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Any critiques?


Dantra

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I've been messing around in DR for a few days now, and I'm liking it more everyday (much more so than the latest UnrealED). I've mainly been carving out a basement and experimenting with what works and what doesn't. I'm slowly working my way up to the first floor.

I figured I'd post a few screens and see if I may be doing anything wrong. Nearly everything is Bsp and patches.

shot00003gp2.th.jpg

shot00002li9.th.jpg

shot00001sd0.th.jpg

shot00004lx0.th.jpg This area really needs some work. It's small but really seems bare now compared to the other areas. Any suggestions?

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Very promising Dantra. A few points...

 

. I like the general style but not certain where it would fit in the mainstream TDM universe. That might be just my view and many Thief FMs have all kinds of areas of non-standard styles so that in itself is so exclusive.

. From the screenshots I'm not sure you have any ambient lighting as some shadows look ink black on my screen much like the original Doom. Try adding one large light to cover everything and add...

.. texture lights/ambientLightnfo

.. _color 0.04 0.04 0.04 (approx.)

.. That will lift and soften the shadows and add character as well as helping the player navigate in larger areas of darkness.

. The end of stone or brick archways is always a problem as you finish up with fragments and small slices of stone round the arch plus the top looks unsupported. In Den I added a metal bow shape to cover it. Ideally a fan of stonework is commonly used in RL I believe.

. That screen you said the area looks bare - apart from the style as I said above, might be OK as is - I like detail and interest but not every corridor has to be crammed with stuff so just passing through that might be alright. Maybe some decorative feature. In a real story you might find you add something pertinent.

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I don't see any black shadows, looks like ambient light is there already to me. Looks good so far I think, keep it up and try some above ground stuff too, maybe connect it all up

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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I don't see any black shadows, looks like ambient light is there already to me. Looks good so far I think, keep it up and try some above ground stuff too, maybe connect it all up
On second look I boosted my gamma way up and think you're right I can see some texture where it looks total black on my normal web page brightness.
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You might want to test out this bug fix for the ambient lighting as well.

 

Doom 3 has a bug that causes the ambient lights to cast ugly, dark shadows on everything.

 

Download the file from this link. The file is in a .pk4...so rename it to zip and extract it.

 

http://www.trisoup.net/temp/d3ambient/

 

In your thiefs_den folder, create a folder called glprogs...if there isn't one already there. I can't recall if we did include it. Drop the interaction.vfp file in it.

 

It should soften the harsh look of the ambients.

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Looks good to me. The torches seem a little low to the ground, but otherwise a nice environment.

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Yes there is a glprogs folder already in the thiefs_den folder. I highly recommend installing that file to improve the ambient lighting.

 

Yeah the torches are pretty low but I figured they were just special low down dungeon/sewer torches (for some reason)

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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Doom 3 has a bug that causes the ambient lights to cast ugly, dark shadows on everything.

 

Yes, ugly for sure. But pleeeeaaase, don't call it a bug. id did that on purpose. Bump maps were meant to add detail without adding to polycount. So just skipping bump mapping for the ambient light would mean skipping the details in those very dark lit corners.

 

But fortunately rebb's fix still uses bump maps (if i get it right). Still i think it needs tweaking, for it looks a little too flat.

 

About Dantra's work: Does "carving out a basement" refer to excessive use of the csg-subtract-tool? I hope not, unless it's more reliable in DR then it was in DoomEd. :mellow:

 

-

Edited by plasticman
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About Dantra's work: Does "carving out a basement" refer to excessive use of the csg-subtract-tool? I hope not, unless it's more reliable in DR then it was in DoomEd. :mellow:

 

I believe Dantra meant it metaphorically. Otherwise, the CSG Subtract tool should be avoided on everything save very simple extraction cuts such as emptying out a cube etc. It's usually much better to use the clipper tool, as you know exactly where the cuts will be and can also account for where light volumes will reach etc. When I was learning D3Ed all that while ago, I used tools which were similar to DromEd's - which means subtract etc, but you soon learn (usually the hard way) to use the clipper tool for making holes etc.

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Yes, ugly for sure. But pleeeeaaase, don't call it a bug. id did that on purpose. Bump maps were meant to add detail without adding to polycount. So just skipping bump mapping for the ambient light would mean skipping the details in those very dark lit corners.

 

*sigh* If I have to explain this one more time. :)

 

Yes, bump maps on ambients was intentional....BUT ambient lights are supposed to be non-directional...meaning they light all surfaces in a map evenly. The BUG is that id's ambient lights were not non-directional...they were from a fixed direction. This fixed direction is what causes the ugliness.

 

Behold!

 

The Bug. Fixed direction...causes harsh shadows.

post-3-1203739909_thumb.jpg

 

The Bug squashed! Non-directional. Smoothed...evenly lit.

post-3-1203739930_thumb.jpg

 

But fortunately rebb's fix still uses bump maps (if i get it right). Still i think it needs tweaking, for it looks a little too flat.

