Noble & Table

[Ishtvan]

Doesn't D3 have code to bind two models together? I thought I saw something like that for weapons or something.

 

Of course using it unwisely might result in T3-like jewelry.

Edited April 4, 2005 by Ishtvan

[sparhawk]

I think I read for wepaons they just put an alpha texture on the model and spawned the wepon as a seperate entity. But there is some code which can bind some stuff together in the SDK. Don't know how far that goes though.

[oDDity]

We don't need any highlight or glint. Just make every piece of jewelry you see on an AI frobbable, so the player doesn't have to guess if he's allowed to steal it or not.

THe jewelry can be part of the AI model, but can have a different surface and shader and .skin file. so it can be made invisible after the frobbing.

[sparhawk]

That's exactly the problem I just told you. It is part of the AI model currently I can't do this. So if you want the AI to wear frobable jewelry it has to be a seperate object for now.

[oDDity]

Yeah but you will eventually be able to set it to frob a specified surface or skin and toggle it invisible. THat can't be hard to do.

[Springheel]

Who is going to be trying to steal jewellery right off someone's neck anyway? Even in T3 you had to make the AI drop it.

[oDDity]

I think it would be quite possible for a master thief to pinch a necklace without the victim noticing, and brooches, tiaras, pocket watches etc Rings would probably be impossible without alerting the AI.

 

This would be for any open street encounters where the AI is't automatically afraid of you.

[sparhawk]

I can only repeat it. For now frobbing can only take place on a complete model and not parts of it. Coding that would need a quite different setup. But you can give me a model with the appropriate setup so I can play with it. Doesn't need to be fancy.

[Fingernail]

IMO stealing a purse off a concsious AI is possible. A necklace or bracelet - no. Perhaps a conman (think Derren Brown) would do that, by distracting them, but not a Thief who's not known to be there.

[sparhawk]

Well, even if stealing would not be possible. Would it make sense to still include this for frobbing objects on moving animated models on generic basis? IMO it is much more effort to do this, so I would only do it if it also makes sense. Just for frobbing a purse, the effort is not really worth it.

[oDDity]

IMO stealing a purse off a concsious AI is possible. A necklace or bracelet - no. Perhaps a conman (think Derren Brown) would do that, by distracting them, but not a Thief who's not known to be there.

Well, pickpocketing is a nice part of thievery, and rings/necklaces do tend to be very valuble objects. It would be a shame if the only way you could steal them would be to knock the person out first.

I can't see what the big trouble is in coding a surface with a specific skin to use its alpha to dissapear when frobbed.

Or even set it up so that when the AI model is frobbed one of it's surfaces 'necklace' or 'earing' uses it's alpha channel to dissapear.

That way each AI could only have one frobbable item though.

Edited April 4, 2005 by oDDity

[Springheel]

I think it's probably best to attach the object as a separate model.

[sparhawk]

Well, pickpocketing is a nice part of thievery, and rings/necklaces do tend to be very valuble objects. It would be a shame if the only way you could steal them would be to knock the person out first.

 

Yeah. I always thought this quite lame and inconsisten int T3 (guess this will now count as T3 bashing). The very least it was an immersion breaker for me, because I tended to forget that I can't frob something which has lootglint but I can't take it. So everytime I was reminded of the fact when this happened.

 

I can't see what the big trouble is in coding ...

 

I guess that's why you are the modeler and I am acoder.

 

a surface with a specific skin to use its alpha to dissapear when frobbed.

 

The problem is the way frobbing works. It works only on full entities. I can not test against a part of a model. Consequently when I set the material parameter for the highlight to take place I can also set it only for the full model. In that part of the code I don't know about model details I can only set a single parameter to highlight or not highlight. Now we could create the models in such a way that the material would highlight only part of the model. But then you were limited to a single frob effect per model also, because I can not distuingish which of the objects you are targetting.

[Darkness_Falls]

I hope if we have jewelry that can be taken that we have to highlight and frob the actual object rather than any part of the AI body. I liked in T2 that you had to target the actual purse or keys on the belt of an NCP before you could frob/take it. Adds to the difficulty and tension.

[sparhawk]

Yes. That is the intention. But that is not as easy as it sounds and it doesn't have a big priority right now IMO.

[Darkness_Falls]

I agree that purses and keys, things that would hange on the belt, are the higher priority. I'd be okay without frobbable necklaces, tiaras, bracelets, earrings, pins, etc.

[BlackThief]

oddity can you upload the nobelwoman as a lwo (maybe in some simple pose?) with all texture-maps to the ftp? I'd like to throw it into one of our maps to take a screenshot for the website. your screen is great, but I guess it would be a bit irritating for the 'fans', when they see the standart-d3 textures. I can already hear comments like "You don't even have enough textures for one single scene? OMG!"

[oDDity]

It's on the FTP.

[BlackThief]

thx. however something seems to be wrong with the shader I wrote - the model is always black ingame - can you plze copy your shader into here?

 

 

it does work now, but I'm not sure if my heightmap settings are correct - so it'd still help if you could post the shader

Edited April 5, 2005 by BlackThief

[oDDity]

models/mymodels/nobletop
{

noselfshadow


{    
    
          blend	diffusemap
     map	models/mymodels/nobletop_d.tga
     alphaTest 0.5
}

bumpmap  addnormals(models/mymodels/nobletop_local.tga, heightmap( models/mymodels/nobletop_h.tga, 3 ) )
       
    
	 
specularmap  models/mymodels/nobletop_s.tga
}







models/mymodels/noblebottom

{

noselfshadow

{    blend	diffusemap map	models/mymodels/noblebottom_d.tga alphaTest 0.5
}

bumpmap  addnormals(models/mymodels/noblebottom_local.tga, heightmap( models/mymodels/noblebottom_h.tga, 3 ) )
       
    
	 
specularmap  models/mymodels/noblebottom_s.tga
}

[BlackThief]

ok here's a nice high-res screenshot of the lady

http://www.thedarkmod.de/screens/noble_woman1.jpg

[sparhawk]

She must have seen the Revenant. Nice shot.

[oDDity]

THere's some odd shadowing on ther face in that shot - do to with the light source placement, and the alpha maps aren't working.

[Springheel]

Yeah, she actually doesn't look as good as she did in the other picture.

[BlackThief]

the shadows are gone, when you place a lightsource directly in front of her face, but I noticed a small aesthetic issue: the transition between the face and her neck isn't smooth on the normalmap nothing important though - I guess the average player wouldn't notice that at all.

Edited April 6, 2005 by BlackThief