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Couldn't you say that spotting someone sneaking up to you is a combination of movement detection and pattern recognition? Movement draws the eye, but once the eye is drawn, you look directly at the thing to make out the pattern, right? I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before, but maybe it was in the private forums. The FOV abstraction, coupled with a movement modifier that makes you more visible when moving, is actually not that bad a model. Think about how a real person's eyes would be randomly scanning over the FOV physically allowed by their head. We assume that they're scanning randomly over the FOV, so any point within the FOV is sampled by both rods and cones, over time. If there's movement, the rods will probably pick it up first, then the eye will be drawn to it and the rods will be utilized to recognize the shape. Therefore, we can say that, taking the time average, the detection probability is approximately uniform within the physical FOV. Plus, from a gameplay perspective, you can predict the AI visual response based on which way the AI's head is turned with the FOV method. If you want to get into the difference in response between rods and cones, you either have to assume that the AI stares straight ahead in a fixed direction relative to the way their head is facing, which IMO is a rather bad assumption, or you have to let the eye move independently of the head, and model the psychology of how a real person scans their eyes over the FOV limit imposed by their head. Personally I'd rather not try to mathematically model the psychology of eye movements for every single AI and every single alert state. Also, this would mean the AI's visual response would vary unpredictably due to the random eye movements. The player couldn't guess at the visual response based on the pattern of head turning, because the eyes move much faster than the head and could change position at any moment. Believe it or not, it's more fun when a plan based on patient observation of the AI's behavior is rewarded, rather than being randomly caught because the AI's rods happen to flick over you when you're moving at the edge of their FOV. We could give our thief random coughing attacks that would give him away, too, wouldn't that be fun!

Cool, sounds good. The new D3 soundengine handles reverb itself, so you shouldn't need to put in quite so much reverb IMO, but it will work fine for now. (Like you were saying, when tested ingame I think it would be a bit strange to hear that much reverb if you shoot the arrow 5 ft away from you in a small carpeted hallway). I would like to create a noisemaker weapon for testing, but I can't until a modeler creates an idMoveable compatible collision model for the broadhead, as described in this thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3314 Right now I just get an error about the arrow having no collision model when I try to use it as a moveable in the noisemaker.

Weird, what is this? It's not MMORPG, right? I've never heard of it, and if it's what I'm thinking/hoping it is (ongoing RPG/RTS mix?), it could be the first of this kind that I'd actually be interested in. Looking at the forums, they have a LOT of posts. Might have to look further into this... Edit: this is becoming more and more interesting

Could you not allow us to see into the developement forums and watch the debates unfold?

It seems to me that the success of many mods is based on public interest. my suggestion is take a bunch of screenies and have sort of a pic of the day section, even it it's just a texture, or anything like that to show us somthing we haven't seen, even if it's just one of the guard models from a different angle... you could prolly take 20 or 30 in just 10 minutes and keep a months' worth of pics... but yah, you're gaining interest here fast, but you're losing it slowly over time, you need somthign that people will keep checking back often but as is, the forums are slow, aand news posts are very rare, but if you posted somthing, ANYTHING once a week, even if it's a link to a forum thread of interest etc, you could keep public interest up... just my 0.02 worth.

Well, we don't really feed thief-thecircle.com any specific info. Add to that the fact that all of their dedicated staff are essentially away or inactive right now, which means that any updates are done by the ttlg.com admins, GBM or Dave or Digi. And they have a whole forum and site to manage, so it's not surprising that not much happens there. Also, you could say that we're not exactly flavour of the month in GBM's book. Although I feel he's probably warming somewhat now he realises we're around for the long term, he was initially annoyed at what I would describe our buoyant and assured attitude, and he might call egotism on the TTLG forums. There is actually a mini hosted-site about dark mod on thief-thecircle.com, but it's rather old now. I imagine we'll get a forum when it's released.

I am hanging out for the day when you can get a 'shine job' like Riddick in Pitch Black (basically an artificial tapetum behind the retina), so I can see in the dark really well... Or having my eyes modified to see different parts of the light spectrum, or a big increase in distance vision. Actually, this is possible now in a limited way - the cones in the human eye can respond to ultraviolet light, but the lens of the eye is opaque to UV light, so we can't normally see it. But people who have had artificial lenses put in their eyes suddenly can see UV light (though their brains take a while to interpret it). I don't know if I would be game to have people messing with my eyes, but if I already had serious eyesight problems for some reason, I guess the risk would be worth it... Artificial sensory enhancement is already being proposed as part of next-gen military equipment - ear pieces that filter out very loud sounds and amplify very quiet sounds are already in existence, I wouldn't be surprised if such technology migrated into the realm of surgicla implants.

