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Hey, Jerboa, welcome to our forums! We can always use more of such models, "everyday stuff" is good for the mission toolset. I suggest you drop a PM to New Horizon to apply for Model Contributor status. We can create an applicant thread for you, where we review your stuff and introduce you to how to get your model in-game. Have you a copy of Doom 3 around? The process of getting models in-game is not hard at all, but it may take some non-obvious steps.

Continuing from this idea: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=155603 Hmm, it strikes me that this might also be a very easy way to add variety to large groups of AI. It would be extremely easy to have a "tall" "medium" and "short version" of just about every AI we have. In fact, rather than every character needing animations exported separately, why not establish a series of default sizes for AI? We could have something like: Very Tall (6' 3") Tall ( 6') Average (5' 9") Short (5" 6") Instead of having unique md5anim files for each AI, we just make one animation set for each of those heights, and then create separate AI defs that point to each one. That means we could have, for example, 4 different heights of the same townsfolk model without any extra work. It might not always be appropriate for every AI (a Short elite guard would look weird, as would a Very Tall forger), but it gives a lot of extra variety (and saves a lot of exporting and nearly duplicate md5anims). The only downside I can think of is that you wouldn't be able to have a 5'11" or a 6'2" character--but since character heads are all slightly different sizes, I really don't think anyone would notice that AI come in only 4 different heights. Squill, any reason you can think of why that wouldn't work?

Was just browsing through the BCG forums, and stumbled upon this: Thank god.

Okay, I'm done adding a few points. I eventually got stuck on fixing the rotation, so someone with a 3d program can probably do those much faster than me. Documentation for how to do it is here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8070 These have been added: Base Humanoid def file (tdm_ai_humanoid): - palm of hand (left/right) - front-right and front-left of belt - back-left and back-right of belt - back-center of belt Builder def file only: - slung across back (left to right or right to left) - stacked across back (left to right or right to left). This is offset one unit farther back so that two weapons may be worn crosswise across the back without obvious clipping) TODO: We can move this to the humanoid base def file, so that other AI can optionally sling swords across the back, but I wasn't sure if all humanoids have Spine2 joint, or is it just the Builder? - Sword at hip (WIP) (I know the builder won't have swords, but wasn't sure if the citywatch mesh was up to date or not). I think the position is okay, but I couldn't get the rotation right by hand. Need a 3d program to generate Euler angles or something.

Very, very nice, especially with such limited resources. I love that door texture, did you make that yourself? You definitely have the artistic and mapping skills necessary. The only other thing we ask of beta-mappers is enough dedication to stick it out and not disappear after a few weeks. I echo what Komag says about downloading the Thiefs Den alpha (you can use the wiki link at the top of the forums to find it). It includes a set of limited art assets, including some AI, that you could use. If you're willing to stick around for a week or two, you'll be a shoe-in for beta-mapper status.

That would probably be better. I can upload the original freeware texture image if you want which is much higher res but I scaled it down to 1024 and cut the rounded corners. There is also a nice old leather book cover if you want. It is deeply 'embossed' (not sure if that is the right word) so would look good with a nice bumpmap. There is a small collection of stuff but I think not much else useful to TDM I don't think but if curious you can get it here... http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?...766#post1751766 I also download skybox textures but not looked at them yet.

Well, I deleted those before Saint Lucia I'm sure. I don't know how they got back. But I don't want them put back in and released. Thiefs Den already uses a chest that's outdated, I'd like to not release more outdated stuff. chest1.ase (and chest1_lid.ase) are now chest_wood.ase and chest_wood_lid.ase chest2.ase is now chest_metal.ase and chest_metal_lid.ase chest3.ase is now footlocker_wood.ase and footlocker_wood_lid.ase Like I said, uv coords, centers, grid alignment, lid/grid alignment, locks have all been updated as have the names to better reflect what they actually look like. Here's a link to the post when I did it, was before thiefs den rleease http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=138312

Exactly. People seem to view legacy Thief levels/FMs as some kind of holy grail that will look wonderful in any engine and be superior to anything created from scratch, without realising just how primitive the Dark Engine is compared with modern games. The Thief games were great, but it's time to move on.

