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Deep Omega, I found a perfect reference pic for the coins. I think we should use this for the face: http://www.btinternet.com/~petercoins/images/pc41.jpg And on the topic of perfect stacks, we could probably create the illusion of things being slightly uneven with a normal map. Check out Ren's crypt wall as an example. Are you able/willing to skin the coins yourself? If not I need to assign it to someone else, as Sparhawk is chomping at the bit to get an object into the game.

Good job, Pakmannen. Wow, I really like the louder sound you made of the HumAmb file!! It really brings out just the right things to make it sound great! I could see that working for some parts in a campaign. The 'wet finger around a crystal glass' part of the sound, though, may be just slightly a little to pronounced. I've had your revised HumAmb playing for a couple minutes here and it does get kind've piercing to the ear, unfortunately. For the most part, though, I love it. Or, if it were ever to get used in game as is, then it would just need to be for a short time. I kinda knew BellAmb was lacking -- I think it maybe needs more solid foundations. I just kept it in it's raw format for now, but I'll try to layer other sounds with it to bring out more fullness and richness to it. Yeah, I need to do something different to record sounds here, but I'm not sure what. Any advice? I have to record at a very low level, otherwise the sound wavelenghts that show in Goldwave go all the way to the top and bottom and get cut off, hence distorting my sounds and losing a lot of the cool sutbtleties of the sounds. I don't know if the issue is Goldwave software 'cheapness,' my sound card or what. Would a more professional audio program solve this dilemma? Right now, I have two cords coming out of the stereo phono plugs of my keyboard into a Y-splitter that take it down to a single stereo 1/8" jack, which then gets plugged into my nForce 2 (SoundStorm) sound portion of my motherboard. Using the nVidia Mixer software (from nVidia), I have to turn the 'Mic Booster' on to get decent recording levels and hear the sounds better thru my PC. But it's all so touchy. I can then only turn the volume up on my keyboard about 1/3 of the way, otherwise I'm at a great risk to have the recording go 'in the red' on Goldwave's VU Meter. I'm hoping you know what I mean. Here's a pic showing the VU Meter maxed out. A very common occurrence for me: Yet, when I record at lower levels and try to use Goldwave's effects to 'increase volume,' I can rarely increase it by 150% or 200% without it clipping the wavelenghts at the top and bottom again. All's I know is if I plug my keyboard into my home stereo system and crank it, it sounds awesome. My PC is a lot more touchy. PS... YES!!! I'd love to give FM authors the ability to have instruments lying around in their maps (pianos, harpsichords, harps, guitars, cellos, etc.) and have sounds tied to them in case the thief chooses to touch them. Is it possible to tie two sounds to a given object, so the 1st time the object is touched it's a quiet sound, and the 2nd time a louder sound?

Maybe, but we're not making your dream girl. Hehe. Personally, I find more realistic more attractive. Look, how about a game where the females are realistically proportioned for once? We're really going to break some new ground with this Mod. Thief 3 had fat and thin male guards. Lets consider having fat and thin females too! Even if we only implement female nobles, and not female guards. Fat or thin, they still have to have realistic proportions. None of this Tomb Raider "anorexic girl with beach balls in her tank top" crap.

On the subject of females, are we going to have female guards again? I miss them from the old game, but it would double the amount of media required for guards (textures, meshes, animations, and voices).

The glassy-ness of the gem is reflecting the lights of the game world when a player stands near lights. It would be purely for asthetic purposes, I figure, if there are enough lights to make the gem difficult to read, you already know that you're in a lot of light.

Best. Lightgem. Ever. That looks great! Is it possible to use D3's glass/haze shader so that you can see through the lightgem to the other side, but have what ever outputs through the gem to increase or decrease in brightness depending on how much light the player is in? And also, is it possible to have the reflective glass of the gem react to actual lights in the game world? If so, that would be totally awesome!

