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Yeah, a per-area noisyness method seems like it would be the most efficient, CPU-wise. You might be able to take it a step further and 'fake' propagation of ambient sounds to AI with the noisyness values if they're dynamic. The most simple way I can think to do this is: Say you've got a room with a noisy thing in it (room A), connected by 2 doors to 2 hallways (rooms B and C). (I have no idea how large the typical 'area' is, large rooms could have more than one sound zone i guess). Suppose the noisy thing in room A is initially off, and the FM author writes a script to turn it on. When the noise starts in room A, the script changes the 'noisyness' variable in that room, then checks the state of the doors to B and C, and changes 'noisyness' var in rooms B and C based on whether the doors are open. Then you'd have to attach a script to the doors so that when opened or closed, they would check the state of noise A, and adjust noise B and C appropriately. Doors or doorways could have a variable for how well they transmit sound (maybe they already have that variable for use with sound propagation to the player) So to summarize, thru brute force scripting, each 'noise on or off' script would go thru and adjust the noise in adjacent rooms, checking the state of all the doors, and each door when opened or closed would have to change the 'noise' variable of adjacent rooms too, checking the state of 'noise generators' nearby. This could be done entirely by the FM author if each zone just has a dynamic 'noisyness' variable. I've got another idea for a more complicated system that could be built in to the mod itself, but I'd rather not make (another) huge forum post. Is there someone I can email or PM some psuedo code to? Domarius, are you working on the sound propagation system, and could I message you some psuedo code as a suggestion?

So true. That is why I feel that a per-area method is better (a way of giving an area a "noisyness" value). No extra propagation to do, just lower the "loudness" of the player sounds. I'm glad you mentioned something about having it dynamic, such as all the party guests leaving. It shouldn't be hard to modify the "noisyness" value of the area in real time.

Don't know what version of Thief you were playing, but in T2, it makes clicking noises and some obviously clockwork wirr-ing noises. The stuff that comes off of it in the air is hardly the thing that makes the AI interested, since it spends most of its time sitting on the ground wirr-ing and clicking, and THAT'S where the AI heads. The circles that come off of it in the air are just some special effects for the player's benifit. If it was sound, it'd give your position away. If it was visible, it'd give your position away even more. Yes, there's going to be some disbeleif, but I still feel this is the most "beleivable" idea.

Ok, this issue is put to bed. The following has been decided upon already: 1. There will be a player choice between * lightgem/compass combo (t3-non tilting) or * separate compass in inventory (t1/2-tilting) 2. A single keybind will toggle the lightgem/compass combo on and off. Just so we're clear, those issues are no longer up for discussion. We had already talked about having a key that toggled your healthbars on and off. I don't think it would be that hard to have an option in the mainmenu for 'HUD off'. That would mean it would default off, but if you wanted to turn parts on briefly (to see how hurt you are) you could.

oofnish's model We were voting for his design - I like what it oofnish's one LOOKS like. Doesn't matter how we implement it. We all voted that it should LOOK like that. Votes This poll should be split into the two seperate issues that they are. One poll for tilting, and one poll for combined. Combined gem and compass The gem and compass are GOING to be two seperate entities as far as programming (and hence, modelling) is concerned. It's for implementation reasons. So the vote should be about wether they APPEAR to be seperate entites or not. Just wanted to clear that up. Tilting T2 had tilting, and it was fine. There is a bit of tweaking there, making sure it's being seen from a high angle by default, so that you don't have to look downward to see the farthest arrow. My main reason was if we can not tilt it, we can pre-render it and make it look way better. I don't think there's any other real issue to debate about tilting. If the thing isn't going to be pre-rendered, it may as well tilt. It will require a bit more work, but not much. Options I'd much rather have tilting than having options for turning tilting on and off, and other stupid options. An option screen full of petty options is going to just look like we were all arguing over silly details and couldn't decide. I personally don't see the need for customising the experience of a game outside of control configs and player name and appearance. (modding is a seperate issue). Having an option to turn off lockpicking makes me feel like I'm back in the days of the console video games and I can set how many lives and continues I have. I have to excercise restraint instead of being gradually convinced that the game can be played the way the designers made it. Having an option to turn down HUD brightness is an interface issue in Thief because it can glare your vision and make it hard to see in dark areas. Having an option to turn off a compass that is taking up 5% of screen real-estate is very petty. Why don't we answer the bigger issue of people desiring a HUDless game (a totally reasonable desire, that other games have satisfied one way or another) and just make a HUD on/off toggle button or something, instead of going about it peicemeal? I wanna see my light gem. Click, there it is. Bleh, yucky compass. Okay I'm done. Click. All gone again.

This is not a FM author decision, becuase it is a PLAYERS preference. It is in the same class as which button should be the forward key. This is not decided by the author or anybody else except the player itself. And why would it be an FM author decisions? In most FMs the authors forgot to include the compass. They usually didn't leave it out on purpose they simply forgot it. If you don't believe that then go and look up the appropriate thread where I asked why in so many FMs there is no compass.

