Darkmod: Inspiration thread

[jay pettitt]

Not so much inspiration as method: a series of short video pod-casts aimed at kids (like me) that cover some creative writing basics including characterisation and plot making.

1. Ideas and inspiration
   
2. Characters
   
3. Plot
   
4. Setting
   
5. Redrafting
   

[Tels]

http://wins.failblog.org/2012/02/21/epic-win-photos-well-win/

[jay pettitt]

Not safe for wor... well, just not safe.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZgHXAek0No

Edited February 23, 2012 by jay pettitt

[demagogue]

I was thinking recently about how filthy medieval streets really were.

On a side note, I loved that guy's show on military history that he did with his dad.

Really cool to see he's taking the formula to other sides of history.

 

Edit: The best part of that show is connecting how the streets actually look with what day-to-day life is actually like. It's doubly helpful. Gack, I couldn't imagine trying to live in it though!

[Tels]

Not safe for wor... well, just not safe.

 

Very yucky, but informative at the same time. I guess I never connected what has to go out before the sausage can go in... yikes.

[Nosslak]

Not safe for wor... well, just not safe.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZgHXAek0No

Great documentary, thanks!

[Andrey]

from Thief Source Project

Edited February 24, 2012 by Andrey

[demagogue]

Those textures are amazingly fit to the geometry, obviously custom picked to be so. That's a nice thing about dromed the Source engine (edit: should have realized it's not dromed, not with circles & arches that round), that you can get custom textures in so easily. With Darkmod you'd have a lot of work to do for each one of them (edit: now that I know it's Source, I don't know if custom textures are that much easier to get into Source than Darkmod. Maybe not). The principle is the same, though. Make some geometry in a building program and import custom textures to fit it, and the sky's the limit how detailed & decorated you could make a room.

[Baddcog]

Source engine has got some perks, but i wouldn't say it's better for thief gameplay.

 

It bakes lightmaps=Awesome. So did Dromed.

 

1 dynamic light completely crushes FPS, But Dromed didn't have it either.

 

Baked lights look nice but I prefer real time lighting if i had a choice.

 

Source automatically optimizes which we have to do manually. But to optimize well in Source you also need to do some manual portal placement.

 

That scene looks great, but it's no easier to build in source than Radiant. For example, patches are excellent for arches and ceilings like that. To do stuff like that in source you either import a model (which is probably what that ceiling is- and we can do that too) or you subdivide displacement which is tricky to get complex shapes with (rounded ceiling with clean intersections).

It does have painting terrain displacements which is really nice (airbrush dirt on ground), we have to blend a model.

 

compiling models for source isn't too bad. Texture shaders are very much the same as Radiant.

Remember both engines came from quake, still to this day they are similar. They each have plus/minuses over each other. Probably the best thing about source is user base.

[demagogue]

I agree with all of that.

 

That scene looks great, but it's no easier to build in source than Radiant. ... compiling models for source isn't too bad. Texture shaders are very much the same as Radiant.

 

The way I might spin this, though, is that building great scenes like this in Dark Radiant shouldn't be any harder than it was for Source, so we have no excuse not to have lovely modeled geometry & fitting textures if we're willing to put in the work.

[Tels]

Does anybody from when these screens are? I don't see anything in them that couldn't be done in TDM, although the texture and geometry work is impressive. However, if these are recent, one has to ask why to make this in another engine, and not in TDM? Reinventing the wheel, we do much.

[Johannes Burock]

Give me that textures and its fast made with patches

Btw i think we really need some more of this "manor" textures. Better marble, murals and so on.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Johannes Burock

[Baddcog]

I agree with all of that.

 

 

 

The way I might spin this, though, is that building great scenes like this in Dark Radiant shouldn't be any harder than it was for Source, so we have no excuse not to have lovely modeled geometry & fitting textures if we're willing to put in the work.

 

Well, the main issue with model geometry is that it limits you to very specific rooms/sizes/shapes. You can make pieces that fit together, but still somehwhat limited.

