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Sure, just let me know which ones you'd like me to do. I have some extra time this week so it shouldn't be a problem. BTW, did you get my PM about texturing objects? I can't see it in my sent folder, but I was sure I sent you one.

Renz you were right - I'm on a roll new marble texture http://www.dark-project.com/BlackThief/floor_test3.jpg the white line isn't a texture issue - the brushes just don't fit together properly. I've to learn this editor better edit: it's on the ftp now - folder: Dark_Mod/Mansion/Interior/Floor/Marble mansion_mosaic01_d.tga mansion_mosaic01_ed.tga mansion_mosaic01_s.tga mansion_mosaic01_local.tga

It's done. All I need to do is make the material file and we're good to go. While I was finishing up I decided that it'd be a better idea to just upload everything in the texture pack to the FTP in the current directory structure so we could all follow it. If you intend on adding a texture just go to the proper folder, check your file name against what's there, and upload away. Basically what will be sitting on our server IS the texture pack, anyone that's interested in doing textures or maps at all just needs to grab the dark_mod folder and drag it to their base/textures folder in Doom 3. It won't overwrite the old darkmod directory just yet, that'll still be in use til I port my maps over to the new texture set, but it's there for anyone that wants to use it.

When you go to the FTP to either upload a new texture or grab an old one you'll notice that there are 2 new folders in place of the big list we had to weed through before. I did this because looking for Springheel's frame and BT's new floors was a pain in the butt with the current configuration. So now we have the Old Texture Archive, where all our old textures that were previously a part of the big list will go, and Dark_Mod, which is where all current textures that haven't been incorporated into the pack (and using the new naming scheme, hopefully) will be plopped. The new one is also gonna follow the same directory structure as the texture pack (it IS the texture pack, actually), so it'll be easier to organize and manage everything. They've both been organized into subcatagories, so if you're looking for an old window just check the windows directory in the old archive and so on and so on...feel free to add your own directories if you think the one you're uploading doesn't fit in any of the current catagories. And lastly, the texture pack reorg is almost done. I should have it up in the next couple of days. Just for a nice visual cue, and to open this up for comments, I'll post a pic right fast.. See anything wrong, tell me. The better it's laid out the smoother it'll go for us. Edit: BT, I added the textures you had in the mansions folder to the new WIP Texture directory..so if you wonder why your folder is gone it's cuz I put it in there. They've been renamed Mansion_Floor_Tile03 and Mansion_Wall_Trim04.

thx. I'll upload it. Maybe I should start organizing my new textures. So I'll put it into a Mansion/Walls/Stone folder, alright ? edit: everything is on the ftp, including the normal- and specular map

Gah! Omega, check out the 2 page discussion on this very issue: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=43 We came up with a number of reasons why this might not be feasible and/or fun.

Or the other thing could be that the shop is a pre-mission map. The question is if this adds really fun if you have to do it all the time. On the other hand it serves as a testbed for map creation. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=43&st=0 I have a pretty good idea how this could work in terms of game mechanics as it would have been a part of the city section. If there is interest in this I could write up a description how I think it should work.

Great! So it had some effect to do this work. When you post it, please make a new thread though. Makes it easier to keep track and when I look through the forums to collect the consensus for the design.

Great! Could you take look here http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=285 and assign or create some concepts for the other screens as well?

What is it with 3D apps and incomprehensible, overly complex and non standard user interfaces? Its as if they feel the need to justify the silly price tags by making them as unfathomable and proprietry as possible. Cinema 4D is heaven in this respect. Standard UI and elegant simplicity abound. Everything else is the spawn of satan. Shame on you software engineers Don't get me started on audio apps. All those hundreds of tiny tiny dials and sliders you're supposed to interact with via a clumsy mouse. WTF is that all about. Bastards edit - looking good omega

Yes it does. Trust goldfishguy. Apple Macs traditionally used to default at 72dpi for screen resolution but anything up to (and sometimes beyond) 96dpi is common these days. Take a 17" screen. 800x600 (about 62dpi) is going to be a different resolution to 1280x1024 (about 96dpi). comprendez. good. But anyhow goldfish guy, Springheels right too. Ain't no one got a 300dpi monitor. Not many folks have a 300dpi printer for continuous tone images for that matter. But yeah. Huge images on the internet is just rude. Post little pics if possible please. Or link to larger piccies if needs must. Life is nice and cosy when you are young and healthy and with good eyes - like you and me. 800x600 on a 17" screen is good for anyone a bit far sighted or a bit over the hill though. Feel sorry for anyone checking the forums on a web enabled phone.... (something I do from time to time)

Maya is the best overall 3d app available yes, but I spend a lot of time hanging around the CG commuity, forums etc, and Lightwave is regarded as the best poly modeler available. It has it's shortcomings obviously, no history, edges or NURBS are the main ones, but it's just so fast and intuituve once you learn it, and you can also virtually 'sculpt' in it , in a way not possible in other apps, apart from ZBrush. I used Lightwave 8, but it's virtually identical to lightwave 7 and 7.5, most of the changes in the newer versions were made to Layout, character setup and animation.

