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So... What was up with the forums all day yesterday..?

I've messed around again with some head model try outs. I always wanted a sternly guard like they had for the Mechanists in Thief 2

Ok, Its easy enough to create a FS based door, but the issue is as soon as you rotate them they get out of alignment and wont snap to grid etc, but by comparison all the door models do. So I thought Ok create FS based door and export as .ASE, that didn't work as the exported model was just FS model not door entity. The other thing I noticed is once exported as a .ASE the axis point is not adjustable. So how do I create a proper model based door like we already have in TDM..?

[update] Spoke to Marcus @AMD UK on the phone and as it turns out a number of complaints have been made against "Spyre". My AMD forum account has been unbarred and my Ip address unblocked!!! Bought a new gfx card for xmas, been having issues with mainly the driver So I though a good place to look for support and polity vent etc - or so I thought My second post got flamed by some smart arse fanboy and then promptly locked, to which I reported the posted asking why it had been locked.. and then my account on there got deleted and my Ip blocked (untill the isp dhcp refreshed etc) so I cant login even with a different account name. I have emailed AMD directly about this as I did nothing wrong according the t&c's and I got no warning Pm or email from the forum mods. Now I've been over at the nVidia forums a long while back when I had the 8800GTX when I was equally frustrated when posting about the driver issue with thief etc, but at no point did a thread get locked or worse my account deleted. I don't have loyalty to AMD or nVidia but depending on the answer I get from AMD next week this card maybe going back and AMD will be added to the list of manufactures I will never buy anything from again. So whats the moral of this story, well take your pick.. [update] found cached copies of 1 of my posts Cached AMD frum link Cached AMD forum link2

No guarantee I'll continue with this as I don't know yet how practical it might be but thought it worth blogging progress and gettings suggestions, input from others. Basically, texture blending doesn't work on brushes and patches but it does on models. If you know how to model you can make your own custom terrain but most mappers won't so I'm seeing if it is practical to make some generic models panels that can be overlaid, eg, over the edge of a grass/stone path, snow/cobbles, ash/fireplace, to soften the edges. The panels are just flat surfaces much like patches but they behave differently to patches so you cannot just adjust them to fit where you want; they are fixed models. My idea is to make a range of lengths and curves like a model railway that you join together and overly where needed. Also planned are heaps for dirt, ash, etc. You might even need to plan your path etc by laying these down first then making your brush/patchwork later. Dunno yet. I know nothing yet. Once done, the mapper can easily duplicate the model(s) he wants and change the two textures to any pair that he wants so no need for thousands of combinations. They are also tiny files - 17K was this one) This next test is to verify if I can get the model texture scale to match the terrain texture scale, and more importantly, get them to join seamlessly. The answer is yes. I'm using the compass image as a test because I can easily detect alignment and other errors. In the first image below you see in-game a brush set into the floor with the compass texture set at default 0.5 scale 'natural'. Laid upon it is a model test panel with the same texture and scale. You might think you can see the join but that is a glitch in my model and the actual model edge is invisible - it merges seamlessly I'm glad to say and is approximately along the line that the yellow arrow is pointing. In the next image you see the same in Dark Radiant with the model highlighted. One thing I didn't tell you. As well as the glitch in the model, I also had to rotate the texture 90 degrees on the brush to align. Dunno why but I should be able to just rotate it on the model later so that won't be needed. The brush is 128 x 128. The model is 128 x 96. Reason is that I figured 32 solid grass, 32 solid stone, 32 in the middle would be gradient. Again, I have no idea if that is the best way to do it. Maybe just the 32 gradient is enough. And how wide should this overlap be anyway for general use? 32 is about a man's stride I guess.

I read in the forums that there are a few people, who work in 3ds max. Same for me here! Only stupid thing is, that I can't import premade darkmod models (can't import .ase but can export to [seriously wtf?]). As there's no plugin for 3ds max 2012 I can't look on the already created models. I read in the modeling section of the dark mod wiki and also some of the tutorials about exporting on the web. I understand that I have to "bake" my texture on the exported model. It works so far as there are .tga files created (e.g. for diffuse map, bump map, etc.) then I export my model. I can insert it in Dark Radiant too but there's allways "shader not found" on the object, so it's not the correct way I've done this. Does anyone know how to export the model correctly from 3DS Max into .ase for TDM / DR? Note that I've followed the "starting to model" tutorial in the wiki (like "3dsMax: turn to poly, max sides 3, turn to edit mesh before export.") This whole thing isn't completely new to me since I had a crash course on 3d modeling in 3ds max in which I rendered a self created scene into a .tif image. So I know the basics. I've read some tutorials on this texture exporting theme, but since they're not tailored for exporting this to TDM I am stuck so far. May some of the 3ds max people read this and can help me out a bit. I'm sure I can create some models which are needed for TDM as long as it hasn't to be organic things like faces or animals which seems a bit too hard for me at the moment. Thanks for reading!

