I'm thinking about some paintings and family portrait photo's - not very modelling intensive, but might demand some texture skills, depending on the style of the frames. Hmm, still, residential is quite a broad subject, as there are so many styles contained within. Shall we leave that open, or pick a specific style?

EDIT: Heh, yeah, super place to be right now. :smile: How's going there?

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

I say we can leave it open. I don't know what others think.

The paintings are a good idea, definitely lots of need for those to spice up walls etc. The stock ones are boring :sad: Any idea on the type you're going to choose? And what's the copyright laws on changing paintings into textures for ingame models?

Off Topic: <<As for China, I'm liking it, but having been here for 6 weeks and looking at 2 more, I'm definitely looking forward to home and familiar food, familiar places etc. Not to say I'm not enjoying here and now, but I can see the value of familiarity after being exposed to the strange, the new, and the surprising pretty much daily. If you want to see some photos they are kicking around the thread I started before I left. Thanks for the interest :smile: >>

CaptP said:
How about saying beforehand what thing you're going to model, so we can spread the objects evenly? I mean, 10 light bulbs and one chair isn't really what we're shooting for... and it allows starters to pick easier models while more experienced modellers can take on the more demanding objects?

I think this is an important point and bears repeating.

AtM said:
And what's the copyright laws on changing paintings into textures for ingame models?

I believe that would fall under "Fair Use" in this context, but it would be worth looking into to avoid anyone getting sued for copyright infringement. Also, paintings over 100 years old (i.e. Leonardo, van Gogh, are generally in public domain, but it would still be wise to check before finalizing your project (or spending a lot of time or effort, for that matter).

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o

i don't think it would be a case of 10 lightbulbs. you could narrow the criteria even further, to something like industrial light fittings, or lights you'd find in a nightclub, or sci-fi lights or whatever, and the submissions would still have the variety of 10 different artists. for instance, this is a model that i made last night as a reminder of how it all works, and i doubt that anyone else would have come up with the same thing.



http://www.quantum-physics.co.uk/images/3spot.jpg

http://www.quantum-physics.co.uk/images/3spot.jpg

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i eat paint

It's not so much the problem that we create identical items, but the limited usefullness of the resulting prop package. I've never seen a map that was about different light fixtures so far (though, it could be a fun idea? :smile: ). I think broad packages, containing a variety of objects, are of most use to mappers.

And no, I was definitely not thinking in that direction for light fixtures. More like a spotlight, or desk light. Nice thingie. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

the thing about broad packages is that very few of them have any deapth. hl2 has a broader range than anything i'd expect from the snarkpit, but some of the model types have very little variety. light fittings are a classic example of this, which is why i keep going on about them, and even a handful of new ones would be well received.

i wouldn't expect anyone to create a map based on light fittings though :razz: , but if each mapper that downloaded such a pack found even one light that suited his purposes, then it would be a success.

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i eat paint

I'd like to do that big, futuristic city project but I find
it to be almost impossible to do without some custom models. I just
don't have the time to learn the modeling programs, to create all the
custom textures for the models ect. ect.

If youre still interested you can have all my custom content from
cloudcity... However i havent made any custom models, only reskinned
ones.

http://www.snarkpit.net/forums.php?forum=2&topic=6209&135

If youre still interested you can have all my custom content from
cloudcity... However i havent made any custom models, only reskinned
ones.

http://www.snarkpit.net/forums.php?forum=2&topic=6209&135

Thanks, MisterBister. I'm having this very special idea of what it should look like (which is probably my problem) so I'm afraid this would mean a lot of very custom model work :/

Seeing your cloudcity project was surely a motivation for starting my own "futuristic city" map. Maybe I can ask for your texturing expertise when I run into problems. This is all rather new for me in the Source engine.

How did you re-skin the models? Do you have to re-save the whole model file or can you just apply new textures to existing ones with a script or something?

Seeing your cloudcity project was surely a motivation for starting my own "futuristic city" map. Maybe I can ask for your texturing expertise when I run into problems. This is all rather new for me in the Source engine.

Sure, I will help you if you have any issues.

How did you re-skin the models? Do you have to re-save the whole model file or can you just apply new textures to existing ones with a script or something?

Well... Re-skinning a model sounds easy, bit it sure isn't.
I had to de-compile the model, change the QC-file (in which all data about the prop is written as well as where the textures are) and then compile it again.

It's supposed to be a quite simple process, but it feels like Valve forgot about the modelling part when they where fixing issues. It took med about 6 hours to find out how to do the whole operation properly.

Tomorrow is the first of the month, and I want to get a thread up in General Banter about the Custom Content Challenge with the guidelines and due date, as well as a front page news post. So, we need to decide on what we want. A residential model pack, or a light fixture model pack. Captain P wants the residential one, fishy wants the light fixture one, and I'm undecided.

If you plan on joining in or just have an opinion, please let me know (either here or via PM). If I don't hear from anyone I'll just have to make an executive decision before August 2nd.

I would have given more warning but I was on a weekend trip. :smile:

Oooh... residential model pack, you say? Sounds very interesting to me, I want! :smile:

I haven't read this whole thread, but it sounds like a contest is being held for people to create their own models and use them in HL2? I know 3dsmax almost inside and out (although modeling is probably my weakest point), but I was glancing at the Valve page on "how to get custom models into HL2" and it really looked like a pain.

I might give it a try if a contest was held though.

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-- midkay

Yeah, we want to pick a simple theme for people to create custom content that, if we get enough good entries, will be put together and distributed, and hopefully used.

The hope is to do something simple so people new to modelling will get to learn the ropes (or at least get started learning the ropes :smile: ) and hopefully get their work out there and used. Also, I hope it will encourage those who already know how to model to spend an hour making something a little more advanced, but still within the limits of the challenge's theme.

It's not really a contest in there wont be any voting for a winner at the end, and its more like an intra-snarkpit challenge for fun, and hopefully for a finished model pack that people can download and use.

So... 2 votes for a domestic themed pack (broad theme)

1 vote for light fixture themed pack (more specific)

I was glancing at the Valve page on how to get custom models into HL2 and it really looked like a pain.

It's actually quite easy once you learn how to do it..

It takes me about 1-2 minutes to get models ingame :razz:

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Insurgency

Morph-

Ah, I see.. I'd try and participate either way, I don't care which category. Sounds fun. :smile:

Nooba-

Cool, maybe I'll give it a shot then. :smile:

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-- midkay

Alright, I'm making a thread and a newpost about this right now. Everyone better participate!