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Nosslak

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The display container would be useful but raises questions about use. What to put inside. Removing the lid (it looks bolted down with probably access from below.) Or breakable glass? It might be used in a lab/inventor setting or to display loot etc. like the one in Chalice.

 

For now it could just go in with the lab stuff and leave it to the mapper.

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Is there a thread (and if not, shouldn't there be), a sticky thread, where we can point out bad textures/normals/speculars/bumps/collision whatever-I-don't fully-know-whats...

There are internal threads for models and textures with issues, but there is also a thread by serpentine: Texture's that need love. I agree we should make a sticky thread for stuff like that.

 

Other than that, you could also use the Things that could be improved-Thread, but it is rather likely, that things will go under there.

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A liquid container in that shape (and filled with liquid) might be quite useful. The things that currently fasten the glass dome to the base are too modern, but the idea is solid.

 

Trivia: I have also used the "monkey head in a jar" trick in a creepy lab before (there was also a bottle with a skull, and one with a Hammerite head). :laugh: I took a normal bottle, enlarged it, then added transparency and finally the head (which is a default Thief 2 object). Here's a Dromed shot:

post-2023-129508603042_thumb.jpg

(sorry for the dire appearance; my main PC can't run Thief2 anymore)

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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TDM could do with loads more mad scientist props :)

That's what I thought too.

 

And on topic, I think that it would be somewhat nifty to have a set of display case type containers, both the rounded one and a modular 'counter' one, that could be extended or whatever. Sure you could use brushes and whatever, but a model would look great I think!

I'm not really sure what you mean with the modular 'counter' one.

 

Mad props to you! ;)

Thanks!

 

The display container would be useful but raises questions about use. What to put inside. Removing the lid (it looks bolted down with probably access from below.) Or breakable glass? It might be used in a lab/inventor setting or to display loot etc. like the one in Chalice.

 

For now it could just go in with the lab stuff and leave it to the mapper.

The idea was that one would just be able to unscrew the bottom screws and then lift up the glass.

 

A liquid container in that shape (and filled with liquid) might be quite useful. The things that currently fasten the glass dome to the base are too modern, but the idea is solid.

I don't really know how to make it look less modern (I don't think it looks all that modern), so if you've got any ideas please share them.

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I think it's the rectanguler fasteners. Potential solutions:

1) remove them; the model will work just as well;

2) replace them with slightly more ornate versions (may be too high poly, though?)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I think it's the rectanguler fasteners. Potential solutions:

1) remove them; the model will work just as well;

2) replace them with slightly more ornate versions (may be too high poly, though?)

Alright how's this:

containerhigh2.png

It is supposed to be a pretty small container so I made the fasteners a lot bigger too.

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A definite improvement! :)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I like it but I feel it needs a metal ring around the base of the glass. Having glass 'bolted' on is weird imo.

 

As someone else stated I don't even think it needs bolts really. Just a nice ornate trim would be good enough.

 

And where have I seen that monkey? Blender tut?

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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And since Serpentine is standing right there... allow me to post one off topic question in search of a better place:

 

Is there a thread (and if not, shouldn't there be), a sticky thread, where we can point out bad textures/normals/speculars/bumps/collision whatever-I-don't fully-know-whats... I have a "report" on a section of the bookcase that has, I think, a problem in one of these areas:

 

shot00615.jpg

 

I'm not 100% sure that Serpentine wants to be bothered with this kind of stuff, but I think I have the right guy and the sort of thing he does?

 

Sorry for the interruption, but I didn't want to start another thread in case a thread isn't the place to report; or it's not what Serpentine or anyone has time for; or there is already a thread

 

I think that's a uv issue, not a texture issue. A modeller would need to fix that.sorry 'bout the derail...

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I think that's a uv issue, not a texture issue. A modeller would need to fix that.sorry 'bout the derail...

 

But a more high-res texture wouldn't hurt, either :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I think that's a uv issue, not a texture issue. A modeller would need to fix that

 

Which bookshelf is that? I can't tell from the screenshot.

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oblivion...book

 

Well, if these new assets make their way in then my interruption was worth it. It's not necessarily correlative but the best thing about Oblivion was the texts... so a modder (uber fan) who devotes time to texts (text textures!) may indeed have something special to offer. There are some good "bookish" things in TDM but I'd love to see more. (Still want to give the TDM Mod-Mod Award 2011 to whoever makes books that you can page through in the same way you can spin a jar, vase or... well... book).

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From what I can remember, I think one of the oblivion/morrowind modders said it'd be great to see his textures in TDM, including some very nice book textures

 

If you get good model textures with normalmaps, I'll make models to fit them.

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I really ought to finish off my royal orb, lamp and monkey-container, but I couldn't help myself:

Syringehigh2.png

I was considering making the glass part transparent and making an inside

for it but I'm not sure about what kind of poly limit I'll have for it so I'll just hold that off till I get to know.

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Well, I already made a similar syringe which got critique because it was 800 some polys. (but I didn't go into the normal map intricate territory.

 

It's a nice looking model no doubt. But to keep it looking that good it's gonna have to be as high poly as mine (most detail in the 3 rings on mine)

 

And using a normal and glass will bump up the draw count...

