STiFU

Hehe, well I love it. Makes it all look so fable-like, especially after you tune it a little. Also, if you don't believe luminances are additive or if you're interested in this, check out Phong-lighting, especially the diffuse-part... =) Of course it is only a simplified approximate model of the complex behaviors of real light, but it serves the purpose. The wikipedia entry about it is not very good though.

The perception of luminance-differences is indeed logarithmic. (The luminance-difference between two lightsources with luminances of 1 and 2 compared to 2 and 4 is perceived the same) But this knowledge about the human visual system does not mean, that the luminances of multiple candles may not be added, since it's done like that in nature as well. It just describes how we see it. I agree though, that it looks a little overbrightened, but this could also be related to bloom. I did not try disabling it on such a scene so far. Maybe it'd help...

Hey taffers, a thiefy friend (Judith) recently told me about a book called "The hows and whys of level design" written by Hourences and I thought I'd share that information here as well, because some of you might be interested in it. It supposedly contains valuable information on design workflow and common rookie mistakes. I just had a brief look at it so far, but it looks nice...

When betatesting bikerdude's FM I noticed that r_showportals does not work, when the compass is selected. Took me quite some time to figure that out, including a couple of gamerestarts... Anyway, I am wondering what it is about that compass that causes this misbehavior.

Firoso, if you're the .NET kind of guy, just try the C# and mono combo. If you didn't know, Mono is a crossplatform implementation of C# and is compatible with .NET. I've already worked with it and it was sheer pleasure. I love C#!!! =) And I even got one more task for your loader: Clean up the folderstructure mess inside the doom 3 folder. One folder per mission is unnecessary. Better use a single backup folder to store compressed saves and screenshots in after installing a new mission. This is actually my main concern and if it could be integrated into the ingame menu, I'd be happy as well. I don't mind restarting after installing a mission too much. I am only a little worried that things will get messy, once a hundred FMs have been released. Things like "sort by release date" or a filter "only show unplayed" will be mandatory, as well as a smaller font for the missionlist.

Have you also added a scenario where one has to shoulder a body in order to proceed? I am just asking because you suggested this but didn't list it now...

I've got an oral exam on 7th, but I could participate in your betatesting anyway. It might just happen though, that I decide that I need to learn some more. My studies have upmost priority as you can imagine. But after the 7th you can expect full devotement. So am I expected to register at those WearyTaffer forums? So far I only betatested maps in private, which is why I haven't heard about that forum until now.

This is a general TDM issue that has already been discussed a couple of times. I actually reported this myself once. I guess this will be dealt with in the next update of TDM.

I agree, but I also think that the falloff radius of AI sounds is in general a little too low. I can never localize an AI by it's footsteps because I simply don't hear them, while in T2, the sound of the footsteps was all a thief needed. On marble floors I can still hear them, but everything other than that is damn quiet. So aside from raising the falloff radius, it'd maybe be worth trying to normalize the AI footstep sounds a little bit, so that the more quiet AI sounds will become a little louder.

Ah sweet. That secret was nice... You really seem to love levers and buttons!

That's no bug. There's an invisible retina scanner that unlocks the door for him! But seriously, if it was implemented that he couldn't open the door anymore, after you stole his key, the team would also have to implement that he gets alerted once he discovers that the key was stolen and that he starts calling for some guards to bust the door open or at least search the key or the thief for him. I guess this was a gameplay choice. It would make ghosting a mission way too hard or even impossible in worst case scenarios.

I no-clipped through the level to check for that objective and while doing so, I noticed that there is another secret room with loot in it that I didn't discover before, although the mission stats screen showed that I got 1976 of 1976 in loot. (damn it, I spoiled the secret to me myself, but I still got no clue how to open it) So either the total loot score is broken as well, or there is another bug in TDM here. Still couldn't find that darn objective though... Anyway, I really gotta continue learning now. Damn TDM-addiction... And Tels, maybe I'll have some spare minutes this evening to setup a small testmap. But I can't promise anything, because I got some friends coming over and I somehow doubt they'll be interested in that...

Secret: About the optional objective, I played on difficult the first time and I didn't notice any new objective. Hmn... How is it triggered? Maybe it was broken due to all the bugged AI...

I haven't setup Dark Radiant and all that right now and I also gotta start learning for an oral exam on 7th in a few, so I ain't got the time right now for experiments. I can add it to the bugtracker with reference to this mission though, but this might not be universal enough and we don't even know for sure yet if it is really an issue with the height of the lightsource or not.

