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All the Thief games use dynamic ambience that blends from one area to another. You have a church with a choir ambience, you walk into a hallway that leads to the crypt and you get a mix of choir and scarey ambience, and when you enter the crypt, you get scarey ambience. I think the mix is done specifically, with an intermediate zone that says "play this AND this as well". But of course, you can hear the ambience from one zone playing over the current one, if you are close enough to it. I think this freedom of re-usability should be maintained. If someone wants to use your ambience where there is NO background hum around, well, I don't think it's so good. Why not make the hum and the music seperate files, and let the author play them both in the level? WILL there be a noticible difference when jumping from 96 to 160? Maybe if you're an audio technician. I used to fiddle with sounds a bit and I don't think I'd notice the difference even if they were overlayed, as long as they both sounded "good" quality. (Whereas I noticed that in older games, I would get used to the 11khz sound quality and think it sounded "good" and then hear something else, like a CD play, and THEN I'd notice the difference when it was overlayed) I'd be keeping the sounds seperate at any cost, just so people can re-use your media. FM authors coming up with interesting uses for the existing T2 media, including ambience, always surprised me. One particular ambience, that I thought suited a deep forest, became freaky and scarey in another mission (cause of the associated visuals of course). (Sorry, usually I edit down my ramblings...)

We already decided long ago noismakers are not re-usable.

HE would have as many fireworks with him as noisemaker arrows. There's no difference. Just as long as it's clear that fireworks are the best solution to the problem, but we're going with nosiemaker arrows

Just wanted to post here how bloody good I think this looks. Omega, let me know if you need any more sketches.

We need the following boards: A general discussion board Design issues Development related discussions (not programing but in general) Programming (general) AI Sound (programming) Soundeffects (for the soundengineers) Special Effects (Water, particle etc.) Art (Textures, images, etc.) Level creation/Plot/Objectives (for the level designers) Modelling (Characters) We DON't need a seperate Lightgem board. It's either art or programming. What would be a good idea is to have a read-only report board. This should contain: Design decisions (no discussions only the conclusions from the design discussions when we agree on something), Allowed tools (or list of tools so we know what is available), A list of available services (like FTP, Webpage, IRC information, CVS server information, etc.). This board can also get links to concept Art for easy reference as soon as we agreed on something and we don't want to change it anymore. So for example, if we agree on a final image for the lightgem, we should post it there so everybody can see it and can easily find it. Another read-only board would be good as announcment board: This should include who is working on what, if a new release has been released, weekly(?) project progress, new members and other stuff which is not open for discussion.

I like your unique style. Not saying I want the people in the game to follow this exact style, just that I would like to see more original styles for humans, so we can chose some (or blend them together) to give our mod a unique look. T2 people had huge shoulders. T3 people all sort of looked same-ish, especially in the face. And the hands were bloody huge. 3D models of people are much like cartoons, in that they are vague representations of people, so we should use the same techniques that cartoons do and exaggerate certain features. In Doom 3, notice the funny looking guy sitting in the seat when you first arrive (and go up the stairs) with the sunken cheekbones and long face. How different he looks to that UAC guy with the facial hair (in the start cutscean, getting off the ship). The proportions are all different. They aren't realistic. And it looks good. Where as in T3 I don't think they appreciated this side of game art, and all their faces look the same and they have huge hands. Your guy is a good example of the exaggeration we could use to "jazz things up".

I wonder why eveybody is opposed to using the design section. People complain that postings are to long and blablabla and now THIS is better??? Everything not even in one single thread but in one single posting!

Yeah that'd be great As long as it would be an ok format for the mod needs. Using Character Studio i mean. Looking forward to working with ya:)

These are great, and welcome aboard, again. You can keep cranking these out for as long as you'd like, as I think they are energizing our texturers and mappers already. However, I have some selfish reasons why I'd love to see some interior shots of a mansion study.