This thread: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=1650 lists all the animations we'll need. Oddity and Domarius are currently working on some, so best check with them about what has already been done and what should be done next.

We debated body awareness ages ago. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...1&st=&p=entry The discussion http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...1&st=&p=entry Where it was voted down I don't see that anything new has come up since...these are all the same issues we debated back then.

Hello Gameking! Great to see you made it over to the forums. I'll set you up as an applicant and move this into our private forums. Edit: Topic has now been moved.

hahaha its just an interesting topic for me, I cant help it. But to answer your question, it allready is on CGtalk, Military-Meshes, EWnet community, Deviantart, Heroes in Feldgrau, Axis history Forums and a load of others. But I share my work with everybody, not only two forums. Cobra 6

WinAMP will play .OGG files with the right plug-ins. So, will Windows Media Player (again, with the right codecs). It just won't allow you to use tags under WMP, but it still plays them. http://tobias.everwicked.com/oggds.htm That link will get you basic OggVorbis support under Windows Media Player. You are right! That is Tetris music. The tune is instantly recognizable as the old Russian composition. I like the "goth" twist to the music, but it's still too busy for Builder's music. Again, try something original as that is what we are trying to do with everything possible (even if we are sort of "remixing" the whole game itself).

What, the public forum? Wouldn't it be better that we're tied up in the development forums than chit-chatting here?

The good thing about this thread is that it shows those who don't have access to the private forums exactly what happens to every single thread within said private forums.

Truthfully, on the matter of realism, I think Spar just pointed out the key issue you keep missing. An arrow....with a sack of anything....on the tip....that would be large enough to put out a fire...no matter how small that may be...would be a retarded waste of time...as oppsed to just carrying...the sac....or a wet rag. Seriously, why would you just throw a sac at the flame, or just walk over. Why would you use an arrow...?? The whole point is it's just a gameplay thing, and since both a gel and water arrow have the same effect on the game, it doesn't really matter.Also the noise doesnt really matter, because chances are both are going to make the loud THUNK of the arrow hitting whatever is behind the torch. This is also ignoring the multiple chances of the arrow not hitting the flame of the torch, but another part of it, knocking it over, and burning the whole housedown There goes stealth . So let just not worry about the thing, and whichever particle effect is wanted.... it doesn't really matter.

What a load of spurious rubbish. That is a terrible analogy. A lake exists with or without your intervention. A better analogy would be a pool - you have no right to complain about your pool having algae if you didn't bother to chlorinate it first. Of course a single vote has an effect. By your logic, all voting is a waste of time, as all votes cast are single votes. Elections often come down to a handful of votes, sometimes the last vote counted will be the one that decides an election. All votes count, that is the whole point of democracy. Even if your candidate is not elected, the candidate who is elected will be very careful to see how close his or her competitors came to winning, and they will pay attention to what is important to the electorate as a whole (barring loonies and extremists). They want to be re-elected, and if even a small percentage of voters vote for a candidate who champions a particular issue for example, that politician will be more mindful of those voters, and will likely try to shift their policies to accomidate voters who might threaten their re-election. Of course, they will not do this publicly or obviously, because then they will be accused of backflipping on issues, or weak leadership. They do it covertly and gradually, so as to maximise their appeal to the widest possible section of the electorate by the time the next election rolls up. But if a lot of people don't vote, they will only concern themselves with the issues that the people that botherd to vote care about. Not all politicians do this of course, but the ones that consistently fail to represent not just those who voted for them, but those who didn't, are much less successful when it comes to being re-elected. Lots of small voices add up to a bloody loud choir. A quiet voice has more chance of being heard than silence. The idea that if you vote for someone and they aren't elected then your vote is wasted is absurd. Totally absurd. You vote is only wasted if you dont vote. If there are a poor selection of candidates to choose from, stand for election yourself! Even in a non-poroportional representative system, your vote still has an effect. A politician that wins by a hairs breath will be very careful to gain as many supporters as they can so they can win the next election safely. To do this they need to shift their policies, change their views, and listen to what the electorate wants. Your unsuccesful votes are not wasted if they make a polotician listen.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=2052

We already have a pretty comprehensive list, broken into reasonable stages. Any animations we come up with that aren't there can be added to the list. http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=1650

the headline basically says it: since about 3 days ago I can't access the cgtalk site+forums anymore. firefox tries to connect to the site for a few seconds than I get the "operation timed out" message, same thing with IE. I first thought they may have server-problems, but I asked some other guys and they don't seem to have any problems with the website. After that I tried it on another other PC and on a laptop here, which connect over the same router - they can't open cgtalk as well. Anyone an idea what's wrong?? They have actually no reason for banning me, since I probably have 10 posts per year and never had any argument over there - most of the time I'm just reading through the threads, which is quite interesting and I learned a lot over there.