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Well, I already made a similar syringe which got critique because it was 800 some polys. (but I didn't go into the normal map intricate territory.

 

It's a nice looking model no doubt. But to keep it looking that good it's gonna have to be as high poly as mine (most detail in the 3 rings on mine)

Thanks! I actually made a quick lowpoly to get an estimate of how many polys I'd need and for the body of the syringe (without any interior) it uses 150 polys and I also attempted to model out the rings and each of those would use 128 polys. So all in all mine would use 580 polys, but I decided to be a little smarter than that. I chose to use a bunch of flat planes with alphamapping for the rings instead, it's not optimal (the illusion will be apparent from the side but assuming I'll use 8 planes for each ring it'll save about 360 polygons all in all and the polycounter will just show about 200 polygons.

 

And using a normal and glass will bump up the draw count...

Yeah, I'll probably not make anything transparent. I'll just make it really dirty and no one will miss the transparency.

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Oh, you should NOT make the needle point a vertice, that'll give weird lighting/shading, also probably more jaggies at low res. (i think I left 1 tri at the tip, it'll help alot in game)

I was planning to just make the tip a single vertex, so thanks for the heads up.

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Here's a small update as I realized that I had made a small design mistake (all the rings we're sitting right next to each other when the thumb ring should have been separate). So here it is:

 

Oh that is really nice, but just a quick reality check here:

 

* We already have a syringe (which wasn't used in a map so far I think), so why having two?

* our syringe is 800 polys (or so - don't now exactly), that is almost as much polys as some of our big statues have. We really need less polys and/or a LOD model (which can be quite simply, from 2m distance you will not see more than a few pixel anyway). The lowest LOD model could be a simple flat plane with the model drawn on it even.

* So why not instead fix the first one? (or if you want, fix both of them)

 

I'd hate that after a lot of work we end up with 2 syringe models that mappers won't use because they are A: special items used in seldom occasions anyway and B: too highpoly so they double the number of polys in a room.

 

Edit: The syringe should also be not pointy at the end (as badcogg said), but a either a cylinder (ouch) or a "cut-off sideways cylinder". Because somewhere the fluid has to actually come out :)

 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/551/rig3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php%3Ft%3D487276&usg=__fi48qzOxNIqSBnNF4i-9bGZAqzA=&h=356&w=600&sz=60&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=PnEH9Vq0IjZABM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=170&ei=SLk6TfL-K8eytAaBx_T0Bg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsyringe%2Btip%2Bcloseup%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dubuntu%26channel%3Dfs%26biw%3D1667%26bih%3D1030%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1336&vpy=128&dur=2423&hovh=173&hovw=292&tx=144&ty=116&oei=SLk6TfL-K8eytAaBx_T0Bg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=54&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-10721314/stock-photo-close-up-of-an-old-style-syringe-isolated-on-white.html

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Oh, you should NOT make the needle point a vertice, that'll give weird lighting/shading, also probably more jaggies at low res. (i think I left 1 tri at the tip, it'll help alot in game)

 

Really? Why is that? I've made a few nail models and other pointy things with a single vert at the tip and never noticed any problems. Nothing quite that long and thin, but I'm curious why that would be a problem.

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You know that syringe may not be the kind of thing you can put in TDM because it's too this or that, but it is a thing of beauty. Which is a strange thing to say about a syringe. A virtual syringe. I love PCs.

Thanks a lot!

 

Oh that is really nice, but just a quick reality check here:

 

* We already have a syringe (which wasn't used in a map so far I think), so why having two?

* our syringe is 800 polys (or so - don't now exactly), that is almost as much polys as some of our big statues have. We really need less polys and/or a LOD model (which can be quite simply, from 2m distance you will not see more than a few pixel anyway). The lowest LOD model could be a simple flat plane with the model drawn on it even.

* So why not instead fix the first one? (or if you want, fix both of them)

 

I'd hate that after a lot of work we end up with 2 syringe models that mappers won't use because they are A: special items used in seldom occasions anyway and B: too highpoly so they double the number of polys in a room.

I wasn't sure if there were another model and I just felt like making a syringe, but now that I've looked BC's model up I see that there is a lot of wasted polygons (especially on the rings as they could be made of 4 or 5-sided circles instead of 6-sided) and that the textures are incredibly generic too (it's just using the built-in textures, no custom made). So I think I can make a more efficient model that uses less polygons, have better textures and hopefully have a LOD version.

 

Edit: The syringe should also be not pointy at the end (as badcogg said), but a either a cylinder (ouch) or a "cut-off sideways cylinder". Because somewhere the fluid has to actually come out :)

 

http://www.google.co......p=54& ved=1t: 429,r:8,s:0

http://www.shutterst...d-on-white.html

You would most probably not see any difference if it were pointy or had a hole anyway as it is so small but I will need to smoothen out the end of the lowpoly so I'll try to make a hole as well (in the highpoly).

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I can not imagine either why the pointed single vertex could be problematic. Will the shadow be inverted because it's too slim or what could possibly happen? (not that that should be able to happen)

 

The idea with double rings was a thing I was going to suggest earlier, it will probably look just as good as on the wall lamp, which is really good.

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