Search the Community

Bare with me on this. This isn't some idea I just came up with. The illusion WON'T be destroyed when the compass points move (as I thought I illustrated). It's a trick used in many commercial 3D games. No, the 2D gem doesn't move. It doesn't need to, because it's a perfectly round sphere. You can't tell which way its facing. Look at my previous example pic. BECAUSE you can't tell which way a marble is facing, is why you can use a 2D pic for it. You don't need to render new pictures for every angle you see it on, because a perfect sphere never looks different, no matter what angle you view it on. The only way it looks different is if you change the light source, which isn't nessecary for a HUD item. -But you are right, there is no real difference with a true 3D one and the 2D one from a programming perspective, since both are simply changing textures on a mesh in real time. -And the poly count doesn't really matter I suppose, since there is only one of them and not lots of them all over the screen (like in-game objects such as coin stacks). -But the 2D one has the possibility of being pre-rendered much nicer looking, and perfectly round without huge amounts of polys. That is generally the entire reason for employing this trick. If I could find some screen shots, I could show you what I mean. Okay, it's not a decent example, but maybe it gets the gist across. Look at the tyres on the Karts. (They are all the same tire object). Notice how they have managed to get treads on the tires, shading, rims etc. all which would take up lots of polys. The fact is, that they only rendered 1 animation of the tire revolving on the Y axis (ie. rotating as if sitting on a microwave plate while it turns) and stuck this on a 2 poly square. They did not render frames for any other angles (except 2 more for the z axis, so the tire can look like it's spinning) because the fact is, that the tire will ALWAYS look like one of those frames from the animation of the Y axis revolving, no matter what angle you look at it from, high, low, diagonal, side, etc. because of the way the tire is shaped. It is a perfect circle. In the case of a perfect sphere, it looks the same from ALL angles, something they exploited in Mario 64 with the king ba-bomb - his body is a 2D image of a pre-rendered sphere with a highlight on it - that way, he is perfectly round (no polygonal edges), it only takes up 2 polys instead of hundreds, and his eyes, arms and legs rotate around that image as he turns, as if it was a perfect sphere, completing the illusion. Much like what I'm suggesting for the light gem. All I'm saying is that it's possible to exploit this trick to make a much more beautiful, glass-marble type looking gem, like the one that was first posted.

can't see the pictures for some reason - maybe because I'm on a public-pc here ?! edit: now it works...

Problem is, LW doesn't have a version that most people can afford. Hell, only reason I can afford 3DS is because of student pricing. Maya has the PLE, but I'm not sure how that would apply here. And I've tried using Blender and Milkshape, and I absolutely hate the interfaces for them. Edit: Isn't it the same methodology, regardless of format, to get a mesh in-game? Go ahead and post it anyway.

As Finger said, this would be done with a particle engine. And as Spring rightly points out: This is something that can wait until the core features have been implemented. This is also the reason why I don't fix the doors right now. For our purposes it works and we will have to do a lot of polishing later on.

I (We?) am not talking about the trechnical issues. It's more the legal implications that are my concern. I can't sell the game if I don't like it, because I have no CD, which is a requirement here. I'm forced to have an internet connection. I'm forced to register. I have games that are about ten years old. What if Valve decides in five years that it don't wants to support my game anymore? What if Valve decides in two years that registered customers have to pay an additional fee (despite having payed the price for the game)? Electronic Arts already did this to some extent. What if Valve decides that it wants micropayment pay-per-game? Some Musiclables are already have plans for that and don't tell me that game companies wouldn't do that. Players not accepting that? Why not? It's only fair and it doesn't hurt THAT much. This argument applies always and companies do exactly for this reason gradual changes where each step "is not THAT bad". Why do I have to register at all? I just want to play single player and I'm not even interested in multiplayer. Always remember: Companies do their stuff for money. Not for the customers. MS gives away IE for free? Why? Because it loves it's customers? Valve does this to protect the online comunity from cheating? Get real! Copyprotection? Steam doesn't prevent pirating.

Just playing around with the bounding boxes in the .def files. It definately helps to decrease them here, but for some reason the boxes are not in the center of the object. They are somewhat offset to the left hand side of each object. Same with the doors. If I open a door, I can line up with the edge on one side and frob it from a fair distance away, if I go to the other edge of the door I have to be very close to it before if frobs. I'll try to post a screen shot. Not sure how we can line up the bounding boxes...unless it's one of the settings that we're playing with that determines that.

