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Domarius

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Posts posted by Domarius

  1. The problem is that even though it looks great as a slightly abstracted drawing, as a 3d model it would just look as though I couldn't model faces properly, or my proportions were all wrong. I like characiture, but that it not the right stytle of characiture for thief. I think think the T3 guys were going for some sort of 'unique' look wth those big hands and wrinkly faces - it may have looked cool on paper, but in the game it looked like shit.

    Look at my builder priest model, that face is characitured enough, but in a thiefy way. ALso go to http://www.thief-thecircle.com/media/main/ and check out the t1&2 concept art menus for some thiefy inspiration

    I do love the armour though- on a slightly less characitured body, it would fit pefectly.

    You've convinced me you know what you're doing, in regards to what I was talking about.

     

    Though I've seen some pretty "extreme" characiture styles have converted well over to 3D, like this long, tall, lanky style (can't remember what game) where their faces were very long.

     

    And one of the first things I said about your builder priest model was how much I liked his "characiture" style :)

  2. All the Thief games use dynamic ambience that blends from one area to another. You have a church with a choir ambience, you walk into a hallway that leads to the crypt and you get a mix of choir and scarey ambience, and when you enter the crypt, you get scarey ambience.

     

    I think the mix is done specifically, with an intermediate zone that says "play this AND this as well". But of course, you can hear the ambience from one zone playing over the current one, if you are close enough to it.

     

    I think this freedom of re-usability should be maintained.

     

    If someone wants to use your ambience where there is NO background hum around, well, I don't think it's so good.

    Why not make the hum and the music seperate files, and let the author play them both in the level?

     

    WILL there be a noticible difference when jumping from 96 to 160? Maybe if you're an audio technician. I used to fiddle with sounds a bit and I don't think I'd notice the difference even if they were overlayed, as long as they both sounded "good" quality.

    (Whereas I noticed that in older games, I would get used to the 11khz sound quality and think it sounded "good" and then hear something else, like a CD play, and THEN I'd notice the difference when it was overlayed)

     

    I'd be keeping the sounds seperate at any cost, just so people can re-use your media. FM authors coming up with interesting uses for the existing T2 media, including ambience, always surprised me. One particular ambience, that I thought suited a deep forest, became freaky and scarey in another mission (cause of the associated visuals of course).

     

    (Sorry, usually I edit down my ramblings...)

  3. god_is_my_goldfish, and anyone ELSE who decides to quote from memory, should read the Desicions Thread (totally readable, even though its currently pending a re-format). I took the time and effort to summarise the discussions so that the outcome was CLEAR AND CONSICE, even providing a link for each topic to the thread where the discussion occured.

     

    Noise arrows are re-usable, or they're worthless.

     

    And a wind-up clockwork noisemaker (the kind found in the ORIGINAL T2 game), is the best option, since it's totally reasonable to assume Garrett winds it up again, when he picks it up, or before he fires it. And it would be loud. I don't see the point in changing this concept.

     

    And one more thing - sorry, but I find it annoying that people who don't even USE noise arrows at all, let alone as exclusively as I do, think that they can make well-informed statements on how noise arrows should work.

     

    Just to get this out in the open, house guards should be MUCH more likely to spend time sniffing around a noise arrow than other guards, and perhaps elite ones actually DO start looking for where it came to after a few seconds pause.

     

    Given our stim-response system, different AI can react in different ways.

    Good stuff. I like it.

  4. I like your unique style. Not saying I want the people in the game to follow this exact style, just that I would like to see more original styles for humans, so we can chose some (or blend them together) to give our mod a unique look.

     

    T2 people had huge shoulders.

    T3 people all sort of looked same-ish, especially in the face. And the hands were bloody huge.

     

    3D models of people are much like cartoons, in that they are vague representations of people, so we should use the same techniques that cartoons do and exaggerate certain features.

     

    In Doom 3, notice the funny looking guy sitting in the seat when you first arrive (and go up the stairs) with the sunken cheekbones and long face. How different he looks to that UAC guy with the facial hair (in the start cutscean, getting off the ship). The proportions are all different. They aren't realistic. And it looks good.

     

    Where as in T3 I don't think they appreciated this side of game art, and all their faces look the same and they have huge hands.

     

    Your guy is a good example of the exaggeration we could use to "jazz things up".

  5. I just have to tell someone, is all.

     

    While driving home the other day, I was behind a ute belonging to some construction company, that had a sticker on the back "Member of the Master Builders Association".

     

    Yeah we're pretty multi-faith down here in Australia. If there's a religion, it's here. Even ones from games apparently. Hehe.

     

    No huge, mallet sized hammers in the back of the ute though. And the driver didn't have his armour on I guess.

  6. ..oh, and of course this means we can no longer use oonfish's mdoel.

    We'll need a fancy 2d graphic for the lightgem, and a 3d model for the standalone compass.

    oofnish's model

    We were voting for his design - I like what it oofnish's one LOOKS like. Doesn't matter how we implement it. We all voted that it should LOOK like that.

