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demagogue

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For the record, making some new replacement guard heads is something we need earlier & the workload is less (easier rigging, less animations, etc.)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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what happened to Noss' zombie model?

Variety is always good :)

 

For the record, making some new replacement guard heads is something we need earlier & the workload is less (easier rigging, less animations, etc.)

 

Well, besides taking some time, the zombie model wouldn't be complete by my hands.. it has to go through all the rigging, animation etc that only those enlightened by idtech 4's light can make. But for heads there's a very easy and quick way to get variety! Send me (or point me where to find them in tdm's folder) some of the head models, if I just move vertex around and bake new textures we have a new head completely ready to use, not even rigging would be necessary. What do you say?

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What we specifically need is replacements for the D3 heads that we will no longer be able to use. But generic alternate versions would be fine too.

 

Are you able to import md5mesh files? I also have them in .lw format.

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what happened to Noss' zombie model? He has made some progress on that afair.

If someone wants the zombie model I started on I can upload it somewhere. It's not all that fancy (basically just a very starved basemesh with a somewhat detailed but non-zombified head and an unwrapped lowpoly zombie with a basic and boring texture). I also made a rig and a very basic (read: crappy) limping walkcycle with Blender. I won't be able to work on it in a long time as I am and will be very busy with other stuff several months forward.

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Oh, in that case scratch that. No point in making variety that will be lost eventually. A new head? Do we hant it with internal mouth, movable eyes and teeth?

 

You misunderstood, I think. There's nothing wrong with taking one of our existing heads and modifying it to create something new. There are 4 head meshes that are modified D3 assets, however, and those ones will eventually have to be replaced by similar-looking heads. Replacing those is a priority for going standalone, but if you'd rather just make generic new heads, that's also helpful.

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You misunderstood, I think. There's nothing wrong with taking one of our existing heads and modifying it to create something new. There are 4 head meshes that are modified D3 assets, however, and those ones will eventually have to be replaced by similar-looking heads. Replacing those is a priority for going standalone, but if you'd rather just make generic new heads, that's also helpful.

 

Ah, I did misunderstood then. There are non d3 asset heads, then? If I work on top of these to get more variety we are good. And which ones are 'ours'?

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If you look at this page: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Heads_Available_for_AI

 

All the Citywatch and Generic Guard heads are ours.

 

All the Builder Heads except #4 are ours.

 

All The Noblemen except 8,9&10 are ours

 

Townsfolk #1 and 6-12 are ours.

 

If you tell me what you'd like to work with I can tell you what the model name is.

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For the D3 derivative heads, the more original the replacements are, then we don't have to debate how good they are for going standalone. Be a good feeling to get all the D3 stuff replaced & under our belt.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Springheel: I thought a lot of those heads were from ascottk, not Doom. Was I mistaken?

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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If someone wants the zombie model I started on I can upload it somewhere. It's not all that fancy (basically just a very starved basemesh with a somewhat detailed but non-zombified head and an unwrapped lowpoly zombie with a basic and boring texture). I also made a rig and a very basic (read: crappy) limping walkcycle with Blender. I won't be able to work on it in a long time as I am and will be very busy with other stuff several months forward.

 

Well, i would like to take a look too if you dont mind, maybe a whole character is too much for me but i woyuld like to take a look at that head, it looked really nice and maybe i can learn/do something with it?

Edited by RPGista
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For the D3 derivative heads, the more original the replacements are, then we don't have to debate how good they are for going standalone.

 

No, the replacements have to resemble the originals. Many missions use screenshots to identify characters. ASTS uses a video to show what Sykes looks like. The new heads have to be similar enough to be identifiable.

 

The actual image files don't have to be similar, however...for starters, we probably won't mirror the sides of the face.

 

I thought a lot of those heads were from ascottk, not Doom. Was I mistaken?

 

 

No, Ascottk never made any of our heads. All the originals were from Oddity, and I made several based off his.

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My understanding of copyright is that effort or slight differences that arise from using an alternative methods or media count for nothing.

 

For the purpose of going standalone, if we're copying D3 assets (to the extent that they're intentionally recognisable as D3 assets), then we're copying D3 assets.

 

I'm sure neither Beth or Id would actually lose sleep over anything so trivial, but if there's a principled motivation toward creating an original creative work that's clear of copyright issues then some minor discontinuities with D3 generation missions might be the price that's paid there.

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I'm not suggesting copying the assets. I'm talking about copying what the character looks like. D3 can't copyright basic headshapes or hairstyles. Otherwise, Jonathon Frakes might want to have a word.

post-9-0-10312100-1342881416_thumb.jpg

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Sorry, yes, of course you want to make it roughly look like the guy, with a beard and this kind of haircut & color, etc (actually IIRC the beard itself is TDM original, so you could actually take its style; but not the model and rest of the face). I just meant, if possible it's better if you didn't take the original model and tweak it, but just made a new head that's visibly different but has those features, and it's better if you were doing it from scratch and rough memory plus your own ideas, or other public source material out there cobbled together like it, as opposed to having a screenshot of the original right there you were looking at while modeling (which you shouldn't do).

