Goliath the Thief's Application

[New Horizon]

Hello NH,

 

I am Goliath the Thief from the TTLG forums (and now TDM forums too). I've been a fan of Thief since 1999, and consider TDP the best game I've ever played.

 

In the last year and a half, I have learned about 3D modeling, UV maps, textures, and animation at school. I feel that now I can lend my hand at TDM.

 

I can model objects, texture objects using UV maps, and I'm currently learning how to use a software that makes textures from scratch. I consider having a great deal of talent regarding lighting 3D scenes, but alas lighting 3D scenes and lighting a map in DarkRadiant must be completely different things.

 

I also know how to rig characters for a 3D animation, but I don't know if it's the same thing for a game.

 

I use Maya 8.0 only, so I may need to learn some other softwares.

 

...

 

Here's my first 3D project ever, done in NURBS (not polygons). There's no texture, so it looks bland.

http://www.multim.org/tim%5Feet/e0258890/t...ation_clock.jpg

 

My second project, done in polygons and NURBS. Gloomy, isn'it?

http://www.multim.org/tim%5Feet/e0258890/tdm/vats.jpg

 

Third project, where I used UV maps for the arch's bricks, and had to manually merge 2 textures to create the brickwork around the door. I also had to create the bump from scratch for that brickwork.

http://www.multim.org/tim%5Feet/e0258890/tdm/chapel.jpg

 

And my latest project, an animation of gears, with sounds and camera work. I'm very proud of it. Careful, it's 50 megs.

http://skipp.ca/spaces/paolo/3d/Di_Stefano_TP3.mov

[sparhawk]

Hi!, your samples look quite good. Just downloading the movie, because I'm curious.

[Goliath the Thief]

Hi!, your samples look quite good. Just downloading the movie, because I'm curious.

 

Thanks! I'm sure you'll love the gears

[sparhawk]

Ah, I just posted in the other thread but confused the names. Well, I downloaded the movie, but I can't watch it. Which codec is it?

 

BTW: I don't think the clock looks bland. Reminds me a bit of an old B/W movie, and the style fits as well, so it still looks good.

[Goliath the Thief]

Ah, I just posted in the other thread but confused the names. Well, I downloaded the movie, but I can't watch it. Which codec is it?

 

BTW: I don't think the clock looks bland. Reminds me a bit of an old B/W movie, and the style fits as well, so it still looks good.

 

 

The codec for the movie is H.264 (IIRC). The latest Quicktime player should do the trick.

And thanks for the comments for the clock. In fact, I had used a B/W photography as the inspiration of the modeling.

[sparhawk]

I finally were able to watch the movie. :I I like it, even though I think that the textures on the wheels itself look not very convincing. The texturing in your other shots is much better. Beside from that I like especially the blurr at the end of the movie. I was really surprised about this, because it gives it a quality as if it were shot with a real camera.

[Goliath the Thief]

I finally were able to watch the movie. :I I like it, even though I think that the textures on the wheels itself look not very convincing. The texturing in your other shots is much better. Beside from that I like especially the blurr at the end of the movie. I was really surprised about this, because it gives it a quality as if it were shot with a real camera.

 

Thanks! Maybe the texturing is not convincing because of the heavy use of "glow" and contrast. And the shader is a bit too glossy to my liking, actually.

 

If possible, I'd like to have an "object request". I could show my modeling, UVing and texturing skills.

[Springheel]

Hi Goliath. I like the look of your stuff. If you're interested in modelling for us that's great. We still have a number of prop items on our list of things we'd like to include. Here is a few you can choose from:

 

 

 

weeds/bushes

http://www.mindplaces.com/save/bushes1.jpg

 

fancy wall-light

http://files.gamasutraexchange.com/Preview...6e6bdeLarge.jpg

http://www.sealinesnautical.com/Garden%20w...ight%202070.jpg

http://www.rkc.ca/woodhill/images/walllamp.jpg

 

oil wall lamp

http://www.mbmafrica.co.za/accessories/enlarge/o1c.htm

 

*scattered bones (for graveyards or crypts)

http://www.basketsofafrica.com/adams/LN/im.../LN_bones_1.jpg

http://www.evolutionnyc.com/ImgUpload/P_525497_550115.jpg

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/My...s/mcq47-300.jpg

[Goliath the Thief]

Hi Goliath. I like the look of your stuff. If you're interested in modelling for us that's great. We still have a number of prop items on our list of things we'd like to include. Here is a few you can choose from:

 

YAY! I can't wait to work on that

[sparhawk]

OK. I create a contributor repository access for you and then you can use this to upload what you created. You need to install Subversion (SVN) for this, because this is also what we use for the mod for distribution.

