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intelligent ai behaviors, such as in far cry, ai rush to an injured friend, draw weapons, then start searching, you hear them shout commands to each other as they move. the entire search is systematic. convincing keepers assasains, come on, silentsleep did better in equilibrium with the dark engine then ion storm could do in their fancy engine. a wider variety of weapons, i made gas bombs in dark, i almost made moss arrows choke ai like in deadly shadows in dark, the motions were wrong. it would be interesting to see the player pick up a mechanist mace and smash in a door instead of just throwing it at the door until it opens. a simple scripting language for scripted events. there are many times in dark where i could write a script to create an effect but have no idea how to. so resort to a rube goldberg system of buttons, emitters and s/r in a blue room to do it. yet if i used the simple construction language of a TI-85 calculator i could do all the same things in a flash. a shame really that the most powerful tool in dark is still the least accesible to the common dromed user.

well question is, how many AIs will be in vision of the player ? In D3 there weren't many enemies in comparison to other shooters ( I just say serious sam ), but think of thief ! How many AIs can you see at the same time ? Even if you run through a whole mansion there won't be more than 10-15 AIs persueing you - I think the engine is able to handle 10-15 AIs with a 1024x1024 skin. At least for people, who play with high quality - I remember that D3 is scaling down textures on the lower details-settings anyway.

Anybody can recommend an ogg player for Windows? I would have to boot to linux and I don't want that right now.

I like this screen. concerning the street. Don't you think it might be better to shift the street to the side. As the Thief being pressed against the wall observing the guard. I don't know how that would look lik as a menu background. Could be that it might not work so well. I think the clock fits in very nicely. We could let the torch flicker. When the player moves the mouse to a button we could probably let the hand follow accompanied by a heavy mechanic sound.

I had another idea while I was working on this. I realized what the above version was missing was a middle-ground. The clock is foreground, and the city is background, but there was nothing in between. Looking at BT's latest wall (very cool) made me think of a city street. The tunneling effect that I liked so much in Ren's parchment picture could be created by a city street using an in-game shot. This would accomplish a few things: 1. It gives an immediate feel for what 'our' city is like. 2. It has lots of depth (artistically speaking) 3. It showcases the engine graphics right away. 4. It's fairly simple, and doesn't require tons of art production. 5. It can still capture the feeling of the player 'being' the Thief as they look at the menu (at least to some extent). The version below obviously uses the T3 picture, so we'd have to create one of our own. But it gives you the idea. What do you think? Should the clock still be a part of it? If I can put some gears around it that could turn as options were selected, that might be good.

After second thought, it makes more sense to not use those ideas of mine. It's much more stable and predictible for the player to have consistent feedback from the lightgem.

The glassy-ness of the gem is reflecting the lights of the game world when a player stands near lights. It would be purely for asthetic purposes, I figure, if there are enough lights to make the gem difficult to read, you already know that you're in a lot of light.

I thought about that too at first, but upon further thought I don't think it would be a good idea. It would be distracting, first of all, since the HUD isn't supposed to be in the 'game world', so it would be weird to have it be affected by the game lights. Secondly, it makes it more difficult for the player to read it effectively. Is it light because the character is in the light or just because a game light is hitting it?

Best. Lightgem. Ever. That looks great! Is it possible to use D3's glass/haze shader so that you can see through the lightgem to the other side, but have what ever outputs through the gem to increase or decrease in brightness depending on how much light the player is in? And also, is it possible to have the reflective glass of the gem react to actual lights in the game world? If so, that would be totally awesome!

