Melan
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Posts posted by Melan
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Cooler than a block of ice!
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We3lcome back, Johannes! If that is your rusty form, can we really complain?
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Absolutely not. Check Heroine's Quest The Herald of Ragnarok. Decent point & click on Steam 100% for free.
Heroine's Quest is great! A worthy full-length successor to Quest for Glory - and yes, completely free.
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I'm not sure whether the building in the last shot is really intented to attract tourists. Such small diners are pretty common here in germany.
I figured it was a touristy place because it is uphill right next to a castle, and the sign says "Nürnberger Bratwurste". If it was just for locals, it probably wouldn't say Nürnberger - because that much would be obvious.
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Nürnberg, 1912-1919:
Look at that little piece of tourism industry in the last picture!
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Yeah, I thought it was a call for beta testers! (Which I didn't answer because I wanted to play the final release.)
Do you wish to betatest the mission, or do you consider it a final?
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I just can't do stepwise refinement. I know it is the standard way to go among the pros, but the only way I really enjoy the process is by going scene by scene (while iterating a lot).
Anyway; some of the best advice I have read about designing spaces (real or virtual, public or private) comes from Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction, a great 1977 book on urban and housing design. Alexander was (is) an opponent of technocratic modernism and a proponent of human-scaled, organic architecture. In his book, he gives a great understanding of how architecture works by breaking it down into core elements ("patterns") which form nested hierarchies, and which can combine to create good or bad architecture. Coincidentally, a lot of what Alexander considers good architecture - varied, slightly irregular, full of nooks and crannies and suprising little spaces - also makes for good Thief architecture. It is a thick book, full of illustrated examples and discussion, and you don't have to be an architect or town planner to understand it.
Here are a few patterns: Positive Outdoor Space; Activity Pockets; Small Public Squares; Roof Garden.
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The first places to turn to would be pharmaceutical and chemical industry companies, since they sweep up the majority of PhDs in the field. They should have a place on their websites where they advertise open positions... or you may even approach them directly with your CV.
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Fair enough - there is nothing wrong with choosing Normal. I typically play missions on Hard myself. But I do strive to make Expert a challenge.
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It depends on the difficulty - on Hard/Expert,
you can't enter the back alley because the door is locked, and on Expert, there is no rope to climb. On these difficulties, there is a blackjack at the city watch shack ("small armoury") across town... and I think the thieves in the sewers may have one (I can't recall perfectly).
A lot of the challenges in the mission depend on the difficulty setting - extra AI with more insidious patrol routes, harder access to various locations, and less equipment.
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It doesn't really matter how many objects a light is hitting - idTech 4 can sling polys into the hundreds of thousands without breaking a sweat. Problems typically start when you have too many overlapping, shadowcasting lights. Fortunately, hardware has advanced enough that you don't have to be as strict as in 2009, just don't go overboard with several lights hitting the same area.
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Why not use NJob instead of Crazybump? It is free, fast, and functional. Makes great normals most of the time.
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I liked your more stylised models, so that may be the problem.
Realism is nice and fine, but a game does not necessarily benefit from full realism. I like food models like the blue cheese and the fish, because they somehow "fit" the visual world of TDM.Another part is being concerned that bananas will start cropping up in TDM missions, and the tiny purist inside me is hopping up and down, screaming "THERE ARE NO BANANAS IN BRIDGEPORT!"
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The texturing is kinda flat. E.g. the eggplant is purple, but lacks that stylistic touch which made Thief's plumsies (the healing fruits in the later Pagan levels) distinct.
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Perhaps not many people see it, but what we have is actually a very good compromise between a brush-based and a modelling-based editing paradigm. id Tech 4 is right at the point where you can use either approach reasonably comfortably, and without major sacrifices in graphics, performance or gameplay. While brushwork can be fiddly to work with and look crude, models can result in an uniform look - you can see the building blocks and the seams between them even in very well-designed games like Dishonored 2. id Tech 4 lets you build environments which take the best of both worlds.
(And of course, Dromed has its own draws, with a very "deep" flexibility after you get past the initial learning curve. It also has an iconic look that is going to be increasingly less "dated" and more "stylised" in the eyes of players.)
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It is also (mostly) how modular building works in TDM.
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You ought to look through them and remove those which are obviously made for Thief (e.g. Hammerite and Mechanist insignia, some of those mechanical textures). Many are based on IRL photos, or are sufficiently generic, which would be OK, I guess.
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Merry Christmas!
(I miss seeing Melan's mammon cartoon though...)
You mean this one?
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, everyone!
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This is very thiefy:
Crumbling building surrounding a gloomy courtyard. Rooftops. Thick, climbable pipes. Windows you can peer through to spy on people. A tucked away terrace high above, leading into someplace interesting.
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It is a different adaptation. Not flawless, but the visuals are great for both the city streets and the cellars.
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Yeah, modern building techniques/restraints can not really applied for TDM. And I agree with Dragofer and V-man: This may be one of the cases, where it is sensible to sacrifice realism for gameplay/pathing issues.
Yeah. Realism is fine and dandy until your missions turn into this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDedpreZH-0
Don't.
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Thanks, all, and especially Peanut's detailed comments!
Some responses (probably no need to spoil them):
The readables in this mission were excellent. There was a very definite sense of independent characters living in the city, which was perhaps only slightly subdued by some areas feeling a little empty of civilians, apart from the beggars (ok it's night, let's say most of them are in bed or down the pub :-).The reason the streets are so empty is because there is a manhunt going on, and everyone who has a place to stay is trying to stay out of it. (For a counterexample, see the unfortunate incident on Dipper's Walk.
)WRT the Red Room and The Book, these are the hardest puzzles in the mission, the real hidden stuff. If you got them, you are real good!
Steam Greenlight: TDM is ranked #1 atm.
in The Dark Mod
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Also in the "can't unsee it" department: the short clock hand resembles a very cheerful Tweety Bird sitting on that round thing.