TDM works quite different from Thief. So for a converter, supposing that the level geometry would successfully be converted, you would still have to also convert all teh Thief specific stuff. Triggers, stims, responses, AI paths, etc.. and that would also not include the extra code for some FMs.

If we're setting it up to use D3 heads, and if it's a matter of color adjustment on a hand texture, we might as well support them all. It's a tool kit; we don't dictate what people's FMs can be about. Anyway, whatever, I was just saying something that came to mind.

Sounds like you're set to apply to Contributor status then - just drop a PM to New Horizon and let him know that you want to contribute textures. We'll set up a thread for you where I can guide you through the texture creation process plus set up your SVN access. To summarise what has to be done for these textures you can have a look at this article: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/...to_The_Dark_Mod For your textures, this would boil down to: Find a suitable name, according to our conventions on the wiki Create the DDS diffuse maps (and specular maps, if there exist any) Create the JPG editor image (256 pixels max.) Create a shader which contains the frob-highlighting and ambient stages Send that package to me and I'll see if anything's missing. Upload to darkmod + darkmod_hires As soon as you have contributor status, you can also upload the textures yourself once you have your SVN account readily set up. We have a startup thread in the internal forums, which will explain all the details.

I'm almost certain Dram tried a smaller version but we decided to revert back. edit: Ah, here's the thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...;hl=arrow++size I notice that broadheads don't really sink into AI very much (usually just the tip of the arrow) so that might make them look a bit larger when they're sticking out.

They're not particularly unique--especially treemen and bug-beasts, which are found in some variety in most fantasy settings. But regardless, my point was that unique creatures get used less often. The more unique, the less often they are used. How often do you see craymen or bugbeasts in FMs, compared to "typical" monsters like zombies and giant spiders?

But I can't get my custom launcher to work it. I am passing the arguments dmargs_Windowed.txt and dmargs_fullScreen.txt. Just searched the forums but can't find those mentioned. Must be here somewhere. No, it's searching correctly because it just found this post! I know I didn't dream them up so where did I get them from? Did you pm me? wiki?

From a design standpoint I disagree. The more original the monsters, the less likely they are to be used in maps. Zombies are used in a huge number of FMs because they're a 'typical' monster. People can relate to them and have expectations about what they can do, where they'd be appropriately found, etc. Unless you're playing in a high-fantasy environment, the more unusual/unique the monster, the greater the effort that has to be made integrating it into a map in a believable way.

I checked the forums and didn't see a topic in relation to this, so I apologize if this has been already brought up. Once I used the compass it stuck on my inventory items and made my inventory unusable. I couldn't turn the compass fully off but i could cycle through two of the items in my inventory, but I wasn't able to use them. I had to go outside and pick up another item for the inventory before I could use it correctly. Also once I had it working the gold status was displayed over the inventory. I don't know if this one was my fault or what. Aside from that this is an absolutely amazing piece of coding. The world was fully beautiful and the AI was smart as hell. The water and lighting effects were brilliant. I personally didn't like not being able to jump from ladders, but that's my preference and I'm not gonna knock it because that could mean more coding. If you need more info on this let me know and I'll try to reproduce. My stats for my pc in case you need them Windows XP 1 gig ddr ram amd 3800+ 2.4 ghz radeon x1650 EDIT: I have been play testing it again to see where it messes up and I have found that this is easily clearable in game cycling through the inventory with the [ or ] keys. The problem lies in the - key to get to the inventory. So I don't know if the compass is supposed to stay up when you use the - key for the inventory but that is what is causing the problem for me. Noticed another cool thing though. I hit the fat guy with a gas arrow while he was next to the torch in the courtyard and it knocked the torch out as well. I thought that was awesome, though I am not sure if that was intended. So if I wasn't clear let me know, and if I was just being dumb and breaking the game by doing something I wasn't supposed to let me know.

