Thief 4 is trash.

[jay pettitt]

I must admit that I'm no expert on this matter, but I'm not quite sure what is actually the problem with soft shadows. Wouldn't it be enough to tell the render to draw a bit of the light at the corners of the shadows? (Don't know if this makes sense to you, though). I mean the calculation does not necessary has to be realistic, it just has to look like it is.

 

Depending on the actual scene and light source this soft shadows effect could maybe faked. I'm thinking of displaced light sources (a bit performance hungry once you have overlapping lights) or additional non-shadowcasting light sources with the same color but a lower brightness (difficult in indoor areas where the light can clip through walls).

 

As I've just mentioned it, it would be cool to have semi-shadowcasting lights, that only cast shadows due to worldspawn but nothing else. This would make the usage of nsc lights in indoor levels much more easier and beneficial.

 

=============================================

 

 

Allright. So here is an example for the "use a second nsc light". The left picture is with just the torch entity casting the light. In the right picture there is a second light (light_torchflame_small as used by the torch) which does not cast shadows. Its radius is 50% larger and its brightness is one thrd of the torchflames'. Not as good as the soft shadows in the shots above, but I guess if this is used wisely it may creates a similar effect.

 

umm, the effect it has in your picture is to brighten the shadow, creating an anomaly where the the shadow cast by the table is noticeably brighter than the shaded parts of said table. Which looks a mite weird.

Edited November 4, 2013 by jay pettitt

[Serpentine]

There are a few issues,

* From what I remember of running Sik's mod, the soft-shadow is pretty sould-crushingly harsh on performance.

* It's a lot harder to map with soft-shadows that have influence on gameplay.

* The lightgem render we use is a real render, it gets shadows cast onto it, this is already very slow. This needs to be moved into something different and hopefully entirely done on the GPU in a single pass.

* The balancing of the shadows would need to take into consideration the existing fm archive.

* We would need someone who actually understands this on-board, and is happy that we cant throw away things like Intel gpu support (on nix).

[Springheel]

..But doesn't Sikkpins Doom3 mod already have soft shadows? Could it simply be imported to TDM?

 

The problem, IIRC, is that it is a major performance hit.

 

I'm not really sure why it would have any affect on mapping.

[Obsttorte]

Well, I guess it wouldn't have an effect on maps created after this feature is added, but it definetely would have an effect on existing FM's.

 

@jay: I'm aware of that. The idea was just to create a similar effect. If it would be that easy, dev's would use that instead of some performance intensive soft-shadowing.

 

However, I'm still convinient that there may be a way to "fake" this effect. We'll see.

[New Horizon]

The problem, IIRC, is that it is a major performance hit.

 

This was definitely true prior to the release of the source code, but I don't know if sikkpin was able to better optimize it since then.

[New Horizon]

Well, I guess it wouldn't have an effect on maps created after this feature is added, but it definetely would have an effect on existing FM's.

 

No, not the way Sikkpin did it. I think you're assuming that it would be a baked shadow but with sikkpin's implementation, he simply added a blur to the existing shadows with some post processing.

[MacD11]

What Rotoscope animation?

 

 

The Thief series uses Rotoscope Animation for most of it's cutscenes that arent briefings right? Because alot of the animation in it seems to be that way.

[jtr7]

...............

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Nacht7]

Here are some new screenshots of Thief that were just released, so I thought I'd drop them off here.

Though I'm embarrassed to admit, I'm slowly starting to like the aesthetics and visuals this game provides, especially in the better lit areas. Though I've complained before about the rather bleak and dull night environments, the well illuminated rooms and fortifications offer a far better vibrance, as well as a contrast between light and dark.

I have a terrible habit of remaining optimistic for several titles however. Since this is the first Thief release in the damn near ten years, who could blame me?

 

[jtr7]

................

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Goldwell]

Those screenshots look amazing! I'm really starting to warm upto EM's vision of Thief. Of course we wont know for sure how good it is until we play it but I am starting to gain faith!

[jtr7]

................

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Krypt]

Looks great to me. They have nailed the mood and overall visual aesthetic, I think. As everyone else has said though: the gameplay is the important part! There is no shortage of pretty but crappy games these days.

[Goldwell]

I'm very curious to see how the contextual movement feels when you play the game. It almost seems crazy to do something like that for a heavy exploration type game like thief but I guess time will tell.

[kyyrma]

This is pretty old now, but it seems it haven't been posted so...

 

 

After seeing this I pretty much stopped following news about the new Thief, because I simply couldn't bear watch what they do to one of my favorite IPs. Apparently some of these decisions have been reversed since, like the XP system?

[vvGarrettvv]

This is not Thief. This is "Corbo is flat, so know he`s up for stealing / Dishonored II ".

"the tools we give you are not only agressive: theyre also used for the stealth aspect." "....modern audience of today`s console market"

That says it all.

Yeah. The XP-system has been great:"Headshot +50 / Dead cat +1000 / step into some doodie -100 / failed to jump -250"

As far as Iknow they have removed it. But not sure.

[stumpy]

that xp system is probably still there, you just wont see it flash up when you get xp.

[jtr7]

..............

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[7upMan]

Well, the first and the last pic look more like a painting than real-time graphics, so I wonder if they were manipulated. After all, this is not uncommon in this industry, the prime example being Westwood with forged "screenshots" of Command&Conquer. The more I hear about Thi4f, the more I am comfortable with my stance to watch some Let's Play's first and buy later - if at all.

[Sotha]

Same here. In this era of pre-ordering pigs-in-a-sack without any idea of the quality of the game, they could be just desperately forging screenies to get pre-order sales up. That's where the money is.

[Melan]

It is all fun and games until someone tries to jump.

[Springheel]

It's ok, but it's so bleak. You basically get to choose between desaturated blue and desaturated brown. Those interior shots are damn near monochromatic.

[Bridge]

post

 

Depressing to say the least.

[jtr7]

.................

Edited February 19, 2014 by jtr7

[Nacht7]

No Quick Time Events and the lack of an XP system do make me happy, but it doesn't change the overall contextual control of the game. Contextual jumping, leaning, etc... Also, no swimming, keeping with Deadly Shadows.