Search the Community

I'm not sure if you're saying that we treaded on EA's copyrights without good reason, or if we were shut down without good reason -- I'd say the first is wrong, the second right Of course, I'm naturally biased. Sort-of. We had been in informal contact with Irrational, and they basically told us that they had no problem with our efforts, but EA might. The System Shock IP is a huge, convoluted jumble, and the only thing that resulted from Irrational and EA trying to untangle them was legal fees. [1] We had decided that we were going to fly under the radar until we had some solid material [2] -- a major concern of some of these publishers is if a crap mod will tarnish their image. But one of our forum members took it upon himself to bring us to EA's attention, before we had anything to show :/ In a last-ditch effort, we decided to fully disclose to EA and formally ask permission to proceed with the mod. The rest, as they say, is history. Of course, it's safer if you can avoid direct copying, but that won't stop the highly litigious. When we got the EA "cease and desist" nastygram, the only mentions of copyright infringement were vague ("the System Shock name is under copyright") [3]. In fact, there was no direct mention of copyright infringement at all[4]. If we had gone to court[5], we would have ripped Mr Bené a new one. Unfortunately, in no way would we ever be able to even begin to confront EA in a court battle, no matter how right we were. And EA knew this. Fortunately, Dark Mod won't have to face off against EA, but if I may quote one of my favourite movies [6]: "Innocence is a highly overrated commodity." I don't mean to be a doomsayer, and I do think that you've taken sound precautions to stay out of trouble. I just hope you verily did learn the lessons that we had to learn the hard way. You have some solid work here, and I want to see it come to fruition A fellow LGS-inspired modder, -Glee --------------------------------------------- Gleemonex Sapphire Scar --------------------------------------------- [1] Note that even Irrational themselves don't want to touch the System Shock franchise -- their newest endeavour only fleetingly mentions SS as an inspiration. [2] Or any pertinent material at all, for that matter. All we had at that point were some concept images, the mod's name, and the attention of System Shock 2 fans everywhere. [3] That may not sound like a big deal, but keep in mind that legal documents are written in a very specific manner, for a very specific purpose. [4] Not surprising, considering that a. System Shock 2 is abandonware, and b. copyright infringement only applies in cases of actual or potential loss of revenue. [5] It's obvious that the nastygram in question was written in haste and with poor attention to detail. Note the mention of "your company, Digitally Evolved" (Digitally Evolved was the parent website of SS2R, not a company). [6] The Hurricane

Just some reference sites I looked up real quick, maybe some ideas can be drawn from these: 1. http://www.xenophongi.org/rushistory/medievalarmor/tarch.jpg 2. http://www.cs.usu.edu/~watson/bartholomew/...chArmor/10c.jpg 3. http://www.cs.usu.edu/~watson/bartholomew/...chArmor/10h.jpg 4. http://reflexpoint.homestead.com/files/bascinet.jpg 5. http://www.play.net/images/armor/reinforced_leather.jpg 6. http://www.play.net/images/armor/light_leather.jpg 7. http://www.play.net/images/armor/augmented_chain.jpg 8. http://www.play.net/images/armor/full_plate.jpg I didn't draw any of these, just found them on various websites real quick, I'll get back to sketching soon, I have to finish an English essay tonight and prepare for SAT's this week though.

Ha, now that's the kind of attidude that endears anyone in my eyes) What Sparhawk means is that we need an internal system for keeping track of all our models and resources, and a website layout would be the best way, so we can keep a visual reference of our assets.

Well. Then we have *A* haunt but not The Haunt. And of course my postings in the public are a bit different. I know that people will start calling their Thief Garrett and all such, but we shouldn't publicy support that. In case of legal action it is very important that we always have the opinion that nobody should use copyrighted terms. If somebody does this it must be his own problem, but he should not have the impression as if we would suport this in any way. This is exactly where Npaster failed and other P2P clients get away with it. The developers knew that poeple will distribute copyrighted material with it, but the project can only be shut down if it can be proven that this was the intent. So even though we know that some people might change names in their stories, that should not be our target.

I thought we had an agreement that we keep silent on public forums about the new abillities of Garretts special moves and martial arts capabillities.

Theo sent me the first bunch of footstep sounds. Humans walking on different materials. Download the file: Link And my comments: Carpet: They sound too much like a real carpet. I would suggest using the grass sounds instead. They feel more "soft". Grass: Good, but would be better used as the carpet sounds, I think. Gravel: Terrific. Very good. Ladder: I like them, but the question is if all the ladders should be that squeeky. Metal: The sound quality seems less in those files somehow. Also, something more like the Thief metal footsteps would sound better, I think. Snow: Great. Sounds like snow to me. Stone: Also good. Stone is usually a tricky material, but you pretty much nailed it. Tile: Doesn't really sound like it's Thief counterpart. Could be improved. But I know you said you where going for a more "roof" like sound. Water: Great. Not much more to say. Wood: While it's a perfectly good sound, I'd like it to sound more like the Thief wood: more "rich". I'll see if I can upload them to use for comparison. Well, you did a great job, and I'm waiting for the next bunch!

Yeah, the requests were the main reason why I started this thread. Maybe we should let the others know about it.... post a link in the other forums, maybe?

No no, the lock down only affects AI barks. Not scripted campaign material. The actors that I have are aware of the situation and that I will have to call them in from time to time. No trouble there. What I am locking down though is just the base reactions. The scripted material comes later. No trouble. I really can't see us having the need for that many more AI barks.

