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Nosslak

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Because vert lighting can't shade all the way around a single vert to all the verts at the far end (wide end ) of the needle. So you'll get really crappy shading if the verts fall in different lighting, maybe even the same lighting.

 

I had a single point on my carrot models and the tips were always black. Added one tri down there and they shaded around the tip much better.

 

Also on something as long and skinny as a needle you'll just get bad rendering (it'll get down to less than a pixel on lower res). See forks for how very thin pieces render. The tips can look pretty bad.

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My syringe might be 'generic but was modelled purposely like it is for several reasons.

 

1- Since I used 2 metal stock textures that are very likely to be used in a lab scene anyway it keeps texture loading to a minimum.

2- I used the tri count/verts/shading groups for very specific lighting.

If the rings segments are lowered they really start looking 'blocky'. Also, if you put all that detail into a nice normal map, then make crappy low res rings, well imo, the whole model will look like crap.

2 materials/2 draw calls, If you use a normal map/metal diffuse and glass on one you have 3 draw calls.

 

3- will only be used occasionally, it's like the statues that have 5,000 tris. When up close and personal it looks really good. But in this case, when far away you're probably out of the room and it's not being rendered anyway. Therefore no LOD is needed. a flat plane lod would look like crap, it would also float and the shading would be shit, so why bother. How large of a lab is someone going to have anyway? It's not like a tree that you'll see at 500-600 feet away with tons of other trees.

 

4-If and 800 tri model doubles the polycount of a lab, then that's gonna be a pretty shitty looking lab.

 

5- also, remember with tri count. Some of that 800 is collision model (probably 50) and shadow (probably 200) which might be slightly high, but the rings cast a very respectable shadow. So as far as being concerned about the actual tri count that matters my syringe weighs in at 200 tris, not 800.

 

Sometimes the arguments here border on completely ridiculous.I get tired of arguing the SHADOW TRI COUNT everytime. That's the tri count we need to worry about and I've taken care of that.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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The problem with having even 200 visible polygons on such a small thing like a syringe is that from 2m across the room they are already all almost smaller than 1 pixel - but the GFX card will render these (most of these) small triangles (>=1px) anyway, but it needs to render more than 1 pixel (due to antialiasing etc). That means the "overdraw" for each pixel can get as high as 8 or even 16 pixel if you are unlucky.

 

Which means in essence the grafic card will shade 200 triangles (possible in multiple drawcalls and multiple times for each light) and thus render a couple of 10000 pixels, just to fill a small 10x10 pixel patch on the screen...

 

And by "used seldom" I didn't mean that a mapper will use only one syringe in a lab (he is likely to use 10 or even more if he gets crazy) but that we have not that many labs - entire missions come without them.

 

So, there isn't a reason why we can't have a syringe (nice item, useful, looks like from that time, looks nice in a lab), but I am disputing that we:

 

* need that such a really highpoly syringe (while for instance our tree models look like shit, and they are much bigger and used in a lot more places)

* and we really don't need more than one syringe model (while for instance we still have no good bush or tree models, or statues etc etc).

 

It is all about size of the model, how often is it used in maps, and what visual impact does it make. I don't for instance care that all syringes look the same, but seeing (for instance) the very same St. Lucia statue in a map makes me go cringe.

 

Basically, I am saying the time could be spent elsewhere better.

 

Of course, that is just my opinion, and you can ignore it. Its a free world, and you can work on whatever you like. In the meantime, I am still desperately seaching for good plant models with different polygon counts.

"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 had a single point on my carrot models and the tips were always black. Added one tri down there and they shaded around the tip much better.

 

That shouldn't happen if you don't have smoothing applied, in my experience. If smoothing is on, then I've had odd things like that happen, but not with it off (or very low). Though again, I've never tried something quite that long and thin, so maybe it works differently.

 

My syringe might be 'generic but was modelled purposely like it is for several reasons.

 

Your list sounds reasonable to me.

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Well, most models do have smoothing applied, like my carrot and I suppose a needle. Otherwise it would be really faceted. Which is possibly a good thing for something like nails. I was probably easier and more common to have square nails back then.

Or if the tip's tris are fairly small and come to a point, than any weird shading would still be applied to a small area, the carrot tips (and that needle it seems) had fairly large/long tris, in which case the shading was very noticeable.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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I'm not sure if this thing has been mentioned, but couldn't you use TreeD?