     

    Votes

    This poll should be split into the two seperate issues that they are. One poll for tilting, and one poll for combined.

     

    Combined gem and compass

    The gem and compass are GOING to be two seperate entities as far as programming (and hence, modelling) is concerned. It's for implementation reasons.

    The static model from oofnish still should be seperated. After all, the point is to create a good looking gem with reflections and all this with only 2 polys. Creating a static lightgem with a full model is quite an overkill and will not look so good as it can.

    So the vote should be about wether they APPEAR to be seperate entites or not. Just wanted to clear that up.

     

    Tilting

    T2 had tilting, and it was fine. There is a bit of tweaking there, making sure it's being seen from a high angle by default, so that you don't have to look downward to see the farthest arrow.

    My main reason was if we can not tilt it, we can pre-render it and make it look way better.

    I don't think there's any other real issue to debate about tilting. If the thing isn't going to be pre-rendered, it may as well tilt. It will require a bit more work, but not much.

     

    Options

    I'd much rather have tilting than having options for turning tilting on and off, and other stupid options.

    An option screen full of petty options is going to just look like we were all arguing over silly details and couldn't decide.

    I personally don't see the need for customising the experience of a game outside of control configs and player name and appearance. (modding is a seperate issue).

    Having an option to turn off lockpicking makes me feel like I'm back in the days of the console video games and I can set how many lives and continues I have. I have to excercise restraint instead of being gradually convinced that the game can be played the way the designers made it.

    Having an option to turn down HUD brightness is an interface issue in Thief because it can glare your vision and make it hard to see in dark areas.

    Having an option to turn off a compass that is taking up 5% of screen real-estate is very petty.

     

    Why don't we answer the bigger issue of people desiring a HUDless game (a totally reasonable desire, that other games have satisfied one way or another) and just make a HUD on/off toggle button or something, instead of going about it peicemeal?

    I wanna see my light gem. Click, there it is. Bleh, yucky compass. Okay I'm done. Click. All gone again.

  7. Could we code it so he blows up the mine only if he can't safely pathfind around it?

     

    I'm not sure about your example, Domarius.  Are you saying the player could use mines as makeshift noise arrows?  It's a pretty expensive way to use them.

     

     

    Presumably, if the guard calls an alarm and other AI come running, they will *all* be able to see the mine, won't they?  Although it might be funny if an elite guard spots the mine with his better acuity, he sounds the alarm, and a couple house guards come running right up and step on it. :)

    1. Yeah, that is worth considering.

     

    2. No, maybe I'll explain better.

     

    3. I suppose so. It's realistic that some people might see it and others not, and end up dying as a result. However;

     

    My concern was that it doesn't seem right for a guard to call everyone to come and look at the mine he's about to blow up, when they could die as a result. He should be saying "Everyone stand clear!!" or something.

     

    However, we could ignore that concern and let the default behaviour happen, as if they don't understand what the guard is saying and are just coming to see what the commotion is all about, which is what happens in the Thief games anyway. People just run to noise, no matter what is being said.

    It would be simpler that way.

  8. That doesn't really help you, once you lost oritentation.

    Why not? I know I've used it myself when I wasn't sure which way was up.

     

    Rake the mouse upward. It stops and goes no further. You know you're looking up. Rake the mouse downward. It stops and goes no further. You know you're looking down. Move the mouse upward about half that distance (just watch the screen) and you know you're facing horizontal, roughly, and the compass makes sense again.

     

    I just want a pre-rendered compass :)

     

    If we vote now, it would be roughly tied, judging from the posts. I guess it still needs discussing.

  9. Good point.

     

    I'm open to the projectile idea then. I forgot that we are giving ALL guards the "useless" projectiles for throwing at the player when he's out of reach.

     

    (edit)While typing up the design doc, I thought of this;

     

    The AI doesn't need to worry about the explosion killing team mates, since they will keep their distance. But they only keep their distance when they KNOW about the mine.

    If they don't, and happen to walk around the corner as it goes off, well, s**t happens.

     

    But in that case, should the shout "We have a mine here!!!" cause AI to RUN AWAY from the sound source, rather than GO TO the sound source to investigate it, like all other "alarming sounds" do? In that case, we'd be making the one exception for that sound only! It's extra work.

     

    Can we think of a more elegant solution? Otherwise I can envisage scenarios like this happening a LOT:

     

    "HEY! We have a mine here!!" *chuck* *chuck* *chuck*

     

    "What's all that racket?" *investigate*

    "Who's making that noise?" *investigate*

    "I won't have people making noises where I can't see them!!" *investigate*

     

    *chuck* *chuck* *chuck* *KABOOOOM!!!*

     

    "Argh!!" *dies*

    "Oh, I die, a pox on you all!" *dies*

    "I say, what the-" *dies*

  10. B) You can easily construct levels, especially cave levels, where you will not know where up and down is. And it also helps in the water, because there it is quite easy to loose orientation.

