Thief 2 / SS2 / Deep Cover Source

[MoroseTroll]

rich_is_bored: Don't worry, I'm sure the Thief community has enough qualified programmers to cope with any problem.

[Andrey]

History

 

On December 9

On December 4

[stumpy]

there was a story from someone at eidos that said that all the harddrives that had belonged to Looking Glass Studio's had been sold off 6 months after the studio had been shutdown, and that the source code for all looking glass games had disappeared at that point or were locked away in a safe in the basement at eidos. Am guessing they must have sold all the stuff looking glass gave them, including the harddrive backups.

 

As Eidos actually sold the source code do they actually still legally own it, american law is different to uk law so I wouldn't know.

does the patent have to be renewed every so often, and the copyright as they are both different.

Edited December 12, 2010 by stumpy

[lost_soul]

I'm quite surprised they would even sell that stuff. A hard drive is what, 50 bucks these days? A hard drive from around 2000 is probably worth $5. These publishers typically have lots of cash, so I figured they would just trash the hardware. Also, I would figure they would be sure and wipe the drives before selling them off.

[Fidcal]

Maybe they bought up all LGS assets and sold the lot off as a clearance.

 

Finding that CD in that guy's bedroom is one of those 'fate' moments in history that is kind of fascinating like penicillin or Bell's first test on a telephone. Maybe the last existing copy of Thief 2 source. Code is kind of magical when you consider the outcome. I'd like to see the source for the Apollo 11 landing. Probably lost along with the videos.

 

[DELETED]

 

Seems to me that even if Eidos clamp down on use of the source, eg, to completely recompile and issue a new exe, it could still be used for information to produce code for patches and extensions?

[7upMan]

Also, if the work on the source code doesn't happen in public but in a secure environment (as an SVG only a very few select coders have access to), is there any legal way for Eidos to prevent patches for the EXE files? After all, a patch is not a complete exe, is it?

 

EDIT: As for the worth of hard drives, remember how long ago this was. Hard disks had a completely different value to what they cost today, and I guess professional developers have bigger stuf than us mere mortals. By definition, this also means bigger hard drives. Sell them as a bulk, and you can still make some money off them.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2010 by 7upMan

[Chiron]

[..]

 

What was that about MoroseTroll finding a version of the source way back in February and passing it to Eidos? Surely he kept a copy.

 

[..]

 

I'm pretty sure he did.

Evidence 1 :The fact that he posted some of the stuff missing from the leaked source.

[MoroseTroll]

No, guys, I haven't had a copy.

Edited December 12, 2010 by MoroseTroll

[New Horizon]

That's awesome.

[MoroseTroll]

Double post, sorry .

Edited December 12, 2010 by MoroseTroll

[jtr7]

Eidos bought up much of the Looking Glass assets and the T3 team at Ion Storm-Austin (made up of several former LGS members), found their old systems ready for them at their workstations, including their old desktop wallpapers. But then, after ISA shut down, I haven't heard what happened to those assets after that. Two days ago, this link worked, and now it doesn't (so much for the Wayback Machine's reliability):

http://web.archive.o...gs_auction.html

 

From here (scroll all the way down, or search for "Looking Glass Assets To Be Auctioned"):

http://rpgvaultarchi...ive/arc78.shtml

 

Auctioned off were:

SERVERS & WORKSTATIONS:

 

Compaq Proliant 3000 & 2500 Servers, Dell Poweredge 4300 Server & Sun Spar Ultra 5 & 2 Sparcstations & Silicon Graphics Indigo Workstations. Also Available: Assorted Network Support Units including Cisco Routers & Switches, Grand Junction Hubs, Storage Devices & more!

 

COMPUTERS & PERIPHERALS:

 

Configurations include 400+Mhz, 300+Mhz & 200+Mhz Computers from Compaq, Dell, Apple & Others! Assorted Monitors & more!

 

 

 

 

 

Also, MoroseTroll did not get a copy of the code. She contacted devs until one discovered he/she had a copy in his/her collection afterall, in February. At MoroseTroll's suggestion, this person contacted Rene at Eidos-Montreal, gave a copy to him, and offered to clean out the SS2 code to remove legal issue with Electronic Arts. Rene gave it over it to legal department and no one heard back from EM or Rene since March, until October, when Rene's replacement, Kyle Stallock, only repeated exactly what Rene said back in March, that it's in the hands of the legal department. Meanwhile, this guy at dreamcast had purchased a dev kit HDD years ago, and once he finally found an adapter to install the HDD into his system, he found it was not empty. He's on dial-up and uploaded the Thief 2 and SS2 Betas for us, months ago, and just recently, uploaded the source code. MoroseTroll contacted someone and they uploaded missing libraries for the Dark Engine. MoroseTroll is not sitting on the code, but she is indeed instrumental, but really a liaison between us and at least one person who has a copy of the code, whom we shall protect by not seeking the identity of.

Edited December 13, 2010 by jtr7

[MoroseTroll]

Jason, I'm a guy, not a girl !