 

http://www.frecle.net/index.php?show=treed.about

 

Problem is, we can only use LWO or ASE :/

"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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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.

Yeah, hopefully but I want to make this moveable so I might have to use more planes to give the same illusion from most angles.

 

My syringe might be 'generic but was modelled purposely like it is for several reasons.

 

2- I used the tri count/verts/shading groups for very specific lighting.

If the rings segments are lowered they really start looking 'blocky'. Also, if you put all that detail into a nice normal map, then make crappy low res rings, well imo, the whole model will look like crap.

When I use alpha mapping I always make the transparent parts a bit bigger than the others so that it won't look as pixelated.

 

2 materials/2 draw calls, If you use a normal map/metal diffuse and glass on one you have 3 draw calls.

Yeah, I'll probably not use any glass material and instead I'll try to incorporate that into the texture that the rest of it will use.

 

3- will only be used occasionally, it's like the statues that have 5,000 tris. When up close and personal it looks really good. But in this case, when far away you're probably out of the room and it's not being rendered anyway. Therefore no LOD is needed. a flat plane lod would look like crap, it would also float and the shading would be shit, so why bother. How large of a lab is someone going to have anyway? It's not like a tree that you'll see at 500-600 feet away with tons of other trees.

I'm with Tels on this. If one do make a lab there'd probably be more than one syringe there. I don't know how optimized Doom 3 is for instancing though.

 

5- also, remember with tri count. Some of that 800 is collision model (probably 50) and shadow (probably 200) which might be slightly high, but the rings cast a very respectable shadow. So as far as being concerned about the actual tri count that matters my syringe weighs in at 200 tris, not 800.

 

Sometimes the arguments here border on completely ridiculous.I get tired of arguing the SHADOW TRI COUNT everytime. That's the tri count we need to worry about and I've taken care of that.

Actually DR said that the model is taking up 1050 polygons (!). I don't know how many polys the shadow mesh is using though so that might still be correct.

 

* need that such a really highpoly syringe (while for instance our tree models look like shit, and they are much bigger and used in a lot more places)

* and we really don't need more than one syringe model (while for instance we still have no good bush or tree models, or statues etc etc).

If I could I'd make some bushes or trees but I have virtually no experience with that so I don't think I'd be able to make them look pretty. I could perhaps try to make a statue but again I have no experience with that so it'll probably not looks so good.

 

It is all about size of the model, how often is it used in maps, and what visual impact does it make. I don't for instance care that all syringes look the same, but seeing (for instance) the very same St. Lucia statue in a map makes me go cringe.

 

Basically, I am saying the time could be spent elsewhere better.

 

Of course, that is just my opinion, and you can ignore it. Its a free world, and you can work on whatever you like. In the meantime, I am still desperately seaching for good plant models with different polygon counts.

Well, I just wanted to model something small but still beautiful/cool looking and this was one of the first things that popped into my mind.

 

That shouldn't happen if you don't have smoothing applied, in my experience. If smoothing is on, then I've had odd things like that happen, but not with it off (or very low). Though again, I've never tried something quite that long and thin, so maybe it works differently.

Smoothing is essential and I'd much rather add the <20 polys needed for the smoothing to work its magic than to go without it.

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Smoothing is essential and I'd much rather add the <20 polys needed for the smoothing to work its magic than to go without it.

 

How many sides does the needle actually have? Any less than 5 and smoothing won't have much effect anyway.

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I'm with Tels on this. If one do make a lab there'd probably be more than one syringe there. I don't know how optimized Doom 3 is for instancing though.

 

Stock D3 doesn't have any instancing at all. TDM (from v1.03 and even better from v1.04 on) has "combined rendermodels" (see SEED and this thread for details), which is better, but not as good as instancing.

 

Combining rendermodels renders a lot faster. It is quite a bit tricky, and wastes a lot of memory, tho. Real instancing would render still a bit faster, and it would not waste so much memory, unfortunately we need the D3 source to add this.

 

At least with LOD models you can drop the details once the player gets further away. I have used that successfulyl with the Aphrodite statue, the switches are unnoticable to the player (if the distances are right), and from 15m away you will not see that the model has suddenly 1570 instead of 5427 polies. (In fact, we could even use a version with only 700 polies and it would probably not be different from this distance).