I understood what he mean. The option we can vote for is either T1/T2 style or T3. Keeping it in his hand is nonsense. The player who wants to use the compass should use it without ther need of constantly putting it away or grabbing it, just because he switches weapon. This is a gameplay feature and not some body simulation. Since the screen provides much less information then a real body would, the compass is not just a compass like a real world compass is. It is the only means of providing information that normally the body would. I have the impression that things needs to be discussed just for the discussions sake instead of advancing the mod. Otherwise I don't understand why issues crop up again and again. I already said that the gem and the compass will be able to be switched off, and also the tilting is optional, so what do you think you are voting here for suddenly? Those who don't want that stuff on screen, switch it off. Those who don't want tilting, switch it off. So why do we havew suddenly another 14 page discussion wether the compass should tilt or not?

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.

These are pretty basic sound bits. Not much layering going on. I wanted them to remain in a raw format for now; they can always be layered later. It's hard to 'unlayer' once you've layered Other sound guys can also layer these on their files, if desired. I'm having troubles recording loudly with my setup. Not sure why. Thus, HumAmb1 is pretty quiet. Here are some new files, in .OGG format. Note: If you're not on the sound team, you may need to instead listen to the identical .MP3 counterparts at the bottom of this post: MachineHum1 HumAmb1 BellAmb1 CutsceneAmb1.ogg Harp-Soft Harp-Loud If you can't hear the above, you probably don't have the right software. Try these MP3s instead: MachineHum1 - Loop it. Some sort of weird machine hum. Could also be layered with other ticks, drones and hums to make an interesting machine sound. HumAmb1 - Loop it. Background hum. I wish this was a bit louder; you may have to crank your speakers. Intro/End can be chopped off for a continuous hum. BellAmb1 - Loop it. CutsceneAmb1 - Might work well as some background ambience in a FM slideshow cutscene, as 'Garrett' talks. Harp-Soft - I loved plucking the strings of that harp in T2! I think we should try to have different music instruments, so when touched they produce a sound. Harp-Loud - A louder version of the above. I didn't like that it was so loud the first time you plucked the harp in T2. I think this louder version could be used for if the player repeatedly plucks the harp. Maybe have soft/loud versions of other instruments for the same reason. Let me know what feedback/suggestions you have.

We won't be supporting multiplayer as it is currently the focus of the Night Blade Mod, another Thief style game. I'm sure fan mission authors could mod our tools once released and modify it to be balanced as a multiplayer though. As it stands now though, we are balancing the editing tools for classic single player missions.

I prefer the doom3 multiplayer to the hl2 but i prefer the hl2 singe-player (playing just now ) although i recon they both have extremely boring starts

That should be easy...didn't they already work that way in D3? You just make them sit by their web until the player comes near, then....

It would be more than possible to implement; the only problem being it would be hard to judge how far his legs stick out etc. and therefore whether you are actually hiding under a table or just partly under it. When crouching, the player assumes roughly the shape of a cube - it's easy to know when you are entirely under something. But we may consider it and test it.

From what I can tell, doom 3 almost seems to have the 3rd person model tucked away in the background somewhere. Standing in front of a mirror gives you the 3rd person model and turning on player shadow just gives you the shadow from that invisible model. I have my game setup to toggle from 1st to 3rd in D3 as I played around with the files earlier on to see if I could replicate the T3 body awareness...this was back before the sdk came out...and when we were still considering it as an option. If we have to create the full model anyway, some of the fans out there might just add it themselves. Could prove interesting if they did and actually got it working better than in T3. It's funny. The marine in D3 climbs ladders in 3rd person without being sucked into place like in T3. I don't think the arms move, but if they did it would suffice.

We have been planning to include female guards, as well as female thieves, would could be combatants. We are not having third person. We will be simulating body awareness but not actually using it, so there will be no need to animate the player other than his arms, and perhaps for mirrors? (not sure how that works) We also need a sitting animation. We had also talked about some generic 'object use' animations...I'll see if I can find the thread. I'm curious about some of those..what are the 'step right/left' animations for? edit: Ok, posted it in this forum.

There will need to be several generic lists for different AI types, yes, the zombie needs a walk forward like the human AI, but it will be completely different wheras the other can mostly share the same walk. Same goes for attacks, deaths etc. One for combat AI, one for non-combatants, and then special ones for zombies, burricks etc. None of these groups can use the same animations (well maybe they can share a few, but mostly they'll be unique) These will have to be furthur broken down into sets for male and female. THe city guards, private guards, Builders and haunts can pretty much share the same generic set, most of which I listed above. If we are having female versions of these combat AI (which I don't think we should) that will mean a mostly different set of female animatons. Zombies will need their own unique animation set, as will burricks, treebeasts and any of the other creatures that have appeared in THief over the years. Are we having third person? What sort of body awareness are we having? Will we need to animate the player apart from his arms? THe list that all AI could share would be quite short, just the basic movement anims, pretty much as I listed above minus the draw weapon and weapon attack anims. Walk Forward Step Backward Step Right Step Left RunForward Open Door Idles Deaths Taking hits Surprised Search modes Suspicious

Could we code it so he blows up the mine only if he can't safely pathfind around it? I'm not sure about your example, Domarius. Are you saying the player could use mines as makeshift noise arrows? It's a pretty expensive way to use them. Presumably, if the guard calls an alarm and other AI come running, they will *all* be able to see the mine, won't they? Although it might be funny if an elite guard spots the mine with his better acuity, he sounds the alarm, and a couple house guards come running right up and step on it.

