thing about smoke arrows/flash bombs is that they are limited in number rather than particularly challenging to use. You've got me on the steampunk issue though I'd certainly still recommend implementing a 'flash' or smoke arrow during the early stages of development so the functionality is there without needing specific modelling and animation (although I suppose the DOOM3 grenade throw might suffice?). Regarding the shattering noise arrow. I quite like the idea. Breaking glass would certainly attract attention. Although in the first two games the noise arrows were few but reuseable. I hate to be a kill joy, but do we need a noise arrow at all? Could the thief not just fire a broadhead at something noisy or throw a pot? Less work is good in my book.

I found these piccies of moonstone on the web: I think the whole translucent light & dark vibe would work really well. In the first two games (similar to the example BlackThief posted) I was under the impression that the light gem was mounted in a ring, which I thought was quite a nice concept. Would it be cool if the compass was a selectable object held in G's hands instead of a HUD element or do people prefer if the compass in permenantly on? I also thought if perhaps some kind of elaborate machined brass device could provide a light meter. Something with cogs and workings like the inside of a pocket watch with a display similar to a moonphase? If we plump for a combined compass/light gem I have to say I didn't like how it looked in T3. Something a little less wierd would suit. How's this for fun:

Sounds good, i'll work on concepts for the following, to be used at the team's discretion- A good mine concept Some elemental crystal concepts A simple broadhead concept. A gas mine Lockpicks (though we should probably clear up how lockpicking should be first, I'll start a thread on it if there isn't one already) The short sword Some simple enemies (Quick question, are we bringin back burricks or something burrick-like?) And,... um, yeah.

I'm trying to get my hands on 3ds max, but in the meantime I'm doing Anim8or stuff for Thief II. I don't know much about doing high-poly stuff, but I hope I can learn so I can do stuff for Doom 3 and other games in the future. This is a WIP of the first AI I'm doing for my current Thief II project. I've done AI before but nothing this detailed. As it stands in this picture there are 684 faces. I'll have to keep it low, the goal is under a thousand, or else Thief II will have serious issues. My concept sketch is there too, for the full size concept sketch click here. What do you guys think about the proportions? Sometimes I have to back away from my monitor to tell whether or not he's realistic looking.

I believe this mod is divided in two sections: First, the mod itself (with all the models/textures etc) so that people can make Thief fan missions. Second, we are probably going to do some kind of campaign, which I think (and hope!) will be something original (with a style more towards the Victorian era).