I'd never actually do it. I was just talking out loud about an idea. I can't imagine any kind of scenario, even in the context of really challenging the most elite of Thief players, where ultra alert enemies would be fun. I kind of liked the humorous possibilities of a warehouse full of jittery guards hyped up on caffeine but it would suck to have to actually play through something like that. I think one has to be extremely careful about "being cruel" to the player. It can be done and can be fun if well thought out. I think of all those bad FMs I've played where the designer makes a chest with a lock that takes forever to open and it turns out to be empty or contain something heavy that makes a loud noise when dropped or explodes or something like that. Just the designer's cruel little joke. Ha ha. What fun. One of my favorite "cruel" tricks ever played in a computer game was the original NOLF. In an area with an object protected by laser sensors, each pathway you traversed contained increasingly more complex moving laser beams. The first one was a breeze, just hop over one or two and turn the corner to the next passage where there were a few more lasers that were a bit harder to get past. The next to the last one was a torment. You had to time things just right, hop over this laser beam just when that other one was spweeping away from you. Took me a long time until I finally made it to a safe place. Then I breathe a sigh of relief, turn the corner, and there is the last passageway, filled with an INSANE amount of lasers sweeping up and down, across, intersecting in dozens of places--completely and TOTALLY untraversable. I just laughed so loud when I saw that. Oh you have GOT to be kidding me! I can imagine some poor players trying to get past there time and time again until they noticed, hours later, the secret panel in the floor just under their feet. Now THAT was cruel in a fun way.

I am note sure, actually I like the in-game version of the old one more. Maybe the new normal map needs a bit more work? I get this error since last fall and up to day I have not been able to checkout the highres repo completely. After a few months of trying I have given up. It seems to be a server problem, but sparhawk hasn't responded yet. Edit: See here for October 2007 post: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...st&p=128650 I don't know since I couldn't check out more than a few on none of my computers.

@Spar, If you noticed, there is a big difference between the time put into a full FM and a contest mission. A contest mission can be churned out in 2-4 weeks. A full FM, if you're working at it diligently, I mean look at the production times for the three Calendra's Legacy FMs, each one took about 3 months, and from what I gathered it was on a pretty diligent schedule. That's probably the fastest ... so any time longer than that is I think due to taking lots of breaks on building and really filling things out. By the way, you guys should consider running a contest for TDM assets if you really want people to contribute. The funny thing is that, given how much better output we seem to get from the community from contests, this is only half-joking.

Well, some people don't consider TDM forums to be random in fact... Congrats Dram. Have a good one...

Heh, I never noticed the calendar link. But wait, what I am trying to get at is that to know the birthday, the person in question needs to enter it here. So, you say, people actually put in their real birthday when signing up to random forums? Guess I am getting old

hey, nice update. sounds like almost everything i mentioned is actualy on the road map. i like it. other then what i mentioned its going to take alot of playing to find more things that might bug players cause everything seems to be working very good. also of course his post wasnt negative, even if it was i would never handle a situation in a negative way. chances are while i was reading it it would apear as a calm informing voice in my head. i understand what its like to see the same post about the same things over and over on the forums, or posubley a thread about some things already being discoused or have been. thanks for pointing me in the right direction for some info tels. lots of good stuff.

Very nice! Don't feel that you actually have to try and improve the existing image file...it would be equally fine (if not better) to find a *better* reference image and use that to create a new and improved version. For example, if there's a crappy grey board texture, you could find photos of similar grey boards and make a replacement texture. We just want the 'type' of texture to stay similar in case it is being used in maps already. Here are some textures that we know need improving: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3903

I think every single texture from you is a welcome addition, whatever it is. If you're motivated, you could also look through the textures from the olden days in our repository and replace them - there are a few especially bad ones (like the floor in test/walk_ik.map, which has all the shadows baked in the diffusemap). A short notice on the forums before replacing them would be nice, though.

I agree with sparhawk on this one, and I think it applies to computer games as well. Sure, you can have your fancy $500,000 per-pixel lighting engine with normal mapping and dynamic self-shadowing and noodle widdobling, and it will look pretty good; but you don't need all of that to make an attractive-looking game. Witness, for example, certain Dromed creations; the technology is primitive by modern standards, but the art some people have created with it is fantastic, leading to some really sweet-looking FMs. It isn't quite the same situation but I think the analogy holds anyway.