Ok, we have had plenty of discussion of what the lightgem should look like, and I think we have reached a consensus of sorts. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=48&st=25 Now what we need is someone to actually create the thing. I would be willing to do it, but honestly, I'm not quite sure how. Is this going to be a 3d model? If not, how is it going to be animated? I know it's not as simple as just making a single image in Photoshop, but someone is going to have to explain how to approach this so that we can get going on this.

Ah, thanks. Applegeeks' forums aren't bad for tutorials either.

If you're interested in some good tutorials and critical feedback, there are a couple good forums to look at. Epilogue is one that has a lot of stuff available that might help. http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/phpBB2/

Well I read in another post o the forums here that 7500-8k polys is the target for characters. I'll have no problem whatsoever getting to that level from the current 30k It's never a good idea to have large details like the belt buckle just a flat plain with a normal map, it's always best to have some basic geometry there as well that more or less follows the high res shape. That's not a problem though, there's a plugin for Lightwave call qemLOSS which does just that job. I'll have to get this textured and normal/spec mapped and into Doom to see what the final effect will be. I currently have no idea how god/bad/average it will look inside the game.

If you find something out then you should probably download this http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=255 and incorporate it there to test it out. My next plans are to figure out how to change the buttons, and how to let the SDK do something for me.

This is only the "categories". The folder structure for where the sounds will be placed. Even if you do a city mission, you can add sounds from all the other categories as well. That would be the ambient tunes. Great idea! Very cool actually. Yes, but we have to remember that we're doing a mod for other people to make their missions with, so it would be a mistake to design our sounds around one or two levels made by us. We should try to do a broad range of sounds that can be used for a lot of different missions. Still, I guess it could serve as inspiration. Edit - Added a new category: The Scary Place

I can't sign on cause I'm at work, and they frown on messengers. And I looked at my site. I left out the folder and there's some spelling errors. I'll fix it when I get home.

Not really related in line with what we were talking about here....but I just mocked this up for fun. Someone at the ionstorm forums asked if we were going to change the name or just leave it as "The Dark Mod". Thinking of how Eidos and Ionstorm may take to us creating a mod inspired by one of their intellectual properties, I felt it would only be fitting to call the game THIS. On a half serious note...*L* I think I might even like that name. HA. @ pakmannen: Wow, I love that mock up. @ Springheel: I see where your coming from. The inspiration for that idea came from the idea that the fans will be creating prophecies in a sense. Fan Missions are essentially adding to the story. Kind of mystical and fantasy oriented I suppose, but it's also in line with the Thief universe, just approaching if from a different and I think more cerebral direction. Kind of quiet and reflective, like the game itself. As more fan missions are written, it would be like the prophecies unfolding. Just some thoughts to ponder. Anyway, enjoy my silly mockup.