Oh yes, we did create them,( kudos to BlackThief) but they were based on Thief 2 textures. I should also add that they don't include the texture for the model, just the wireframe. They're very low poly, 90% of the details from those old models were in the texture work. Only reason I suggested them is that the basic shape is what we're looking for and any one of the models could be hacked and carved into an ultra high poly model of what ever we wanted. Just an option that I wanted to present as either a tool, or for testing purposes until we get our own models. We certainly would not present any ingame shots to the public with these models in them. That would be suicide.

My limitation was objects. I needed so many bloody torches to light up my palace, that there weren't enough objects left to make the rest of the city, forest, etc. Another thing is, the main reason I felt I needed so many torches is because you couldn't carry them around with you like you could in real life back in those times. Cellars etc. would have removable torches in the doorway (in the same way we have our light switches at the doorways of a room) so that you could light the torch (if nessecary) and carry it down with you, and put it back on your way out. Another limitation was that all guards would hate you. For that, I had to make up some crummy curfew into the storyline (like so many other fan missions have done). Unless they had the frontgateguard property on. But even then, if anything got them mad (eg. zombie), they would hate you when they next saw you, wether or not you were the cause of the problem. I tried to explain it by adding a "you're the stranger and if anything goes wrong, you'll be the first suspect" thing into the plot, but it was even more crummier than the curfew idea, so I went with the curfew idea... Also, I wanted to have text come up instead of recordings, when someone spoke, because of the fact that I couldn't find any decent voice actors, and it's a lot of trouble. I'd just like to release it with text-only dialogue, and then put voices in when I can find the time. You could do this in DromEd, but it was really fiddly. I'd like it to be easier.

It will not be rendered if it is not skinned. It's not like in the modelling app that you can leave the default shading if it suits you. The model will just be pitch black if you import it just like this. The reason being because the modelling apps usually have a default shader applied which gives this grey look, but there is no such thing in D3.

Perhaps. I was mostly thinking towards something for replay value. But yes, it might be an "iffy" thing. Maybe a more refined idea could come from this. Wait, how about then, instead of random loot spawns... randomized (within set locations) loot locations! I forget what game it was, damn... some game that was out a while ago had you looking for...um.. something(?!) and each time you played it could be in a different location. *WRACKS BRAIN* What the heck game was that? Anyway, imagine hitting Bafford's again, only to find that the scepter is NOT in the throne room? That instead, he left it near his fireplace in his bedroom. That little feature could add replay value to a mission - random choice of special loot (ugh, did I just use that phrase?) placement points. Maybe objectives would/could/(should?) change to go with it. "Steal the scepter. Lord Bafford has been sick recently, and hasn't been to his throne room for weeks." Right. As I was mentioning, it always struck me (only bothered me a little, but it bothered nonetheless) odd in Thief that sometimes people are just pacing. Guards? Yes, that's fine. But when a servant, or Lady of the house or whatever, is just pacing back and forth for no apparent reason, it just seems odd. It would be much better if they actually appeared to be doing something (which rests on the shoulders of the designer, ultimately), but if they can't be made to look like they're doing "something", every little bit that actually helps them look alive, helps. Incidentally, why a new thread? Or was that just a posting error? I feel a spotlight on my back! *runs and hides*

Yes, at least I have always thought of doing this, since it's already in Thief. There are multiple sounds for footsteps, arrows hitting something, corpses collapsing etc. As a matter of fact, when I did the corpse collapse sound, I made two versions, for this reason. They are uploaded on the FTP.

