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I don't suppose my opinion means too much considering I haven't had the privilage of reading through your production discussions, etc... but because of that I am forced to reluctantly take to the gamers perspective on this subject. A few simple "gamer's" opinions which support what everyone is saying: a) When playing any game which falls into the same category as Theif does, I will never, ever cease to be entralled by, and overjoyed with the realness that developers can integrate into their game. The closer to real life the game is, the more the player can relate to it, thus the better the game becomes. Obviously, during production these factors will always exist: Time, Budget (?), Technical Ability, & Necessity. Apparently those have been discussed amognst you, and documented accordingly. This shows professionalism. There's really no way you can argue with what has been determined to be the optimal way to integrate certain elements of the game once they have been measured up against the above factors. Which i think might be the reason for the frusteration of your team members, oDDity. c) Lastly, my opinion of this specific element of gameplay (being the black-jackery of unsuspecting, 'technically advanced medival folk') is that the more real you can make it. the better. I would hardly call this an arcade game. The object of each level, should never be to steal a certain amount of money, cuz that's just ridiculous. A thief is unscroupulous to say the least. He's not some good hearted guy, with tons of self motivation. There is no such thing as ALLADIN. What ODDity mentioned about risk factors and such are very very smart ideas. In a case when stealing is the character's occupation, he should not be limited to this environment to steal from -- in reality he could attain gold (if he REALLY needed it badly) from any other person, household, or safehouse in the village (with the exception of special artifacts, which was mentioned above). I feel that if there is any reason why the guards shouldn't wake up, wake each other up, or brew up a massive search of the entire buildling, it should be because of a restriction on Time, Budget, or Technical Inability. I fully feel that there is a 'Necessity' to make this style of game as real as possible, and the whole risk factor of guards that can randomly wake up and potential alert other guards after being brain beaten makes a WHOLE LOT OF SENSE. 'Nuff said. oh 1 more thing -- i totally second the notion of using techniques to permenatly incapacitate K.O.'d people by binding them up with rope, shackles, or locking them into rooms (with the option of passing guards within the sound radius to hear their pleas to open the door). Again, it's more work -- but it adds sooo much more realism, fun, and strategy to the game. If you don't want to turn your gamers into a group of knife weilding rambos, then you must provide them with other alternatives. Never-waking K.O.'s is just a cop-out in my opinion.

The problem with modelling for correction of that is simply that it is wrong because it depends on the center of the view. Where the player is looking it. If the player is standing on a stair and the character moves right in front of his eyeleve the boots will suddenly look much bigger and when he stands in front of him they look normal? If somebody changes the FOV then the models boot will still look different or if he uses a weird resolution. The models should be made exactly as any other model. We don't broaden the floor of a chest for the same reason. That it will look straight when the player looks at it.

I'm not sure anyone said there was. What it boils down to is that when you look at an object in D3, it is distorted by perspective more than it would be in reality. Anything above or below your eye level will quickly start to look small. This includes a character's feet (unless you are lying on the floor where the feet are at eye level).

I don't want to disrupt your note threads for this topic, so I post the discussion thread here under the same name. When I look at the model page, there seem to be much more models ready (well, not THAT many but still) then are in the models map. Also the character models are not there. The Revenant seems to be pretty ready.

I don't think so. I think I would've actually preferred to have Thief: Deadly Shadows be done on the old Thief 2 dark engine than how it was done. So, in some respects, I feel T2X will somewhat fulfill those wishes, even though the main character isn't Garrett. Bottom line is that I've reinstalled and played Thief 2 every now and then several times since its launch, but I don't think I'll be doing the same with Thief 3. Thief 3's good, but just not the same. For me, gameplay is far more important than flashy or updated graphics and Thief 2 has stood the test of time. Hopefully some Thief 3 fan missions will inspire me to re-load Thief 3 and learn to appreciate that game/engine more. In the meantime, though, T2X will be fun to try and I look forward to jumping back into the Dark engine.

..and considering there are 70 character models to do (and I'll be doing the most of those) I haven't got time for nitpicking over little details.

I've mostly used Cubase earlier, but have switched to Reason for it's midi capacities. I was wondering if any others use Reason, and maybe if you have any general or specific advices concerning making ambient music in this program? Let this be a thread for us (I presume there are more than me) who use Reason and who want to share our thoughts, tips and tricks about it with the other contributors/team members. Since I believe most people that make ambient music use Reason, I thought this thread justified in the DarkMod forums. One thing in particular I would like to know is recommended patches for bass ambience, like the one in 'Outside the Mansion' and 'Defiled Church'? I've tried a lot of patches, but can't find any that really has the right Thief-sound, not necessarily like in the aforementioned tracks mind you. (I may just be picky, but that's better than sloppy methinks) /K

The boots look fine to me, the only problem i've ever had with odd's character's boots is when they move and the points on the front look kinda funny. Otherwise it definetly seems to work well.