I am pleased its not just me then ..I have over fifteen years of commercial 2d 3d (traditional ) experience (www.alandickinson.net)and have worked with most of the major companies within my field …try to get into the games industry and nothing ..not a sausage! I think one of my problems is that game companies like to put you into very defined boxes and I don’t really fit into any. I must say I am surprised you have not had any success getting an environment role. Renzatic is absolutely right in what he says …I have heard the same said so many times mods are a great way to build experience. Shame you are in Canada I have seen a lot of environment positions here in the uk.

I will start on the noble man if that’s ok with you springheal. what is my triangle limit for this particular character? I will use a 512 by 512 texture size and can I use the unwrap uv's in max for the texture projection ...or do you use a different method for the game engine ?

Ive only heard the term brushes used in context with game editors, so if you haven't used one before then it's no surprise you haven't run across it before. At it's most basic a brush is just a cube...or 6 polygons if you wanna be exact. The broadest term is any geometry you lay in the editor besides patches (curved surfaces) or imported models. They're the building blocks of your maps, you'll use them more than anything else. Edit: looks like Fingernail beat me to the punch. Like he said, since you're gonna be a modeller you won't have to worry about brushes at all. lol, anyway...I think I mixed you up with the other new guy..judging from his work it looks like he's gonna be interesting in mapping at some point.

Please forgive my ignorance but what do you mean when you say brushes ..I have never heard that before. I understand the rest of your comments….this is exactly the reason I want to work with you guys so I can learn a little more about the transition of 3d 2d elements into a game engine

Thanks! Too bad you don't own a game company and pay your employees bucketloads of dough. I need work in a big way.

And I forgot to add. This option would probably be of high interest to ghosters. They tend to come up with all kind of crutches to get around the engine limitations because it does NOT support putting stuff back. Especially when playing on higher difficulty levesl this could be interesting. And I think if we are able to put an item back, we should make use of that for the game as well.

I'm also quite opposed to loot glint. If items are made easily recognizable as loot without going overboard, which T1/T2 pulled off well, then there shouldn't really be a need for loot glint like T3. By having loot glint, you never have those moments of discovery like in T2 where you thought you found all the loot in a room, only to revisit and see a little gold coin sitting off in a shadowy corner, or on the 1.5"-wide top edge of some wall paneling. Loot glint also takes away one of the uses our flares would provide. I love NH's attempt at showing a valuable item. That sort of coloring, also combined with having valuable objects be slightly more brilliant (bump shadowy) -- I don't know how to describe -- would be cool. You know how when you look at a brushed steel surface in a game and you move back and forth you can see how the light reacts to it within its surface? This is what I mean by more brilliant. Valuable objects would catch the surrounding light better and have a brighter brilliance to them than regular objects so they're more visible when you move around. Brilliance maybe isn't a good word to describe, but maybe you know what I mean? Basically, valuable objects would have a higher tendency to be caught by your eye as you walk around. In addition to this, maybe have it so if you walk by an item at just the right angle, it will reflect a single bright flash of light to your eye (unless there's no light source nearby whatsoever). Experiencing this light flash would be a somewhat rare occurrence (since how often would a glint of light hit your eye from loot in real life) and would NOT be a flashing beacon like in T3. This would make hunting for loot funner, imo. Loot glint coupled with loot percentages kind've killed the thieving experience in T3 for me. I disliked loot percentages. I much preferred T1/T2's accumulation of loot value. In T1/T2, you didn't know how much loot you had compared to the total available for the level. So, when you had amassed 1250 loot, you had no clue if there was only 150 loot left, or 2000 left. Part of the mystery of it all.