 

Source has displacements not patches. Which you can paint the geo and texture blends, so they're better for ground than displacements, but they can't match creating smooth curves like patches which would be (relatively) easy to make that ceiling with.

They can also be exported to objects. And with the texture tool you can edit the patch uv's just like in a model program.

 

It's really about the textures there.

----------

Yeah too bad they are 'starting over', looks like they have a lot of work to do.

[demagogue]

So it's even *easier* for DR. Now we really don't have any excuse... except getting the textures.

 

Yeah I was thinking about patches for most of this kind of stuff, but modeled things for occasional flourishes. I still think about the few demo maps & screenshots showing modeled door & window sidings, or stairs or statues -- things going beyond what patches do -- and it looking *really* good. But for big pieces fitting together like a ceiling, I'd think patches too.

 

BTW, here's the TTLG post on this map: http://www.ttlg.com/...ad.php?t=138421

 

It's by CeilingPie. Looks like (from his videos) he's just at home doing Source editing & wanted to put some Thief stuff in for laughs. Not sure he was thinking about making an actual FM.

[Tels]

We are far from realism:

 

 

[grayman]

We are far from realism:

 

I can't breathe now, from laughing so hard. Thanks.

 

At least we have most of the "AI is stuck on doorframe" issues resolved.

[demagogue]

Ahaha, perfect.

[Tels]

I can't breathe now, from laughing so hard. Thanks.

 

At least we have most of the "AI is stuck on doorframe" issues resolved.

 

He so reminded me on Fen - almost expected him to say "Hi, name's Fen. Let's play some more."

[Bikerdude]

:-D exactly my friend.

[Arcturus]

Cracow 1000 years ago - a virtual reconstruction

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtlM8lxJOEI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec40uG3PuxQ&feature=related

[Bikerdude]

ooh very nice buildings, perfect for tdm!

[pusianka]

Not safe for wor... well, just not safe.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZgHXAek0No

 

Very CRAPPY document. THANKS!

 

It made me wanna have pigs in TDM and rats walking up the walls and rafters. Also why sb won't make a demo map of merchants in the streets in broad daylight. I mean why won't we try that? Streets were quite dark back then anyway and the insides of the buildings might have been even darker...

 

I couldn't get the name of this guy at the end who has made a fortune in medieval London and then they found only a cat in his tomb, can sb enlighten me, what was his name?

 

Cracow 1000 years ago - a virtual reconstruction

 

Our country has really beautiful history but the presentation of it still leaves a lot to wish for.

Edited February 26, 2012 by pusianka

[Melan]

I've got a bunch of sketches from Kraków in a notebook I have been meaning to use as visual reference in new missions - lots of inspiring architecture. The historical centre may be my favourite place in all of Europe.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Melan

[demagogue]

I lived in Geneva once and liked to walk around the old city a lot. Lausanne also has a nice medieval district... Probably the coolest medieval area I remember was the village of Yvoire on the French side of the lake. Probably the most ridiculously beautiful old places I've been to ever was when we had one of those week-long research conferences at Bellagio on Lake Como, Italy. The Rockefeller Fnd has its own villa there, sort of odd. But it's so over the top, almost arrogantly beautiful, I sometimes wanted to shout at the villas and mountains coming down to the water. But it'd be great for an FM.

 

The places I lived in Japan also had cool medieval districts, villages & temples, but of course much different architecture. I wouldn't mind making a medieval Japanese styled FM starring the great thief Goemon. But that's a lot of textures and assets I'd have to scrounge up first before I could even think about it, and I have so many FM ideas I can't build them all.

 

Edit: This isn't to say America doesn't have old districts or inspirational places. NYC is another cool city to walk around looking for inspiration. While there is some medieval-style stuff (the Cloisters & surrounding area, and a pocket on the upper W side), what it's really great for is the 19th Century stuff, mazes of old dark alleyways with this layered cityscape of towering buildings going on forever in the background, especially parts around Greenwich Village where the streets are still mazy and buildings old, unlike the modern grid of the rest of the city. It can be a very cool vision of an overcrowded Victorian steampunk city in places.

[Bikerdude]

@Dema, what is you do that you have been to all theses places..?