Pull the other one Modeler role call: Oddity (present and correct), DeepOmega (seems to have brief periods of activity amongst long periods of abscence, Atti (objects only), alan9000 (doesn't post much, but he seems to be getting the noble done behind the scenes alright), Diego (fine), Corth (fine). Should be OK, but then things are quiet around Easter anyhow. I think our main target should be one character ingame animated fully, before the May 1st milestone. EDIT: SPAR HAS BEATEN ME AGAIN

So it seems we can use another good character modeler at least.

So....how many of the changes I just finished making to the mesh two weeks ago are now obselete? http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=151102

I think there is some misunderstanding about my problem with the entity list size in my post @ http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...st&p=142541 It's not the panel size (though that needs saving as well) but the entity list itself (see the image of waste space in the picture in that post and the tiny entity list.) So this problem is still present in the latest snapshot. I only see 2 or 3 lines of entity properties with a very large empty panel. Does nobody else see that?

Yes!!! You know, it is a big problem, I feel. Unfortunately, most people (including myself up until this point, more or less) are so used to the convenience of being able to save a game at any time that it would be very hard, if not futile, to try and get people to understand and accept this as any sort of standard that should be implemented for gaming. (Especially with our "time-deprived" society that requires convenience in everything.) Had I not grown up playing games in the 80s and 90s, I might not have understood or accepted your argument. Since many gamers of today maybe didn't experience as many games from that era as I did, I can't expect them to understand. Unfortunately, it's only a huge problem when you stop to think about it and truly weigh the pros and cons of it against what you feel you need as a gamer. Our needs as a gamer are not the same as everyone else's, so it's probably not a huge problem for everyone. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a HUGE problem, but I can see how the gaming experience can be (and probably is) highly diluted as a result of allowing the player to save at any point during a game. I've played many FPS games over the past 10 years. Unlimited saves does dilute the experience somewhat. Shoot and kill a guard from behind a crate > save > go behind next crate > shoot another guard > save again, etc. To be honest, I feel I'm sometimes a slave to the saves because there are no limits to using them and I've become accustomed to not wanting to replay areas if I die. (In fact, I'll even do a QuickLoad after receiving a minor wound, so I'll often finish a level with full health when I otherwise shouldn't have full health.) It has become a big convenience thing for me. And in some respects, playing games has become more of a playland ride through a movie to see what all it has to show, rather than a challenging experience from which I derive a sense of challenge and accomplishment. As I stated above, though, I plan to change this in future games I play -- at least for a while as I test this out. I want to re-live the challenge and accomplishment I experienced in games of yester-year. I have a feeling games will be a lot more rewarding if I do this. i know this is a complete 180 from what I talked about on our internal boards a couple weeks ago, but I now really do see the benefit (at least for myself) of wanting save restrictions. As such, I wouldn't mind seeing something like what you proposed in that thread. oDDity's idea isn't so bad either. The one thing I haven't liked about save points in many games, though, is that you almost *know* a tough area or a "boss character" is coming up because the game pauses for a moment to load that area or you can save. Having some randomness to the save point locations (not always being before a hard part, for instance), or doing something like oDDity suggested would help alleviate this inherent problem. I don't like being warned that something difficult or unique will be coming around the corner. Take care, ~ Darkness Falls

i love the stealth genre and i think thief tops the list. but there are aspects that are either don't make sense or just plain silly. like guards instantly knowing that those footsteps he just heard was a thiefs as opposed to one of his comrades. An example would be in t3 in the hammer factory trying to steal the chalice, alot of guards and metal plating, you don't see them jumping about if they hear their brothers making a noise but as soon as you do they go nuts. basically it's an ai issue, but there are other things than just the sound. visually as soon as they've seen you they know you to be a thief, ok sure the bow and arrow pointed at their head might give garret away but there are situations where guards should be a little more human. likewise you don't see guards attacking each other the minute they see each other. so guards shouldn't necessarily see garret as hostile unless he's doing something suspicous or hostile. you could do a meter to measure how suspicous your behaviour is, if it's low you could walk right upto a guard and he wouldn't attack you but might start questioning you, if it's high you got problems, disguises wont work as well or at all, your only option is to hide. if you were to make the ai smarter/more realistic in those two aspects you could introduce some hitman like gameplay elements. garret could dress up as a guard and walk in unobstructed however this may get him only part of the way for a guard couldn't get into a vault himself. you could also introduce more roleplaying to the game with dialog choices, persuasion, intimidation, bluffing, diplomacy all options the player has in discussion (noting that whether they work or not depends on what the character is trying to do). now that my rant is over, are you planning to exceed the boundary of thief 1/2/3 ai and gameplay elements? or is this factor still in discussion?