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I just meant, if possible it's better if you didn't take the original model and tweak it,

 

Oh, yes of course.

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I'm not suggesting copying the assets. I'm talking about copying what the character looks like. D3 can't copyright basic headshapes or hairstyles. Otherwise, Jonathon Frakes might want to have a word.

 

Jonathon Frakes' head isn't an original creative work. D3 and TDM assets are (or aren't as the case may be).

 

Copying matters not a jot whether it's done from scratch or alters a digital copy of the original. To be sure I don't actually think it matters here for such a tiny thing (certainly US law requires that you demonstrate some harm from the copying ~ or at least allows a defence that says that there's not ~ and harm is pretty doubtful here) - but it's arguable you're better off writing a brief that says TDM wants heads that look like a medieval Jonathon Frakes, rather than heads like the D3 assets - because one of those is covered by copyright law and the other is not.

Edited by jay pettitt
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We've been in contact with lawyers who have been looking into our specific case, so we have a pretty good sense of how we're going to proceed from here.

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Are there any guidelines for TDM heads? It's also to help new modelers like me to know what to focus learning and training time on. Tris count, "animatable" mouth with teeth and tongue? True spheric eyes? I dont quite remember seeing mouths moving in TDM, nor eyes. Still, the mouth is there in the heads I looked into, so at the very least animation is possible. What exactly is the requirement here, besides looking like the original ones (I was actually looking at the female heads, which I think are too few).

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If you look at this page: http://wiki.thedarkm...vailable_for_AI

 

All the Citywatch and Generic Guard heads are ours.

 

All the Builder Heads except #4 are ours.

 

All The Noblemen except 8,9&10 are ours

 

Townsfolk #1 and 6-12 are ours.

 

If you tell me what you'd like to work with I can tell you what the model name is.

 

Any will be fine, send me the way of the city guards :P From the groups you mentioned, none jumps out as needing more variation than the other, so I'm accepting suggestions.

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Out of interest, are they saying anything objectively different to what I'm saying?

 

Maybe. One test US law uses is "filtration", meaning when you judge two things where the new thing is considered "derivative" (the copied thing plus new elements you added), to test it you take away the new part you contributed, so you're left with the allegedly copied part you started with and judge that with the original. So if you just tweak the existing model, the filtration test could be interpreted as just take away your changes so you're left with the original head, which obviously is exactly like the original head. So it's just better not to even give them that hook by making a head from scratch.

 

The other thing they mentioned is the merger doctrine, which means you can't protect features that "merge" with ideas, so features that are "forced" don't get much if any protection. But "characteristic" things about the character get a lot more protection. That means, e.g., you can make a Western face and obviously you can use white skin and a nose with a bridge, etc, to make it because the concept of a face forces you... But if something has something really characteristic about it that's unique to that character, the exact characteristic shape of the cheeks, etc, you can't take that.

 

Another way to put it, if there are a million ways to do X, you shouldn't take the exact way they did it but should use another way. But if you forced by X to do it only one way, you of course can do what you have to. So there are a million ways to make a nose, so it's not good to take their exact nose; but the concept of a Western face requires certain elements to make it look like a Western looking nose or eyes, e.g. round & not slanted, etc, so obviously you can use elements you're forced to & not worry. Basically the nutshell test is, ask yourself, could this be done another way to get the job done. And if the answer is yes, do it some other way.

 

As a practical matter, I'd say just don't have a screenshot of the thing beside you when you work on it, and just use public source photos that are in the general neighborhood of what you're after, if you need a reference, and that should be fine.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Are there any guidelines for TDM heads?

 

I don't think there is anything, no. In terms of making generic heads, the best thing to do is examine the ones that we already have. Tris counts range from 400-1000, depending on whether there is a helmet. Mouths are fully animated (although right now only the jaw bone is used). You should copy the teeth mesh of an existing head. We don't include tongues in our models. Eyes are flat and do not animate separately, though the top and bottom eyelid are used in animated blinking.

 

At some point I'll probably make up a brief similar to the one I did for the zombie.

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Well, i would like to take a look too if you dont mind, maybe a whole character is too much for me but i woyuld like to take a look at that head, it looked really nice and maybe i can learn/do something with it?

You can find it here:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2000935/Zombie%20model.rar

To be honest it's not particularly good. If I were to continue my work on it I'd probably redo large parts of it.

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Any will be fine, send me the way of the city guards

 

Where should I send them? And what format?

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