Oh God noooooooo, what have I started. :lol: If loot is distinct enough from junk like in the orginal games we really shouldn't need it. I don't want to say I'm vehemently opposed to loot glint...ahh hell, I am. I think part of the reason they had to use loot glint in Thief DS is because they shared textures between so many different items that everything blended in, but that shouldn't be a problem for us. I have a few alternate suggestions as I don't think it's fair to drop it completely as I'm sure some found it quite useful. My first suggestion is to have a distinctive loot texture that will allow the player to learn what is valuable quite easily. I think with the doom 3 engine we also have specular maps on our side, so junk can be completely dull when compared to loot as well. Sort of like having loot glint, but just not the obvious kind. My second suggestion is that perhaps loot can also have an extremely subtle glow..could that be done with shaders too?

Okay, who has experience implementing sounds in games? I'd like to know how the sound files should be created/structured as far as the length of sound snippets go and how transitions are accomplished. I'm more referring to ambient sounds and music, than I am sound effects. Sound effects are pretty simple, I assume they just get triggered by the object that's supposed to make the noise But how do games go from one ambient track to another without there being a discernable clip in the audio? Well, I have played games where there's an obvious cut from one track to another... but we should try to avoid this as much as possible. I figure sound files get mapped into the map and as the player goes through the map the different ambiences occur. But what if you want a really creepy and melodic ambience in one area of the map and something more lighthearted in another section... but you want the transition between the two to be smooth? What do you do? Are separate transitionary (in-between) sound tracks created to accomplish this, or do most games just cut the track completely over to the new track without any care to how smooth the transition is? I'm just trying to better understand how sounds will be implemented to help me when I create sound files.

I think this is a 3D model. We must connect it with a material and at run time we can adjust the material parameters. If it's no 3D model, how should it show the angle the player is currently at? It has to tilt and rotate. You can't do this with a bitmap animation. At least this would take a lot of space because it would need every possible orientiation.

I'm not familiar with the whole coding aspect of this...so I'm kind of talking in riddles here. If possible, what I was thinking is that there could be AI created that would be given assigned a shopkeeper mode. It would have to be possible to have a system in place that could simply be applied to items in a shop. The level designer can design any type of shop that he wants within his map, we don't worry about the map. All we would supply are the game mechanics to apply to the items in that store. The player could assign prices and so forth. It's still like a mini game, but it's real time in the mission. Hmmm, I'm having trouble explaining this. LOL It would essentially be no different than in "Life of the party" in Thief 2, where there were houses along Garretts route that he could break into and steal goods. The only difference is that the fan mission designer could apply a value to these goods that would be subtracted from Garretts cash inventory when he interacts with the shopkeeper, or he could just skip out without paying while the shop keeper turns his back.

I'm not sure I understand you correct. If we have the shops ingame (which could be done easily) we need to work out the detailed mechanics of how they can be used. Just putting a shop in there is not really helpfull because it will unbalance the game. What do you mean with "Drop the selling" stuff? It's the point of the shop to supply the player with his initial weapons beyond what the author deemed enough.

So I was playing aorudn with the SDK this night and so far I had no success. But I think I figured out how to replace the original Doom 3 screen with our own, so if you guys could create a nice main menu screen, I would try to create a single player mod structure where we will put our mod in. Anybody up to the task?

I was discussing how this could work in the City concept thread. the primary problem I see with this is. It will add an element to EACH map wehre it will be used. How should this work in a cave setting? How will the FM author atioanlize the existance of a shop in the middle of nowhere? If the map is non/linear the player could come back anytime. This means that the balance will be lost because he can buy something in the middle of the game. I don't think that this is a good option. I have to look up the thread where I presented this concept.

So it would be possible to do a mock up of this realatively easily then? I'd like to see if it worked. I think anything that gets away from the current abstract, iconic way of dealing with giving the player information in games (i.e. the HUD) is a good thing. Just because every game has been using it for 20 years doesn't mean it's the best solution for every game.