That should be no problem. As I already said the gem is a prerendered square which can have as much details as anybody likes as long as it doesn't exceed 2 polies. And I hope that I get a lightgem soon. Can you do this?

Bummer, looks like I missed his/her artwork. They're broken links now... Note: I started my Thief gaming career with Thief 2. Not totally on purpose, but it just happened that way. In the end, I liked that I played through T2 and then worked back to Thief 1. You might think that's weird and backwards, but it worked really well for me as it made me a long-term fan. Had I started with Thief 1, I'm not so sure I would've gotten hooked. There's a specific reason why. One that I believe oDDity shares with me, but I won't get specific.

Well I won't know till I sse them. As long as you kept it to the template I had - a frame tiled up the side and a picture the same size as in the template, there will be no problem. YOu made normal and spec maps as well I presume?

Ok, so what are we suggesting now? We have a lightgem that can be turned on and off, a compass around the lightgem that can be turned on and off, and can be set to tilt or not tilt, and another compass in inventory that can tilt? How many pages long is our option menu going to be? Maybe we can trim the number of options somewhat. It doesn't appear that many people are in favour of the combined compass/lightgem tilting, so why don't we remove that from the list? Ok, here is my best effort to please everyone and keep this from getting out of hand. How about this: Compass Option (click one) [ ] -- Compass is an inventory item [ ] -- Compass is combined with lightgem And then we have ONE button that turns the lightgem/compass on and off. That way, people who don't want to see the compass in the HUD can choose to put the compass in inventory (AND have it tilt). They never have to see it if they don't want. Those that want it on the HUD can have it there, (not tilting) and a single button will remove it (and the lightgem) to minimalize the HUD if they wish. We don't need to turn the compass off separately. T1/2 purists can duplicate that version. T3 fans can duplicate their version. Pure minimalists can turn everything off. Those in the middle can have a single gem and a compass they never look at. Those that want tilting can have it. Those that don't don't have to. *phew* This (I think) would be able to satisfy just about everyone, and limits the number of things we have to include in the options menu to 2. (One checkbox option and one keybind). Could we all agree on this...?

As long as the player can't shoot the bow with his mysterious third hand whilst using his left to look at the compass, I agree. :lol: The weapons should not be usable (except maybe sword) whilst looking at inventory items in the other hand, methinks.

*Stops toiling over his computer long enoug to wipe brow* At last, after 4 solid days, I got a working character into doom with all his textures and animations working perfectly Now I just have to make a 'proper' version of him and pray I can do it again for real...

Since we already have now the problem that modelers did double work, which even looked remarkable similar) I guess there should be a better way of controlling what is doing which models. I would suggest to create a website with small thumbnails from EVERY model that is already finished. If a modeler starts on a new piece he should upload a concept BEFORE he starts working on it, so that we have an easy overview of what models are already done. This means that the system should be somehow managable, so that models can add their models fast without a long delay of contacting somebody who can add the model. If we don't have such a system, we can also use the CVS for that. We just need to create a folder where all the screenshots are stored (only small pics, so they don't take much space) and for each major section one HTML page where they screenshots are listed. This way they can easily be synced and we wont have the problem that modelers are doing the same work twice. And it also has the advantage that we have an easy overview of how much is done already.

It's just the way I UV mapped it. The UVs from all four sides of the frame share the same space. As long as you us the same template it's work. The frame has to be the same thickness in every painting, thougnI could alter the model to make a thinner framed model as well. Just turn the picture around sideways, so it's bottom is against the frame.

