JasonOtto.net

I’ve finished a set of new AI meshes for Thief 2: The Metal Age.  The new meshes separate the torso and head into one texture map while the limbs and weapons get another.  In the cases of AI with long coats and robes a third map is used for that portion.

The goal was to create new AI meshes that aren’t not significantly higher in polygons than the originals and to improve the texture quality.

These are basically the originals with a few corrections to the model, the shoulders were generally wrong.  The separate textures are not much different in scale than the originals, but the separation allows the legs and arms to be fully unrolled instead of folded up.  The textures now wrap around the arms fully.  The unrolled leg allows details on the front of the legs only, like boot laces.  The feet were shrunk, being too large in the original.

The packs contain the .3ds files and .an8 files for the files.  If you are an anim8or user you can use these models as the basis of more models.  Check Them Out

I started working on some new AI meshes.  There are a few rules to this project.  First, they can’t have more polygons that the original meshes so they have the correct look.  Second, the textures need to be symmetrical, the originals were very asymmetric.  Third, the arms and legs needed to be remapped  so textures wrap around them fully.

Starting with the mesh swgard01.bin I split the arms, legs and sword off into a separate texture map, and remapped the limbs so the texture wraps them completely without the folding and extra seams of the original.  The arms and legs have slightly larger textures, the entire sword has a much larger texture.

Next the body was remapped to remove the asymmetries in the texture.  The head was remapped to do the same, and separated from the body by a small gap.  The helmet was remapped as well and separated from the body.

The mesh swgard02.bin has a long coat, but the lower half was very compressed in the original.  Using the completed swgard01.bin as a starting point I split the lower half into a new mesh, remapped it, and gave it a texture of its own at the same scale as the top half of the torso.

The police01.bin file replaces cop01.bin, and is simply swgard01.bin with the helmet reshaped.  The Hammerite soldier hamsol01.bin used the torso and limb maps from swgard01.bin, a remapped head and hammer.

The textures are all interchangeable.  Originally the mesh swgard02.bin had a shortened chest to accommodate the long coat, the result was poor looking, its identical to swgard01.bin now.  Hamsol01.bin had its face in a different location than swgard01.bin, they now match.

I don’t intend to replace every mesh, or even class of meshes.  I’m replacing the meshes that are very commonly used, and ones that I intend to most likely use in my next mission.