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Atheran

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Well... Not really anything special, just a thread where I'll post the models I'm working on. As of now I started making a desk, using as a reference a desk from Thief 4. My main problem is lack of ideas so I'm working on existing concepts art or already made models, recreating them. Most of the reference images in these forums are probably down or not working for me. So any help with concept art on creating something new would be really appreciated. If someone wants a specific model for his FM and has some concept made on it I'd be happy to help (but take a look at my PS first :P)

 

EDIT: I'm unable to create anything organic yet, so if anyone asks for a specific model, I can only do statics/props

 

I still have no idea how I can make use of the engine, so the renders will be from Maya viewport, using mental ray for now. When I finish a model I'll import and render it with Unreal engine, until I finally find out how to use DR.

 

Here is my non-finished desk (still working on the high poly model). Haven't made any UVs yet so no textures, just a simple Lambert shader with Global Illumination. Polys are at 6k at the moment.

 

thief_desk_zps9f94c1be.jpg

 

Here is the reference model from a video in youtube.

 

Untitled-1_zpse8225e9e.jpg

 

I still have some details to add (like the holes in the middle between the drawers) and maybe some sculpting to do. Then, the low poly and UVs, and then the final render. I do not really like the way it is in Thief 4 (being 100% made of copper) so I'm thinking to make the top/legs at least from wood. Any ideas on that?

 

PS. My free time is kinda limited so I may be slow on updates, but I will continue working on models. Any C&C is highly appreciated as it's helping me improve.

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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I agree that wood makes more sense for the legs/top, although you could easily accomodate both by using different textures (swapping textures is very easy in TDM).

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Models are situated in "tdm_models01.pk4"(this is .zip file with changed extension). If you can't handle with DR or want not to, you can use, for example, training mission - just found in "tdm_models01.pk4\models\darkmod\furniture\*.*" model used in tr.mission and replace it by yours. TDM's engine use ASE and LWO format of 3d models, with triangles only.

 

I've went through this way month ago, but last couple of weeks haven't any time to continue with my models. If you need some explanations for texturing and importing models to TDM, I can help you with some advice...

 

I hope to return in modeling,but maybe only after one or two weeks. Even so I looking at forum every day, and still remember how hard to find some information because of not working links to images. In any way there is very good community, and you must remember - if you can't find something, or have some issues and you don't know how to solve them - better way is to ask at forum, it is full of friendly people how always help you if they can ;)

 

P.S. Good looking table )

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Thanks a ton XendroX. That really, really helps. I'll try to play with DR because for rendering them I'll probably need to rebuild the lighting anyways and screwing with missions other people made is not something I'd like to do. But I still have to figure out how to get them into the DR. When I click the "Create Model" there's a window opening (I suppose it should have a list of models in there?) but it's completelly empty (also misses a "browse" button). But I'll figure it out.. In time.

 

I made the holes in the middle part as well so I guess I can call the high poly finished. What polycount should I target for the lowpoly? Baking the bolts and holes to the lowpoly with changing nothing else will drop it to ~4k. Is that acceptable or way to much for a prop?

 

EDIT: Is there a reason there's no bevel to almost any model in TDM? It wouldn't make the polycount much higher than it already is and it'd remove the screaming "CG" feeling most of them have. Mainly talking about wallls/doors/boxes etc. Nothing in real life is in exact 90 degrees angles. On another note I found a plugin for maya to export in .ase format but I still haven't found a way to open .ase files inside maya. Once I do and if there's no technical restriction for bevels I could try to start beveling the existing models if that's okay with everyone.

 

EDIT 2: Does DR support tesselation/Displacement maps? Or it's the usual way of bump/normal maps for small extruded details?

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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Try to answer your questions.

 

1. You have clear list of models because you don't set up Dr to your tdm folder, you can find how to do this on forum, I have no problem with this.

 

2. About beveling edges - I understand what are you talking about but you have to check UV map when adding bevels to existed models, there can be troubles. Nowadays I think it wouldn't be to heavy for Pc to maintain with smooth edges, but still there are people with low perfomance computers

 

3. Dr supports diffuse,specular and normal maps.. Reflection for me remains a hard question to understand :))

 

This is my thread, where you can find some useful info

forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15868-xendroxs-models/

Edited by XendroX
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Very nice models there. I saw it in the past but couldn't find it again. Was looking at your other thread in Art Assets. Making the lowpoly and normal maps now and my head hearts :(

 