Will the feathers at the tail end of the arrow have any sort of irridescence to them? I think it'd be cool if they had a slight irridescent quality to them, as some bird feathers do. Nothing too bright, just something nice and subtle for the detail-oriented player to enjoy looking at when they walk up to pluck their mis-fired arrow out of a wall

Good point. I'm open to the projectile idea then. I forgot that we are giving ALL guards the "useless" projectiles for throwing at the player when he's out of reach. (edit)While typing up the design doc, I thought of this; The AI doesn't need to worry about the explosion killing team mates, since they will keep their distance. But they only keep their distance when they KNOW about the mine. If they don't, and happen to walk around the corner as it goes off, well, s**t happens. But in that case, should the shout "We have a mine here!!!" cause AI to RUN AWAY from the sound source, rather than GO TO the sound source to investigate it, like all other "alarming sounds" do? In that case, we'd be making the one exception for that sound only! It's extra work. Can we think of a more elegant solution? Otherwise I can envisage scenarios like this happening a LOT: "HEY! We have a mine here!!" *chuck* *chuck* *chuck* "What's all that racket?" *investigate* "Who's making that noise?" *investigate* "I won't have people making noises where I can't see them!!" *investigate* *chuck* *chuck* *chuck* *KABOOOOM!!!* "Argh!!" *dies* "Oh, I die, a pox on you all!" *dies* "I say, what the-" *dies*

It's not a trademark in the legal sense of the word. But it is a kind of trademark in terms of player recognition. Thief without a lightgem == NO Thief. d) A rotating, tilting compass housing the lighgem as a prerendered bitmap. And d is what we go for. If you don't like it just disable it. No problem. That means just commenting out the lightgem in the hud. You don't need to do anything in the SDK or such and anybody can do this easily. I wont comment another word on this isuse, because it is pointless. It is absoluately easy for everybody to adjust his to his preference that there is no need to have a discussion going on for months to determine if that should be tilting or not and if it should be there at all. It will be there, it will tilt and rotate and anybody who doesn't like it can disable it on his own.

So for those who don't know, I've just been accepted by pakmannen as one of the musicians here. In Thief, traveling to different areas within a level the music/ambient sound would change, like when going from an outside area to an inside one, or entering a dungeon/basement area. I'm wondering if anyone knows how this can work in the Doom 3 engine, and also how to make the sounds loop endlessly while the player is in a given area?

Well, mantling only takes a short time and then it is over with. But try imaging how it will look if you are staring at the wall, floating somewhere, without hands. It would look stupid and wouldn't feel well. Doing this in 3rd person is obviously easier, because you can see the guy hanging there and moving even if the animation is bad. And we would have to think how to limit various other things as well. Is it alond to look in all directions? Or should the view limited to something like it was done in T3. I certainly wouldn't like that, but turning around 180 degrees while clingin to a wall, might be kind of strange. The problem is for the player. It would feel like a bug when playing. Well, we have to code mantling anyway. So the code should not be THAT different, but of course it will add additional complexity. Yes. Me too. I always wanted this and I would have included this anyway.

Yes, but you have to understand, I'm on a mission to nerf the blackjack, or at least balance it, give it a few cons, the only current one being that you have to be right beside the AI to use it (which, let's face it, isn't that hard) So, an AI becomes unBJable the instant he hears or sees anyting suspicious - no 'what was that?' line first. This means that yur sneak up on an AI will have to be absolutely perfect for a knockout to work. AI with helmets cannot be knocked out - that makes no sense whatsoever. If you take out more than two AI on a level, all the AI on that level are constanty expecting trouble and are very wary, their sight and hearing are far more acute so they can no longer be BJed. I don't think a player should be able to taff through a level knocking out all the AI with no inconveniece to himself.

well I scale all my models using the D3 player model to make the proportions right

I'm all for making aiming a little more difficult, especially at a distance. In T3, arrows were far too easy to use. I could run around levels taking guards out with arrows at distances where they couldn't even see me yet. So I'd support leaving the crosshair thing off for now. We can always add it later if need be. Personally, I'd like to get rid of the zoom as well. I think we should limit the strength of the bow. Since it is short it shouldn't shoot that far anyway, and it will stop the player from taking things out from too far away. I'd also like to avoid the 'backpedal while firing' method that made it so easy to take guards out in T3. Even if they were alerted, you fired once, started backpedling, and often could get in two or three more arrows before they got close enough to hit you. Frequently that was enough to kill them. You probably should have to be standing still to draw an arrow, and perhaps we can make the knocking and drawing slower. We're not Legolas.