assets Misc. assets thread

[peter_spy]

I have quite a few assets from WIPs I'll probably never use elsewhere, so I thought I could share it here. Some of these are older and not necessarily matching the TDM lore, but I hope someone will find use for them.

In terms of package format, I'll be creating 7zip packages with just model and/or texture files, so you can place them wherever you like in your project. I'll also include example material or def setup. I'll leave textures in .tga format, so you can make edits on uncompressed source and save as .dds later.

 

So first up is a door/frame/key combo:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/57y7okpioa6mv5s/01_door_frame_key.7z?dl=1

See readme_notes for design / placement instructions.

[nbohr1more]

Thank you!

[peter_spy]

This is a sliding metal door and lever combo. The door has no lock, so it can be operated or unlocked via lever (originally it was supposed to be some sort of magnetic or mechanical lock).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zl4c1t0qk21hd51/02_metal_door_lever.7z?dl=1

[peter_spy]

Next up is this cabinet. Not much to write home about, this was my first furniture model for TDM. The drawers are not usable, so all the handles were baked on flat surface. Note that the back has lower pixel density to save on texture space. In most situations it should be facing the wall, not the player.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6dpxg52a7hlx9s/03_wood_cabinet.7z?dl=1

[peter_spy]

This cabinet is a slightly more complex thing. I tried to pack as much as I can in one texture space, stuff for transparent glass included. Doors have two materials: wood (frobable) and glass. I also included entity def setup with some common spawnargs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbjotn3aqsvowgj/04_wood_cabinet_02.7z?dl=1

[demagogue]

These are great, but it's kind of a problem for customs assets to be spread out among links buried in threads. I don't need these now, but maybe I will in 6 months, and then I worry it's going to be hard to find what I saw before again.

One solution I mentioned before is that an FM be made that basically collects all the custom assets from every source into one place, where the player can just go in and it can be basically laid out like an Ikea store, lol. But you can look around and see what you might want, and it should have a title plate with the author & name of the asset, so you can just grab it out of the pk4 ready to drop in an FM and use right away. And then being able to download it from inside the game would probably be the best way for people to find it.

The only issue is, somebody would have to volunteer to make it. I might be able to do it if no one else volunteers. I think it might even encourage players to think about being mappers. And it might be fun to throw in a little gameplay (like a scavenger hunt) for good measure, and if it's made for mappers, it would be good to go ahead and throw in mapping tutorials and example areas (e.g., complex systems like elevators, or that great tutorial about visportaling converted to actual map area, etc.) that people can grab and throw in their FM.

What do people think?

[grayman]

Wonderful idea

[STiFU]

I'd definitely also add a wiki page with forum links to all posted ressources.

[Dragofer]

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Model_addons_repository

as well as further repositories for sounds and other things, by Petike.

[Jedi_Wannabe]

Brilliant idea. 

[peter_spy]

On 11/26/2020 at 7:50 AM, demagogue said:

These are great, but it's kind of a problem for customs assets to be spread out among links buried in threads. I don't need these now, but maybe I will in 6 months, and then I worry it's going to be hard to find what I saw before again.

One solution I mentioned before is that an FM be made that basically collects all the custom assets from every source into one place, where the player can just go in and it can be basically laid out like an Ikea store, lol. But you can look around and see what you might want, and it should have a title plate with the author & name of the asset, so you can just grab it out of the pk4 ready to drop in an FM and use right away.

I'll probably rearrange the first post to include a master list of these for easier access. All the links are generated from my dropbox account, so they should be active unless I take them down (or the service shuts down.

Otherwise, there's no optimal mean to distribute these, I'm afraid. Putting it all in one package will be easy to use, but inflexible, when someone needs just one of these assets – it will make the mission size bloat. On the other hand, zips with raw files give you that flexibility, but require tons of setup, as you have to change paths in models, materials, def files, etc.

Edit: that "Ikea store" package might work, if it was an optional download for TDM installer / optional part of the core mod. It doesn't even have to be one central package, every modeler could have their own .pk4, it's just the question of naming convention and folder structure.

Edited November 28, 2020 by peter_spy

[demagogue]

Yes, the .pk4 is just a zip file with the assets already set up to drop into a mission and you get the bonus of seeing them in-game. It's not really meant as a mission at all. As for a separate one for each modeler, the idea I mentioned before on that is just to release successive asset pk4s for all of the asset sets that were either made, discovered, or anyway got packaged since the last set. So it'd be like Asset_Pack1, Asset_Pack2, etc., and each one could be like maybe a few 100MB.

I didn't think it was  good idea to break them up by author because they'd be so lopsided, some of them would be like 2GB and some like 30MB. So I thought it'd be good to package them as commensurable units, like I said some mix that adds up to 100 or 500MB or whatever, and maybe within those boundaries they could be thematic, like a time period or a particular style or, yes, still featuring an author if it works out that way.

My original idea was to just have them in the in-game downloader, but I can see how that'd be trouble since players might think they were normal FMs, and they're not. The more natural place for them would be on the wiki and maybe the Downloads page, and then there can just be one thread for them in the Mappers forum so mappers are periodically reminded that they exist.

[Petike the Taffer]

I've updated the links in the repository article.

[Omni-Flayer 9000 Loves You]

On 11/28/2020 at 2:40 AM, peter_spy said:

I'll probably rearrange the first post to include a master list of these for easier access. All the links are generated from my dropbox account, so they should be active unless I take them down (or the service shuts down.

Otherwise, there's no optimal mean to distribute these, I'm afraid. Putting it all in one package will be easy to use, but inflexible, when someone needs just one of these assets – it will make the mission size bloat. On the other hand, zips with raw files give you that flexibility, but require tons of setup, as you have to change paths in models, materials, def files, etc.

Edit: that "Ikea store" package might work, if it was an optional download for TDM installer / optional part of the core mod. It doesn't even have to be one central package, every modeler could have their own .pk4, it's just the question of naming convention and folder structure.

I've gotten this far into messing about Dark Radiant with only cursory knowledge of file management, if it isn't any trouble could you briefly touch base on how to get your sliding metal door asset to show up in the map editor? Ik how to unzip the 7zip file from dropbox I just don't know how to tell Dark Radiant what to do with the files. 

The door itself looks lovely. A good fit for my planned map. 

[datiswous]

Have you checked the wiki for info?

Wiki Understanding folder structure

Model files go into models directory inside fm-directory.

Wiki EntityDef

Wiki Material files

I think that the material_setup.txt file has to be editted and saved as a .mtr file and the def_setup.txt editted and saved as a .def file and then everything has to be put in the correct folders. See links above.

Edited November 24, 2022 by datiswous

[Wellingtoncrab]

The download links seem to have gone dead.