"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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How many sides does the needle actually have? Any less than 5 and smoothing won't have much effect anyway.

I just used 4 but I guess I'll have to up it to 5 or 6 then.

 

I'm not sure I'll continue working on the syringe model as most of you seem perfectly content with the one that you already have. Instead I might attempt doing some of these, I've already made one of them for a small school project and it wasn't so hard or time consuming (I only made a highpoly version with no texture though) that I could make more if you want them. So what do you say?

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Those would be great! :)

Yeah, here's the first batch:

Bracketshigh1.png

I'll probably have to fill up most of those small holes to keep the polycount down. How many polygons would be affordable for each of these?

Btw, the deer-staff looks fantastic in game.

Thanks! I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it in-game myself yet so I can only imagine.

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Those are welcome, especially in that variety. :)

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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How many polygons would be affordable for each of these?

 

Good question. Again, it's not so much the poly count as it is the shadowcasting poly count. But keeping them under 3-400 would probably be a good idea, though that doesn't seem likely for some of those designs.

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I'd almost say that they don't even need shadows. Hard call, to make a good shadow mesh is gonna use tons of polys. Not having shadows could look odd in brightly lit hallways.

 

Maybe if you did just a minor triangle shadow it would be best all around

(green)

 

maybe it's best to have it no shadow and authors could just place decal?

-------

If you want a good shadow you could just copy the faces (details, simplify the outlines a bit and have a two faced shape. Still be high poly for shadow, but a lot lower than the model itself, and shadows would look really good.

(red)

 

========

really a hard call, the models could really spruce up a fancy household. But they could really bump up the shadow count fast. And most likely you'll be seeing 10 of them in a hallway so it could get out of control fast for such little details.

And I can see authors using them throughout a house, not just hallways...

post-1981-129633295027_thumb.png

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Those are welcome, especially in that variety. :)

That's what I hoped!

 

Good question. Again, it's not so much the poly count as it is the shadowcasting poly count. But keeping them under 3-400 would probably be a good idea, though that doesn't seem likely for some of those designs.

Thanks, I'll try to stay in that range then.

 

Maybe if you did just a minor triangle shadow it would be best all around

(green)

Yeah, I thought about that too, but some of them do have somewhat complex holes so I'd probably have to waste some polys there anyway, though.

 

If you want a good shadow you could just copy the faces (details, simplify the outlines a bit and have a two faced shape. Still be high poly for shadow, but a lot lower than the model itself, and shadows would look really good.

(red)

I think I'd prefer this and just try to optimize the brackets shadowmesh quite a lot.

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Yeah, it'd be a real shame if the red (or at least something a with a bit more character than the green) can't be dealt with. TDM doesn't have a "shadow detail" setting does it? IOW, none of those "Ambient Rendering" or "Interaction Shader" or "HDR-Lite" things encapsulate such a thing?

 

Btw, the deer-staff looks fantastic in game.

 

I'm guessing this is 1.04? Is all of Nosslak's stuff (say excluding the last 2-3 pages here) in 1.04?

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Yeah, it'd be a real shame if the red (or at least something a with a bit more character than the green) can't be dealt with. TDM doesn't have a "shadow detail" setting does it? IOW, none of those "Ambient Rendering" or "Interaction Shader" or "HDR-Lite" things encapsulate such a thing?

That would be pretty great, but it would require a lot of new shadowmeshes so I doubt there ever will be something like this. If we would make a system like that we could probably also implement shadow-LOD.

 

I'm guessing this is 1.04? Is all of Nosslak's stuff (say excluding the last 2-3 pages here) in 1.04?

These brackets won't be in 1.04 but (at least some of them) will probably make it into 1.05. Most of my other stuff will be included though (bellows, globe, privacy screen, spyglass, deerstaff and probably the cutlass too). I'm not really satisfied with the quality of the lamppost so I won't include that and I'm not finished with the lamp, container or royal orb so none of those will make it.

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but it would require a lot of new shadowmeshes so I doubt there ever will be something like this.