 

That's because it's a non-directional ambient. There are no definitive shadows to make things stand out. That's why you don't rely on an ambient to light your level. It's only meant as a soft base light to brighten the shadows.

 

See here.

 

Ambient + 1 real light

post-3-1203740157_thumb.jpg

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Thanks for the comments guys.

 

Fidcal: Could you explain why it looks like it doesn't fit? Is it the Architecture, lighting, too open/cramp?

I've also added iron textured supports to the arches to hide the texture seams at the corners. I was having problems with dimensions and texture alignment before I took those screens, but I took another look at it today and fixed it up.

I lowered the floor in the bare area, since I figured this would be a good area to try out water.

 

angua: I love patches. They are one of the main reasons why I'm liking Radiant over UnrealEd (Which I feel is too restricted to static meshes).

 

STiFU: Thanks, and I'm assuming you mean the openess and lack of objects?

 

Dram: Thanks.

 

New Horizon: Thanks, Downloaded.

 

Springheel: Thanks and the reason they were so low was because of the many changes that the halls went through until I was happy with the current look. But I did raise the torches and it does looks better now.

 

plasticman: Yes I was being metaphorical when I said carving.  :) I use the room tool and then add solids and patches. The niches so far have been the only place I've used subtract.

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NH,

thanks for explaining and all these nice screenies. :)

 

Since I am no native speaker I'd better not discuss the real meaning of "bug".

 

Don't know what was wrong with my eyes :wacko: yesterday, but I did "bind b toggle r_skipbump" now and compared the fix to no bumpmapping at all. It doesn't look flat and the details are fine.

 

Hope it's nothing severe...

 

-

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@Dantra : Hard to define but just the general look and feel of the style didn't quite fit my vision of the medieval/victorian style. Now you put me on the spot I'm studying the pictures again and finding it hard to understand where it varies from the TDM style. That's because I'm looking at individual elements many of which DO fit on their own. Various elements are there such as arches and old stonework but somehow together they seem a different style. Here and there I get a feel of modern, in one shot I sense middle east or even far east influence. Don't get me wrong, as I said, I like the style and it would fit in some corner of the TDM universe and I would have no objection to it myself.

 

However, that was just my personal impression and I would rather others comment on whether or how closely they think the style fits the TDM universe which is not one bland style throughout of course any more than RL. Maybe it's fine in that respect.

 

The only other thing I can suggest is look at the TDM screenshots already posted as well as searching the internet for influence from medieval/tudor/victorian styles.

 

Note that there is no 'rule' that you have to stick to any convention in your own FMs of course anyway.

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Some cool looking screens. I'd be happy to play an FM that looked like that.

 

I really like the second pic.

 

I think the things that stand out as maybe a little off to me are:

 

The red rug in the tunnel with pipes. Pipes would generally be in a dirty tunnel under and building, red carpets wouldn't.

 

Somehow though the pipes seem to modern. I think 'cause they are so long and straight and minimally supported. I think it would be better if they split off, came down to ground,ect...

 

The last shot has cool arches, I think the main thing is that it's just suck a plain texture on the whole thing, to me it looks like you put alot of time into the shapes, then just slapped on a tex. Deefinately needs brix/trim,ect to make it really stand out.

 

That same tex is on the torch holders, I guess they are meant to be carved of stone. I like them but just don't think they fit the surrounding terrain. Maybe a different stone that looks more like the walls. I know sources are limited, ect... just my feelings.

 

Good work though, you've deffinatley got a handle on the editor.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Well you are right about the middle east influence.

 

Akko Influence

 

I was planning on having the owner coming from some foreign land, perhaps I can fit it into the story that he brought some architectural ideas with him aswell.

That's a good example of the roof brickwork. You can see at this front end of the small tunnels how the tunnel roof bricks are laid in a fan shape so they lodge into one other and cannot fall down. That continues all the way down the tunnel. That's how I wanted to do it in the entry way in Thief's Den but I couldn't get the texture to line up correctly so I fudged it with a metal 'end plate'. I'll have another go at that one day.

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Fidcal, I've added an arch tut to the Wiki patch tut to get arches like these:

 

archesuk6.jpg

 

For some reason I cannot link to this page directly. IE7 just shows all the Wiki pages as darkmod.com, I can't even save the Wiki in my favorites, it always directs me to darkmod home page.???

 

Funny, if I use the link for the texture tool from Fidcal's post I can navigate the Wiki and it'll show me the correct address.

 

So here's the Patch Tut for arches. But if I go through the main page I only get darkmod.com .

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Well, I made an arch OK but it took me a while to align the texture in Texture Tool. Still, just a matter of practice I guess. I don't see how you could align this without the texture tool to be honest. Except maybe keep guessing the scale. For my arch I found with under roof with a scale of 0.25 I guessed the end at 4.00 and then dragged the various vertices along. Seems a clumsy way to do it.

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Yeah, it was quite clumsy guess work when I did those arches. That was before you did the tex tool tut. I added a link from my tut to the tex tool tut just now on the Wiki. I might redo that and point to the tex tool earlier, it really is the best way to do it.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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