Ok the oil flasks in TDS were kind of ridiculous. A real thief wouldn't really use tool like that would they? If someone slips they're bound to yell or go "Oh SHIT!" as they fall, not to mention make a loud noise if they bump into something. Sure throwing one down at the top of a stair case and luring a guard over and watching him slip and flail like a spaghetti down the steps was extremely funny especially with spiral staircases, but I think its kind of silly for a master thief to use such a tool. Also the idea of igniting one with a fire arrow is kind of absurd. Come on, how do u possibly expect not to burn the building down. Sure they dried up after a little while but still a master thief never leaves a mess. But what about using the oil to lube up squaky doors? Ever notice how squeaky doors are in Thief? That'd definetly come in handy if the AI can pick up on the noise a door makes when it opens. But how do you know if a door is squeaky or not? It'd also be great to be able to open the door stealth. Sure rip the idea off from Splinter Cell (they had an option to open the door, open stealth, or bash door). You could slowly open the door so no one would notice, if it starts to squeak, well just give it a quick lube and voila! Nice and stealthy. A good idea i think but probably not high on the list of priorities for the mod.

Greetings- I've been working on some SFX while I've had some downtime. Here are some samples that I think haven't been filled in yet on CVS. Start Level sound Level Start SFX test 1 (may be a bit bass heavy, but it gives me cold chills when it plays at loud volumes!) sfx_creepy_voices.ogg (similar to the creepy voices from T1/T2 - I played around until I got close)[added 1/5/6] Piano Frobs (5 samples from which to choose) frob_piano1.ogg frob_piano2.ogg frob_piano3.ogg frob_piano4.ogg frob_piano5.ogg Another possible "tension" ambient (similar to T2 style) fx_tension_orch1.ogg "Haunt" SFX (New 7 Jan 06) fx_haunt_joinus.ogg fx_haunt_soul.ogg More on the way.... I'm reposting the links to some of these from a while back. Ambients ambient_haunt_v2.ogg (this was the version with less bass - I'm learning the art of compression finally!) rain_loop.ogg (this was recorded in a light rainstorm but should be labeled for forest crickets or something similar) SFX clocktick_60_loop.ogg (for the mansion) clocktick_30_loop.ogg (also for the mansion)

In case anyone's interested my most powerful computer is a PCI nVidia 5500 256MB video mem (not PCIe mind you) with only 256MB of RAM and 1.2 GHz Athlon and Windows XP. Although my main computer is a dual processors Pentium Pro 200MHz with 512KB on-die L2 cache each running debian. Yes, I'm a cave-man. I will buy something with at least 16GB RAM and dual processor dual core as soon as I get a real job. maybe SLI with both cards installed. I think the secondary processors should be used for things like AI and physics. Regarding Garrett's special keeper training alowing him to do what we can't do in RL: I always thought that the majority of his skill lies in mind manipulation of surrounding people, masking his thoughts and diverting their attention sort-of; and he can't do what some people can do in real life, look at the post here on the forums about the google video of russian climbing - if he could do that he wouldn't need rope arrows. editing, just rememberd what I wanted to say, though not how it connects to the thread. A possibility is to use inexpensive USB "VR" gloves on both hands combined with a goggle display or surround monitors to eliminate the old "press forward to run, backwards to backstep, turn, strafe left, etc" buttons replacing it with touch here on the wall, slide your hand here, hold your fingers steady on the cleft, etc. Just look at the russian climbing video on google video how the guy runs and jumps. To an outsider, of course, a thief-player or more correctly a modded darkmod player would look like a freak waving his hands about and doing various mudras.

Ook. Here's oDDity's response to Dram on October 18th: Don't be so patronising to young Dram if you're going to stoop to the same level of immaturity when you can't win a simple argument. Being extremely loud and calling your opponent names works when you're 13 but won't quite cut it whe you're 31.

That's very loud oDDity rant to try to justify an obsession with a completely mind numbing game No. 2012. Neanderthals weren't stupid, but they weren't cultured either. They may not have had anything better to amuse themselves than flipping small items and pushing rocks off the tops of mountains to watch them fall, but thankfully we live in a much more interesting world than them. Were they more intelligent? Perhaps, but because of the shape of their larynx they couldn't speak much better than a drunk on saturday night. Poker is also completely pointless - so that's one pointless thing to help you do another pointless thing. Congratulations.

Just wondered what sites you frequent/visit. Heres mine. Polycount -Mainly for modding/modeling purposes Doom 3 World -same as above CG Talk -probably some of the best art i've seen on the web LevelDesign.nl -doom3/quake4 modding CDG Forums -Mainly for HL2/CSS modding XSI Base -XSI user base 3D BUZZ -Awsome CG VTM's BBC -Mainly for News