Well, you're Polish, so you're our Chopin and that's that ) I love Chopin actually, I have recordings of all his music, which is not hard since he didn't write that much really compared to the likes of Bach. Yes, I also love Prokofiyev, I have a great recording by Sivatoslav Richter of his piano sonatas which I think is as close as it gets to the way Prokofiyev wanted them to be played. Probably the favourite of my CD collection is a redording of Bach's 'Das Wohltemperierte Clavier' by Davitt Moroney on Harpsichord. It's almost 4 hours long, but sometimes I just can't stop listening to it until the end) I tend to favour music written for one or two instruments or voices rather than orchestral ensembles. Ok, then I'll go crazy with the magic bevel on this tree beast

Dunno, there's a slight chance that they paid professional animators to work on it full time for a few weeks or months. It's no that it's hard, it's just a long arduous process which would bore me shitless, and can never look as good as vertex animation anyway. You have to set a few dozen bones up in the head to animate the jaw and lips and face muscles. You basically animate each of the phonemes (ooh. ahhh, she, etc) You need about a dozen of them, and they'd have to be animated (or at least significantly tweaked) individually for each charcater. I suppose we could set up a few basic ones,. so the mouth at least moves somewhat when speaking.

we're creating a tool-set for FM designers and we want to provide everything for a thief-like mission. and thief (especially T2 for example partytime) has a lot of outdoor-areas. the D3 engine is powerfull - powerfull in small corridors like on the station on mars. I don't want to stress the engine just for a simple object like a barrel. and if I can make a model, with almost half polys, that looks almost the same, so why keep the otherone ? I also don't like it, when things are done twice, but be serious - how long did the barrel take ? mine took me about 10 minutes and I'm not a experienced modeller.

Sure. Objects in the HUD are just objects and rendered the same as any other objects. The only difference is, that they have a fixed location and the are not affected by camera movement, and they have their own light. The scene render lights will not affect it. But technically there is no difference. You can take your Zombie model and put it in the lightgem and you would see it just like you see it in the game. I just tested this with Blender and it seems to work. So the gem can be a nicely rendered sphere projected on a plane with alpha to mask off the borders of the plane. As long as it is a sphere the comapss can rotate in any direction without a problem.

Just to let you know, I have gone through all our ambients and uploaded them to darkmod/audio/ambient. Your sounds ended up in the factory folder, of course. I renamed the long one to factory_theme1.ogg because it's more like a piece of music than a pure ambient loop. The idea is to have a few of these "theme" songs for each category (a bit like Thief 3). And btw, I really love this one you made. Very very nice. Sets the tone straight away. Great work! Some are of less quality though.. I'm thinking about the furnace fire sound. You can really tell it's being looped. Could you try to make it less obvious? It's pretty good otherwise. So, we don't really have many more ambients than those you have provided. We have two or three by Darkness_falls, and a few forest and ocean sounds by LiquidBronze (who is no longer with us). And also, I did the weather effects (rain, wind and thunder) we've got so far. They are all uploaded and renamed etc. Now to make that list...

dear TEAM Although the design is great it s inspiring...Please please please do not consider of using tilting compass + lightgem combo... Our thief does need only lightgem..IT s the purist thing in Thief we should keep it. If you guys want a compass (which i never used it in any game) Just make it little smaller and give the gamer ability to remove it if he wants to... My screen in thief 1 or 2 was clear and pure..All those turning rotating stuff makes the Screen full..And if a screen full you look the UI screen instead of Level itself.. Please remember the Deus ex 2 disaster.. THat UI screen made me uninstalled the game after waiting it for so long. . LET THE LIGHTGEM be alone over there... BEST

I already explained several times that there IS some need for a tilting compass, or the compass should be a seperate object. I don't care one way or the other as long as we have one.

Yeah, awesome work by both you guys god_is_my_goldfish, I like how much thought you've put into how it works. I personally like the 3 flash delay - it's silent, and I think this "safety feature" concept is used in real life... I know it's used in DeusEx though. If you don't know there is a bomb there, you still get blown up. No beeping warns you with god_is_my_goldfish's idea. Even in DeusEx, which beeps as well as flashes, when you hear the beeping and you didn't know there was a bomb there, you still get blown up, because it's not long enough to run away properly because you don't know what specific direction to run in to get away by the most amount in the shortest time.