[sparhawk]

You personal repository will be accessible here:

 

 

 

You need to install SVN and then acces this URL via SVN. This will allow you to upload the stuff that created to our server so we can inspect it. If you are unfamiliar with SVN, please feel free to ask. The password will be sent to you via PM.

 

You can find SVN here for download http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/ . We recommend to use TortoiseSVN as it seems to be more stable and easier to use.

[Crispy]

You can find SVN here for download http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/ . We recommend to use TortoiseSVN as it seems to be more stable and easier to use.

And just so you don't have to dig up the URL for TortoiseSVN, it's here: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

 

Don't use RapidSVN, it seems to cause all kinds of problems.

[Goliath the Thief]

If you are unfamiliar with SVN, please feel free to ask.

 

Question here! What exactly is SVN?

From what I gather, it's some kind of FTP client? I will be able to upload and download files from a server, which is kinda HQ for TDM?

 

...

 

I'll probably start working on the lamp models tomorrow.

[Crispy]

Sort of. It allows uploading and downloading of files like FTP, but unlike FTP (which leaves all the directory management up to you), SVN replicates the same directory structure on everyone's computers.

 

SVN has the added advantage that it only stores what was changed. The entire history of the data on the server is kept. So if you want to, you can retrieve the mod as it was on a particular date. You can see what changes were made with each upload, and revert them if necessary.

 

If two people make changes to a file at the same time, then it can merge the changes together. Usually it does this automatically. Sometimes it can't - this is called a "conflict", and it asks you which version to keep in this case.

 

The best part of this is that you can keep up-to-date without having to re-download the entire mod every time it changes, or manually keep track of which files were changed and only download those. It handles all of that for you by only downloading the things that have changed.

 

I'm not explaining this very well... suffice to say that it's a very convenient way of making sure everyone has the same version of the mod, and minimising the amount of stuff you need to download to keep up to date, that also comes with a "time machine" so you can see what files used to look like.

[Goliath the Thief]

Oh! Great!

 

But it also means that if a mod (let's say) stays 50 megs throughout 2 years of development, and every day a change has been made, then the space required will be ((365*2)*50) megs, is that right?

[Crispy]

No, because it only stores the changes that you make, not the result of those changes. So if you change one line of code (for example) and then re-upload it, that change only takes up a few bytes because you only changed a few bytes.

[sparhawk]

Basically SVN stores files as you store them on your disc, and then it replicates them to all clients that are using it when they synchronize with the server. Only the server sees the full history of everything. A client only gets always the newest version of a file, which replaces the old version. So if you upload a textfile with 1024 bytes, and then you replace one character with another and upload this new version, on the server it will take a little bit more space then 1024 bytes, because the server needs to remember which versions existed. But on any client machine it will always only use the 1024 bytes as before, because they don't keep all the history. A client only downloads this older versions on request. For example, suppose you upload a model which you consider finished, and then make some changes to this model on your disc. But a few days later you think that this changes are not so good after all, but you can not get back to the older version, because your application doesn't store undo history over saves, then you can still download the old version from the server by specifying which revision you want to retrieve. For this reason it is important to always write a small description of what you changed, when you upload a file, because this allows you to easily keep track of which version chanegd what. The SVN application will prompt you for such a description everytime you upload a new version. You don't need to write extensive texts in there, just a short summary. So for example, when I modelled a wheel and in the next version added some nails to it I just wrote "Added nails to the rim" as a comment.

[Goliath the Thief]

Good, thanks for the explanations!

[Dram]

Wow, your examples are extremely good can't wait to see what you can do with thief related stuff

[Goliath the Thief]

I'm currently working on an adaptation of the wall oil lamp (http://www.mbmafrica.co.za/accessories/enlarge/o1c.htm), and I'm hitting the 2000 polys. On another thread, I've read that small objects should be around 250 polys. So how many polys should I go for, for a lamp?

[sparhawk]

Depends if you do a normal map or not. If you model the object as it is, it should have lesser. If you create a normal map you can have as many polies as you want, on the detail model. I think for a lamp having about 400 polies should be enough, but it's hard to say. Some artists can answer this better.

[SneaksieDave]

Well, current lamps average around 300 (with some definite offenders in the bunch needing optimization ), so it's probably best not to deviate too far from that. Most of the objects still don't have counts up anywhere officially, so I took a quick look around in DR, and that count may also include collision meshes, so the actual number might actually even be lower.

 

Economy means more detail possible in maps.

[Springheel]

Yes, as something that would likely be used frequently in a scene, lights should be kept fair low. Make good use of normal-maps for the details.

[Goliath the Thief]

Ok. I will have to look, read and learn about normal maps and how to make them.

[Goliath the Thief]

Question ! Should my polygons be one-sided or double-sided?

 

AND

 

Should I prefer triangle polygons over quads?