Greetings,

Some time has passed - and old guys like me tend to get nostalgic about the past. So, time to cherish the good old times...

Glass and Paper PS GUI skin
Old papers and polished glass for everyone. A custom skin for PS Steel Blue. No window xml changes, just the art.

Pictures
Screenshot 800x600
Screenshot 1024x768
Screenshot 1680x1050

Download
GP_skin.zip (5.0 MB)

Installation
1. Download "GP_skin.zip" from above
2. Move the zip into your PS/art/skins directory.
3. Run PlaneShift setup program and select GP_skin
4. Launch PlaneShift

Notes
- Untested windows due to lack of in-game resources: group, banking
- Source files available on request (~146MB)
- Please add a screenshot to any bug report posts

Special thanks
To LigH who coded PlaneShift pawsWindow Map Viewer. The software has been of great help.

Thanks for your interest,
 - Cherppow

Hey hey,

I'd like to start a thread that encourages people to try out modeling and maybe even get interested in it. A place where people can ask questions about 3D, share modeling tips and of course post fan-art models. You don't have to be a 3d-guru to be able to create usable and enjoyable models. Everyone can do it! All you need is a little patience, imagination and a bucket of tools. To the start here I've made a small tutorial to those who've never tried creating 3D before, but who are interested in trying it out.



 *****

Lesson 1: Tools
 This is the dull part. Tools are important, however. Every artist has his/her tools. Our tools will be the computer programs. There is a good list of different modeling and painting programs in Guide to 2D/3D Contribution-thread. You can choose the programs which suit you the best. However, for the examples here I'll be using Blender and Gimp; They're free, cross-platform programs that can handle plenty of different tasks.

1.1 Setting up Blender
 Download and install Blender for your operating system. Check installation guide if needed. After installation Blender is ready to run.

1.2 Setting up Gimp
 Download GimpToolKit (GTK+) and Gimp, both available at www.gimp.org. Install the GTK first, then install Gimp.

1.3 Setting up Blender2crystal
 If we are to export our models to PlaneShift, we're going to need an exporter. PlaneShift uses Crystal Space 3D engine, and their preferred Blender exporter is Blender2crystal, so I recommend that one. Blender2crystal requires Python to function correctly, so download and install it. In addition, Windows users should download the XML package for Python. Finally, download and install Blender2cystal. More precise installation instructions for the exporter can be found at Blender2crystal installation page.

*edit*
1.4 Setting up CEL and CS
 The new version of blender2crystal exporter requires Crystal Space (CS) and Crystal Entity Layer (CEL) to function properly. I warmly recommend downloading them using the link on blender2crystal homepage. They provide a pre-compiled version of these software that have been tested with the exporter, so installation is quite easy, and it will save you of a lot of trouble later on, in the exporting phase. The link points to a zip package, currently named "pycelstart-7.8.zip". Download it to a temp directory, and unzip it's contents to a directory where you want your Crystal Space installed. Note that it will create an additional pycelstart7.8\ directory upon unzip. Personally I installed it in c:\program files\. Finally we need to set CRYSTAL and CEL environment variables. These simply hold the path to the corresponding programs. On WinXP open Control panel-System-Advanced-Environment Variables. Add a new system variable, called CRYSTAL, and give it a value "c:\program files\pycelstart7.8\cs" (or where you unpacked the zip). Remember to add the cs\ subdirectory to the end. Then add another environment variable, this time with name CEL and value "c:\program files\pycelstart7.8\cel". Click ok, and you're ready to go. Again check blender2crystal homepage for better instructions.

End of Lesson 1: Tools


 *****


Lesson 2: Getting started with Blender
 Start Blender. Feel free to play around a bit at first, let your curiosity take control. You can return to the starting point at any time using ctrl+x. You'll propably feel a bit disoriented at first (I know I do), the controls feel weird and you don't seem to be able to do much at all. Don't let that depress you, let's start from the the very basics. Press ctrl+x to revert all changes. You should see this:


2.1 Screen composition
Hmm, what is all that?

The screen is divided into three sections.
 - At the top there is Info Window. This window holds the "main menu" in the left and some numerical data about your current scene at the right.
 - In the middle you see the 3D View Window. This serves as your eyes to the current scene. Most of the editing takes place in 3D View. Currently there are three objects; the pink rectangle which is the default cube. It's pink because it's selected. Then there's a lamp, marked by black dot with few circles around it, and finally a camera is peeking from the lower edge. But let's leave them for now.
 - At the bottom you'll find the Buttons Window. There you'll find all possible settings for your currently selected object, its material, animation, lighting and so on.

