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Vertex blending between two normal-mapped materials works fine. It is more work, but then so too would be hand-painting "join" textures. Is there a screenshot that would illustrate what you mean? If you are referring to two textures meeting on the same coplanar surface, then this will probably look bad without some kind of trim texture - put a beam or a step or a pillar in the way instead. One thing you could try is having a grimy overlay material stage applied with "blend filter", but with a scale factor that makes it much larger than the tile size of the underlying textures. This can introduce a low-frequency dirt effect which might help to avoid the excessively clean look. I think "plastic" is being used as a catch-all term for the inconsistency of asset quality and lack of art direction throughout missions, which as has been pointed out is a consequence of having many different contributors over time with many different skill levels. It is something that will hopefully improve with time.

That is so true! In most missions everything is locked and you have to be patient everytime you just want to see if there's something valuable in this chest, because you lockpicked even 4 other chests before in this room which was locked by the door too when there even isn't a guard IN this room that makes the lockpicking suspenseful.

TDS+JohnP textures (where's is that guy now? )+some HUD/engine tweak = very enjoyable game/narrative experience. IMHO TDS has a real nice "implementation" of the Garrett's City, maybe too much "fairy" for Thief steampunk canon integralists. Pity about the ineffective "city hub" system: frequent (long) level loading kills the gameplay experience. So thanks for TDS missions!

I think Theo is suffering from mapping syndrome, but -if I interpret correctly- I can understand what he means with plasticity. Mapping syndrome: Once you've mapped enough, you always look missions with a mapping point of view. If you know how visportalling works, you instantly have a subconscious hunch how the locations are built. Or at least you have certain expectations. You should actively focus on enjoying the mission, and that way at least I can remove the Mapper bias and turn myself into a Player. Plasticity: Thief N had rather low res textures. The basic textures looked gritty and dirty. In TDM the textures are high res, clear and crispy. The mapper has to really work their ass off the get the scene to look grimy. Great decalling effort is required and I'm usually too lazy to do that. Nowdays I just compromize by stuffing decals near the lights. The dark areas have none. This means that everything is fine for people who have gamma-room set visuals. If they have too bright settings, the dark areas will look rather bad, I guess. But that's their problem, in my view, the game should be played with setting where darkness is as dark as it can be so that the player can still barely see what's in there. In TDM, there are many textures that look just fine in the editor, but in game they are not as good as you'd wish. With experience, I've gathered only a few useable textures in each category, wood, stone, metal, etc. Luckily adjusting the scaling I can use those textures over and over and they look different. What I mean with this is: it is easy to choose poor looking textures. The texture decision seen in the much debated KM cellar is especially poor one. I'm not sure what is meant with "plasticity of sounds and voices." Sure there are some weak sounds like the sword sounds, but those were fixed. I'm not bugged with other sounds at present. Regarding the vocal sets, I think they could have used a bit more variety. I probably don't know what I'm talking about but I feel there are same audio clips, with just different emphasis: "*Now* where would I hide if I was a thief." "Now, *WHERE* would I hide if I were a thief", "Now, where would *I* hide if I were a thief." And not like "Here, kitty kitty kitty.." "Come out now and I promise I won't hurt you.." "Get in the open and surrender and I'll spare you." But, yeah, since I'm comparing to a commercial game, I'd still say the vocals and vocal scripts we have are pretty amazing for a freetime volunteer mod.

I have played every T1/T2 and T3 mission and I do so as a mark or respect for the effort that authors put into thier missions (and that was before I became an author myself) and as a player because I love thief. Btw, your getting better with your comments, its not outright trolling this time. Keep up the effort.

What else can we attribute these claims of "Doom 3" is not "Thief enough" to? They are both 3D engines that use textures and polygons. What is the difference? Why does one look "more organic"? A simple examination shows that mappers for engines with baked lighting can hand-draw details and shading in ways that do not work for engines where lighting must provide the shading. Those hand-drawn features give you such lovely nuace as seen in the DrK missions for Thief II. It imparts an emotional connection. To achieve the same results in Doom 3 without heroic workarounds would take massive textures. Hence the move to Megatexture for Id Tech 5. The solution should've been something akin to what I described. Something to make it easier to produce organic transition details between tiled textures. (Unless you prefer downloading 100GB texture files for every mission...) The other alternative... going hog-wild with geometry like Johannes (and let the lowend folks weep at the requirements)...

i feel sorry for that guy he done a lot of work on his TDS missions,but unfortunately TDS SUXXORZ and even half of Thief/TDM community wont play them

Yes, true. People also frequently mistake the toolset for the products of this set, too. While I see your point (that it sounds like an excuse), I am also saying that * A TDM has already proven the point (see Johannes screenshots, or many of the 50 released missions), so why should bad examples "unprove" that? * B The argument that "gameplay trumps graphics" is always dug out as the argument in favour of T2 (and "against" TDM, in the sense of "gameplay matters and as long as T2 has gameplay (and somewhat improved graphics) we don't need TDM as it only increases the not-so-important graphics"). Basically B amounts to having your cake and eating it, too. Either gameplay is more important than graphics, or graphics are most important. (Or both are important, but even then I am not seeing where TDM would be worse in either department). For me the most sad thing is that there are really areas where TDM can (and should be) improved, but this thread does neither help to highlight them, nor does it offer anything in actually fixing these issues! And that I consider a waste of time. (If for every post someone made in this and other pointless threads that someone painted an accented character or translated a string, the I18N project of TDM would be already done! But I guess wishing that someone else makes the work is always easier than doing it *sigh* Now excuse my while I slink back to my working bench called "Gimp"

Neither mission is "crappy". Far from it. PD is among the top story-telling missions, IMO, and Knighton is one of the best for gameplay.

