So, what are you working on right now?

[Destined]

Very nice model! But if I saw correctly, the legs are also red leather. Did you miss this or is it just because it is an early version and you have not yet changed it?

[Bikerdude]

Very nice model! But if I saw correctly, the legs are also red leather. Did you miss this or is it just because it is an early version and you have not yet changed it?

Ah yes, I would have thought they should be wooden feet.

[STiFU]

I can already imagine a master inventor offering the player a blue pill and a red pill... ;-)

 

Awesome work, anyway!! :-)

[Epifire]

Are you able to do green and brown leather and will there be a matching sofa and stool..?

 

How does the size fit in-game when an Ai sits down on it..?

 

Well currently I have a matching ottoman planned. And yes I scaled it down a little to get the sitting plane right around 24 units. An AI might go through a small portion of it (by like a unit) since the cushion has sort of a bump to it. But I thought that was realistic enough since you'd sink into the seat a little anyway, and the arms should block any really obvious clipping. For a matching sofa though, we'll see since I'm just gathering my whits about me after having this done.

 

 

Indeed, you should be able to setup different colours easily for this model. Just shift the colour and safe it as another texture. We then can use our skin system to switch textures in Dark Radiant, instead of having to place a new model each time

 

Nice work btw

 

That sounds like that would be easy enough. It's mainly just some dark shades of red with darkened creases, so a color shift probably wouldn't be too hard.

 

& Destined, it is wood but as I was stating before the lighting gave it a lot more red than I was wanting for that shot. So hopefully it will look different once it gets in-game.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Epifire

[Springheel]

If you make sure the leather and wood are different surfaces, it will be easy to shift the colour of the leather using material stages.

[Noordung]

 

According to http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=The_World_at_Large'Missions have established the date of the setting as around 1630 AD. The current calendar sets the year 0 as the date of the official formation of the Builder Church.' However, the tdm_throne_ornate_wood texture looks as though it says AD MCMXXVI. Therefore at least one chair already in TDM comes from the setting's future.

well... no steam engines in 1630 that is why i do not see any problems if some things look more modern i mean if you use 1600s technology with ideas of our world that would be much different world. So i don not see any problems if chair looks a little bit modern but made with 1600s technology. I mean there already is something like that in game i think inventors guild are people using modern ideas (modern in from our world) to make them true with that old technology. Or at least i understand them as such.

[Epifire]

If you make sure the leather and wood are different surfaces, it will be easy to shift the colour of the leather using material stages.

 

That's actually a great idea. I'm still learning how much of the diffuse comes through in different lighting scenarios. Tbh, I feel like Marmoset made it look too different as it masks a lot of the underlying material color.

 

well... no steam engines in 1630 that is why i do not see any problems if some things look more modern i mean if you use 1600s technology with ideas of our world that would be much different world. So i don not see any problems if chair looks a little bit modern but made with 1600s technology. I mean there already is something like that in game i think inventors guild are people using modern ideas (modern in from our world) to make them true with that old technology. Or at least i understand them as such.

 

I understand your point but for me this relates to why this game stood out like the old Thief games (vs the new one) is that they felt way older in terms of time period. There were cathedrals yes, but a lot of the architecture reflected a bit more practical (but also more primitive) Romanesque styles. Though part of that may be attributed to all the thick BSP used to map them out back in the day, I thought TDS also conveyed that pretty good. One of the reasons I like making it more obvious as to how old something is (visually) is that if the player is any bit observant, they think about it more. Because things that relate to us more (in terms of what is easy to recognize) are more comparable and therefore less out of the ordinary. I love the robust contrast, so there's my reasoning behind my logic.

[Springheel]

that is why i do not see any problems if some things look more modern

 

 

Depends what you mean by "more modern". Given the technology of the setting, there's nothing precluding the existence of tuxedos or cowboy hats either. But neither of those things would fit comfortably in our setting.

 

It's not so much the level of technology; a setting is established by how things look. And certain types of objects immediately suggest a certain setting.

[demagogue]

Reminds me, to connect with the 'other countries' thread, that when a game wants a different aesthetic, they make a new race or culture for it. Skyrim got some retro-future steampunk aesthetic in with the Dwemer dwarf cities. So that's the context I'd recommend anything getting away from the primary aesthetic.

 

The catch of course is even then, you can't make like one stand alone piece, but need a whole family of assets that fit together and work together for actual levels mappers want to make.

 

On that note, I think the Inventor's Guild could use some thinking about how their compounds should look, and we could work on a good asset base for them. There's a great chance for some steampunkish creativity!

 

Edit. That's just an idea I had on the spot btw. I can't say if it's something we really need to put resources into though.

