Goldchocobo

I would totally buy the mug!

Yeah, the special scripts and option objectives based on player involvements was a major design idea from the start... a lot of ideas were thrown around, and I think players will enjoy what's in store.

The light beams I did with a particle emitter. I'm not sure the name, but it's called "light" something something. The mist/fog is done with more particle emitters. The particle in question is "TDM_dust", there are several different kind in there. I wish there were more, but it worked out nicely. It has a nice animated 3d look to it, floating about. For anything rocking/swaying/moving, I used a func_pendulum. You simply place your pendulum at the base of the item that you want to swing, and designate the degree's and speed of which you want it to swing at, and bind your item to the pendulum. I made whole "chains" of items bound to each other, including swinging torches, lanterns. ie light_142 is bound to lantern, lantern is bound to a chain, chain is bound to the func_pendulum at the base of the swinging point. I hope this makes sense. I'm sure there's a wiki for it somewhere. Since I had so much foliage for the forest, I made massive visportals that FORCE CLOSE on a certain distance, I think 1400 units. You don't notice them closing though since there is so many tree/foliage in the way. I also did this for certain city portions. The entity that does this is called "func_portal", and has a distcheck_period 1 and portal_dist 1400 (or whatever value you want). You place the func_portal ON your visportal, at about ground level. Hope this helps . I'm sure MD has a couple things to add as well.

I just re-counted the trees. Its more like 3200. But eh, thats not counting the 'millions' of handplaced ferns, flowers, ponds, lakes, grass, etc...

Thanks . We recorded them in leather boots on all of the actual relevant materials.

Some people wanted to ask technical questions, so I started a thread for it. Either me or MD will answer Ask away...

Like I said, if someone wants to step up to the plate and help poor GC with some blender terrain, please do. I don't even know how such programs work. I'm more focused on fleshing out the story, and providing maps that don't break.

A lot of the city is pretty flat, but there are many slanted portions too.

There's an animated flag? Show me!

TBH, unless someone wants to do it for me, it won't happen. So many other things to take care of.

Ah I really should have mentioned... MD here taught me everything I know regarding map optimization. He's also my "main man" for the campaign, including writing insane AI relations scripts...

And to everyone pm'ing me and replying to me, yes, I have secret OCD induced techniques for visportaling and optimizing

If i could get help doing this, I am open to the suggestion... I've tried finding someone to help with to avail.

Hello everyone, I'd like to "officially" announce a 3 mission campaign for TDM. It's been in the making for the past 9 months, and I excited to let everyone know that it, well, exists. Each level follows a wonderfully convoluted storyline, and is T2 size. My play throughs of the campaign are taking me longer then beating many modern day FPS games. I find this satisfying, and I hope everyone else does too. We are currently bug testing, cleaning up, making cutscenes, doing voiceovers, etc... rather then pin the release date it on an actual date, I'll simply say "when its done sometime within the vicinity of next month". So yes, hopefully next month, everyone will have a nice juicy injection of TDM goodness! Here are some pics: Nothing like a good ol' B & E. Towering towers are towery... a lot of effort was put into making the city portions feel big. What's a good thief level without a bar? Each reed/boat move and sway in the wind/water, rather then sitting stale. Again, each flower sways in the wind. Looks very nice in game. Literally over 4000 trees have been hand placed. Veer from the path to find secrety goodness! Note: The inn on the right is enter able - there are many secrets and B & E's to be done in the city portions. Search hard enough, and you'll even encounter new, optional objectives. Some more city. Again, many back alley's to run around and explore. Again, the city is very large in scale, but performs quite nicely. Details without the slowdowns. I hope everyone enjoys the pics... be sure to let others know of the upcoming campaign, and to download TDM! GC

Deadlier shadows? Lol!

No doubt. If AO works out, combined with your HDR work, D3 would look totally "next gen". I'm salivating at the thought.

Interesting summary there JC. Although I'm not sure about half the stuff your talking about, I'm getting the gist of it. Apply it as grime decals, however, would be near impossible and limiting - not to mention incredibly time consuming. I don't think you would be able to apply it to any complex geometry (flat surfaces only). Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Awesome work nontheless!

A couple rules that will save you many, many hours of headaches: 1. The best thing you can do is map out your map on paper before you get to work. 2. Make sure to incorporate many winds and turns. Winds and turns = visportals that actually close off. Also, the less portals in view at one time, the better. Having too many portals open/close at once actually causes crashes and piss poor frame rates. 3. The smaller the portals, the better. 4. DO NOT "design, then portal later". OMG this has caused me literally about 40 hours of extra work on my map. Yes, 40 hours (its a massive city). Good luck!

Holy crap what an INTENSE DEMO!! I frickin pre-ordered it as quickly as my trembling human hands could type!!

Wow, wow, wow. It eliminates the "deadness" from the original D3 engine. The shadows almost look soft!

Hi Biker, Thanks for the update. I added it to my own mission, however it is completely unrecognizable anymore, after 6 hours of revamping. It made for a perfect template though!

I suppose this could depend on your rig? What are you running DR on?

Fantastic job FM makers! This marks a bright future for TDM, and the Thief community in general!!

Decl patches!!

Ahahaha!