I think there is a problem with putting something back. It is the physics engine. My guess why this doesn't really work in any game (none that I remember at least) is that it requires special coding to provide for it. If some object is standing in a i.e board, the character can not reach it really. So this means he he blocked by the bounding box of the board. To take the object the code simply looks if the player is near enough and then removes it from the world into the inventory (or players hands). If you would have to put it back, this would mean that the player would have to be near enough. But the bounding box prevents this. It would require a high precision to place the object back. But I think we can do this by either providing a seperate button OR by assuming that the player wants to put it back if the view vector and the distance is in a position near enough of the original position. We cimply must store the original location of the object and replace it in the case that one of the above is true. The nice thing is, that, if we allow this, we could even programm the AI to recognize moved objects. It could work like this. The player takes an object (i.e. a book). When he wants to put it back the object is placed randomly within the original region. If the player holds the button down for a longer time, the object will be adjusted and shift to it's original place. After a certain time it will reach the original place but that takes time. If the object is carelessly placed then the AI could recognize it. If the player takes the time the AI won't recognize it afterwards. What do you say?

Hmm, I'll see if I can photoshop a pic of what I mean. With the kind of glow I'm envisioning it would be so integrated into the game world that you really wouldn't register is as a glow...it would just make things stand out. I'll post a pic if I can work something up.

I agree. Actually when I saw the model alone I had my doubts about it, but seeing it in-game it really looks great.

Hey, all I had to do was shrink it! It's a very nice looking gem/compass. Good work. Can't wait to see it in game.

Since its a model, it can be whatever size you guys want. It may also change relative to the scene depending on game resolution. I took a guess at 800x600 in the link above. I've not yet put nicks and scratches on the surface of the gem, but Ii plan to do so in addition tomaking the points a little more detailed.

Here's a work in progress image of what I have for the Lightgem. Since it differs fairly significantly from the mockup by Pakmannen, I thought I'd post the image to get opinions so I can rework it if nobody likes it I chose to go with a mold-forged iron look with the ring itself which is a look I ended up liking Shrink to about 33% to see the size it would appear in the game, I believe.

You know, I should probably get around to learning Radiant, so I can get actual, working models to you guys. Plus, I have a couple of fragment shader ideas - will have to see if I can't figure out how to get falloff self-illumination glow working. But - it's a model! In game! Awww yeeeah!

ok, its in game... ...sort of. Its not without its problems though DeepO... first of all, its a little on the big side (about 3 zombies high, lol). Scaling is something that happens in Max, not in the Doom3 editor... If it helps you can export objects from Doom3 Radiant and load the into max as a scale reference. Second, its a non Doom standard grid size. Setting up your grid size in Max to match the grid size in doom will make it a hell of a lot easier to attach the lamp accurately to walls Doom uses grids based on 8s, does max default to grids based on 10s? Thirdly, I am having trouble getting textures onto models and ingame generally. (it requires manually hacking the model file and frankly it isn't fun). You're lamp is no exception I'll come back to it in a day or so when I have had a bit more practice.... Forthly, I don't use Max (do I look rich ) otherwise I'd have had a go at fixing this stuff for you. I use blender. It might be possible to share editable copies of the file in .3ds format... Fithly, Radiant has a small moan about defunct triangles. It might be worth checking the model for loose ends...

I'm on it Sparhawk. I noticed the same thing. The concept I'm working on right now fixes that problem, and also gives us a great loading indicator. Gold, I specifically am trying to stay away from the hammer symbol for the overall game. It focuses on the thief, not the builders. Can you think of an appropriate Thief symbol? So far I've been playing with a keyhole or a hooded face, but I haven't found anything I really like yet.

http://fpscentral.ampednews.com/?game=9&site=news&id=7896 Other than the fact that Springheel got lost in the mix (he wasn't there during the interview, I'm trying to get him to fix it), it's a damn good article. The fact that he was able to make us sound so professional speaks well of the guy's editing talents.

Wow, nice! In reality it could be used for either a spy orb or a flashbomb, but we haven't discussed exactly how spy-orbs would work in the game.

Actually, Oofnish, would you be up for modelling the lightgem? We need something to texture so we can start looking at it in game. The thread with the reference material is already created. If you'd rather not let me know and I'll assign it to someone else.