 Note that all windows have headers and they can actually be changed to any type of window you want. Also be sure to check tooltip if you wonder what something does.

Here are the main items again.


2.2 Headers

Let's take a closer look at the window headers. They're very useful. Here is the 3D View's header:


 - At the left you see the icon showing this windows type, and a drop-menu where the type can be changed. Go ahead and try it. Change the window type to UV/Image Editor, and then back to 3D View. Note how the header changes to represent options available in each window type.

 - Next left you'll see View, Select and Object menus. Go ahead and check what each menu contains.
   - View-menu has different options for current view. We are currently in Top view mode, meaning we are looking directly down. Let's select "Camera" from the View-menu, this moves our view to the camera object. Click it and notice how the view changes. Now go back to Top view by selecting "Top" from the View-menu.
   - From the Select-menu you can edit which objects are selected and which are not. Let's try deselecting everything. Click "Select/Deselect" all from the Select-menu. You'll notice how the pink rectangle disappears to indicate that the default cube was deselected. Now click the "Select/Deselect" again. Notice how all the objects are now selected. If something is selected "Select/Deselect all" will deselect everything, if nothing is selected it will select everything. For now, let's select the cube again. You can do this by right-clicking on it in the 3D View.
   - Object-menu holds commands for modifying the currently selected object. Try selecting "Delete" and click "Erase selected Object(s)" to confirm the deletion. The cube disappears from the view and is deleted. Let's get it back though. Click ctrl+x to get back to the start.

   Note that menus also display the keyboard shortcuts where they're available. You don't have to memorize them now, but they'll become useful later on.



- Next in the header is the Mode drop-menu. We're currently in Object mode, meaning we can select and modify whole objects. Brief description of each mode:

   - "Object Mode" is where whole objects are selected, moved around and deleted.
   - "Edit Mode" is where modeling takes place; there we modify our mesh.
   - "UV Face Select" is where a meshes (sur)face texturing, appearance and functionality is controlled.
   - "Vertex Paint" is where extra colour and static shadows can be painted into meshes vertices.
   - "Texture Paint" is where you can paint and modify the texture image assigned to the selected mesh.   
   - "Weight Paint" is where you apply weight to vertices, used in animation calculation and skeleton-based movement.


- Next is the Viewport Shading selector. With this you can change how the view is drawn. We're currently in solid draw mode.

- Next in the line is Rotation/Scaling pivot selector and "RotateObject centers only"-button.

- Next is the "3D transformation manipulator" controls.

- Third from right are two sets of buttons. These are the layer controls. Much like in a painting program, you can create objects in different layers. You can then hide and show only the layers you're currently working on, or check the overall image by viewing all layers simultaneously. This helps especially when working on large number of models.

- Second item from the right, the lock image, sets the layers and camera to be unique and appear in this scene only.

- The rightmost button renders the window.

 If you right-click on the header, a menu appears. There you can choose where the header appears, or hide it completely. If you hide the header, you can get it back by right-clicking the window border and selecting "Add header". This also reveals another useful option: window splitting. By choosing "Split Area", you can divide any area into two. With middle mouse click you can change the split direction horizontal or vertical. You can also drag the edges to scale the windows to your liking.


