Search the Community

Not sure if I know exactly what a Kurshok or Crayman looks like, but I recently played T1 a little and think I found one. This concept is loosely based on that guy I saw. Drawn completely from scratch without looking at anything, so I don't imagine there'd be any copyright issues unless I have a photographic memory and am an autistic savant in the closet I was thinking the little green belly thing could be a weak point for arrows or something... (ensuring a one-shot kill). I'm not sure if the concept captures it very well, but since the guy has crab-like pincers, I was thinking his chest, shoulders, pincers, parts of his exoskeleton body and legs could be made of a hard shell-like material. I envision fleshy (or not as hard parts) around his rib-cage, biceps, neck, and possibly parts of his legs and feet. Click here for larger version of same pic. Note: I didn't work on the legs or feet much, so they lack detail. I can work on them later, if needed. I figure I should at least create some feet. I envision him having a clicking sound of some sort, as his somewhat insect-like. I think this may be the sound the similar creatures in T1 had, but can't remember.

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/

I prefer the green one too, but I'm worried it is too close to the moss arrow. We need to be able to tell them apart visually, especially if we don't have a weapon indicator in our HUD. Could we change the colour slightly, so that the two greens are significantly different? Maybe go with a yellowy green. On the topic of robots...bleh. As much as I liked T2, I can't get around the feeling that robots are inapprpriate for the setting. Still, we'll have to include them for the T2 fans, but I don't think that's something we'll need for the early releases. When it does become time, I want to steer clear of any kind of 'mecha' look. We should look at some DaVinci sketches as reference.

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 I ever manage to get some extra time between all the mapping, texturing, and bossing people around with impunity (haHAAA) I might consider helping make a town map or dungeon for you. I love me some Secret of Mana, and it'd be fun to do a little something for your mod later on down the road. Just keep an eye open for potential copywrite infringements. Square-Enix shut down that really cool Chrono Trigger remake recently, and they might eventually look your way if you stay too close to their material.

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.

That's too funny. We should seriously consider that title. It's a very sly, tounge in cheek, reference and I don't think it can get us in any trouble. It's not that much different than Irrational games taking "System Shock" and turning it into "Bio Shock". I think that it even carries a message to not take things so seriously. Would we risk it? I pulled that menu from a screen shot of S-Holes retro menu just to set the stage for that little mock up, but when it comes down to it, I think the parchment really works. Actually, it would really tie the style of the game together since we would definately want to have in between mission briefings in the Style of T1 and T2. Yeah, I'm quite fond of it, this really seems to gel.

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.

Another problem is the material .mtr file. I had added some new ones to mine, and then downloaded a new version from Renazatic. I either had to go in and do all kinds of swapping and cut and pasting, or just make two different .mtr files...one for ftp downloads and one for my own textures. It's a piecemeal solution though. One problem, Ren...what happens if we all make a mansion_wood_01? How do we avoid duplicating names?

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.

You can either select a different sized grid by going to the grid menu at the top of the screen or hitting 1-7 (or shift + 2,3,& 4 for the really small scales). Because of the funky scale Doom 3 uses you'll find yourself working on grid sizes 2 & 4 the most once you get used to the editor. Edit: Grab the map here: http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/maps/ The updated speculars and the accompanying material file are all packed in. Edit 2: Damnit, just realised I forgot something..hold off on getting it for a sec.

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.

Or it will be in about half an hour. 112 megs of textures (that need to be converted to dds to save on space), 6 map tests, and a material file are included in this release. Make sure you check out the readme to get my current thoughts on the new pack (I don't consider it done, but I figured I might as well release it), and remember that you're all free to tweak, prod, poke, and kick the maps and textures to your hearts content. Grab it here in about 28 minutes.

Sure thing. 1. Looked through my frame reference pics and picked one I liked. Made the center transparent. 2. Selected a painting of mine and put it in a layer underneath the frame. Saved it as the _d and _ed versions. 3. Undid the flattening so it was in separate layers again, then removed the painting and made a normal map of the frame, set to 11. Had to polish it up a little bit by hand. 4. Ran the normalmap filter separately on the painting with a height of 2. Ran the brush randomly over the painting to soften some of the ridges and add in a few others to look like globs of paint. 5. Put the two together and saved. 6. For the specular map, I just desaturated the original empty frame, did an autocontrast, and darkened up the center where the painting would be. I then did some clouds on a top layer and set it to multiply, then played around with the contrast and transparency of that layer before saving it as the spec map. One thing I noticed, and I'll post another example when I get home, is that the paintings seem to be compressed a little bit. While the original is thinner than it is tall, in the editor it comes out looking almost square. Do you know why that might be?