I've uploaded three versions of the Lightgem model (.lwo files) to the FTP site. They are in /models/lightgem. The whatis.txt file gives a basic description of what each file is. The lightgem.lwo file is the high detail model that we probably don't want to use. 2.5 k polys The lightgemr2.lwo file is a medium detail model that renders nearly as well as the high detail model, at 1024 polys. Still probably too high, plus there are some non-planar quads that may cause problems. The lightgemr3.lwo file is a lower res model that looses some visual detail and has 770 polys. Still might be too high, and the nonplanars are still there... The lightgemr4.lwo file is a algorithmically reduced object with 692 polys. These are all tris. The mesh is quite messy in comparison, but the model doesn't render too badly. We may want to use this. The reason I provide all these models is so we can choose which model is the best size and complexity. Also if someone is better at reducing models than I am, they can give it a crack and perhaps come up with a better result. Material definitions are all procedural and stored within the lwo files. I also changed the point colors a bit. Here is a new sample:

I've been trying to figure out the reason why my more special effect-laden textures refuse to show up in the editor or the game recently, I'm wondering if I'm doing the materials wrong or if something else on my comp is borked. If you still have your transparent window could you send it to me? I know it works both in the editor and the game cuz of the screenshots, so if it doesn't work for me then I could probably rule out coding errors at least for the time being.

No reason why a simple, generic cube environment map could be applied to the material. But it would reflect the same in any location. Still would look pretty cool, though.

Please forgive my ignorance but what do you mean when you say brushes ..I have never heard that before. I understand the rest of your comments….this is exactly the reason I want to work with you guys so I can learn a little more about the transition of 3d 2d elements into a game engine

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?

Agreed. That's part of the reason I'm doing these rollcalls. Maybe you should do the same thing in your department and see if there is anyone who is just being quiet?

lol, it's a compressed texture, basically a TGA file that's 1/3rd the size. There is quality loss, though..hence the reason why it's used for the lower end graphic settings in Doom 3.

I heard an explanation for the swords somewhere, can't recall the location, but it had something to do with them being ressurected by...less than holy means. The Hammer, being a holy symbol, would most likely repell them. I think that was the reason for them using the swords.

Heh, yet another reason for lightwave. The subpatch function is very handy, not so sore on the computer, and you can eep everything in separate layers as well. That priest model is only 30k, and most of that is in the little details which you'd hardly miss.

Here's an interesting idea - look at how Doom3 does user interfaces. All of the non-constant interfaces (in other words, the ones that weren't on screen all the time) were actually in the game world. The PDA is held up to use it, and it doesn't interfere with the gametime - you can get your ass whipped while reading emails. Computer screens were all in the game world. It seems to me that striving for this level of immersion would be best - after all, aren't there a lot of minimalist people? So instead of a user-interfaced purchasing system, is there any reason we can't do a variation on the thief 3 method? Keep the shopkeepers with shelves of stuff, but drop the selling equipment aspect, and add a little box on the counter that'll hold everything you've got. Hell, why not make it so you can sell back your starting equipment? It would be fundamentally the same, in terms of gameplay, but without the immersion-breaking.

I dunno, something about the stained glass one reminds me of the T3 menu for some reason. Maybe its just the colors... but yet they're different. No clue. Regardless, it's obviously is beautiful, but it also reminds me of the Thief-TheCircle site. I'd still prefer the book style That menu might be good for the actual campaign we do, but I think the book style lends itself better to presenting an interface for people to choose the Fan Mission they want.

Yeah, the vote idea is definately the way to go on this one...get it decided once and for all. The reason I'm kinda driving it so hard is cuz the hud is quite literally the gateway to our mod. It doesn't set the tone for the rest of our work on it, but it'll set the impression that someone gets when they first fire it up. You do something really cool and they'll be more likely to show a bit more interest in what comes later. But anyway, I've got one last idea I wanna try before we start the voting. If you could hold it off for a day or so I'd really appreciate it.

The only thing I truly consider woo are the ghosts, undead...stuff like that. That being said, it has been established that some very strange things exist in the fictional Thief world. As long as it's not earth and exists on some other plane of reality, then I think we should be ok with the creatures and undead....within reason. We don't want an all out Woostock on our hands. Jimmy Hendrix, back from the head? YIKES!!!

That's a fairly typical response Just ask the people who designed this forum, they will tell you that the statistics show that the majority of the people on the net have 800x600. (The other main reason to design pages for 800x600 is that we can only realistically read so many words per line, before it gets hard/annoying to follow the text down the page, so the whole scaleability thing of the web is stopping at 800x600 these days.) But for the purposes of this mod, I guess we can assume 1024x768. I just don't want this to keep happening. Scrolling horozontally to read post text takes TOO long, and I have to paste the text into text pad so that it will wrap properly.