So, what are you working on right now?

[grayman]

BANG. SPIN OFF.

 

I assume that's you.

 

Very well done.

[Tels]

I concur, it really do look like crap. I think it'd be a lot of work but if possible I'd like to see a spyglass similar to this:

http://youtu.be/JjHM1h1MXnI?t=1m27s

 

I only see this:

 

 

Unfortunately, this SME-music-content is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights.

Sorry about that.

 

This is fucking getting on my nerves, and while I am a bit advocate of "stay legal", I am starting to look for ways on how to "pirate" this content, just to watch a damn video.....

[Arcturus]

Apparently it's James Horner's. It's kinda funny, because the guy is famous for his plagiarism.

[Nosslak]

 

I only see this:

 

This is fucking getting on my nerves, and while I am a bit advocate of "stay legal", I am starting to look for ways on how to "pirate" this content, just to watch a damn video.....

Sorry about that. Here's another video showing what I'd like to see from the same game:

[Tels]

Sorry about that.

 

It's not your fault, just the greedy german "rights exploiters".

 

Here's another video showing what I'd like to see from the same game:

http://youtu.be/Z4gWB10Bhy8

 

Hm, I think our spyglass is actually better - the part you don't see is black. And it is technically much simpler, otherwise, you'd need to render two zoom levels at once.

 

It never has bothered me that it is low-res, but then I never saw a highres version of it to compare.

[pusianka]

Apparently it's James Horner's. It's kinda funny, because the guy is famous for his plagiarism.

 

excuse me, are you referring to me? I came up with this tune on Monday...

[demagogue]

Re: an external repository for models. Don't forget about thiefmissions.com. It has (1) always been a repository for FM assets and (2) has been a repository for TDM stuff as well as T2 stuff. Send an email to epithumia asking if he could make a place on the site to house TDM assets. Then we could at least upload stuff there, it's already being maintained, and enterprising mappers can be the ones tracking down what they want. Southquarter.com might be another option. We don't have to reinvent the wheel here when there's already maintained sites out there.

[Baddcog]

I Jason back to updating thiefmissions? I know he disappeared for a couple years.

[demagogue]

Yeah since 2010 every few months he comes in and updates everything that came in the meantime; he's only about 3 months behind now. It's not the most reliable though, but you know once uploaded they aren't going to be lost.

 

Of course at the least we might just start a thread, put a link in the "Important Editing Links" sticky, and people just upload assets to 4shared (or maybe 3 file sharing sites to have mirrors) and put a screenshot & link to the download in the thread.

[STiFU]

This is fucking getting on my nerves, and while I am a bit advocate of "stay legal", I am starting to look for ways on how to "pirate" this content, just to watch a damn video.....

It's not pirating, it's just proxying: www.hidemyass.com! Have fun! Suck it, GEMA!

[Baddcog]

Been meaning to get some of this done for awhile. One thing we definitely need is more wrought iron work, so...

 

stair rails in fancy, circle and plain styles. groups of 1 and 3 stairs. railings in 1 (for all) and sets of 2,4,8 for the plain.

 

New sign hanger.

[Springheel]

Plus, that still doesn't really make me go out and make models, because it leaves it hanging in the air that my model was (is whatever) not good enough -

 

The keys that you made were fine, though.

 

One thing we definitely need is more wrought iron work, so...

 

Yes, nice. That's something that is definitely needed.

[Diego]

Been meaning to get some of this done for awhile. One thing we definitely need is more wrought iron work, so...

 

stair rails in fancy, circle and plain styles. groups of 1 and 3 stairs. railings in 1 (for all) and sets of 2,4,8 for the plain.

 

New sign hanger.

 

Simple, nice and pretty

[Bikerdude]

+2

[Tels]

Been meaning to get some of this done for awhile. One thing we definitely need is more wrought iron work, so...

 

stair rails in fancy, circle and plain styles. groups of 1 and 3 stairs. railings in 1 (for all) and sets of 2,4,8 for the plain.

 

New sign hanger.

 

Nice! Could you do maybe a more high-res of the rounded parts? They look a lot "polygonized" even in this screenshot.

[Diego]

There is something I've been meaning to ask for some time but not enough to create a thread for it. Since this one is generic enough and people visit it often, it goes here

 

I miss specular on everything. I know most materials even have maps for specular, but it's either too subtle or the problem is at my end. I only see specular on silver glasses and stuff like that.

[Serpentine]

I miss specular on everything. I know most materials even have maps for specular, but it's either too subtle or the problem is at my end. I only see specular on silver glasses and stuff like that.

Are you using the Enhanced Interaction setting? That should make things seem a bit more specular. I cant say that we need more specular tho, I'm not a fan of plastic looking stuff.

[Diego]

That helped! Things do look much better.

 

I'm not a fan of plastic looking stuff.

There's a wise saying about this: "not all that shines is made of plastic"... or.. something like that.

Anyway, you need a good eye to make shiny materials not look like plastic, but almost everything shines. It's a pity we can't tweak materials from the editor, a lot of parameters, specularity is one of them, could be used to simulate weather, for example. Stones from roads and walls on the street could be made shinier from humidity or rain.