Within the next few days I'm gonna be reorganizing the texture pack so it'll be easier for us to plug textures into our cooresponding packs with only minimal fuss. Not only will the directory structure be changed, but I'm gonna adopt a new naming system that's more homogenous and easier to manage. First off, instead of just having 3 main catagories (Walls, Floors, Objects) I'm going to sort them into themes. For now I'm thinking Mansions, Cityscapes, Churches, Factories, and a misc catagory for things that can easily overlap among all the themes. The directories below these will still be the same, a folder for each type and material. This is open for discussions, of course, so if anyone has a better idea of how structure the texture tree feel free to add to the discussion. Next comes the naming scheme, we're gonna keep this as straightforward as we possibly can. If you have a wood floor that'll go well in a mansion then it'll be called Mansion_Floor_Wood0x to coorespond with the directory it's gonna be placed in. Any variations on the same texture should have a letter applied to both...like Springheel and I both have Jay's tile floor in our respective packs, but somewhere down the line I changed mine to a black and white marblesque texture, so Spring's version will be Floor_Tile03a and mine will be Floor_Tile03b. Simple, straightforward, and easy to change if we have a naming conflict. If we do it right we can all send each other small updates that can be plugged into our material files easily without having to worry about sending increasingly larger packs to keep up with. Another thing to keep in mind is making similar textures share the same specular or normalmap. Once again I'll bring up Jay's floor texture for the example. The changes on mine are just cosmetic, so both can use the same local and spec and save on some file space. Just name it Floor_Tile03_local or _s and direct the material file entry to it. If you want to make 2 versions of the same texture with different overlays or material properties, like a really shiny version of a brick wall that has an ultra reflective spec or a glowing fullbright window, just name them what you think is appropriate..like wall03_wet for the shiny wall or Window02_lit for the fullbright window. Nothing complicated there. Taking this and the above change into consideration, we can have entire families of similar textures that can be swapped back and forth easily. We'll have to keep track of what we're all doing for awhile, but once we get this rolling it shouldn't take much management to keep things running smoothly. Blackthief: You'll need to get in the habit of doing this, too. You don't have Doom 3 yet but you will eventually, getting into it now will make things easier for you when you do. Just remember to name your dither as x_x_d and the normals as x_x_local and save em as TGA files...rar em up if you're worried about them being too large, they compress well. That should about do it. I'll also post an update listing all of our current textures once we get this squared away.

Sound ----------------------------- The audio part for this mod will be divided in four sections: 1. SFX (Soundeffect) We have adopted this term for any sound that is played from within the code. That basically means leveldesigner wont have to bother about them. Ex: footsteps, impact sounds, weapon sounds, porcelain-cup-dropped-on-marble sounds etc. 2. Ambient Sounds which are added by the leveldesigner in order to bring life to the map. Mood enhancers, if you wish. Ex: machines, birds, waterfalls and background music/loops. 3. Voices Things spoken or expressed by the inhabitants of the world. That includes: Humans, zombies, belchers, and any other creatures we might come up with. 4. Meta Sounds Sounds used by the game to convey gameplay information. The pickup-loot sound, menu sounds, mission objective sounds etc. Formats ----------------------------- Wiki link. To keep file sizes small, the OGG Vorbis format should be used for all ambients and SFX. You can get a free encoder here. Depending on the sound, an aproppriate nominal bitrate should be choosen. As a rule of thumb, use these encoding options: 44100Hz / 96kbps / mono Use this for SFX and directional ambients. 44100Hz / 160kbps / stereo Use this for omnidirectional ambients and meta-sounds. This usually means anything that goes to the \ambient or \meta folders (see below). Use your common sense: does the sound really benefit from stereo format? Wave Form ----------------------------- All sounds should start and end at zero amplitude. Other values will create pops. Do not add reverb, echo or phaser effects to directional sounds. SFX should be as dry as possible. Mix at maximum volume, but avoid clipping. Volume can be adjusted in the game. Avoid fade in/outs for looping sounds. Seamless loops are favoured. Avoid downmixing a stereo sound to mono. Avoid pauses at the start and end of a sound. File Names ----------------------------- The naming of soundfiles should follow roughly this format: [Gamemeta_] Object [_Subcategory] [_Action [_InteractionObject] [_Iteration]] [_Loop] .ogg Examples: frob_instrument_harp_01.ogg mnu_button_hover.ogg arrow_broadhead_hit_wood_01.ogg machine_hum_01_loop.ogg Folder Structure ----------------------------- Wiki link. The folder structure is mirrored on the ftp in TheDarkMod/sounds Project management and Design documents ----------------------------- - Soundeffects - Ambients Teamlist ----------------------------- SFX/Ambient Pakmannen DarknessFalls Muze mrDischarged Theo (for now) Saxmeister Schatten drewb50 comp-music Voices New Horizon File storage ----------------------------- We are using CVS to share all our modfiles and once you have a finished sound it should be uploaded there. Currently all sounds are commited by myself. For works in progress you can either host the files yourself or use our FTP server.

Hey, some of you might recogise me from the ISA forums, or maybe not. I'm normally called "The Nay-Sayer". Anyway, just thought I'd drop in and wish you guys luck since the D3 SDK just got released. I've gotta say those engine tests in your gallery are great, particularly the original old window one, the colours are just so awesome, the ambience is just right and it's only a test. And the one of the really dark stone hallway is great too. But really I love the old window shots, looks better then TDS even. Best of luck with the gameplay and stuff though, obviously that's whats most important. Cheers and "god"speed.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?act=Post&CODE=00&f=1 WOOT!

Yes. You should talk to Fingernail about that. He can give you access to the teams forums where we have the concepts and everything.