 

It wouldn't necessarily require it would it? It would just give the opportunity to add a more complicated mesh and then specify it in some .def or .mtr or some such? I don't know, really, as you can tell. :laugh: The existing model shadow meshes would just work on any level until someone wanted to upgrade a particular one. I don't know really. :laugh: But the brackets and the idea that they will look so good and, like Badcog said, probably be a multiple-instance-per- scene thing have gotten me off on this tangent -- because I'd love to see at least some element of their character in the shadows they cast...

 

...

 

Most of my other stuff will be included though (bellows, globe, privacy screen, spyglass, deerstaff and probably the cutlass too)

 

FFT (fan-fucking-tastic)!

 

I'm still a bit sad you haven't played much what with all of your contributions, so maybe when 1.04 gets out you'll get in?

Edited by Aprilsister
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@Nosslack: The variety is certainly welcome. Hope we can texture them with wood, steel etc.?

 

@shadow: The red version in Baddcoggs post should be fine as shadow mesh, all you need is a few perpendicular-to-wall (e.g. alongside the brack) tris and they will cast the right shadow. Having 10 or 20 shadow tris even for each bracket is nothing compared f.i. to some of the fancy furniture sets we have like the round table :)

 

@detail: If you make from each brack a single-flat triangle version with the right texture on, then these can be set as LOD models. Oly the nearest ones to the player need to be the detailed version.

 

I'd say get the high-detailed version, a medium detailed version and the decal of one bracked in game, and then we can experiment. Whatever the outcome, you can then work on the others. No sense in cranking out 200 variatons when you have to redo them in a week.

"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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That would be pretty great, but it would require a lot of new shadowmeshes so I doubt there ever will be something like this. If we would make a system like that we could probably also implement shadow-LOD.

 

If you make two models, one with a detailed shadow mesh and one with a simpler one, you an already have this :)

 

(Although it wastes switching from => to the same rendermodel, but it would work.)

 

It is also possible to turn off shadows in furher-away LOD stages, but that might look a bit strange if you have a nearby lamp casting a huge shdow, and suddenly it vanishes if the player is 10m away. Depends on the distance and the size of the shadow that is switched off.

"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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It wouldn't necessarily require it would it? It would just give the opportunity to add a more complicated mesh and then specify it in some .def or .mtr or some such? I don't know, really, as you can tell. :laugh: The existing model shadow meshes would just work on any level until someone wanted to upgrade a particular one. I don't know really. :laugh: But the brackets and the idea that they will look so good and, like Badcog said, probably be a multiple-instance-per- scene thing have gotten me off on this tangent -- because I'd love to see at least some element of their character in the shadows they cast...

Yeah, that would probably work. I guess I didn't the issue through before posting.

 

I'm still a bit sad you haven't played much what with all of your contributions, so maybe when 1.04 gets out you'll get in?

Yeah, I know, I did try playing Somewhere Over The City and it was both beautiful and fun until:

 

I got to a long and empty elevator shaft where a guard patrolled outside and I think you were supposed to use your rope arrows to get to the top but every time I tried to climb up along it I'd get to the top of the first rope but then TDM bugged out or something so that when I jumped to the next rope I'd just fall down to the bottom of the shaft and have to re-do it all again, every time, so I just stopped right there.

 

If nothing else I will at least play Fidcals next mission as that will include some of my models.

 

@Nosslack: The variety is certainly welcome. Hope we can texture them with wood, steel etc.?

I'm not sure if I should just make them all use TDM's in-built textures or make some custom ones myself. On one hand it would be very quick and easy to just make them all use the in-built textures but on the other hand I can add dirt, ao and normals if I make my own textures but it will take longer to create and might be a little restrictive for the mapper. I could also make the textures gray so that the mapper can decide the colors themselves but I'm not sure if possible for the mapper to change the spec in that way so that might still look white which would make copper, brass and gold look more like plastic.

 

Also it is probably likely that mappers will want to use several of these for each mission so I was also thinking that I should let them all use one UV-sheet (still keeping them unique, just to lessen some of the drawcalls). Would that be a good idea?

 

@shadow: The red version in Baddcoggs post should be fine as shadow mesh, all you need is a few perpendicular-to-wall (e.g. alongside the brack) tris and they will cast the right shadow. Having 10 or 20 shadow tris even for each bracket is nothing compared f.i. to some of the fancy furniture sets we have like the round table :)

BCs red version would demand something closer to 100 - 150 polys, but otherwise that is what I'll try to do.