 

Below, London and its humidity, as we can see by the nice specularity on the road's stones

 

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2012 by Diego

[Nosslak]

One of the key things to keep metal from looking like plastic is gloss which controls how strong the falloff of the speularity is. I'm not sure if it's possible to use gloss textures in Doom 3, but if it is it would be easier to make more convincing metal, besides making the specular map the same-ish color as the diffuse.

[Diego]

Yes! I was talking about that in a PM the other day with Fidcal. I don't know how materials work in D3 engine but even the simplest shader in the history of computer graphics have two parameters for specular, strength and concentration (with possible different terms). It doesn't even need to allow map, just a single number would help. I think it does, though.. I've seen models inside the game that really looked like different concentrations of specular.

[rich_is_bored]

I agree about the lack of specularity. It's especially important in a game like this because it helps you identify forms and texture in the darkness. Prey had a specular exponent parameter for material shaders that allowed you to adjust the tightness of specular highlights.

 

Of course, screenshots from Prey don't really do it any justice as it's predominantly filled with slimy alien bits. But with just that one addition you can make a surfaces that range from glass to wax.

[Diego]

I agree about the lack of specularity. It's especially important in a game like this because it helps you identify forms and texture in the darkness.

 

Just to illustrate your good observation, here's a screenshot of something I saw today in a FM:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The handle seems to be missing. Of course, extreme cases like this could be solved with a better texture work, with some occlusion baked onto it. But generally, since we have no radiosity and we don't really like lights that much we are most of the time in a place embedded with this ambient light, that paints every polygon with the same intensity.

[Serpentine]

I thhhhink you can emulate the sharpness of the specular in the enhanced interaction stage of a material, however I have not tried. I've always felt that we needed more control over it, but never got round to thinking about how to do it... will test a bit later tho.

[New Horizon]

Just to illustrate your good observation, here's a screenshot of something I saw today in a FM:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The handle seems to be missing. Of course, extreme cases like this could be solved with a better texture work, with some occlusion baked onto it. But generally, since we have no radiosity and we don't really like lights that much we are most of the time in a place embedded with this ambient light, that paints every polygon with the same intensity.

 

Are you using the 'simple' or 'normal' ambient lighting setting in that shot?

[Baddcog]

Nice! Could you do maybe a more high-res of the rounded parts? They look a lot "polygonized" even in this screenshot.

 

I could have, but I'm still trying to keep a budget...

 

For example, the 'fancy' single rail.. two post with 3 curls is 402 polys alone with a shadow of 214. two post with circle is 304, shadow 176. So if an author used that one 12 stairs... Well you know math.

 

The sign hanger is 814 polys, with a shadow of 372.

 

I'm trying to do higher polys stuff, but still trying to stay on budget. To make them look much rounder I'd have to bump those counts up quite a bit. And redo a lot of work, I just don't see it being necessary personally.

 

I was going to ask though if it's possible to use a skin as the LOD stage instead of a model. The shadow has got the same side profile, so the LOD stage could just be a skin swap where the iron goes to the shadow mesh and nodraw is placed on the iron. And the shadow just goes away.

 

That helped! Things do look much better.

 

 

There's a wise saying about this: "not all that shines is made of plastic"... or.. something like that.

Anyway, you need a good eye to make shiny materials not look like plastic, but almost everything shines. It's a pity we can't tweak materials from the editor, a lot of parameters, specularity is one of them, could be used to simulate weather, for example. Stones from roads and walls on the street could be made shinier from humidity or rain.

 

Spec is really tough in this engine, and less looks better from what we've found. Not to say it can't be improved...

 

(the shot of iron stuff above is editor due to game crash on screenshot but they do have spec in game, but it's a white spec which makes it too shiny imo)

 

bumping up the bloom some can make that glow shine a bit more too.

 

1: The spec map almost has to be black to have a 'sane' amount of specular.

So I've done some work that hasn't been implemented mod wide yet on metals, basically adding their color (pink for copper, yellow for gold) to spec maps. For it to look good the yellow is almost dark brown.

It takes a lot of time to tweak it just right. I noticed yesterday as I was playing and saw a gold skull and it looked polished to the point of loot glow (must've been where I left off as I just dug the files out again), and we don't want that.

 

2: I removed spec off a wood on the old chest just the other day. Basically any wood in game that isn't highly polished looks like plastic with spec.

A lot of things shine, but definitely not all. Unless wood is polished it doesn't have spec, even when wet, if it has any grain at all it is a matte material.

 

But we do have some cobble stones and whatnot that have 'wet' in their name and they have a bit of spec on them. Someone could make more materials simply by adding even a basic spec map to all the textures they want to use if they are making a wet enviro.

 

3:frob highlight kills a lot of detail. You can't (as far as I know) pass on the normal map/spec stages to the highlight component, you are just multiplying the base tex and adding some white overlay.

 

4:We've been through the ambient bake thing quite a few times. A lot of stuff was made before anyone knew what AO was. It was just starting to be used around the time the mod started. So that would mean going back and doing tons of work. Then I started using existing shaders as much as possible on as many objects as possible to save space and tex loading in game. Most of this stuff wasn't UV'ed for AO, so tons of that would need done and baking.making a lot of object specific textures...bleh

 

I'd rather see (and make) more new stuff then just going through and redoing the 500+ existing objects we have.

 

5: that door in that pic looks to be just worldspawn, The author could have used a different texture for the handle and that would have helped the disappearing act.