As for your first point, I haven't seen any thread about that the bit I looked around. I managed to get a list of models (small one granted) when I added a path to a .pk4 folder from a fan mission but still when I hit rclick -> create model and see the list if I click on any model in there DR crashes :(

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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Not at home right now but I'll try that when I get back. As for the model, I have finished the high poly but have some serious issues with baking it to low poly... It'll take some time probably. After I fix those problems it's mostly 1h work for me to have the low poly finishied/textured as well.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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I don't know how Maya about creating UV maps, but in Lightwave I have serious issues when copy\pasting existing polygons with attached UV, they have strange bugs in dr and tdm, meanwhile in LW all displayed good. I have found that when I try to use copies of polys or mirrored polys this trouble has repeated, I solve this only by creating new polygon and adding it to existing UV in this way all is good, but this trouble may be only in LW. Interesting how it be in Maya...

 

Looking at your table, I think it should be less then or equal 1000 triangles with handles, and about 500-700 without.

 

For making easy shadow casting, TDM uses Shadow Mesh, if haven't, you can read about it in Wiki, but don't think that SM solves problem with highpoly models. In my case, bed has about 2500 triangles and SM about 800 - when I test it, upper fps was without SM... And in case when model about 500-700 triangles and SM about 200-300 - it works faster with SM...

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If I make the lowpoly with simple boxes then yes... It'll be around 1k triangles. But I want to make something better than that with at least some bevels on the edges hoping it won't raise the polycount by much (it shouldn't). But my problem is that with bevels on the lowpoly mesh I get issues with baking the normal maps, and I still haven't found a way to tackle that.

 

I'll probably end up beveling the low poly and stop trying to smooth the edges even more with normals and use the normal map for the texture details (wood for example). Only problem with that is how I'm going to add the bolts in the normal as well...

 

And by the way the DR setup screenshot you posted helped me a lot and now I can open models normally. Thanks a ton for that.

 

If anyone has any experience with baking normals from high poly to low poly and then adding texture details to that normals I'd really could use some insight on it. Never worked with high polys before as I onl made low poly assets from the start and then used Ndo2 to add texture details on normals. I never used highpoly to lowpoly baking in my workflow before and I'm kinda stuck right now...

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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Can you write more detailed about trouble with baking normal maps from high poly to low poly? I think that processes should be similar in different programs, and maybe I can help you with that..

 

Some methods I used to make detailed normal maps:

 

Wooden structure and etc - by adding bump texture prepared in photoshop.

Bolts and etc - was baked like high poly geometry with no troubles

 

In LW there is a free node for baking normal map as diff. map aswell, I think something like this should be for maya

 

See my small tutorial about wallpaper I have created from one colored picture from internet in Xex's models topic, may be useful

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Okay. After fiddling with it for a day or so I can't get the normal baking process to work properly. Until I manage to do so this model is on hold. I'll start working on props in my usual way again with building a lowpoly from the start and avoiding the highpoly to lowpoly step altogether.

 

Any ideas on stuff I should work on? Maybe assets that we don't have or don't have enough variations of?

 

EDIT: I see in the DR that some building are modular. Is modularity heavily used here? I'd love to work on that to be honest

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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If you feel up for it, how about some statues (intact or broken)? We've got a lot of furniture and weapons, but detailed statues are a different issue. Or, if you remember the weird machines from Thief 1, something in that category - like electric coils, or an old-school transformer, or anything of that sort.

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 would love an owl statue, or a stuffed owl. I've used the owl sounds in all three WS missions, and plan to continue doing that. If someone along the way could have hunted an owl and had it stuffed, that would be nice.

 

The scale would be such that it could sit on a fireplace mantle or dresser or table.

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To Melan: Machinery is something I definitelly would love to do. I actually am already on the hunt for references of machines like that, tho' mostly from random google images or deviantart ones under "steampunk". Haven't found anything that would really fit in TDM yet tho' so if you happen to have any such references somewhere I'd really love to do it. I do vaguelly remember those from when I played it some 10 years ago but saddly I do not have the games now :(

 

To Melan and Grayman: As I said to my first post I have no experience whatsoever in organic modeling and altho' statues are not organic what they're depicting is... That said I'm not saying I won't do any such stuff, but I don't really feel comfortable to as of now. If the statues you mean Melan are not depicting something organic but The Builders sign for example I'd have no problem doing them.

 

To Grayman: Something like the following image is something I see no problem of modeling.

 

tumblr_m2qth5vnWM1rtlrt2o1_500.png

 

With better textures of course and even add sculpted details on it or something. It's the organic shapes I have problem with.