I played it again today, but on medium instead of difficult. The AI didn't get stuck in doors this time, blocking my way through the mansion, so it was a lot easier... I got all the loot now, but it was really hard to find. I only missed two secret places, one of them not being mentioned anywhere (I think). A little hint or at least some background information, why that loot was hidden there would've been nice, since that place is nearly invisible on lower gamma-settings in combination with an LCD display that suffers from bad contrast in dark places. Anyway, I discovered a couple of smaller issues. The first of them might need fixing by the Dark Mod team itself: by which you enter the mansion is so low, that the lantern appears to stick out of it at the top. The place is only lit up for brief moments although the lightgem is fullbright all the time. I assume this behavior is caused by the height of the lantern being linked to headbob. I guess this should be adjusted so that the player can light up any place he is capable of traveling through.I noticed some awkward effects on a tray. It seems like you wanted to fake a reflection or something, but it looks rather weird. Check out this screenshot.There are also a few other modeling and texturing issues, but I guess this is not the place to mention them. If you want, I can PM them to you though... You can also lean through a wall at one point of the map, looking into the blackness of the void.These issues didn't decrease the fun I had with this FM in any way though. I have never been that immersed in TDM until now. Congrats again and thanks!! Greebo, what optional objective? Is there a secret bonus objective? I just checked the objectives on every difficulty and there is nothing listed to be optional.

If that doesn't work, maybe a teleporter could be used right in the playerstart. Maybe the target location or different teleporters could be toggled depending on the difficulty.

Oustanding Mission. Kickass atmosphere and true thief feeling. I am seriously amazed. Nice to see what can come out of two months of work. I played it on difficult and it was really a high niveau FM. Found only 1500 in loot though. Gonna check it out again tomorrow. However it eventually got ridiculously difficult as the AIs started bugging. In the end, they blocked my way home, so I had to cheat my way outa there. (Any yet another reason to play it again tomorrow ) Congrats!

Springheel, are you seriously complaining that the secrets were too hard to find? ;-P Personally, I think the more challenging the better.... But the loot-objective could've been a bit lower I guess. Finding secrets shouldn't be mandatory. I agree on the Dave-issue though!!

All the videolinks are down as well, so I successfully checked for some on . It looks pretty good aside from some minor issues, like that bow-effect that is sometimes visible on the teleporter and that you actually see the playermesh for a brief moment when you go through the teleporter. Still definitely nice for use in a map like this...

For Oblivion I found 2048x2048 ground textures (and 4048x4048 Landscape textures), which is also quite a step up from 512x512. But here, you of course have more grounddetails to work with... Those texture packs were pretty good as well. To be honest, Oblivion was painfully ugly without them! There were really cool mods and graphic tweaks for that game.

I am always pro high-res texturepacks in old games. I recently played Deus Ex again and the highres texturepack improved the visual quality a lot... And I don't get it, that there's supposed to be some sort of magic going on with lowres textures. It's just blurry!! ;D

I too got a feeling to hit something, so I pulled out my sword on two guards and I noticed that both were killed by one blow to the head although I played on difficult. I wonder why they were so easy. Some of the guards in the Trainingmission were a lot harder... But that's no specific issue with this map, which was pretty nice. Liked the boarded doors and windows and all the destroyed stuff lying around. I had a minor problem frobbing these because of a too short frobdistance, but I got them in the end, so no biggie!! =)

Uh that Indie game looks interesting. Gonna check it later. But prey was definitely awesome too.

Yeah, there are quite a few glass-free 3d display techniques by now and some of them don't even require to be configured on a certain viewing distance, but they are really expensive, so it's useless again for a "mainstream" 3d package. But still very interesting... But I generally prefer polarized vs shutter-glasses too. It is indeed a little kinder to the eyes and you don't have to puke during a camera pan, because of totally blurred contours...

I don't know many TVs that emit polarized light for stereoscopic viewing, but the ones I know do it like this: The uneven lines are polarized horizontally and the even lines are polarized vertically. So it is an interlaced signal and the resolution of the picture seen by one eye is half as big as it could be. Maybe that's the reason they decided to go for shutter-glasses. Better a smaller temporal resolution than a smaller spatial resolution. Also you will probably see weird linestructures all over the screen.