So, what are you working on right now?

[Petike the Taffer 441]

This is the interior of the lighthouse and its cross-section, to give you a better idea.

Naturally, nothing is really furnished yet, the only furniture being a few chairs I use to tell the tower floors apart !

It's going to be an intentionally spatially tight, perhaps even somewhat claustrophobic mission. As with most tall lighthouses, the interior space inside the tower itself is fairly limited. This will pose a pretty big challenge for the player as they ascend and descend the structure. There is only a single set of fairly narrow steps inside the tower itself, this long staircase being too narrow for two people to pass each other by. While there won't be that many AI patrolling the stairs, players will have to beware of running into them.

Obviously, the stairs, along with the internal corners and room corners in the two large floors at the base of the lighthouse, have been really good places for visportals. I think I still need to tinker with the VPs a bit, but they've been working fine while I explored the whole structure, top to bottom, bottom to top. Trust me, this is one lighthouse that will take you a while to ascend or descend, even if you run with your character in this currently-empty mission. (Good virtual firefighter training, LOL.)

Edited November 25 by Petike the Taffer

[Petike the Taffer 441]

Gah, the other Pete was faster than me. Also, "bottom of the page syndrome"... Anyway, I hope you like the two WIP images.

As I said, there will be some ground floor exteriors, but I intend to keep the player inside the building for most of the FM, until its finale.

The final phase of the mission will give you a bit of a wider idea about the surroundings, just to spice things up a bit and test some basic exterior-making skills for me, but other than that, I don't intend to try that many exteriors this early into FM-making. My later missions will have more of that.

Happy St. Catherine's Day to all ! Here's hoping for a snowy, white Christmas !

 

Edited November 25 by Petike the Taffer

[Goldwell 2287]

1 hour ago, Petike the Taffer said:

My first time contributing to this thread with some WIP of my own, instead of just "wow, good work, guys", platitudes.

Be gentle, I am still new to FM making, beyond the basics.

This is the WIP exterior lighthouse for my first ever FM, which will be mostly set within this building. The textures are largelly placeholder for ease of building, I'll finalise their selection later. For the most part, I am satisfied with the structure itself.

The priorities for the WIP exterior and basic structure went thus:

1. Make sure everything is interconnected well, without bizarre collission, and is airtight.

2. I built the tower floors first, optimalised them to use less brush pieces than the ones I started out with several months back.

3. To test the airtightness, I at first isolated the floors, then tested the first finished staircase (with added visportals and everything), then gradually copied the floor, made a careful connection, then did some testing. The top of the lighthouse (top room and outside exterior walkway around the room, with skybox) and the ground floor and second floors were connected and tested as the last.

4. The skybox is the latest addition, and it will be available in the ground floor exteriors too, but I am first testing it at the top of the tower. I still need to test the skybox a few times, but I think it'll work. Criticism welcomed.

That's great that you're getting a start into map making. As for criticism, I feel it's a bit too early to start offering critiques yet (imo). But i'll just offer up the same advice I was told when I first started "keep it small". It annoyed me hearing that a lot from the old TDM veterans, but in retrospect with experience it's damn true.

 

If you keep the scope smaller and simple for your first run, you'll have a blast and can get creative with what you want to do next.

 

I look forward to seeing more screenshots as you progress throughout your level

[Goldwell 2287]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

Testing cellar HP pieces before baking. The original source photos had these clean-cut stone blocks, but I thought I might go for something more organic and raw. Hopefully that translates well to the low poly version.

Damn! That mesh work is looking amazing!

[Jedi_Wannabe 85]

All are awesome WIPs! Can't wait for this lighthouse, been craving another good lighthouse level. Been tossing that idea around for sometime but couldn't work it into my story so maybe a side mission. That street looks sexy! Can't wait to hear what kind of sounds that thick air is filled with. And those arches! Probably heard me say it 5 times by now, can't wait to use those builder assets for my church in my third FM

[Petike the Taffer 441]

2 hours ago, Goldwell said:

That's great that you're getting a start into map making. As for criticism, I feel it's a bit too early to start offering critiques yet (imo). But i'll just offer up the same advice I was told when I first started "keep it small". It annoyed me hearing that a lot from the old TDM veterans, but in retrospect with experience it's damn true.

If you keep the scope smaller and simple for your first run, you'll have a blast and can get creative with what you want to do next.

I look forward to seeing more screenshots as you progress throughout your level

Thank you. Those are precisely the reasons why almost my entire first mission is set in a single building, that lighthouse.

