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Normal map, from a model. I could put the model in so people can make transparent windows..... it'd need some poly reduction, tho. I didn't pay any attention to how high poly I was making it as it's a normalmap reference.

Why thank you, Hylix I didn't mean to suggest that Thief 1/2/3 were linear in the sense of individual levels (obviously, some levels are very non-linear, the Shalebridge Cradle being a particularly good example), just that the games as a whole are linear, in that you progress from level one through to two and so on... Whereas some games are non-linear to the extent that there are different endings, and you can "complete" the game without actually seeing the whole game world, to a much greater extent than in Thief. So no, Thief is not particularly linear on a level by level basis, but in terms of overall story, the players actions don't affect the final outcome that much so in that sense it is pretty linear. I actually thought TDS was considerably less linear than the first two in the series, because you could do things early in the game that affected things later down the track (they were subtle and not significant to the final outcome though), and the City sections made for some very non-linear gameplay... Console games can be linear, or not, it is nothing in particular to do with any hardware limitation: Both Thief DS and Deus Ex 2 are on XBox, and there are a few RPG titles available for consoles that are not particularly linear. I am not trying to sound boastful or that I am super-skilled etc, and I recognise the need for save games as a failsafe against bugs, crashes etc, but my point is that the experience you get by relying on save games as a crutch to get through the level is different to that of just scraping through by the skin of your teeth, accepting the chips where they fall, using saves very sparingly. OK, a lot of players like to save frequently (and if I find a game boring or uninteresting I will often use lots of saves or god mode to see if the game is going to get any better), but when you use save games to reload because you are just playing recklessly, I just don't think it is in the spirit of the game... I just think save games should ideally be for one purpose only: to load the game from where you left off when you exited to windows to do something else, not a tool to make gameplay easier, and I would prefer it if the mod was set up to discourage excessive saving - the best way I feel is to simply restrict the number of save slots, and the frequency with which they can be used. Not to be a fascist bastard, but so that people can really see what it is meant to be like - the tension and suspense is amplified greatly when you have to make each move in a carefully measured, calculated way... But since everyone else except Domarius seems to hate the idea of restricting saves in any way, I guess I will just bow to majority rule and say no more on the subject.. Jeez, this thread I started is getting long :lol:

Obscurus, you seem like an intelligent dude, but I ask you: What Thief game were you playing? The only linear Thief game ever made was TDS, and for a console game, it was pretty non-linear. In T1 and T2, the game only felt linear on the lowest difficulty setting, merely because it was a little more lenient on what objectives were necessary to complete the mission. With the exeption of the Maw of Chaos, A to B to C type play was non-exisitent in the Thief gameworld. Having to complete certain objectives to complete a mission is only linear if they tell you what order to do them, and then sheep herd you in the "right" direction. So, no, Thief is not ultimately linear. As for this entertaining arguement as a whole, I'd like to say (and you love to listen) that it seems like the "No-Savers" are really argueing not for the sake of gameplay, but to impress us with their gaming skillz. There is no reason for a PC game or mod to limit saves under any circumstances...the very fact that you can save anywhere on virtually all PC specific titles is due to the very nature of the beast: Most PC games are buggy as hell, and with the added variation in hardware and software set ups, it would be a nightmare to enforce an autosave feature or save point feature if there is a possibility that the information gets corrupted, whether through poor operation, or bad memory, or a faulty PSU, or Windows, or hardware/software conflict, or....you get the picture. Console gamers don't really have that problem (with possible XBOX exceptions), though I realize memory cards can become corrupted, for the most part, as long as you don't piss on the machine, your good. Besides, Console games are so linear most of the time, you simply repeat the steps you took before. PC games (specifically Thief, with it's freedom to improvise) have so many variables in the equation (from the inside and outside the game world), that it just doesn't make any sense to limit the players ability to save his or her game. The other side of the arguement is simply: "I'm such a badass gamer, I don't need to save, why should you?" If you think not needing to save a game your playing is a badge of honor, then whether or not I do need to save is the least of your problems. Hylix.

