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Mr Mike

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Posts posted by Mr Mike

  1. You would still have to recreate the whole map from zero. Thief maps and TDM maps are created using the complete opposite technique. The old Thief editor treats the world like a solid block and the player 'carves' spaces out within it. It's a subtractive engine. The TDM engine is an additive engine. That means that the world is an empty void but you then create walls, and objects to be placed within the void.

     

    It's possible to export Thief maps in a model format of some sort that could be used in TDM, but I believe that would have to be done in a modeling program like 3Dmax, lightwave, blender...etc.

     

    So in order to recreate a map using Dark Radiant, you would have to eyeball the original map and build it from scratch.

     

    I'm not sure how true that is NH. No matter how the editor operates you are still creating points in a pseudo 3D space - a program to convert between one to the other is well within the grasp of a few of our members. See the System Shock/ultima thread.

     

    Reality is though that it's still a lot of work. I wouldn't knock a remake of a TDP level, but I think the best way is a new realization of it.

  2. Thanks! That's something I really try hard to achieve. :)

     

     

     

    Ha. Remember, I used a LOT of prefabs for the city section, and I used Sotha's modular building technique for the pub, so that helped speed things up.

     

     

     

    Wow, that's high praise. Thanks very much and glad you're enjoying it! :blush:

     

    As for the safe hint:

     

    minor:

    Where might Larkin hide an important key if it wasn't on his person?

     

     

    med:

    Search his bedroom.

     

     

    pretty major:

    the key changes position depending on difficulty level. Look under things in his bedroom.

     

     

    Thanks, have completed it now. I quickly found it with a frobhunt in that room. Might be too well hidden but I can't say for sure until I replay.

     

    Absolutely loved your work. The lighting in particular was great. It seemed the ambient was lower than most missions, which I generally find too washed out on my cheap LCD, though I've recently had a re-install so maybe that changed things. There was so many individual 'pools' of light for me to play around in though, and that made the gameplay great. Not sure how much time you spent thinking about that but it was really nicely balanced IMHO.

     

    Only 'issues' I noticed were:

    • When the 2 guys you follow are going up the long steps I took the shortcut over the wall. I ended up stuck in geometry after jumping off the wall to the steps
    • The banister that goes along the stairs at the rear of the tavern to the beer store room just ended abruptly at the top step. Seemed odd.
    • I had slow down in several locations. Feel bad about saying this as the level of detail and frame rate exceeded all of my expectations of what TDM can do. I am on a mid range system running Win XP.

     

    I won't go on but just say thank you and recommend everyone plays this.

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  3. I haven't yet finished this, struggling to open the safe (hints welcome), but I wanted to say that this is absolutely fantastic Springheel. I don't give praise lightly but this is hands down my favourite TDM experience so far. I got into Thief through the Assassins demo and, as you may feel, that first Thief experience really is something and can never quite be matched, but this gave it a damn good try and really reminded me of that first experience for several reasons.

     

    The setting, story, audio and especially lighting is wonderful. And it seems that the higher skill levels will really add replay value. The multiple routes of entry also gave an incredible sense of freedom whilst never seemingly overly convoluted. Got to go back and finish this off, and probably replay straight again, but I needed to show my respect straight away.

     

    PS - the uneven roads you really nailed. This is a masterclass in how it should be done

  4. It should be. Player footsteps are always played on the same channel. Using one channel for the left foot and another for the right might mitigate the non-overlap problem.

     

    Please file a bugtracker issue. Sounds like a minor enhancement someone could investigate.

     

    Not quite sure how to set a bug tracker. Now this thread is completely derailed (sorry) but is this single channel issue also why the haunt (skeleton in builder chain mail) also sounds badly clipped and, well, crap? I don't know which pk4 the samples are located but I'm sure they don't cut off so abruptly as they do ingame.

  5. Has anyone from the team tried these out? They're very subtle (too subtle in my mind) but do add a much nicer production to the sounds IMHO - and I don't mean that in the 'cooool, let's add HDR and Bloom' way.

     

    A good map to maybe try this on is the startmap pack, though AI is very close together - http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Startpack_Mappers%27_Guide

     

    Deadlove - could you upload all pk4's in a single zip to make downloading easier with the next update?

  6. I'm not sure my ears are sensitive enough to pick up the sound of a clipped footstep but I'll start by checking up what's the difference between player and ai when walking in shallow water.

     

    From memory A Noble Home is a good place to check as you start off in ankle high water. I found the sample being cut off by the next footstep really annoying, though perhaps that's just OCD.

     

    There's a 200ms delay between footstep sound starts. That might be because the same channel is used every time. If a second channel can be added, the delay might no longer be needed.

     

    Woah, that sounds odd. If a delay is used for every sound doesn't that cancel out any technical benefit? Also, doesn't that make the whole experience out of synch, or could it have been set that way for other reasons? Perhaps to tap-creep like in the originals...

  7. If you can give us some better sounds for when the player is walking through very shallow water, it would be appreciated. Currently, the AI sounds in shallow water are great, but the ones the player makes are not so good.

     

    I think the problem with this is that the sound system only ever plays 1 footstep sound at a time, so walking in water means that the last footstep always clips off the sound from the previous footstep. At least that's what I was led to believe. I don't know if it's fixable.

  8. As I said, forward leaning doesn't always resolve the issue, or certainly leaves it as a game of swooping the mouse around until it magically selects the item you want.

     

    Would it be possible that items of value have a stronger, or larger frob zone than junk items? This may also require disabling until a box or safe is open etc. This would also help scenarios such as when you're trying to pick up the expensive wine bottle at the back of a shelf surrounded by empty bottles and what not.

     

    'Press X to win' is the antitheses of good gaming for me but scenarios such as taking loot from a box should be as slick and simple as possible for a rewarding and non-frustrating experience imho.

  9. Does leaning forward not help in those situations?

    Does leaning forward not help in those situations?

     

    NH - I've been on a TDM hiatus for a while but it did seem that replaying some missions showed that it was perhaps harder to get loot from a chest than it was before. Has something changed?

     

    I had quite a bit of trouble getting some items (flat out gave up on one - the penny in the chest in the guard's quarter's in A Noble Home) what so ever. Is there a reason that only the lid of a chest is ever frobbable, and the base isn't. Would seem to make this much less of an issue but I have vague recollections of this suggestion years ago.

     

    EDIT - and yes I use all the leans and combination of such, and have done since the Assassins demo.

  10. Doom3 was notorious in its use of specular in any and all objects. Everything was shiny. I think some objects should be made shinier than they are, most notably loot objects like gems and golden stuff. I'm pretty sure that the engine also supports static cubemaps to create an illusion of reflectivity. Doesn't it? I suppose it would be possible to use real-time reflections too, but I don't think it's necessary to waste processing power for that in such small objects.

     

    A lot of items come across as dull non-reflective objects in TDM when logically they'd be quite bright. I always find it jarring when picking a lock and the large metal plate and door handle are twisting away yet I've never noticed light shine on them.

     

    Is there a keyword to increase the effect of specular maps?

  11. Indeed. I cringe every time I hear my old builder vocal set.

     

    I haven't gotten sick of hearing myself as Benny, though. :D

     

    Well I meant no offense Mortem. And Biker, who I think made some of the guard vocals.

     

    If anything, it highlights what an outstanding job Mr Russell did for the original games.

  12. Sorry Biker, I didn't intend to offer my services :) I'd give it a go but as an amateur song writer/musician I'm well aware of how bad my voice is and I've not an drama bone in my body.

     

    Perhaps whoever did the voice acting for the intro to the recent FM might like to give it a go?

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