It's a challenge for me as a currently still amateur mission builder. Get the "superstructure" done and working, then start furnishing and plotting. I will confess I made the rooms, especially the ones in the tower, fairly small and claustrophobic, as a deliberate design feature to encourage a "less is more" approach and also force the player to use their wits more while traversing the place vertically.

I will also confess the design approach was sort of inspired by what LGS did with Thief II: The Metal Age: Design a cool environment that would be good to play in and explore, then design the meat and the details of the mission around it. (I sort of have a similar approach for the other FMs I'm planning, though those will be a bit more narrative-motivation-first.)

Hopefully, the above mentioned approach will be enough of a win-win exercise. I plan this mission to be newbie-player friendly, but a bit more challenging than the really basic "small FM, get in this house and burgle it" - somewhere between those small missions and the more intermediate missions.

This FM will be part of my planned Partners in Crime series and will introduce a new city to the lore. Probably not the chronologically first mission in the series, but it might end up as the second or third one (I want to introduce some of the main characters in at least one prequel mission, set before the lighthouse).

I am also tentatively starting work on designing that homage of Garrett's apartment from TMA, since it will be useful for a future mission or two. And it helps me practice furnishing interiors, especially the smaller and more "living quarters" ones. You've covered the TDS era apartment, now it's my turn with something related.

3 hours ago, peter_spy said:

Testing cellar HP pieces before baking. The original source photos had these clean-cut stone blocks, but I thought I might go for something more organic and raw. Hopefully that translates well to the low poly version.

Thank you for that free ticket to Droolsville, namesake.  

Edited November 25 by Petike the Taffer

[Goldwell 2287]

 

24 minutes ago, Jedi_Wannabe said:

That street looks sexy! Can't wait to hear what kind of sounds that thick air is filled with.

Thanks! For the audio I have remixed one of the core TDM songs which plays throughout the streets, I wanted to give a fresh vibe to a classic TDM song, and in addition i've added in a lot of background noises too to help sell the mood. The audio overall is (hopefully) as atmospheric as the visuals as currently I have 32 ambient and 50 custom sound effects layered throughout my mission  

 

14 minutes ago, Petike the Taffer said:

Thank you. Those are precisely the reasons why almost my entire first mission is set in a single building, that lighthouse.

It's a challenge for me as a currently still amateur mission builder. Get the "superstructure" done and working, then start furnishing and plotting. I will confess I made the rooms, especially the ones in the tower, fairly small and claustrophobic, as a deliberate design feature to encourage a "less is more" approach and also force the player to use their wits more while traversing the place vertically.

I will also confess the design approach was sort of inspired by what LGS did with Thief II: The Metal Age: Design a cool environment that would be good to play in and explore, then design the meat and the details of the mission around it. (I sort of have a similar approach for the other FMs I'm planning, though those will be a bit more narrative-motivation-first.)

Hopefully, the above mentioned approach will be enough of a win-win exercise. I plan this mission to be newbie-player friendly, but a bit more challenging than the really basic "small FM, get in this house and burgle it" - somewhere between those small missions and the more intermediate missions.

This FM will be part of my planned Partners in Crime series and will introduce a new city to the lore. Probably not the chronologically first mission in the series, but it might end up as the second or third one (I want to introduce some of the main characters in at least one prequel mission, set before the lighthouse).

I am also tentatively starting work on designing that homage of Garrett's apartment from TMA, since it will be useful for a future mission or two. And it helps me practice furnishing interiors, especially the smaller and more "living quarters" ones. You've covered the TDS era apartment, now it's my turn with something related.

Those are some great ideas / plans moving forward and your FM story is incredibly exciting too!

 

It sounds like you've got a great handle and direction on everything

[Petike the Taffer 441]

1 hour ago, Goldwell said:

Those are some great ideas / plans moving forward and your FM story is incredibly exciting too!

It sounds like you've got a great handle and direction on everything

Well, I'd like to hope I have a good handle on this stuff. I'm still a bit undecided on some plans for the series and its missions, but hey, small steps. I want the first missions to feel like a small start, then build up to something bigger. The concept behind the series is actually an old one at this point, I was already contemplating not long after I joined. Maybe around January 2015 for the first time. I even mention it in my post from that time, though I had a lot less structure to the plan back then. The one major feature I want to experiment with story-wise in this series is having a male protagonist, but a female deuteragonist. Not many major female thief characters in the game so far, so I'm going to try. She'll start out as a civilian before becoming a thief like her pal, and will mostly be an NPC in the missions. I would like to do at least two missions where she'll be the player character, though (as long as we can manage getting those female player vocals finished and introduced in future releases, in good quality).