But for more detailed stuff, I'll need some time to learn on organic modeling. Could you be a bit more specific on what kind of statue you want?

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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Atheran: I could produce some machine sketches to work from, if that helps. :)

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'd certainly love that Melan. It'll save me time from watching Thief 1 Let's Plays in youtube :P

 

Grayman, that might be above my abilities in max/maya but I'll give it a try with zbrush once I find out how to UV/bake there. I can promise I'll try but don't hold your breath on the result. I believe I can make the model in Zbrush but as we do not want 10m polys in props I'll have some or lots of work to do with trial and error. Good thing is that I'll meet with a friend next Wednesday who knows his stuff with Zbrush so he might be able to help with the converting to low poly proccess.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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For a quick update I just wanted to say that I sterted working on that owl statue Grayman. It's not something yet that I'm proud of or want to showcase here but if you really want I can post a quick render. While I love Zbrush the friggin' polycount goes up really, really fast :( I'm at 400k polys now and just have the basic shape done... I really hope the Zremesher is as good as anyone keeps saying :)

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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For a quick update I just wanted to say that I sterted working on that owl statue Grayman. It's not something yet that I'm proud of or want to showcase here but if you really want I can post a quick render. While I love Zbrush the friggin' polycount goes up really, really fast :( I'm at 400k polys now and just have the basic shape done... I really hope the Zremesher is as good as anyone keeps saying :)

 

Please take your time and make sure you're happy with the results.

 

I have no need of the model in the immediate future. If it were to be available in a year, that probably fits my schedule.

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That was a fast reply :)

 

But before I go into 6 digits polygons and start adding details on it hoping I can manage to transfer them to normal map... I'd like some C&C on the base shape. If you don't like it I can start over or change it now while it's still early. So how about that?

 

owl_zps52658713.jpg

 

It's at 20k polys at the moment and zbrush probably crashed on me for some reason :( Ohwell... At least I have it saved.

 

EDIT: On a side note... Last cemester in college and I'm learning about modularity in game assets and as a personal project I'd like to work a bit on that and thought about TDM and Bridgeport. If Springheel or anyone who has it reads that I'd like a high res version of the city map because the wiki one is too small to really see anything besides the general layout. If such thing exists I'd love a copy of it so I start making parts of the city.

 

It is a personal project so it'll probably be a couple of districts only and mostly on Unreal engine so I'm not going to make an FM or anything... But if I really like it and it gets bigger than a couple of districts and someone wants it for their FMs I'll do my best to transfer it to DR and send him the files. But it probably won't come to that.

 

Actually no it didn't crash so I managed to get it down to 2k polys. While most of the model seems fine at 2k I have a problem with the feet. At 2k polys it's manageable but any lower I loose the claws details. I'm not sure I know how to fix that :(

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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I played a bit with it and all I have to say is Wow! Zbrush has some amazing tools. I am at 970 polys now and it's a decent base for a low poly model. Now I can keep on refining details to however high polycount I want and simply export them as a normal map. And with the allowance (is that even a word?) of the time you gave me for this I should give you good enough results. What'll take some time tho' is first, to learn about UVmapping in Zbrush and then learn how the DR works and it's limits to give appropriate details to the model. No need to have insane details like feathers etc when I'm limited to 512x512 normal map resolution I guess. They won't even be visible. On the other hand it's a statue so such details are supposed to be missing if it's simply sculpted on a piece of rock...

 

As I'm still waiting for those machine schetches I bought thief pack from Steam so I now have thief gold to play and check things out for myself. And while downloading HD mod/sounds/models for it I started playing "WS: In the North".

 

All I have to say it's excellent even if I'm still at the very begining. I just hope it's a good idea for a noob in TDM as myself or if it is extremelly hard (or hardest difficulty). We'll see I guess but I have to say if that's the kind of work you usually do grayman I'm really honoured to help with that with models. It's an inspiration to help me do my best with them.

 

As a side note, from pictures or from videos I've seen of people playing TDM FMs I see buildings made of wood. Is that refering to the poor districts of Bridgeport? According to wiki:

with architecture ranging from medieval castles to victorian mansions

From playing thief games in the past or from seeing FMs from TDM I'd mostly categorise the architecture as late medieval/gothic/early victorian. In which case (last two) buildings should mostly be made of bricks with wooden support beams.

In DR I can't see wooden house models but I see something that reminds me of early kind of concrete or something in the majority of the buildings. Shouldn't buildings be made of stone/bricks?

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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