2.3 Mouse buttons
 One of the reasons why Blender controls confuse a newcomer is the mouse button setup. Once you get to understand them however, they become very powerful tool. I'd categorize the buttons like this:

Left mouse button:
   Click, Accept action

Middle mouse button:
   Move, Turn, Switch

Right mouse button:
   Select object, Cancel action

In 3D View you move the 3D cursor with left click, you move the view around with middle mouse and select objects with right click. Holding down left or right mouse will pop up a toolbox. We'll explore that later.
 Control and shift are important help buttons here. Combined with mouse button, they give useful extra functionalities. In general:

Shift:
   Slow move, Add to selection
Control:
   Snap to grid move, Add new

 In some situations there's also ctrl+shift-combinations and combinations with alt, but don't worry, you don't have to learn them now.
 To an extent, you can customize the mouse buttons. Try dragging the Info Window border down and select the "View & Controls"-tab. You can choose the settings you prefer. For example I prefer Turntable view rotation over the Trackball one.


2.4 Toolbox



 You can open the toolbox either by holding down left or right mouse button over the 3D View, or by pressing spacebar. This is a collection of menus that will allow you to access most wide variety of tools. Note that some of the options there depend on what you have selected. In Object mode you'll have different tools than in Edit mode. Here are some useful tools:

   - Add-Mesh, Lamp, Camera: Used to create whole new object(s).
   - Edit-Duplicate: Duplicates the currently selected object(s).
   - Select-Inverse: Selects everything not selected.
   - Transform-Grab/Move: The main move function. Moves selected object(s) around.
   - Transform-Rotate: The main rotation function. Rotates selected object(s) around the rotation/scaling pivot.
   - Transform-Scale: The main scaling function. Scales the selected object(s) toward the rotation/scaling pivot.
   - View-Ortho/Perspective: Switches between Orthogonal and Perspective view modes. Both are useful in different situations.
   - Render-Render: Renders the camera view. Main render function.

The other tools have uses too of course, but with just the ones mentioned above you can already do a lot. Also note that most of the tools have keyboard shortcuts marked after them. Now would be a good time to memorize some of these. For example try using the following on your keyboard G=Grab, R=Rotate, S=Scale. I warmly recommend using Blender with one hand on the mouse and other on the keyboard.

For more comprehensive introduction to Blender check out Blender Quickstart.

End of Lesson 2: Getting started with Blender


 *****


Lesson 3: Edit mode
 First clear any mess you've made with ctrl+x. Now it's time to enter Edit mode. Do this now either from the 3D View header Mode selector, or from Toolbox-Edit-Enter Editmode. It is here that you shape your model. Note that the default cube on the 3D View has changed. It's still pink, but it's bordered by yellow lines and yellow dots on the corners. The dots are called Vertices, points in space. By connecting two points you can make a line (edge); by connecting three you can make a plane (face). Those are the basic construction blocks of modeling: Vertices, Edges and Faces.

 Now then, let's have a look at that cube of ours. First I want you to turn on the Perspective view mode. You can do this from the Header View-menu if you've forgotten. Then rotate the view around the cube a bit by holding down the middle mouse button. View is very important in modeling. Correct view can save you a thousand mistakes.

3.1 Selecting vertices

 Now that we know we're really dealing with a cube and not just a pink rectangle, let's start working on it. All the cube's vertices are yellow; they're all selected. Hmm? But pink was selected, was it not? Yes it was, in Object mode. However, in Edit mode the colour convention is a bit different. Here yellow marks selected, while pink marks unselected. Try it out, right click a vertex to select it. This will deselect all the other vertices and leave just the one you clicked, yellow. Go ahead and select few others. Notice how the previous always unselects leaving only the one you click selected. To select multiple vertices, hold down shift key, or Box select with B-key.

 There's this contraption of arrows that seems to follow your selection. It's called "3D transform manipulator". You can read more about it in Blender homepage, but for now, let's turn it off. Do this by clicking the hand icon in the 3D View header.

Here are the main items again:



3.2 Select modes



 Let's look at the 3D View header again. When we entered Edit Mode, a few new buttons appeared there. At the right, there is a set of four buttons. These control the select mode. Until now we've been in "Vertex select" mode, in which we can select and move individual vertices. In addition there is the "Edge select" mode and the "Face select" mode. Go ahead and try the other two modes. Try selecting few Edges and then few Faces. The fourth and final button limits selecting to visible vertices/edges/faces only. Try turning it on now. Notice how the cube becomes solid, and you no longer see the backside of the cube. In this mode you can't accidentally select items that are on the back your object. It's especially useful when working on complex object that overlaps itself many times. You can leave the Limit selection to Visible turned on for now.

