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@HappyCheeze: As soon as New Horizon has set you up, you'll need to read through a few things before you have access to our SVN repository. This is the link you'll want to start with, take your time and work through that: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6694

Ok, can you set up our two new Beta Mappers, New Horizon? @Flanders: you'll need to read through a few things before you have access to our SVN repository. This is the link you'll want to start with, take your time and work through that: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6694 (accessible with Beta Mapper permissions) I'll post that link in HappyCheeze's thread too.

HaHAhAHAHhA. Yes, to be more specific, i should of mentioned gameplay. Given the style of game THeif is, and the assumption you want to make the best game possible, I classify gameplay under necessity. It's the addition of pre-determined "Necessities" that result in great gameplay. :lol: Although I feel that pissing and other similar activities should be left up to Larry Laffer, it 'would in fact' add more realism to the game. Definitely not a Necessity though in my opinion. I'd like to see waking guards before i see our character's cock n balls.

Yep, it was released just a little while ago http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122490 If anyone doesn't know this is part 2 of the Circle of Stone and Shadow Thief II Fan Mission campaign. It follows up where Cosas left off after Gathering at the Inn. I won't get into details, I have yet to play it (hopefully tonight). I was a part of this time quite awhile back and can say what I saw of the terrain in MissionX it is a pretty cool layout. I am very happy that my work will finally be released. I modelled the main characters (Raputo, Cloud) something like 4 or 5 years ago. At the time it was a pretty big deal for me and some of my first completed characters. AnarchicFox (I believe) did the skins so they should be looking really nice. I also did quite a bit of furniture and a few small items. Anyway, I figure anyone here would love to play this one but might've missed the announcement.

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 started a thread about them almost a year ago: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6754 Apparently, these items are on your ToDo-List.

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 lost my acess to TDM resources and team forums, so I can not check these spiral stairs... But... what's the best method to build monster clip walls that would outline round surfaces (e.g. walls around spiral stairs or tower walls)? The one described in spiral staircase tutorial? (Unfortunately, there's no screenshots there now.)

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.

Yup, there are a good few of us steadily working on stuff, posting in the internal forums about issue and things. Between us and the more official main mappers, there should be a good strong handful of cool missions ready for the mod release (probably around next summer)

You're welcome. There are still a few steps left to go before the model is actually ready, but at least you have your first result. I was thinking that this conversation should perhaps be moved back to the public forums - I believe it could be quite instructive for others. What do my fellow team members think?

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.

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

You'll want to learn Normals for sure but they can always be added later in a mtr file. The collision and shadow are more critical as the model needs redone again later if not there. You should check out polycount forums for any information on modelling techniques. Our Wiki has all the basic infor but almost any modeller can learn alot from polycount. Some amazing stuff gets done there and everyone is really helpful. I am using XNormal for normal maps and AO baking right now, it seems to work really well. Normal map basics. I'm not gonna get in depth as there are tuts. Basically you need a low poly and a high poly version of your model. It's best if the low poly is fully encased within the highpoly and has bevelled edges. The high poly deffinately needs beveled edges, straight 90 degree edges don't get transfered as the normal map contains info on sides not depth. Also, each polygon on the model needs unique uv space, overlapping polys will leave black spots that get no light. Then you export the hi and low seperately and use a program like Xnormal or Doom3 to bake the hi-poly details onto your low poly map (the high poly model doesn't need UV coords).

Bah, that page is just marketing hype - it's just an interview with the developer, not actual performance tests. You need an independant 3rd party for a reliable source. I made a post on how XP runs games faster than Vista, but decided it should be a new thread. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8089 The bottom line is - the numbers are out, and XP runs games faster than vista, and they look identical in terms of image quality, even the DX10 ones.

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.

Hey, Jerboa, welcome to our forums! We can always use more of such models, "everyday stuff" is good for the mission toolset. I suggest you drop a PM to New Horizon to apply for Model Contributor status. We can create an applicant thread for you, where we review your stuff and introduce you to how to get your model in-game. Have you a copy of Doom 3 around? The process of getting models in-game is not hard at all, but it may take some non-obvious steps.

Was just browsing through the BCG forums, and stumbled upon this: Thank god.