I think I remember seeing you around on the ISA forums back before Thief 3 was released, that render of the Thief jumping the wall looks really familiar (and absolutely completely amazingly awesome). I'm impressed, everyone else is impressed, and you're already a member of the team as I write this. Welcome to the team, man..hope you have fun.

I did this for Phantom a few weeks back, it'll tell you everything you need to know getting textures into the game...along with links to an indepth normalmapping tut. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=101 It sounds like you've already found the proper way to add a light, you just didn't switch to the renderer so you could check it out in realtime. To do that just hit F3 to switch from the cam to the renderer, and then F4 to enable realtime updating so it'll apply all your lighting information. When you say premade room do you mean one of Id's maps? For that you'd have to find the name of the texture you wanna replace, open pak001.pk4, track it down in there, and replace the 3 dds textures with your custom one. But that could lead to some really funkified results cuz their texture could've been applied to the wall in some weird way which might stretch and distort yours out of proportions if it isn't the right size, it'd be better just to make your own simple room in the editor for testing purposes. To do that all you'd need to do is make a texture set and use a generic name like Wall_Test01 or something like that. Plop it in a certain folder for easy access like base/textures/darkmod/test, make the appropriate .mtr file, then build your room using it. If you like it you can just rename the 3 textures and move it somewhere else, if not you can just make another set with the same name and overwrite the ones you have in the test folder. The next time you reopen the editor it'll have the new textures already in place to check out. I do something somewhat similar to that. If I find something about the texture I don't like while I'm working in the editor, I'll close it and zip up the current files, change it to fix what needs fixing, then just overwrite the files with the new texture and fire up the editor again to check it out.

Characters and related Townsfolk: - Whores - Amateur Guards - City Watch - Female Thief - Generic Townsfolk - More Helmets - Nobleman - Noblewoman - NPC Thieves - Possible Elite City Watch - Professional Guard - Various Helmet Concepts Builders: - Builder Acolytes Pagans: - Elite Pagans - Pagan Creature / Trickster - Pagan Warriors Inventors: - Security Cameras - BoilerBot 1 - Bot ideas - Cherub Bot - Inventor's Guild Engineers - Inventor's Guild Scientists - More Inventors (chemists?) Magical: - Necromancers - Older Mage - Several Mages - Wealthy Mage, detail --------- Props - Wall Fountains - Bioluminescent Mushrooms - Door handles/locks - Hammer Forge - Machines - More Machines - Street Lamp - Tiffany Table Lamp - Windows and Fireplaces --------- Environments - Castle Image - City Reference Pictures (lots) - City Street Sketches - City Alley Concept - Fountains - Mansion Interior with Fountain - Mansion Interiors - The Slough (flooded district) --------- Weapons / Equipment - Breath Potion - Gas Arrow - Health Potion - More Potions - Noise Arrow - Rope arrow --------- Gameplay Stuff - Objectives Screen - Purchase Screen - HUD display - Menu Screens - Possible purchase menu - Scrolls and Readables parchment Floorplans - Mansion Floorplan City and House concepts - City --------- Campaign Stuff - Alternate Founder Concepts - The Founders - The Raven Harp

The back legs have a single joint that bends backwards, making it unclear exactly how they would walk. Their forelegs don't look terribly useful in that regard. Adding another joint at the top or bottom of the leg might help. Take a look at some reference pics...a Trex might be useful or the back leg of a deer.

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.

If possible, would you be able to load smaller images of the drawings and link to them with the tags in this thread rather than a listing of links? That'll make it easier to see the drawings. Springheel made this comment for some of my drawings a while back and I think it makes sense It helps to view them and compare them. For drawings that contain extreme detail, keep the smaller images, but link to the larger versions with http:// links. Just a thought. I'm on 56K dial-up and it takes a while for those images to load And yes, I like the drawings also, but I agree a joint might be missing in the hind legs. I haven't studied animals a lot so I usually mess up the structure of the hind legs myself because I haven't commited their joint and muscle structure to memory yet. But I have a book on drawing animals, and if we're to take the common structure of animal legs, then another joint should be drawn. There seem to be 4 main joints in each hind leg (starting at the hip, working down) for animals. (This might be easier to see in rams, deer, bulls, horses, etc.) It looks like your creature has 3 joints and would thus have some mobility stiffness to it. Not a bad thing, just a visual 'non sequitur' (does not follow) thing that I think people are picking up on.

Coloured armour was quite common. The reference pic was black and silver...I'll post it when I'm home from work.