 
3.3 Hide
 Sometimes when using grab-command (G-key), you accidentally hit H-key. This hides your current selection, and can cause a lot of confusion. Don't worry though, hide isn't same as delete, and you can reveal hidden items with alt+H. Go ahead and select a part of your cube and press H. Then unhide with alt+H. You can also hide multiple items, they all come back when you unhide. Although not too useful with simple models such as cube, hide can really save your day when you're working eg. inside walls.


3.4 Undo

 Mistakes happen to everyone sooner or later. You can't always start anew with ctrl+x when you make a mistake, so let's check the undo tool. You can change undo tool settings in the "User Preferences"-window, "Edit methods"-tab. Keyboard shortcuts for undo are:

 - ctrl+z, U = undo
 - ctrl+shift+z, shift+U = redo
 - alt+U = undo history

 Go ahead and try undoing your last actions, then redo them again, until no more redo is available.
 
End of Lesson3: Edit mode

I - The Introduction

The Ylian looked up. The crystal was dimming as night drew near. He sat few meters away from the campfire and you. Light danced on his pale face. More travellers gathered around the fire. Time passed as people exchanged gossips. During the evening it came up that they knew almost nothing of their fellow, Cherppow Greywood. And he was asked to tell a bit about himself.

"Well, what do you want to know?" He began.

"I'm a simple man. I was born and raised in the farms of the first level of Yliakum, where the crops grow best. When I had reached my teens, there was a dry season in our area, and we were forced to sell the land, or so I was told. We moved near the city of Hydlaa in hope for a better future, and bought a small smithy from a retiring armorsmith. The old smith was kind enough to help us get started with the new occupation we knew nothing about. Since then I worked there with my family in hope for little extra prosperity. Until of late, that is..."

Cherppow looks to the ground, then closes his eyes. After a moment of silence he lifts his head and continues.

"One day I was asked by my father to go to the level below to buy new smithing supplies for him. I was honoured by the task, and left first thing next morning. My trip was long and quite uneventful, another story perhaps... It was when I returned a week later with the smithing supplies, when things began to go wrong. I found our smithy door open, and all the equipment gone. Then strange people answered at my home door! I tried asking everyone where my family had gone, but people either ignored me or said they didn't know what I was talking about. I was left on the streets. For a few days I lived in the smithy, selling the equipment I went a long way to get, for food and trying to understand what had happened. But then government officials came with armed guards saying that the building was about to be demolished. I left, and have been travelling around ever since."

"Hmm, there was one thing I found in the smithy. The last night I spent in there, I felt a bump under my matress. It turned out to be a loose board. Hidden beneath the floor where the workbench used to be, was this..."


Cherppow opens his backpack and lifts out an old helmet.

"I know a bit about armour, and I can say that this is just too cumbersome to be used efficiently, even for the Kran. Maybe it's some sort of decoration." He thinks aloud...


II - The Road to Maygim

They approached him along the road. His parents. They hadn't changed a bit. He was welcomed with open arms and warm smile. But there was someone else too. A younger man was walking beside his parents. The man felt like a brother to him, but his face was that of a strangers. He remembered that he had no brothers. Then the vision changed... He was alone, standing at a forest clearing. A path ran through the area. He tried to walk, but his legs wouldn't move. He looked around, and spotted three wild roses growing on the side of the path. Suddenly an arm grabbed his shoulder and he felt pain in his back.

"Wake up you!" A familiar voice calls.

"Uh, what? Is it morning already?" The ylian replies, rubbing his eyes.

"No, it's almost mid-day, and we have to get moving if we're planning on reaching Maygim before tomorrow. Unless you prefer spending another night on that comfy bedroll of yours." Dermorian girl teases, and returns packing her much more comfortable equipment.

Cherppow fights himself up, holding his back. "No, I guess I don't. Besides, I'm never going to find out what happened to my family by sleeping the days off." He explains to himself.