The thing is, how do you define things like "that part of the mission" and "keep going" to the "next savepoint" in a completely nonlinear mission? Immersive missions have realistic architecture (bathrooms and all), and only in the smallest of houses will you find only one "choke point" separating two areas of the house. When you make architecturally realistic mansions and whatnot, you're going to have tons of different connections between different parts of the mansion, and, like in T2, the objective could be appearing randomly in any of those parts, or it could be a pickpocket objective on someone who's moving around. A decent sized mansion might have 5 stairways between the 1st and 2nd floor. If you want to let the player save just as they're getting to the 2nd floor, are you going to make all 5 of those stairways be save points? What if the player opts out of taking them and ascends up along the outside with a rope arrow? Do you make all balconies/windows going in to the 2nd floor also a savepoint? What if the player ropes up the outside to the 3rd floor instead, bypassing the 2nd floor initially and choosing to work down instead of up. They don't get to save then? I really like the openness of realistic architecture and nonlinearity, and think it adds a lot to the immersion. I would hate to see an FM author put an artificial choke point in their map simply to make for a convenient save point. I don't think I've ever seen save points implemented well in a nonlinear game, aside from something like an older RPG where you don't have single missions, but you go around exploring and have to "go back to town" to save. Hitman2 was a nonlinear game that limited saves, but they chose to just limit the number instead of using savepoints. Savepoints would not have worked well in that game. You might get away with putting savepoints at objectives, but then if the objective is heavily patrolled, you might inadvertantly save right as an AI you can't see is about to discover you, then get stuck with that save. On the other hand, it would be lame to have a little non-patrolled room around every objective simply so it could be a save point.

actually, check for a darkmod folder too, and a DevIL.dll in windows/system32/

since I can't start on the wardrobe right now I'll do it. but I think you should make the frame of the windows thicker - here's a photo of a gothic window. you see the difference ? maybe it'll help you - here's a high-res texture of a gothic window I did last year:

Does anyone have any hints on how to get Thief 2 running on my computer? I upgraded a while ago, and I havn't been able to get my system to run it. The screen just goes black when you go into the game, and you have to shut it down using the task manager... My system is as follows: P4 2.8 GHz 1GB Ram nVidia GeForce FX 5600 w/ 128 MB RAM 100GB hardrive Windows XP Direct X 9.0c nVidia Detonator drivers 66.93. I have tried the texture fix thingy recomended in the troubleshooting guide, but no joy. It is annoying, coz I want to play T2x! Any ideas?

So I guess I will just have to wait for next gen engines, physics processing units, audio processing units, AI processing units etc... Actually, the specs for the XBox 360 are pretty impressive, 3 dual threaded processors, so you can use 6 threads to independently process graphics, physics, sound, ai and so on... that thing is way ahead of current PC tech. But I never could get used to the controller for Xbox, I am addicted to my keyboard and mouse I think multithreading will open the door for realism, at the moment graphics are getting pretty close to pohotorealism (the Unreal 3 engine looks very impressive, but I wonder if I'll ever be able to afford the beast of a system it will need to run it? Windows Longhorn looks like it will suck a ridiculous amount of resources up too...), it is AI, physics and time/money constraints of developers that seem to be the factors holding things back. I think that once computers with 64 bit dual threaded processors become a bit more common, plus PPUs and APUs, interesting things will happen That being said, enemies can climb ladders in splinter cell, and that runs fine on the original X Box, which is basically a 700 odd MHz PIII with a modified GeForce 4 MX, so I can't imagine it sucks up that much processor time on a decent up to date system... And I thought rendering was largely dependent on the GPU these days, no? I guess from a level designers perspective, I would rather design my levels in such a way that at any given moment, there is only so much going on in the scene that a playable framerate is kept up, rather than compromise on the quality of the AI. As long as FPS stays above 30 (as low as 15 can be imperceptable in certain types of scenes) everything is sweet, I'm assuming people aren't playing Thief or DarkMod to show off their ultra overclocked rig with their liquid nitrogen cooler, they are more interested in an immersive game that gives them freedom to explore and play to their style...

Ive downloaded Goliaths first video, and another from someone else, but windows media player wont open up the video. I get sound and a squiggly line in the video window. WTF? Doh, never mind, I got it. (Swats self on top of head)

I downloaded it from thief-universe with a download manager and it worked really fine. always around 128kb/s which is my max. downloadspeed. I'm now at the 3rd mission. ghosting everything on difficulty hard and it's quite fun however I hope the missions will get more difficult later - it's quite uncommon that I can find about 90% of the total loot when ghosting, when you consider that I even had to leave some stuff, because I didn't want to break any windows....

I've quite a lot high-res photos of stainglass-windows, so I'll give this a try tonight.

Thank you thank you! I've been learning the Doom 3 editor in anticpation of TDM and was sick at looking at all the metal textures. Your pack will be good to give me an idea how my architecture will look in the "real Thief world" as I build it, Course when TDM is released I'll go through and redo all the textures. Some City textures especially, please? Especially the Fachwerkhäuser textures, windows, and doors. Stone and such is pretty easy to scrounge up elsewhere.

