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Any human female models for Release 1 at all?


Fidcal

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I have a noblewoman in the heart.map and have to decide whether to keep her in for release at or soon after Release 1. I'm assuming there is no way it will be fully ready or any other female character. But will the entity be provided with Release 1? If so, I'm considering at least making a 'sick' noblewoman who is totally neutral and in sleep mode and either somehow disable the voice or decrease her acuities so she never wakes up from her 'fever'. At least then there will be a lady of the house. Gets a bit tiresome trying to make stories with only the male half and not a single female figure. We've had at least three Thieves' hideouts plus three Builder FMs. But for a real mansion style home mission it really needs female nobles and servants to bring it to life.

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Unfortunately female characters won't be included in release TDM 1.0. I thought about rerigging the noblewoman to use the new skeleton, but there are two major hurdles:

 

1. No female vocals. That's kind of a show-stopper right there, though I suppose we could scrounge up a few generic hums and shrieks.

 

2. The current skeleton and animations are designed for males...the noblewoman would wind up with very broad shoulders and walking rather oddly.

 

Putting the character in your pk4 folder is a good plan. Hopefully we'll be able to get some female characters ready shortly after release.

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I'm in the same boat, the main character of my old mill is supposed to be the Millers Widow (plus a servant girl somewhere)...

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Well, it would take me about two or three days tops to convert the noblewoman to the new skeleton, so if getting a set of female vocals is a possibility, and people don't mind the "mannish" animations, then it could be done.

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Well, that might be acceptable. What do others think? I would accept a dumb AI temporarily. After all, not everyone mutters to themselves and they might run off silently. I think players would accept it as beta rather than none at all.

 

We might consider what about external mappers when Release 1 is out. How will they feel about game resources with no females?

 

On the other hand I'm afraid to promote adding anything that isn't broke for Release 1. ;)

 

If the noblewoman were enabled even silently I'd recommend that at least we make one extra skin as it should be real easy to turn the dress red and the hair black for quite a different look.

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I'd suggest making the female character an add-on to TDM 1.0. With the PK4 package updates we're planning, it should be no big deal to deliver the noblewoman along with the female vocal set once we're done.

 

I'd be reluctant to ship a half-assed female model - this is rather immersion breaking at the least.

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This raises the larger question...what standards do we use to decide which AI get released with 1.0? Do we release only characters that have been switched to the new skeleton? The builder priest and elite guard are not likely going to be converted in time, yet we have at least two maps (St. Lucia and Chalice, respectively) that use them. Do we switch those characters for something else to release (doesn't work well for St. Lucia)?

 

All the A-Level characters on this list: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4712 will be ready, and maybe one or two from Level B.

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If they are actually ready, nothing speaks against them being released. As soon as they've been converted to the newer skeleton, we just ship a new AI PK4 which includes their new md5mesh and DEF files and kick the old md5anims out of it.

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OK, this is what I suggest. We don't waste too much time on the noblewoman. I just tested her and she looks and moves reasonably if not ideally. Only when I alerted her and you get the male 'Help I need backup over here!' did it become bizzare. I would be quite happy for her to be included if we can silence her or do a minimal number of shouts for help. We make it clear in the release info that she is beta and will be upgraded.

 

It really makes things difficult to have a mansion and already built noblewoman's bedroom and story then not have a character to put in there. (this might not matter of course, Heart might not be finished in time.) I don't see why everything has to be perfect when we all know it is a beta release.

 

If agreed, how can I disable her voice? This came up recently with another AI I think. Then, if there is time, we add a few shouts for help. If not, then no problem imo. If she is used in maps they won't be broken when she is upgraded.

 

In addition, if agreed, and since it is very easy to do, I'd like to make a second skin just modifying the dress and hair colour.

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If agreed, how can I disable her voice? This came up recently with another AI I think. Then, if there is time, we add a few shouts for help. If not, then no problem imo. If she is used in maps they won't be broken when she is upgraded.

We can create another vocal set def, with all AI sounds pointing to the "nosound" shader.

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We might consider what about external mappers when Release 1 is out. How will they feel about game resources with no females?

Well it's a bare bones release... it's not like they'd never come. I am really getting a kick out of animating, and I have prepared a whole lot of female reference footage I got my female actor friend to act out. I intend to get right into this when it comes up in the list of priorities.

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If they are actually ready, nothing speaks against them being released.

 

Yes, but what do we mean by "ready"? Most of the AI using the old skeleton do not have proper attack animations, for example. Should we release them like that?

 

I would be quite happy for her to be included if we can silence her or do a minimal number of shouts for help. We make it clear in the release info that she is beta and will be upgraded.

 

I don't think there's any problem with you using her, but I'd put her in your pk4 rather than release her in that condition as an official mod asset. Besides having weird proportion issues (possibly the skeleton), there is also a big gap in the mesh around the neck that needs to be fixed.

 

We can at least check with NH if he has any female voice actors ready to go. Not sure if he saw this thread?

 

If we end up with a female vocal set, then I'll happily convert the character to the new skeleton. But I personally think right now our focus should just be the bare necessity vocals.

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Yes, but what do we mean by "ready"? Most of the AI using the old skeleton do not have proper attack animations, for example. Should we release them like that?

Yes, missing combat anims for combattants are a no-go, obviously. The builder priest is supposed to be a non-combattant, isn't he? I can see problems with missing combat anims on the elite guard for sure, but the priest should be ok without them. This should at least fix Saint Lucia. The Chalice would need to be updated and the elite guard replaced with some other AI.

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There was the naked model...I've never actually tried to load it, so I have no idea what state it's in. It would obviously be an older skeleton, however. I think its usefulness is pretty limited.

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There's a pagan woman in a green dress (although she's not wearing any underwear, might stun some puritans). She was in the old ai_arena map and saw her corpse in demagogue's map. We could have a mission where she's our drunken celebrity who goes around not wearing underwear and you must take a deguerrotype of her stepping out of a coach, then sell it to a bunch of tabloids.

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:laugh: Have you been drinking Ishtvan? ;)

 

~~~~~

 

I've started isolating a noblewoman for the Heart map.

 

I've copied the def to a new file and will rename the def noblewoman_temp or bootleg or something. ;)

 

I've copied the folder from the md5 folder. This seems to have all anim files and has image files also but I think I may have to also go check for any material defs.

 

I started making an empty vocal set then I found if I just put def_vocal_set dumb on the entity it disables the voice. What about the propagated sounds? If I completely disable them does that mean she won't signal for help or even go for help? Or if I put them in then will that give her a voice when asking for help?

 

Anything else I might need? I have no way of testing if this is still relying on anything in the darkmod folder that won't be included with Release 1. I think the ragdoll is defined in the model folder?

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What about the propagated sounds? If I completely disable them does that mean she won't signal for help or even go for help? Or if I put them in then will that give her a voice when asking for help?

A muted AI will not propagate anything, but she will emit visual stims to other AI, so bypassers will still check her alert level and will act accordingly.

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