The problem that I see is that Thief requires a lot more of hearing on the player part, than most other games. I don't know if we should really add to that by giving shadow information this way. Also it doesn't really feel natural to me, to have an auditive feedback on a visual experience. Just an idea. I think from the coding point of view it doesn't really matter wether we increase the sound or the colour of the lightgem. So we could test it as soon as we have the functionality that triggers the lightvalue. I can't really say that I can judge this just on the description. I would need to see how it feels when playing. As of being innovative. Of course. But we should also be aware that not every cool idea is good in gameplay. When I try to counter your arguments it's not because I want strictly to turn down your ideas, but we have to take a look at it from all angles. And I have no experience with gamedesign from the developers side. So I can only try to imagine how it feels when I would play it, as long as we have no prototype.

We could such a thing for AI awareness, but I don't htink it really works for the lightgem. The sound would increase the tension and is most likely not associated with the light/shadows but the overall danger. This would mean that, if the player is in an empty, but well lit, room the sound would indicate danger even though there is none. I think this wouldn't work well.

Good job, LB! You must have a microphone/recorder set-up of some sort. That's cool I'm not sure if these are tests, or finals... but if I may?, some constructive feedback real quick... * The popping sound at the beginning of 'thief gulp test' (which I assume is a cork being popped off a flask?) sounds kind've cartoony. I like the sipping sound. The gulping sound at the end doesn't sound realistic. * The more prevalent cicada (or whatever) sound on top of all the other sounds in the 'grasshopper' clip has a pretty repetitive frequency. If we were to use this in-game, I think it would be cool to just have the grasshoppers in the background be the general atmosphere, and then randomly add a few cicada clickson top... and then remove them for a while, and then add them back in for a short duration, etc., in a random fashion. But then again, maybe that's not how nature works. But then again, also, a game player would pick up on the repetition of it and hear that it's a loop eventually. The better you can hide the fact that it's a loop, the better. * The running horse could be usable, but depending on how it's used or what the horse is running on, could benefit by having some underlying bass tone stomps added for each step, thus making the horse seem like it has more mass. * The 'door open' sound is pretty creepy. I like it This creepy one should probably be used sparingly if we're ever going to make a campaign. I don't think I'd want to hear that loud of a sound every time a door opens; well, especially since we're a sneaky thief. We should make a few door sounds to choose from, some more subtle sounding. I'm sure you already had thought of most/all this stuff. Just wanted to mention. Thanks for your hard work so far!! I really like the 'Factory' sounds too! Good job.

I think there is potential in the book idea, because we could change the illustrations for each page. It also allows for more 'illustration' style pictures on the left. Here's a quick example. I'd prefer using in-game art though. Basically, my take on this approach is that the player is looking at a storybook detailing the adventures he is about to have. We should showcase scenes that give the most 'thief' bang for the buck, picking scenes that really shout "This is Thief!" The painting I picked doesn't really do that...it's just a placeholder. But things like showing the thief about to bj a guard...showing him pressed into a shadow, showing some of the marvelous settings that get our hearts beating, etc. Every time the page is turned, we can have a new menu on the left and a new illustration on the right.

Hiya! Hmm... not sure what's up with my personal site. If you just click on it it should open up in your default player tho.

Ahhh, that would be a very nice touch. Brings the player even further into the world.

I made this logo right fast, I'm still leaning more towards Pakman's as far as style goes but I figured I'd throw this mockup up to see what everyone thinks... (Edited pic down below) I'm gonna try and find a good schematic blueprint to overlay on it...and another thing we could do. Since the frontend is 3D we could make the background a texture and throw a flickering candlelight effect on it, make it look like the player is staring at a set of plans set on a desk.

First of all, those aren't soundeffects, but ambient sounds. Think like this: If the sound is generated by something the player does, ie shoots an arrow, walks around, pushes a button, then it's a soundeffect. If on the other hand, the sound is put in the level by the level-designer to bring some athmosphere to the level, ie crickets, the ocean, factory sounds.. Background sounds if you want, then it's an ambient sound. Second of all, those are some really great sounds! I love the factory. Right on! Third of all, great work.. Fourth of all, I'm gonna start doing an ambient design doc soon. It should hopefully clear up a few things.