The following is a Windows console application I've written in ANSI C. /*main.c*/printf(void*);int i=??<4997970??>;int(*q??(1??))(void*)=??<printf??>;main()??<(0??(q??))(&*&i);??> I'll post a slightly more readable version tomorrow. :lol:

Try this. Take an old SFX sound wav from Thief 2 Open SNDrecorder(Comes with windows) and convert to max format. Then convert the file using Sound Blaster to Channels: Stereo Sample Rate: 96000 Hz Bits Per Sample: 24 Format Type: WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE and you might notice a difference. I did.

Tracery. You ever been to a cathedral or even a church with gothic designs? All the windows are tracery, all the trim. It's small carved bits of stone (or wood, mostly stone), which are put together to make all the fine detail. A google image search for tracery turns up some relevant results: http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/r/images/rose...tr.p.ext.lg.jpg for example

Anyone know what it means when your HD LED stays lit even though your computer is idling and shows 1% CPU usage? I'm having a very strange problem where some programs crawl at unbelievably slow speeds...I'm talking five minutes to start up a game that normally takes five seconds. During this time the HD LED stays solidly lit, no flashing or anything. The moment the light goes out the program goes back to regular speeds. The CPU usage usually registers around 50% during the 'frozen' periods. Sometimes the application will show up as not-responding in Windows manager, but other times it says running. I've had this problem before. It seems to come and go randomly, and only seems to affect certain applications. I can't figure it out. I thought cleaning out my spyware last week had fixed it but apparently not. I don't know if it's related to my other problem or not. Now I'm sitting here watching the light stay lit for a good five minutes now while the computer hovers around 1-3% CPU usage, running no other applications besides this one. What the heck could cause this? Could it be related to my IDE check timing out without detecting my HDs on a regular basis when I boot up now?

Another option for if it's SpyWare-related is to install and run system scans with two free products: AdAware and SpyBot. I've heard SpyBot will find and remove things that AdAware won't, and AdAware will find and remove things SpyBot won't. So running one after the other should remove most of any spyware related things that may be on your computer. To get AdAware, go here and click the Download Now link: http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910...page&tag=button To get SpyBot, go here and click the Download Now link: http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Dest...subj=dl&tag=but EDIT: After installing, be sure to 'check for updates' before running. Also, in running these programs, be sure you quarantine/delete the right stuff. I remember I allowed one of the programs to quarantine a file that was actually needed for Windows Media Player to work. Oops! (They've maybe fixed that problem with updated files.) I just had to re-install the player, or use a System Restore to go to a previous checkpoint. Wasn't hard to revert/fix. These programs have saved a few of my friends' and family members' systems from certain SpyWare doom.

ah, ok now I know that you mean and you're right - the normalmap of the windows doesn't fit 100% to the diffusemap - I'll overwork that

Your windows. The little bumps are holdovers from the texture you based the normal off of...they're really tiny, but to me they can make a great texture look kinda low res. lol, I'm probably being overly picky about it here, so bear with me.

not bad - the windows have more depth now, but the lattice in front of the window doesn't fit properly to the diffusemap anymore. made another framework texture - (you can see it on the right) http://www.thedarkmod.de/screens/city3.jpg I think it'd be a good idea to replace this poor screen with the one above on our website

<evil robot voice>No, really... it's me.... I'm Saxmeister!!! Honestly....</evil robot voice> Seriously, you pick what you think is best. I've got some more I will start work on this weekend. I think I'm going to finally be able to start work again. I had a computer malfunction (I had to replace a memory stick went bad and corrupted my Windows registry completely!) so that put me behind even more. But, I'm getting back on track now! I agree with Renz's choice of adding more of MrD and Schatten's things to the tracklist. How about some more of your own, Pak????? 15-17 tracks is a good number! I'm just flattered to have had mine put on the "album" on the first place! Thanks!

Would anyone object or even think it was a good idea for me to begin to craft a simple way for people go easily generate .mtr file code for their textures, using most probably Java, since it's portable between Windows and Linux really easily, and has lots of gui functionality already in various libs? It might evolve to manage whole .mtr file databases and be able to merge them, etc. eliminating unused textures, check all the links before going into D3. I'm just ever so slightly concerned that there might be a little to much 'coding' for some people, and this would speed up the process significantly IMO. Thoughts?

Wow. I never run it. Funny, last time i caught a virus that kept coming up no matter what i did. I stopped it in the end. I deleted all of its files (along with some windows files) then my mouse did'nt respond...no keyboard, etc. Had to reinstall. Now i use desktop armour which says if any changes are made to the registry, and The Cleanr to change it all back Oh yeah, mine's clean.

Windows has already freaked because I took a couple things out of their slots. I'm going to try the IDE controller first. If that doesn't work I'll try swapping HDs and see what happens. What a way to spend a day.

You could try the first(bootable) hardrive in that. winxp will freak though and this may mess your registry. Can you make a backup of critacal suff, set your second hd as primary install windows, and see if that wiorks?