arkhamsoft.com

[allicorn]

Excellent! You can actually see the ceiling in some of the shots from the first link, which is really helpful.

I like the heavy looking doors with the little rhombus shaped ports in them.

Alli

[Reverend Speed]

Aw. Dude. Excellent links. Allicorn's right, the first link is just wonderful. It's actually far more in concert with the standard mood we expect from the interiors of these buildings - you get inside Danvers and it's kind've like... okay, the surfaces are peeling but... actually... this could be quite nice. Lots've light, etc...

The doors are bloody creepy. Anybody here mind if we use those instead of the standard Danvers doors?

All the best,

--RoB

[Quinjet]

No I agree about the doors, blinkin creepy.
So do you think that this was art deco doors for asylums?
Also it looks as if the ceilings are way high, is this a problem with what youv'e done so far?
It also gives a good shot of a bay window or was that on another set.
I was also rather taken with the deep red corridor, in fact it's filled with cool stuff.
Gotta stop gushing so,
Later.
Q.
_________________
All alone or on a cracker

[allicorn]

I'd be very happy to see those doors in our map. There's something uniquely odd about those little lozenge-shaped windows/vents/whatever-they-are. Odd is good

Alli

[Reverend Speed]

It'd be really unsettling to have somebody check in on you through one of those windows. It's not even a porthole, it's just willfully weird...

--RoB

[allicorn]

Ohohoho... you're gonna love this one

So I'm starting to feel tolerably comfortable with XSI, I want to model some period furniture. But where to find reference material?

Ideally, itd be a list of various furniture items, with detailed descriptions, accurate dimensions, and a bunch of clean, unobstructed hi-res photos of them taken from many angles, giving a nice overview and some shots of detail.

Answer... eBay

Look in the category for Antiques -> Furniture -> Period

Here's an example of a detailed item page here .

And here's my model: ModelViewer: Oak Table

Alli

[Quinjet]

Nice job on the table,
A good refectory design. Is this kind of model able to use the HL physics?
Ebay is also a nice source for period clothing. I have played around dressing models with the clothes but usually found that rez is too low, it’s ok for getting an idea about textures though.
Q.
_________________
All alone or on a cracker

[allicorn]

The table is fairly huge, so I left it at prop_static for the moment. I have some freestanding kitchen shelves which I've done as prop_physics though, they seem to work fine.

The tutorials I've seen show the entire model simply being re-exported for use as the physics boundary hull, but I rather suspect it'd be a better idea - for performances sakes - to make a simplified bounding-box style model to use for that.

Alli

[Reverend Speed]

That's so... goddamn... cool. Using eBay as a point of reference was inspired!

I really appreciate the work that went into the table - researching the right period, keeping it detailed but also low-poly... all fantastic stuff. Most importantly, I'm very pleased with your choice of item to model - something we can use in two places, it's subtle and yet will add character to any room you put it in. Good call.

As far as making it a prop_dynamic... nahh, keep it static. There's a limit on the number of dynamic objects in HL2 and they also don't help smooth netplay (though they can be a lotta fun...! Gotta love HL2DM - rolling a car on top of someone is a rare delight).

According to the mod idea we have at the moment, I don't think we'll see too many players wanting to bar doors physically - they're far more likely to tell the Keeper what they've done.

Allicorn, is there any chance you'd post the tutorials you found most useful on the External Links forum? I could do with learning my way around XSI.

Hmm. Final note - for the near future it might be better for us to model smaller objects than that table - currently we're still working out the overall layout. Things like radios, dumbwaiters or even...

Ah'd do it meself, guv'nor, but when it comes t'mod'lin', Ah'm as dumb as pigshit. =)

Right - should be able to post something later on today...

Again, nice work!

--RoB

[Reverend Speed]

This is wonderful if you're researching, say, stables (and much, much more...!). =)

All the best,

--RoB
_________________
"I do not know why it is doing that... but that is what it is doing" - Arthur Dent

[Quinjet]

Well, I had almost forgotten this area of the forum!
Found this in todays paper. It is the other news items are so worthy of being CoC related events that makes it so brilliant.
Enjoy!




I hope you can view it ok, I can post the scan if you want a better look.
Q
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All alone or on a cracker

[allicorn]

Good one
_________________
The king, with beak and talons. The king, in the form of man. Nothing escapes those eyes. He sees everything.

[darthkiwi]

Ooh - should be useful for getting that ol' authentic 20s look. Newspapers being the chief news outlet, I guess.

[allicorn]

Period magazine covers? Period ads? Period wacky-sciencey-futurism?

Popular Science opened their entire archive going back 137 years:

http://www.popsci.com/announcements/article/2010-03/new-browse-137-years-popsci-archive-free

Neato

Alli
_________________
The king, with beak and talons. The king, in the form of man. Nothing escapes those eyes. He sees everything.

[Quinjet]

I was really looking forward to seeing what was in here but I found the search facility to be quite poor and couldn't get to anything much at all really.
Shame, as I'm always up for a good research.

Q.
_________________
All alone or on a cracker