when i do a search, it give me some results, I click on a result and exspect to get taken to the post it specifies - but no..... I get taken to the first post of the bloody thread it is in..ggrrr

Now the time is come that i want to implement a new model (from fllood, thanks again). Until now i used the path - doomIII / darkmod / maps / mapx because i never need some new models or something else. But now the problem: If i create a subfolder (in maps) for the mission and copy all the folders for the model (models, dds, materials, textures) into it, i cant give DR the path to this modelfolder (preference). If i create a subfolder in the doomII folder i cant dmap and so on... So where i exactly create the mission subfolder ? Thanks in advance

why are they so slow this evening..??

The forums have been upgraded, please see this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/9845-forums-upgraded-to-ipb-3-0-3

Hi all. I have done some improvements of the tree_01.lwo model. 1. First, I noticed that one of branches of the tree was doubled so it looked more bright than other branches. I have removed it: 2. Second, I have edited the normal map a bit (current, new): - the brunches were made more volumetric - every leaf is bended in its own angle to avoid flatness of branches. Unfortunately, I had to leave this effect vary small, because when overusing it the tree starts looking too untidy, like a venik for Russian banya. 3. Third, I made some fixes of the models/tree/branch1 material: Old: { blend diffusemap map textures/darkmod/nature/foliage/branch1 translate 0.01 * sintable [ time * 0.1], 0.03 * sintable [ time * 0.03] alphatest 0.5 } bumpmap textures/darkmod/nature/foliage/branch1_local New: { blend diffusemap map textures/darkmod/nature/foliage/branch1 translate 0.01 * sintable [ time * 0.1], 0.03 * sintable [ time * 0.03] alphatest 0.5 clamp } { blend bumpmap map textures/darkmod/nature/foliage/branch1_local translate 0.01 * sintable [ time * 0.1], 0.03 * sintable [ time * 0.03] clamp } - added normal map oscillation which is the same as diffuse map oscillation (upon a closer view the lack of normal map shift was noticeable) - added 'clamp' keyword to remove artefacts appearing on the corners of branche poligons when the texture shifts This is how old material looks: (it's better to see the fixed variant in game on the animated texture) All changes are in this pack: http://hedonism.29ru...ee/new_tree.pk4 (small versions of the tree are also included). You can install this pack and load new_tree.map to see the changes: 1. If you want to use fixed tree models, get them from models\darkmod\nature\trees\new_tree 2. If you like new normal map, it's in \textures\darkmod\nature\foliage\new_tree folder 3. If you want to fix the material, do not get it from this pack because this one was ajusted for test purposes. Use the code I gave above instead. Anyway, I recommend to fix the model and the material definition. Using the new normal map is a matter of taste. I hope all this will be useful. Good luck!

Has a bug tracker been raised for the black viewing window in DR when viewing models or prefabs..? otherwise I will raise one.

Just returned from a 7 day holiday, opened up this forum, had at least 4 pages of "new content". Made it past page 2 (to about June 03), and then had to take care of a few things here. When I came back, the forum had logged me out (timeout?), and when you log out, it forgets all "new content". So you log in, and it says "there is nothing new for you". Great, now I never know what I missed between May 30th and June 03.... grrrrrrrrr With email, you would still have all unread messages *sigh* Is there a way to change this behaviour? It has annoyed me in the past, but not as much as this time.. Edit: It's even worse, there is "no new content", but when I go f.i. into the "off topic" sub-forum, it still shows me threads as unread that I definitely already did read an hour ago. So I can't even just look at all the "unread" threads. Oh boy...

Hi all Due to Baddcog, who helped me out very nice and patient with the first problems while creating my very own models (and many hours of trial and error) I got the first models working nicely ingame since yesterday and I'm working diligently on new ones. Since I'm creating complexer models, I got the issue, that the textures are not showing properly in Dark Radiant. They are simply white. In The Dark Mod the models (and textures) work fine. It's the thing only with new created shaders and only partly (not every new texture I create is white and not the whole model). For the .dds I use DXT1 compression and for the .tga (normals) I use 24-bit. 3ds Max is my software. It's not one of the "My object is completely black ingame!"-errors I read on the internet (and encountered myself sometimes before).

Announcement: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8900 Please post any comments, bug notices, etc in this thread. If you have any issues with the new forums, please try to refresh/remove your Internet browser cache. Thanks ~m2