 

@detail: If you make from each brack a single-flat triangle version with the right texture on, then these can be set as LOD models. Only the nearest ones to the player need to be the detailed version.

 

I'd say get the high-detailed version, a medium detailed version and the decal of one bracked in game, and then we can experiment. Whatever the outcome, you can then work on the others. No sense in cranking out 200 variatons when you have to redo them in a week.

I don't really know if it's necessary with three versions as I could probably just do the alpha trick with maybe three or four triangles for each side it'll look good enough. Also it's not all that fun to redo what you just did on an even lower-res mesh so if possible I'd like to skip the medium LOD.

 

If you make two models, one with a detailed shadow mesh and one with a simpler one, you an already have this :)

 

(Although it wastes switching from => to the same rendermodel, but it would work.)

 

It is also possible to turn off shadows in furher-away LOD stages, but that might look a bit strange if you have a nearby lamp casting a huge shdow, and suddenly it vanishes if the player is 10m away. Depends on the distance and the size of the shadow that is switched off.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Then I'll try to do just that for the lowest LOD level with a simple one or two double-sided triangles (BCs green version). I'm guessing that "= >" means drawcall and if I use a shadow-LOD along with a visible-LOD then that wouldn't waste any drawcalls, right?

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on the other hand I can add dirt, ao and normals if I make my own textures

 

You can make your own normalmap and an ao texture, but then use existing textures for the diffuse. That way you'd only need 2 new textures, and could have a dozen or so skins.

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I'm not sure if I should just make them all use TDM's in-built textures or make some custom ones myself. On one hand it would be very quick and easy to just make them all use the in-built textures but on the other hand I can add dirt, ao and normals if I make my own textures but it will take longer to create and might be a little restrictive for the mapper. I could also make the textures gray so that the mapper can decide the colors themselves but I'm not sure if possible for the mapper to change the spec in that way so that might still look white which would make copper, brass and gold look more like plastic.

 

Also it is probably likely that mappers will want to use several of these for each mission so I was also thinking that I should let them all use one UV-sheet (still keeping them unique, just to lessen some of the drawcalls). Would that be a good idea?

 

I think if you do a normalmap for each (and maybe some dirt overlay) and let them use our diffuse that would be much better as it requires less memory (we can re-use textures).

 

About the "one uv sheet" I don't know wha you mean by this.

 

BCs red version would demand something closer to 100 - 150 polys, but otherwise that is what I'll try to do.

 

No, I thought the red one is basically a "flat plane" consisting of only 10..50 tris basically just following the shape close enough. It would not provide self-shadow, but it would hopefully cast a close-enough shadow on the wall.

 

I don't really know if it's necessary with three versions as I could probably just do the alpha trick with maybe three or four triangles for each side it'll look good enough. Also it's not all that fun to redo what you just did on an even lower-res mesh so if possible I'd like to skip the medium LOD.

 

No problem, but as I said, it might look odd if you switch from full-to-low in one go, limiting the switch to far-away distances only. So it might not prove to be useful in a hallway, because only furthest away two models could switch, and the rest is still rendered at fill detail.

 

Oh, I didn't realize that. Then I'll try to do just that for the lowest LOD level with a simple one or two double-sided triangles (BCs green version).

 

Sounds like a good plan :)

 

I'm guessing that "= >" means drawcall and if I use a shadow-LOD along with a visible-LOD then that wouldn't waste any drawcalls, right?

 

Basially, it works like this: A full model consists of the rendermodel, an (optional) collision model, and an (optional) shadow model.

 

The LOD code can only switch between full models (e.g. switch both the visible, the CM and the shadow all together). Optionally, it can also keep the model, but turn the shadows off.

 

(For combined models it gets even more complicated, I am seriously considering keeping the entire shadow model at high quality and just switch the rendermodels to the lower LOD stage. The reason is that if you have a few models combined, switching the shadow of on one of the sub-models requires to rebuild the entire shadow data - and that is dead slow. However, this is some internal techncial stuff which shouldn't concern you.)

 

So basically: Make at least two models: one with the full tris and a full (but probably still a bit simpler than the initial model) shadow mesh. And one with a simpler shadow mesh and a simpler render mesh.

 

Does that make sense?

"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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