The group pack their carriage and travel east. They were a band of five strange companions who had been brought together by destiny. Or coincidence. Cherppow had tagged along after the mystic disappearance of his family, about six months ago. Back then the group consisted only of Aaron, an old Xacha, and a young dermorian couple D'Innias and Maliony. Their newest member, an enkidukai soldier by the name of Hrast, joined them just few days ago. They all had their reasons to be on the run, and most of them weren't too eager to talk about them. The old xacha was an exception, and he was often heard telling stories of his younger years. Apparently Aaron was the one of them who was traveling willingly.

Hours pass and landscape changes from hilly plains to lush forests that surround their destination, the city of Maygim. To pass the time Aaron began yet another a story of his earlier adventures...

"It happened when I was about your age, Cherppow" The xacha notes, and nods towards the 26 year old ylian.

"Why of course it did..." Cherppow mutters.

"It really did. And stop interrupting me. Show some respect to the elderly." Aaron coughs.

"I'm sorry, please go on." Cherppow surrendered, not wishing to start a debate with the stubborn old man.

"So, where was I... Ah, yes, I was in my twenties, exploring the sixth level of Yliakum. One day I was walking down the shore of the Great Yliakum Sea, and I heard this peculiar bubbling sound from the water. At first I thought it was a large flock of fish that had swam too close to the shore. But all of a sudden the bubbling stopped completely. I walked closer to the spot, and listened carefully for a few minutes, but heard nothing. At that point I figured that whatever it had been, it was long gone now. I had just turned to leave, when there was a great explosion. Water and fish alike was flying everywhere!" Aaron waves his arms around, trying to express the size of the explosion. His effort ultimately fails and he and ends up looking like he'd been stung by a dozen of Ganara bees.

"The huge splash sent me flying in the air! I landed a couple of meters farther, in the middle of dense shore foliage, disoriented and missing my viewing glasses. I tried to feel around for my goggles, but then I saw it! A horrid monster was rising from beneath the surface, right next to the shore! I quickly dropped down and hid among the plants. Even I wouldn't have been a match for such a beast without my glasses! The monstrosity started walking towards me. The footsteps got closer and closer, and I could hear how it vomited filth and seawater from it's maw! Who knows what manner of carcasses it had just devoured! I held my breath as it trekked but a few meters away from my hideout, but I could still smell it's wet scaly stink. I was certain it was the end of me, but luckily the steps began to grow more distant. My skillful use of stealth had saved me!" Aaron rejoices.


III - Dala

Aaron, an old xacha, continues his story...

"As the abomination escaped to the woods, I was able to search for my goggles. Just as I saw a glimmer on the sand, a woman's scream echoed from beyond the trees. The monster had obviously found an innocent girl to pray on! I couldn't ignore the poor womans cry for help; I grabbed my glasses from the sand and ran towards the sound. Maybe I could create enough distraction to allow the girl to escape, I thought. I charged forward and began making these great roaring noices! ARRRr-rrr!" Aaron duplicates the hideous growls.

"I reached the scene. To my surprise, I was met by a group of club wielding thugs, who had already cornered the monster against a tree. The thugs were surprised too, after my fearsome entry, but they didn't seem to be planning on fleeing. Still judging the situation, I played cool by simply asking if they had heard a woman scream nearby. 'Well, well, he's looking for the girl. But the fish-face is ours now!' The thugs grinned and pointed towards the cornered sea monster. It was then when I saw the creatures true figure... It was no monster at all, but a true mermaid!" Aaron continues his tale.

"So, the 'monster' was actually a girl from a race called nolthrir, though back then I wasn't aware such race even existed! Her face was green with red hue on the cheeks. Most of her body was coloured as light green with cyan freckles. She wore a primitive looking seaweed clothing, some of which the brutes had obviously ripped off. The girl was holding her dress together with her sleek arms and webbed fingers. Curving down her shoulders, long bright blue hair that made almost stunning contrast against her skin tone. And her eyes! They could have been emeralds, I tell you, so bright... Ah, I'll never forget that sight." The old man awakens from his daydreams.

"Some monster you got there." Maliony smiles.

"Yeah, yeah! But there I was, with this beautiful girl, surrounded by at least half a dozen big thugs." The old xacha goes on.