Some weapons can be concealed easily though, like the blackjack... not so much the bow or shortsword. (well, a shortsword can be concealed, but we're assuming our character is wearing it on the left hip for quickdraw). I could see putting in something like guards let you get away with slightly more suspicious actions before they go berserk if you're not carrying any obvious weapons. You're still a crazy guy in a mask tho, so if I were a guard I'd be watching pretty close, weapons or none.

When they see our character walking around in the city, for all they know, he could be a foreign mercenary or a private guard for one of the nobles. Sure they might watch him a little more closely and act warily around him, but they're not going to attack him on sight just because he's carrying. Or we could go the T3 route of having every guard know your face and instantly recognize you. I didn't really like that though, because thru the first 2 games, Garrett tried very hard NOT to become famous among the authorities, and then all of a sudden all the guards recognize him on sight.

Fidcal also has been working in this, you can see his thread in the member forums below

Here's the Builder Guard test model. YOu don't really need the textures, but I'll post them anyway. This'll save you going through the FTP, or worse still the CVS. I'm not sure how this is going to work with you using a charcater studio rig. It's not compatible with Motionbuilder, and it's a competely different rig from mine. I want to use motion capture for some of the animations. Do you know how to set up your own rig in Max wthout using character studio, then you could follow the same bone structure and naming conventions. I suppose if you're really good, we won't need motion capture at all, so just do it whatever way you want for now, and we'll see. Start off with a run cycle, a slow walk cycle, a couple of attacks (this guy uses a hammer, which he hasn't got in this file, just model a simple one attach it to his hand) and a weapon draw (he'll have his hammer attached to his back) and maybe an idle, where he's just standing abiout and scratches his neck. THe run and walk cycles for doom can have forward movment, not running on the spot like a lot of games. BuilderGuardTest.3ds

Fett from TTLG here. I'd love to help out with any writing, character dev, spell checking, etc. for the Dark Mod. I did about 50% of the principal writing for cutscenes, briefings, and in-game texts for T2X which should be out before you guys get down to brass tacks on the hardcore writing (???). I also wrote the parody 'Thief: Deadly Simplicities' which can still be viewed on pg. 2 of the Thief Gen forum at ttlg. Don't currently have a copy of Doom 3, but I'll be picking it up. I can send some samples, or would you rather just check out T2X? I have a bit of administrative experience from working on T2X the last 4 years, but you guys seem to have that end of things well in hand. Let me know if I can help in any way - the project looks great so far. p.s. Also sent you an e-mail.

I see no reason for interactive cloth right now. Animations would do fine as far as I'm concerned. The most I've seen interactive cloth simulation for in games is the cloak or hair of the main character. It's aesthetic, and looks better, but doesn't affect the stuff you do in the game, and well made animations do almost as good a job, with no extra processor drain.

I would wait for someone higher-up to post, but I seem to recall we decided against "body awareness" (ie, camera stuck to head bone of model and all player model animations used) in the past, due to the fact that we'd need to "suck" the player into place before starting the animations, like T3 did, in order to start off with the right initial conditions so that the arm/leg animations look right for stuff like climbing ladders, picking locks, etc. No one was a big fan of the "suck into place" animations of T3, and we'd rather be a floating armless/legless character on a ladder than get sucked in to the ladder at the start of climbing I don't know the details (not an animator), but I think D3 does have animation blending. I've messed with some of our animations and cut them in half, and D3 would move fairly smoothly from the ending coordinates to the start coordinatesof the next animation.

Well, all assets can be easily ported (weapon, character and world meshes, animations, textures, sound, music). Maps, though would need to be recreated, which isn't too difficult if experienced with UED (just time consuming). The only real problem would code, although from what i've read about UE3, there's so little code required now. With their new Kismet visual scripting system, the level designer can do so much without the need of a programmer. Same goes for assets. You don't need to code a thing to create a material in Unreal engine. Fett: WTF?

Will the character dimensions or viewpoint positioning be different? I found the perspective in D3 to 'feel' kind of short when walking around, if that makes sense.

Looking good! The face texture really gives him some character. Is there any way you can accomplish slightly disshelved hair with normals/textures if it can't be done with extra polys? My only complaint now would be his hairline looks too well groomed, but maybe he just went in for the military cut too, which is cool.

Oh on the Doom3 forums they said that parallel lights should be at least twice the size of the map link Relevant part: This also tends to make parallel lights dimmer than their point light counterparts, so you often need to increase the physical size a parallel light's volume well outside the area of a map you want to influence in order to get an equivalent brightness to that of a point light. Keep this in mind when designing maps that have outdoor and indoor areas, you need to keep and eye on light volume overlaps.