[VanishedOne]

The City in the Thief series makes me think of Clarice from Calvino's Invisible Cities: a shifting mess of styles and objects, used and reused over centuries, haphazardly built and rebuilt in close proximity, until the origins of the city are lost and the only proof that it even had an origin is the presence of even older ruins beneath. To an extent it uses factions the way demagogue's talking about races/cultures (especially the Mechanist areas in T2), but the major effect comes through mashing up the eras, blurring any sense of each successively and progressively layered on top of the previous ones. I'm not sure TDM's official setting is designed to evoke quite the same feeling, though the assets can certainly be used to.

[Airship Ballet]

I got tired of mapping so I went to play with my Lego.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zELWcJvzO1M&feature=youtu.be

[HMart]

Very good work, modular building wins.

 

Btw after seeing the video one thing came to my mind, the insert prefab really needs a key shortcut. lol

[Bikerdude]

Reminded a bit of the Bafford mission in T1.

[RPGista]

Very neat, I dont really trust modular building but your pieces were actually well designed, the spatial feeling works great... Tels and Sotha would be proud. I am working on something that might be a first here in TDM world, looking foward to flesh it out more and share with you guys.

Edited July 28, 2015 by RPGista

[Goldwell]

Very neat, I dont really trust modular building but your pieces were actually well designed, the spatial feeling works great... Tels and Sotha would be proud. I am working on something that might be a first here in TDM world, looking foward to flesh it out more and share with you guys.

 

Oh you tease! well I hope we don't have to wait for long

[Epifire]

Very good work, modular building wins.

 

Btw after seeing the video one thing came to my mind, the insert prefab really needs a key shortcut. lol

 

Modular building is definitely the bomb. The fact this game has an easy method of importing models makes it all the better for said modeler. Primarily the reason I came here.

[Destined]

Very nice! Building a house in a couple of minutes is quite impressive. Of course, the modules took more time, but it shows nicely how easy building is, once you have them...

[Sotha]

Modular mapping is the way to go!

 

My only nitpick is that your modules seem to be quite big. I usually like to operate in wall-mode: a single wall piece is a module, not a full corridor.

 

I suppose you method works too, but keeping the elementary pieces smaller, you can build more variety with less module pieces.

[Destined]

One question: Are the parts you made still worldspawn or have you already converted them to func_static? The former has the advantage, that you can still modify them, but the disadvantage that you will have to convert them later on.

[Airship Ballet]

Just statics with worldspawn sealing walls, but they're fairly simple, and it's easy enough to swap them back and forth for adjustments.

[Sotha]

One question: Are the parts you made still worldspawn or have you already converted them to func_static? The former has the advantage, that you can still modify them, but the disadvantage that you will have to convert them later on.

 

One benefit of modular building would be to make all modules into .ase models. Each modular geometry piece would then only take memory once. This helps map memory impact and load times.

 

The downside of models is that if one would need to streched or shrinked just a few units to fit, you cannot modify it anymore. That's why there are glue modules: pillars or supports to hide ugly seams. You could use furniture, too.

[Epifire]

 

One benefit of modular building would be to make all modules into .ase models. Each modular geometry piece would then only take memory once. This helps map memory impact and load times.

 

The downside of models is that if one would need to streched or shrinked just a few units to fit, you cannot modify it anymore. That's why there are glue modules: pillars or supports to hide ugly seams. You could use furniture, too.

 

Yeah Sotha in that case it's good to have some basic materials setup for world brushes for basic fill-ins too. Or just make a quick edited model for that one spot you need to fill.

[Gast]

You could use furniture, too.

I can't help but picture vertically piled up stools "covering" a seam between two walls !

Joking aside, these advances on modular building are very exiting.

[VanishedOne]

According to the fiction, this mansion was gutted and later rebuilt. Some parts are more... traditional than others.

 

[Sotha]

I can't help but picture vertically piled up stools "covering" a seam between two walls !

Joking aside, these advances on modular building are very exiting.

 

It is no joke. =D

I've hidden seams and gaps behind stacks of crates, support pillars, tall cupboards, pipeworks, and pretty much anything that looks like I can get away with.

 

I'm not the Master Builder; I am the Lazy Builder...

 

@Epifire,

I would not edit and create a new model for single purpose. Usually when I map, I

1) Build worldspawn module

2) Make it into .ase model

3) Build with the ase models like legos.

4) Sometimes there will be seams and gaps. I hide them with stuff. If this is not possible, it is easy to clone the original model template (the worldspawn built in step 1), and modify it so that it fits into the problematic spot.

 

The key is just keep moving. If I stop in one spot for too long, I run out of momentum and that is bad for mapping motivation. The best thing in modular building is the feeling you're constantly making progress with good looking results.