"The nolthrir was begging for them to let her go, but I knew saying please wouldn't work on these guys, so I had to think fast. I took out my pouch of marbles and led the thugs believe I was a pearl diver from the beach, and that the pouch was well worth one thousand trias. I proposed a trade; the girl for the pearls. At first the roughnecks seemed to buy the trick and began counting how much each of them would profit. That was until one of them figured out that nothing prevents them from taking both the prizes. As the thugs closed in to snatch the imaginary treasure, I quickly loosened the pouch lines and threw the marbles in a shiny spread all over the woods! While the brutes went into disarray, each trying to get the most valuables, I motioned to the nolthrir to start running. But alas, the girl didn't budge. In a matter of fact she seemed to be fainting! RUN! I shouted, but only managed to get the thugs' attention, who now saw that they'd been tricked. Just when I was about to curse women and their low blood sugar, the girl regained consciousness. She lifted her arms and her fingers left faint trails of light in the air! Then she let her arms drop down. I stood amazed as one after another, the burly men around us fell to the ground, unconscious! Conversation followed..."

"What... Who... what are you?" I searched for words.

"My name is Dala and I'm an apprentice mage from nolthrir high arcanery. I came here to get reagents for our research, but these men attacked me without warning." The girl looked sad at first, but became happier. "Don't worry about them now, I used magic to drain their stamina, they'll be sleeping for the next three hours!" The young mage explained.

"Magic?!" I replied with disbelief. I had heard stories of such magics, but never before had I believed in its existence.

"Yes! It took me a while to cast the spell on multiple targets, thus the delay. Thanks for providing distraction in the meanwhile, bead-boy!" Dala played.

"The name's Aaron and, umm... your dress is falling." I countered.

"Don't look you perv! Or I'll cast drain sight on you!" She overreacted. But I wasn't going to take the chance, and turned around while she adjusted her clothing. Suddenly I felt her arms around my neck! I was just about to blush when a cold scallop touched my chest.

"Take this as a token of my gratitude. It will identify you as a friend among the nolthrir." She said, and locked the necklace around my neck.

"You don't have to..." I started, but got interrupted.

"I know I don't. But I want you to have it. Not everyone would have risked his life to help me; some of you dry-walkers see us nolthrir as monsters, just because we live underwater." Dala insisted.

"Thank you." I gulped, more than a little embarrassed.

"You're a good man Aaron. But I have to go back home now. I'm already late and my husband must be getting worried." She explained.

"I... better get going too. See you later?" I tried to sound confident.

"Perhaps." She smiled and walked to the waves.

I stayed for a while. "So, she's married." I persuaded myself to leave.

"I've never been to sixth level since." Aaron ends.

Happy Valentine\'s Day everyone! <3

*hugs* and *handshakes* Be good.

Greetings everyone!

I\'ve been pretty silent lately. One reason for this is the strange piece of fanart, located here:

http://www.hut.fi/~vrantapu/PlaneShift/Diamondbag/index.html

Diamondbag - a simple browser game inspired by PlaneShift Molecular Blue. It requires JavaScript support and at least 1024*768 resolution. I\'ve tested it with IE and FireFox, and they should work ok. In FireFox you may want to turn on \'slow game speed\', though.

Now that this \'project\' is done, I\'ll have more time to spend on my graphical user interface modification...

Ps. I miss my tester!

Thanks,
 - Cherppow

Greetings,

i agree that this isn\'t exactly PS problem, but if you could help i would be grateful.

For quite some time i\'ve been trying to get the Crystal Space viewmesh tool working to test some of my models. So far i\'ve done what this guide explains:

http://www.cs.lth.se/EDA045/assignments/csdocs/html/cs_25.html

I have the latest stable release of Crystal Space compiled with latest MinGW. The problem is that certain executables give the following error:

---

  LoadLibraryEx(c:\\Games\\Planeshift_CS\\CS\\glwin32.dll) error 0: The operation completed successfully.

Failed to load canvas plugin!

---

...viewmesh.exe is one of these executables.
In addition viewmesh performs an illegal operation:

VIEWMESH caused an invalid page fault in
module GL3D.DLL at 0167:62106b57.