I see. I didn't know exactly how this works. If this can be done via .skin files than that's fine for me. And how dou specify which skin to use in each instance? Because the material reference in the model will always point to the same material. So there would have to be a mechanism how to specify whch skin should be used for a particular instance.

dear TEAM I was checking the NET for better NORMAL map making..ANd you know or you dont...know ID was not making the NORMAL MAP with Photoshop.. I was tweaking the textures and all of them making me crazy ..Black Theif knows what i mean.. So .. I learnt something today... "see" 1- they are modelling the OBJECT in Lightwave...and triple it.. 2- Putting the Doom3 engine and writing a CODE over there 3- Doom 3 editor creates a perfect Normal Map...for that object because it s using actual 3d reference from the 3d model. 4- they are recieving 2 perfect normal map tga Am i the only one who learnt this just right now? or is it a good news? or this is happening because of my broken WATCH this is the link http://www.chainsaw.cz/clanky/normalmaps.php# (of course there can be good results with Nvidia Plugin in photoshop but it s taking huge time for creating seriously convincing textures) (I didnt udnerstand where im gonna write that renderbump code though ??) BEST

I guess we can use somehting like that in a study or observatory. Or even for dungeon levels as being animated in conjunciotn with zombies.

I only wanted to discuss it here before I knew you were being added as a contributor Now we can discuss it in the dev forums of course.

Hey guys, feel free to use stuff from our "official response" (thread hidden to the public) and let me know if it needs changing. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...indpost&p=11426 One of the major selling points for me, is this; http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...=asc&highlight= This tutorial shows how any texture can be used just like "stained glass windows", to project a colour image the same way an overhead projector does. This can be used for many dark moody effects, such as dappled moonlight coming through tree branches or windows, and obviously stained glass windows in churches. The effect will fall onto static geometry and moving objects the same, because of Doom 3's dynamic lighting. Try and imagine what someone walking under the coloured image cast by a stained glass window in a church, or under the dappled moonlight through the leaves of a thick tree. Also, the Doom 3 renderer excels at dynamic lighting and lighting quality. The shadows and lighting effects look much better than Half Life 2. The downside is that having many intersecting lights can slow down the renderer more than it's worth, hence, the Doom 3 engine is suited to really cool dark looking levels. Guess what Thief has always been about?

Hi Natureboy, Sorry for the occasionlly abrasive critiques. I know it can be quite frustrating to have people critique work that isn't complete. In the future I think I'll move these kind of posts to PMs. But what Sparhawk said is essentially true. We have so many models right now we're having a difficult time keeping track of them. Our needs fluctuate as people come and go, though, so you could always check back in and see how things are going in a few months. And you can feel free to hang out in the public forums in the meantime. Thanks again,

more or less...the sparse announcements are documented at TTLG forums (there is a Bioshock Anticipation forum there). There's been some discussion of the premise, plot etc. there, and how it is a 'spiritual sequel' to SS2.

No, but some artist put a lot of effort into designing it, and it looks good. So its still good as a reference. Oh I didn't mean it as in "if you really did it and you're not lying", I meant it as in "if you really did it without starting from, say, a poser model" I beleive you if you tell me you did it from scratch . People in those situations can't really lie because they'll still have to prove themselves later when they get asked to do more work.

Sparhawk, I sent it to New Horizon (because he's in charge of PR, I figured he'd have people's emails ), so that he'd forward it to you and Domarius. If it hasn't reached you that way... [edit - found your email on ttlg forums. I will try sending it directly to there]

oDDity was very blunt. I personally think he could have been more diplomatic. That kind of tone would offend anyone. What I was thinking when looking at your recent tree, is that you haven't paid enough attention to how a tree really forms. It looks like it's been modled out of clay the way the branches all smoothly blend into the trunk. It also looks like you've gone for what you think is "generic tree" instead of finding a suitable spooky tree reference pic and using that as a guide. Perhaps one of our artists (Springheel himself if he has time) could actually draw him a quick sketch, that fits the theme of our mod, and see if he can take a shot at replicating it in 3D. oDDity, he might show promise, and if we end up being happy with how he develops, he could take the load off your hands with some of the less harder stuff. Don't be too quick to dismiss people offering to help. Help is good.

that chandalier is pretty nice atti ! finally got the wall-light realistically working ingame ! now it uses two material-shaders, which is maybe needed anyway, since we need also a unlit one

... which would probably need additional sounds. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=864

Thanks Ishtvan...we're discussing these very issues on the dev forums at the moment.

I sent you several mails without response and you never really participated in the forums. From the task that I set you I have seen nothing up until today. So the question is: What exactly do you want to help us now all of a sudden?

I'll do some revision to some of the sounds. Here is the original Thief PICKLOOT sfx for reference. original Thief loot pickup sfx I didn't know if we could do it exactly, hence the variation on it. Wasn't sure how copyright worked with that.... Tried shortening the sound a bit just for giggles. Here is that sound.... loot pickup lo tightened up thx -sax

This is the thread I'm always updating; http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=708

Show us the material file you've done for this so we can see the glass shader (it doesn't look like there is any glass shader) textures/glass/outdoor_glass1 { noSelfShadow noshadows twosided translucent glass forceoverlays sort decal qer_editorimage textures/glass/glass1 { vertexProgram heatHaze.vfp vertexParm 0 0 , 0 // texture scrolling vertexParm 1 .5 // magnitude of the distortion fragmentProgram heatHaze.vfp fragmentMap 0 _currentRender fragmentMap 1 textures/sfx/vp1 // the normal map for distortion } { maskcolor map makealpha(textures/glass/glass1) } { blend gl_dst_alpha, gl_one maskalpha cubeMap env/gen2 red Parm0 green Parm1 blue Parm2 texgen reflect } { blend filter map textures/glass/outdoor_glass1fx } } This is a glass shader using the heat haze vertex program, I'm sure we don;t need to write our own. YOu could use those doom glass texture as well to experiment.