[stumpy]

it looks like its the source code for deep cover and is based on the thief 2 engine and uses assets from thief 2 and system shock 2, whats missing is the art, sound, sound schema files, ai models, static models, which would be kept on another volume for safety. The cfg files for the dromed in the prj files point at deep cover. Eidos are likely to ask for all this material to be distroyed.

[New Horizon]

it looks like its the source code for deep cover and is based on the thief 2 engine and uses assets from thief 2 and system shock 2, whats missing is the art, sound, sound schema files, ai models, static models, which would be kept on another volume for safety. The cfg files for the dromed in the prj files point at deep cover. Eidos are likely to ask for all this material to be distroyed.

 

It's the source code for all 3 games. If the project files can be recreated, the executable for each game could theoretically be recreated.

 

The source code package came from a Sega Dreamcast development system. Thief 2 and System Shock 2 were in the very early stages of being ported to Dreamcast. It didn't get very far...so the code we have is pretty much as LGS left it.

[Uur]

They closed the Dark Source Technical Discussion thread I cannot read it. I want to know what progress has been made. They say my account doesn't have sufficient privileges. Does anyone here have access to that thread?

 

We really need another forum other than TTLG to be a development and discussion hub for the source. Perhaps we could use this forum?

[Uur]

There some libraries that are missing they have been recovered the links to them were in that thread...how can I get those libraries?

[elwing]

hum, now that we have all the informations on the file formats, AI and everything else, wouldn't it be possible to create an "importer" for thief1+2 FM using the original game data for thedarkmod?

Edited December 16, 2010 by elwing

[Melan]

hum, now that we have all the informations on the file formats, AI and everything else, wouldn't it be possible to create an "importer" for thief1+2 FM using the original game data for thedarkmod?

No way for that. The engines work in an entirely different way.

[elwing]

No way for that. The engines work in an entirely different way.

 

I understood the difference between the "substractive" world of dark engine and the one used by doom, and I know converting a map would not be a simple task, but you're really sure it would not be possible?

[MoroseTroll]

Everything is possible. The main problem is who exactly would work on this feature?

[OrbWeaver]

I would consider it very unwise for anyone contributing to the Dark Mod to do any work on this leaked code, unless it is cleared by Eidos. In fact, they probably shouldn't even download or access it at all. The last thing we need is accusations that the Dark Mod is derived from stolen copyrighted material.

[Melan]

I understood the difference between the "substractive" world of dark engine and the one used by doom, and I know converting a map would not be a simple task, but you're really sure it would not be possible?

Not via algorithm. Even if a basic converter could be made (doubtful), the results would not work.

• Most terrain brushes in the Dark Engine are either air (subtraction) or solid (addition), while idTech 4 only recognises the latter, and "subtraction" is either done with the clipper tool or the CSG subtraction function, both of which essentiqally cut up solids.
• The basic world is solid in Dark, void in idTech 4.
• Brushes are placed sequentially in Dark, overwriting each other on intersections (this is in fact the main way of doing things), while they exist, and are rendered simultaneously in idTech 4, which leads to Z-fighting visible on surfaces shared by multiple brushes.

So, right from the start, air brushes could not be represented, and even if they could through a workaround, transposing the brushwork would only create a jumble of odd shapes that would not make for cohesive architecture like they would in Dromed.

 

[edit]Improved wording.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Melan

[OrbWeaver]

It's not an unsolvable problem, it would just take a lot of work. It is correct that you cannot translate Dromed brushes into idTech 4 brushes, because they mean different things. What you would need to do is calculate the result of all of the Dromed brushes (similar to the "portalisation" used in Thief itself), and then retrospectively convert this into idTech 4 brushes, for example by extruding the generated polygons into thickened brushes.

 

The end result would be a total mess though, and the cleanup work involved would probably be greater than just rebuilding the mission manually.

[demagogue]

I agree with Orb. We should be clear right from the start that The Dark Mod is hermetically sealed from the Thief source... They're not even looking at it or considering any part of it in connection. Fortunately we got everything out before the leak and it doesn't really contribute anything to the kinds of updates being made, but we shouldn't even give them an excuse by flirting with the idea.

[greebo]

I've already looked the code - are we doomed now? I don't think so.

 

The Thief sources are copyrighted, that's for sure, but I cannot nor do I want to apply it to the TDM project as the engines and code frameworks are as different as they could possibly be. Maybe I could get one idea or another from reading, but can you copyright those? No. That would render all clean-room engineering illegal, if that was the case.

 

They need to prove we actually copied from their protected sources, which is bound to fail because nothing has been copied and it the code is useless for us in the first place. Of course one could argue that we wouldn't survive going through courts if the publisher sued based on the mere suspicion - but then again where is the difference between me having read and me not having read the code if they were going to sue us anyway just because they can?

 

And just to be clear, I'll personally bite the head off anybody who tried to copy a single line of copyrighted Thief code into darkmod_src.