Registers:
EAX=62177bcc CS=0167 EIP=62106b57 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=00000004 SS=016f ESP=007cfc04 EBP=008f7610
ECX=008f7610 DS=016f ESI=00904a30 FS=5e47
EDX=00000000 ES=016f EDI=00000007 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0a 52 ff 51 18 83 c4 10 84 c0 75 34 51 68 40
Stack dump:
00000400 00000035 009136d4 00000040 78001469 00000035 0000001c 007cff68 7800e492 78032230

---

The strange thing to me is that the canvas plugin test program g2dtest.exe runs through without problems.  Planeshift runs well too (i downloaded the executable though). I\'m pretty much running out of ideas. Has anyone else had similar problems or does someone know a cure? Should i try the CVS version of CS instead of the stable one?

My system is Win 98 SE with GeForce FX 5200 display adapter. I\'ve updated the NVidia diplay drivers, and they support OpenGL 1.5.

Thanks.

Hi everyone.

Looks like my first post went to a thread that isn\'t used anymore, so i decided to start a whole new one.

Today i tried to create something for people who prefer hanging out with friends and having a good time to full-time adventuring. The result follows...



Picture key:
Bottom middle - shows each article in their original size
Left - an example how the objects could be used together (Cherppows training board)
Right - oversized darts that give better view of the mesh
Top - 4 grand boards on the wall, each showing a different texture configuration
Middle - within the yellow borders is a low-polygon version of the dart. Within orange borders you see trimmed version of the low poly dart (made later).

Darts. Any well equipped tavern or guild house offers its inhabitants some activities. A simple dart game could be one of such.

You can play it against your own score, or take a match against your friends. In a 2-player (or more) game, one participant acts as a referee, while the other throws the darts to the board. After throwing, the players together check the score, and the thrower finally collects his darts back. The throwing turn then passes on to next player. Game modes are numerous, but in a simple game each player just tries to reach as high score as possible (with a limited number of darts).
More experienced players may want to throw from a greater distance, or change the rules otherwise. This is ok, as long as each player agrees the rules.

Other modes could include:
- each player has a certain colour that must be hit. Wrong colours count as zero.
- the players are trying to reach a certain number, e.g. 15 with 5 darts.
- teamplay. The team that reaches 100 points first, wins. Individual player scores are added within a team.
- reverse game. You try to get as low score as possible with 5 darts. Off-board shots count as bullseye.

The throwing of the darts could be real time, just like any projectile weapons in the game. The aiming takes time and experience to succeed. Also one must remember to aim at the board, not at the opponent. He/she might not get too happy...

Some hardcore players could even play for a prize e.g. a diamond crystal or 100 trias. Who knows, maybe some guilds will challenge each other in darts, or somebody will start a darts ladder championship.

Now you must be getting bored already.

Finally some technical data. The dart board uses 256*256 tga texture. The dart has 64*64 tga. Dart colours can be easily changed from the texture to help in determining which dart is whose. I also made 3 different textures for the board, but now when i look at them, both the green and blue-red seem a bit too modern for PS surroundings.

I was feeling innovative and added fourth board texture, this one looks strange with its 3 bullseyes. Might be fun to try it out. I also changed the new boards color from blue to brown, since it first looked like an alien frisbee.

As requested, i added a fifth dart board texture. It looks pretty much like the real world one. Much better than the red-blue, that i tossed to the floor. Thanks to Keknehv for the inspiration!

The low poly dart looked a little rough, so i decided to trim it a bit. The new low poly dart uses texture of same size as the original one, but more efficiently, so the edge looks smoother.  All the \'wings\' of the dart now use same area of the texture (and look the same), which allowed me to use all the height of the texture to the single wing. The 4-wing model also got reduced to 3-wing model, which looks nearly the same, but has one face and one vertex less. Results can be seen in the orange box.

Dart board has 20 vertices and 36 faces (triangle).
Dart has 10 vertices and 13 faces.
Low polygon dart has 6 vertices and 4 faces. It uses 128*32 tga texture.
Trimmed low poly dart has 5 vertices and 3 faces. Its texture is 128*32 tga, just like the original low poly dart.