demagogue on 3/9/2010 at 17:16

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That analogy doesn't really work. If you really want to use that analogy, then we aren't talking about GnR's music, we're talking about the music journalists making their own albums and using GnR samples in them, then complaining about the sound of those samples in their own music. Your starting point is that the journalists have *already* made their own piece of music; that's what "Fan Missions" are.

Now if people were using Guns 'n' Roses samples in their own music, then yes, I think it's a perfectly valid response to say to them that it's counterproductive to just complain about how shitty the GnR samples are you're using in your own music. It's ultimately *your* music that you're making, so you should have the last say about what's quality, not complaining to Axel that his voice doesn't sound good enough for your song.

If the mapper really hates some asset so much -- and there are plenty out there that need work and we always need more; nobody is denying that -- then they should consider making their own. That's an issue every mapper has to contend with when they are working with a finite toolset... They can't create their own maps without it, but it comes with costs... The more you want each individual asset to accord with your own high standards, the more time you have to spend making your own assets and not mapping. Then there's a cost-benefit ratio for every asset. Do you want to spend 10 hours re-making this one brick to look a little better for the 5 seconds a player will run by it and hardly notice (or insist someone else do it for you)? If it looks a lot better then, yes, maybe you do... But if you did that for every asset, you'd spend 6 years of work before you could even start making your first room, which would suck for the people making maps and the people who want to play them. It's just the reality of how games are made in the real world that everybody has to deal with.

Now if you want to critique just as a fan that's playing the game, not as a mapper, then I do think it's fair to comment on the decisions a mapper made in using this or that asset vs. not making their own, but then I think you really should have these kinds of issues in mind that the mappers & TDM-team have to deal with if your comments are going to have any credibility.

d'Spair on 3/9/2010 at 21:40

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Yes, this one looks really good.



Okay. Let's do it this way. If you want to hear opinios on your mod, before you ask for them, make note that you are only accepting opinions from those who contributed something to it. If a person didn't help the Dark Mod team, he has no rights to speak. Fine?

The Dark Mod is a great effort. For a fan-made mod, I'd say it's an exceptional effort. But that doesn't mean everybody around must think that it's perfect by any standards.

Springheel on 4/9/2010 at 12:15

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I'm a developer, and I don't think d'Spair was being disrespectful. His point:



is essentially valid. Some of our textures are excellent and some are boring and flat. My only objection is to the generalization that "environments overall" look boring and flat. Some might, depending on the textures used, but many of them look fantastic.

d'Spair on 4/9/2010 at 18:14

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In my case, I can't fix it since I'm not a texture artist.

Serpentine on 6/9/2010 at 15:03

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To be fair, texture work is incredibly simple - most of your complaint stems from a fairly simple source.

Normal mapping - which is what gives a flat texture it's lighting, by representing which angles that part of the texture would be illuminated. A lot of people use tools like CrazyBump or incorrectly use tools like the nvidia normal map plugin to make their normals, which in turn makes textures look silly and most often 'too flat' or have large macro 'bumps' etc.

If I had to guess the bricks in the shot you posted ((http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/fidcal4.jpg) here) were just made by throwing the diffuse into CrazyBump and sliding around a few numbers. This is actually exactly what happens in AAA titles with massive budgets etc, when they dont make a model to base a texture off, most of the time it just goes through CrazyBump which isnt exactly good at anything. Other practices which are even worse and commonly used by big developers are far worse.

So what makes good textures? well it comes from knowing the tools. Most of the time the workflow will involve making a rough height map, adding details into that (even using crap tools just to 'get' the details), however there is really no skill to it, a basic understanding of maths and the ability to copy paste gets most things done :). This however takes a fair bit of time compared to dragging a few sliders around, but at the end of the day it results in the light reacting correctly and matching your expectations.

The good thing about this is that we already have loads of great diffuse maps to give the colour, shape and such, most of them just need reworking to balance colour/lightness as well as a new and improved normal map. Good thing that both of these tasks are incredibly relaxing and therapeutic, if anyone has some time to burn and wants to learn a bit about texture work, I'm sure we can sort something out :)

We do appreciate the feedback however, knowing which textures are weak does help improve to spend time better and increase the average quality!