Edited November 25 by Petike the Taffer

[Petike the Taffer 441]

Just to stimulate some interest in Goldwell and others, here's a very rough prototype for the loose recreation of G.'s apartment, as seen in TMA. Obviously, this is extremely WIP, I threw it together in a short amount of time, so it will still evolve. I also do not plan to copy the layout of the TMA inspiration all that slavishly, only in broad strokes, for the sake of keeping this copyright-friendly.

The main highlights of the apartment itself. The bed, table area. fireplace and entrance door are roughly where they were in the TMA apartment. I still keep thinking I chose overly fancy wood panelling, but as this is a prototype, it can be sorted out later. Maybe some non-cheapo-looking wallpaper texture ? The parquet panels were used in an effort to emulate the floor of the TMA apartment.

To paraphrase John Green, "But let's first look at what's in the secret compartment !". The wall between the bedroom area and the entrance door looks like an ordinary wall with wood panelling, right ? Well, think again. As the screenshot in the upper right corner shows, I've hidden a secret door, with doorframe and everything, in that panelling. The small room with green wallpaper, hanger, doorframe and wood panelling door is the secret closet of the flat. Rather than recreate the TMA apartment's closet, and then the secret compartment within it, I instead made the whole closet a secret room of its own, for various secret supplies, loot, and so on.

Though I have to ask a question: Would it be cooler if the access door was hidden in the shorter wall closer to the bed ? I am open to suggestions on that.

Edited November 26 by Petike the Taffer
weird typo

[AluminumHaste 911]

That's.....realyl cool man!

[Jedi_Wannabe 85]

I love seeing the beginning stages of maps when they’re in their most rudimentary workable form. It makes before/after shots really satisfying! Keep it up Petike!

[ERH+ 617]

There was this epidemic outbreak, starting at a rock crystal mining facility, deep in the marshes of Rahena. Some poor burglar manage to survive all horrors of the seemingly undead, deranged crew spreading havoc as their flesh started falling apart. He escaped, only to bring the new pathogen to more densely populated areas. Many lives perished in flames of this terrible disease, but much more were kept at the brink of death, but still able to fight it.

 

A victim of the crystal leprosy disease, kept alive by a carapace of prosthetics, servomotors, with all organs sustained in bath of nutritious liquids. Remaining flesh keeps peeling off, and the mind of now unrecognizable human being deteriorates, poisoned by the necrosis - at this point one may ask if there is a living creature still there or is it just an autonomous yet mindless machine with bits and pieces of decaying body.

 

 

Edited November 27 by ERH+

[grayman 2697]

Wow, is that ever creepy!!

[Petike the Taffer 441]

18 minutes ago, ERH+ said:

There was this epidemic outbreak, starting at a rock crystal mining facility, deep in the marshes of Rahena. Some poor burglar manage to survive all horrors of the seemingly undead, deranged crew spreading havoc as their flesh started falling apart. He escaped, only to bring the new pathogen to more densely populated areas. Many lives perished in flames of this terrible disease, but much more were kept at the brink of death, but still able to fight it.

 

A victim of the crystal leprosy disease, kept alive by a carapace of prosthetics, servomotors, with all organs sustained in bath of nutritious liquids. Remaining flesh keeps peeling off, and the mind of now unrecognizable human being deteriorates, poisoned by the necrosis - at this point one may ask if there is a living creature still there or is it just an autonomous yet mindless machine with bits and pieces of decaying body.

 

You're up to incredible stuff, dude.

I suppose this will be TDM's more steampunky take on the Puppets from TDS.

Was this, perchance, inspired by those powered armours from Fallout that are still working decades after the soldiers inside have perished ?

[ERH+ 617]

20 minutes ago, Petike the Taffer said:

You're up to incredible stuff, dude.

I suppose this will be TDM's more steampunky take on the Puppets from TDS.

Was this, perchance, inspired by those powered armours from Fallout that are still working decades after the soldiers inside have perished ?

