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The big question is figuring out when to make these sacrifices and why. I'm intending on using a few more brushes than what we saw in Id's maps because Thief is a much slower game and can probably afford a slight framerate drop in comparison. We have this awesome engine at our disposal and all, so of course we should take advantage of it and do things we haven't seen in any Thief game to date....we just gotta use some common sense and think some stuff out. From what I've seen Doom 3 uses about 4000-7000 brushes per map, with usually about 200-400 on display in a single scene (an admittedly pulled-out-of-my-ass estimation) . I plan on using about that same amount of brushes, maybe a little more if the memory requirements aren't too high, and about at most 700 of em onscreen at once. Since the engine can handle that amount you don't have to worry about making any threadbare rooms to save on performance, but to be on the safe side I wouldn't go over that mark. For a quick example here...say you're in a bedroom that's made up of about 150 brushes...you could go ahead and throw a nice transluscent window in there and not worry about choking your graphics card...but if you're in a giant ass entryroom with a grand staircase I'd throw curtains over the windows to keep from drawing what's outside and adding to the burden. lol, kind of a longwinded and sorta preachy post just to say what everyone pretty much already knows, but I wanted to throw it out anyway just to show how I plan on doing the maps.

I have no doubt about that. And while seeing a full courtyard through a transparent pane of glass is undeniably cool, you always have to take performance issues into consideration. You might have so much detail down there that an opaque window would be the better option. I'd rather go with highly detailed areas that are somewhat closed off from each other, IE you can't see inside a house from outside or outside from the inside, than sparse open areas. Visportals can help with this a little bit, but a few sacrifices will have to be made to make sure it runs well for everybody. I'm not saying we can't use transparent windows, we'll just have to be selective about how we use em. I remember a map for Vamp I made that had almost 2000 brushes on display in a single screen...ran great on my comp, but it crashed the game for alot of other people. Since then I've tried learning how to keep something that looks good in check with it's performance.

This may sound like a silly question, but do you think the SDK will be free? I'm one of the artists on the team and thought it'd be cool to try some of my ideas in the SDK. One other quick question: How have the sample DarkMod rooms been built thusfar? I've seen a couple rooms: one showing blue windows, and another showing yellow ones. Just curious what software was used for them. Also, was that early 'Garrett-like' character done in Blender, Maya, or? Thanks!

You could probably cheat the translucent effect by using light materials but still keep the windows completely opaque. Say you were to make a small picture of a few silhouetted buildings and have it cast really faintly by a light onto a window. If you were tweak it just right you'd get a similar effect...not as good, of course, but it'd save on performance if you're hard up for it.

I'm just wondering how it's over all "colour" will blend in with the existing textures. It's what I was blabbering on about in the other threads. This image looks fairly washed out, like it was taken in midday on an overcast day. Nothing that photoshop can't fix I bet. If you compare it to the similar textures (there are ones that look like this - white stone around curved windows) the colours are fairly high contrast. The only way I can think to help them all look consistant (aside from trying to make them close to the same colour pallette) is to actually make a building out of all the textures, and see if it looks right.

The windows gain a new level of texturized beauty: You HAVE to see this ingame, the glass distorts the image behind whilst the lead stays put...magic.

As the only one doing concept sketches so far, I've basically been trying to aim for an artistic style somewhere between T1/2 and T3. Take a look at some of the textures that have been developed...the doors/windows, etc will give you some examples of the architecture we are dealing with. Otherwise, feel free to do some rough sketches and share them in the Art forum. I'd be happy to work with you coming up with a theme.

I like your sketches. Can you do furniture & architectural details? What we need, aside from character sketches, are little drawings of chairs, tables, lamps, windows, doors, arches, carvings, statues, stuff which adds atmosphere and a sense of place to a level. I'm going to let you in.

Wow...we really need to start digging up info on light materials. I just got through playing around with a few of them and, except for the frequency, I've caused it to put on an excellent lightning display. You could do so much with it and use only a minimal amount of resources. Want a shadowy silhouette of some trees swaying slowly in a breeze displayed on your windows ? Use a light material. The same could go for casting the same shadow on a wall opposite of a window during a lightning storm...have a tree cast a shadow when a bolt of lightning lights up the sky. You could even have clouds rolling slowly across your floors. There's so much potential here for awesomeness it's not even funny.

Yup, Dom, Blackthief needs to get the game so he can have as much fun with it as I am. Yet another quick update, this time with BT's blue windows in tow. I really need to learn how to make light materials, once I do I could get the shadows being cast on the floor to mimic the window perfectly and get a nice crosshatch shadow setup going on.. Whoop But as it is it looks pretty alright. Needs furniture and light fixtures...and a ceiling still...and maybe some more tweaks on the lighting...but anway, there it is.

Hey, thanks for the texture. I think I might try and tackle your stained glass windows next and see what I can come up with. Pretty soon, counting both your textures and the ones I've done so far, I might have enough to make a good sized mockup map. But if you can, see if you can make some bumpmaps to help me out with. Photosourced textures usually need to be tweaked alot more than the Blade textures do, so it'd be alot faster if I had an extra hand doing em. Edit: Actually, it'd be a good idea if everyone making textures (which I think is just Blackthief, possibly Alexius, and I) were to get together and started organizing everything. It'll mean alot less work on down the road if we keep everything in order and pack the textures the same way and whatnot.