    You know if you're facing roughly up or down, because, in all FPS games, when you look directly up or down, you just rotate on the spot. We can think of this as our "sense of gravity", and not rely on the compass tilting - your real life compass wouldn't tilt, and after all, wouldn't it be the aim of such twisting caves to deliberately make you disoriented?

    My main reason for pushing this is because a pre-rendered compass will look much much nicer, same for the light gem, and since we spend so much time looking at them, it would be great to have them looking beautiful.

    And to make a pre-rendered compass, we can't have it tilt because of the amount of bitmaps needed.

  11. The problem with the guards staying away from mines, etc., is that the player could abuse it, no?  Like, just quarter off one whole section of the house by laying down a few mines?  Perhaps it could delay them instead, maybe they have bombsquad training?  :P  (I'm only half joking there - there should be some way they can circumvent or disarm them?)

    I'm glad so many of you mostly agree with my idea. While I NEVER used mines on humans, they really helped even the odds against those dangerous type creatures.

     

    But SneaksieDave thought of something I didn't - you could POSSIBLY trap AI guards in a hallway by putting a mine at each end.

    However, that's expensive, and I've yet to see the Theif mission (original or fan) where I had more than 3 mines.

     

    So it might not be a problem at all.

    If it is a problem, then we should look into some way for Guards to disarm them. And take them for themselves. Heh. That'd make you think twice about placing them :)

    Maybe if they've seen them, they're quite free to pick them up, and you never see them again.

     

    (edit) The destroying idea is good, but requires they have projectiles. And then they'd have to think about who else is around so they didn't kill their friends. I think my idea above is simpler.

  12. Well we need to document it somewhere. I wouldn't mind being the one to write up the final docs, I just need to see a record of the desicions being made in the forums. Since those posts have been deleted, maybe we need to discuss it one more time.

     

    I know I just agreed with the Gem without a compass, but if we just settle for that gem&compass combination that I think you're talking about, I'd be happy to just have the topic finalised.

     

    I would really like to see a pre-rendered one like oDDity was talking about. His pre-rendered stuff looks phenomanaly better than any real-time rendering could.

     

    It sounds like we lost the posts where we made a desicion, so I think it needs a little discussion, one last time.

  13. I vote for no tilting. If I'm facing upward and confused about which way the compass really means, I can always look forward again, no big deal.

     

    I have to sympathise with TYROT about not having a compass at all on the HUD. I can't remember the last time I intentionally selected the compass as an item in T2. Only the odd occasion when I'm truley lost and am carefully studying the map and my surroundings to get a bearing on where I should go.

    Maybe we should keep it as an item, like in T2.

     

    (Yeah I've changed my tact, but that's what discussion is for :))

     

    I also vote against the ambient sound to replace the lightgem. Surely the lightgem is tried and true - simple and practical. Why do we need a replacement? Sure, you aren't MEANT to be in bright light much, but the fact is that all sounds must overlap, whereas the lightgem HUD item only overlaps a tiny portion of the screen. If you are straining to hear if there are guards footsteps approaching from afar and happen to not have shadows around you, the ambience would drown it out (I have the T2 ambient music turned down to less than half of normal volume). Conversly, if you are straining to see something tiny in the distance, even if the light gem is obscuring it, all you have to do is move the screen a bit.

  14. Yes sparhawk, you can deactivate your own mines in T2 :) open up T2, drop a mine, sneak close to it and lean forward with your lockpicks until it lights up. Then start lock-picking. Saved me many a wasted mine. Would be really good in Multiplayer.

    ...triggering them only when one steps upon it might be a bit hard. Depends on how the AI moves.
    Can't it just be a collision detection between the mine and the AI?

     

    TYROT and oDDity's posts make sense. A land mine hardly seems like the tool of a cat-burgler.

    And yet, what New Horizon and others have been saying is also true - we want to make a game familiar to Thief fans.

     

    I agree with TYROT; keep the mine, but make it harder.

     

    Here's my suggestion

     

    Yes, Guards can see mines, making it useless against guards, period. If they see it, they go into search mode, and will never go near enough to set it off. Even if it means standing on one side of it in a narrow hallway, cursing at you while you are safely on the other side.

     

    But It stays useful for the things I found it useful for - non-humans, specifically robots, and undead. Let's assume that those creatures don't have our level of perception, and will never see a mine.

    Those creatures are very strong and very dangerous (if they're not, we should make them moreso). So even though the mine may wake up everyone in the building, you might find yourself in such a dangerous position that you will want to use one against one of those creatures.

  15. Yeah, awesome work by both you guys :)

     

    god_is_my_goldfish, I like how much thought you've put into how it works.

     

    I personally like the 3 flash delay - it's silent, and I think this "safety feature" concept is used in real life... I know it's used in DeusEx though.

     

    If you don't know there is a bomb there, you still get blown up. No beeping warns you with god_is_my_goldfish's idea. Even in DeusEx, which beeps as well as flashes, when you hear the beeping and you didn't know there was a bomb there, you still get blown up, because it's not long enough to run away properly because you don't know what specific direction to run in to get away by the most amount in the shortest time.

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