No, these are remnants of a pen&paper rpg system I've been working decades ago. It was a bit like Deus Ex / Bladerunner with oceans totally filled with algae, completely clouded sky, all plants are dead and decaying biomass is everywhere, all herbivores died, so all carnivores roaming in massive swarms, attacking and taking over whole cities. There is a black hole on the surface of the sun, dead people are no longer dead due to advanced life support systems - but if you are not rich enough, your brain will be added to the pool containing thousands of other, forming a collective net, like the elders council. Few factions struggle to find and perform a solution for this disaster.

Edited November 27 by ERH+

[Amadeus 156]

Beautiful work ERH, these AI look awesome!

[Goldwell 2287]

Very creepy looking, I love it!

 

Reminds me a little bit of those half life 2 creatures that are zombies/undead with robotic limbs. Can’t think of their name. 

 

But regardless it looks fantastic!

[JackFarmer 253]

Yeah, and it's somehow threatening as well.

What does it say? "Ears"?  "Years"?

However, I hereby award you with the new title "DFDD" (=Doctor Frankenstein's Dearest Darling)

Edited November 28 by JackFarmer

[Melan 1782]

[Geep 38]

Just a heads-up to anyone who might be interested in beta testing of a watery mission, "Away 1: Air Pocket". This, my first full-fledged FM, re-deploys Dragofer's ship models, familiar from "Down by the Riverside". By next weekend, I'll create a new  Air Pocket thread in the Beta Forum, with the link to the download.

[grayman 2697]

Well, that certainly looks intriguing.

Congrats!

[Petike the Taffer 441]

7 hours ago, Geep said:

Just a heads-up to anyone who might be interested in beta testing of a watery mission, "Away 1: Air Pocket". This, my first full-fledged FM, re-deploys Dragofer's ship models, familiar from "Down by the Riverside". By next weekend, I'll create a new  Air Pocket thread in the Beta Forum, with the link to the download.

Though a landlubber in real life, I am fond of more nautically themed missions !

[Goldwell 2287]

Looking forward to it Geep!

 

Nautical themed missions are always intriguing. 

[Petike the Taffer 441]

It's only now that I realised I haven't really finalised what the top of the lighthouse, with the light source itself, will look like. I am thinking of making the top room a series of low walls and four corner pillars, with a Gothic style roof or a hint of it on top of them. (To give you an idea, the roof could have stylistics similar to this or this - those are Gothic Revival era reconstructions of those structures' original Gothic roofs, but they still look very nice and authentic.)

The light source itself will be housed at the centre, either:

1.) an open fire (inextinguishable with water arrows) inside a large, roofed steel cage, or

2.) a more artificial light source (large gas lamp, early electricity, etc.), inside a large container with a steel cage and glass panes for its surface (since a monolithic glass container would probably be too unrealistic and fragile)

Personally, I'd prefer the first variant, since I want to give the lighthouse a more medieval or early modern feel, without too many of the early industrial trappings of TDM. As much as I love steampunk (I really do, even used extensive tech documentation for a fictional setting I use in a tabletop project of mine), I think the coastal city from the story of my FM, being a poorer and smaller cousin to a more proper metropolis like Bridgeport, would have a more old-school lighthouse. Maybe there's some electric lighting on the ground floors, used as storage spaces and local harbour offices, but once you hit the tower itself, it's all fully traditional, along with the fire burning at the top. I could maybe smuggle in some references into readables on how the city authorities are planning to invest in getting the whole place modernised in the future, but so far, both budget issues and finding the construction personnel with the right expertise have proved prohibitive. Or jokes in letters by local employees, complaining about how they have to regularly haul chopped up lumber and lighting oil to the very top of the lighthouse, on those narrow and claustrophobic stairs. Would be a hoot from a narrative perspective.

On 11/27/2019 at 8:48 PM, ERH+ said:

No, these are remnants of a pen&paper rpg system I've been working decades ago. It was a bit like Deus Ex / Bladerunner with oceans totally filled with algae, completely clouded sky, all plants are dead and decaying biomass is everywhere, all herbivores died, so all carnivores roaming in massive swarms, attacking and taking over whole cities. There is a black hole on the surface of the sun, dead people are no longer dead due to advanced life support systems - but if you are not rich enough, your brain will be added to the pool containing thousands of other, forming a collective net, like the elders council. Few factions struggle to find and perform a solution for this disaster.

What a creepy setting !

Edited December 2 by Petike the Taffer

[ERH+ 617]

The copper maiden golem - indestructible, red-hot block of metal, with equally unbreakable will. Slow, silent, can set a deadly trap in  atight corridor.

 

Edited December 4 by ERH+