I tried to post this last night, but I think there was a problem with the server. Slow/non-responding pages. ------------- I'm not a big fan of scroll bars or buttons as it makes it harder to view everything as a quick summary. T3 introduced those scrolling mission texts, which I despised. I think that the object in the lower corner should indeed be a 3-D model, maybe with sepia tones as mentioned. It could still be a part of the paper by having the paper's texture applied on top of the model. Maybe even have it rotate, making it a more lively GUI. (Something like the full-motion video newspapers of Harry Potter come to mind. Just to help spice it up without going overboard.) I feel there's no true need for the "Items Purchased" section. I always thought it was strange that T1/T2 had it. (Eliminating the near-pointless "Items Purchased" section gives us more room to play with in the GUI.) If I buy something, it should just add to my equipment total. Conversely, if I get rid of something (and I should be able to get rid of stuff (even defaults) I don't want), it should just add to the "Items For Sale" list. Therefore, maybe just have two sections: "Items In Inventory" and "Items For Sale", or some similar titles. Then, when you buy an item, it adds to the total in inventory. I think this is a good starting point. But, in addition to the above, I feel there would be something nice and more intuitive (for visual people) about being able to see all the little item icons at once in the menu, like in T1/T2.

These missions are FAR from crappy. While the visuals may not be Johannes caliber, they both have the biggest ingredient for a successful mission "game-play" and they have it in spades. I'll agree that Patently Dangerous has a small edge visually but it comes at the cost of smaller views and vistas. Knighton is also partly the victim of the poor tree models and hedge textures. Replace those trees with Nosslak's versions and perhaps add a POM shader option for the hedge texture and voila... you've got a lush exterior. As for that cellar image from Knighton... Clearing had every visual setting as low as possible and no anisotropic filtering... of course it will look comparably poor. I'll agree that the cellar isn't a visual stunner but it serves it's purpose. If Sotha would agree to allow somebody to grime that cellar a little more I wouldn't complain I'd go so far as to suggest that if you want a nicer looking cellar then look no further than Sotha's The Beleaguered Fence, or even the vaulted cellar of Glenham Tower... eh?

^ I think that is probably why people don't take your crits well Shadowhide. You are great at saying this maps sucks, Skyrim suxors... But you never back it up. Sure in Skyrim you say 'all dungeons look the same'. But still, that doesn't say much. When I go in a dungeon I can tell it's a certain type (ice cave, tomb, rock cave, etc...) but that doesn't make them all look alike. Sorry, it just plain doesn't. That's like saying all beaches look alike because they have sand and palm trees. And if you think they do then it's obvious you can never be taken seriously. (don't turn it into a skyrim thread, it's just an example) Did one mission not have enough lights? Too dark to see? Too bright to believe you could hide in shadow? No tense moments where you have to run from one shadow to the next through light where a guard might see you? No guards to see you if you stand in light? Too much color in lights? Not enough color in lights? Too many areas with no lights at all and too many areas with way too many? Those are the types of things that make or break good lighting. Same goes for sounds, AI, etc... Just like a good book an FM has to use these things to pull and push you, make you feel safe, then in danger. And if you are going to complain at least give a slightly thought out and respectful comment on it, then people will understand you, and authors can learn from it to improve an updated version or a new map. Otherwise you are just complaining to be a suxor. ------------- To expand on the screenshots above.. Sure, that tunnel in Knighton doesn't look that great. That's my opinion. It's pretty clean, plain, nothing exciting. Maybe even boring. But so is the tunnel in Patently. However: 1- I enjoyed both missions and can forgive them for not being Crysis. 2-Sotha made Knightington in what a month? So for having a fun mission made that quick with less than stellar graphics, not a bad compromise. Especially since he was trying to help boost the number of FM's to play more than trying to spend all his free time to make you alone happy. 3-PD's tunnel was meh too... But the rest of the map kicked ass. So I forgive it. The outside shot of PD might look more interesting, because you are looking at several buildings and a windy street. KM you are looking at the front of a building. But to say the lighting in any of those pics varies by much is a stretch. They look very similar to me. So you'll have to critique better than that. ------------- I also think it's nothing more than a bit funny that when you compare a shot of a DR FM you pick a 'bad' one from an early FM and when you show a T2 pick you pick a nice one from a well received and popular late one. I had been mapping and playing T2 for years before Rocksburg came along. I was tired of doing it by then. I had already seen many mind blowing maps made by then. Not to put Rocksburg down at all, but by the time that came out it was no longer any surprise to people that the modding community had made T2 look so good. Aside from that I feel it's a pretty simplistic attic shot that doesn't even prove the point you are trying to make about how good you want a mission to look. I could pick something from 7th crystal, cosas, CL that look way better. I could also show you a pick of blackheart that would blow them all away. But by the time Rocksburg came out people had been making great FM's for years for T2. We're still in what, the 2nd year of FM's? I think maybe it's just been two years.

You're seriously going to argue that PD looks better than Knighton's? Please explain how the PD images on the left are visually better or more complex than the Knighton ones on the right? (for the record, I quite enjoyed PD, but I think the visuals are it's weakest element) At least five other people have ranked Knighton Manor as one of their Top 5 favourite missions, so I'm not sure I'm the one "not getting it".

Shadowhide, you make no sense whatsoever. You complain endlessly about Knighton Manor, which has average visuals, yet your own mission had some of the worst, most boxy geometry I've seen yet in TDM. One of the missions you list as your favourites is Patently Dangerous, which has visuals that are even weaker than Knighton Manor. You complain that the "skybox looks better than actual geometry" one minute and then say "Graphics have no matter" the next. You're hard to take seriously at the best of times, and contradicting yourself doesn't help.

NO ! only idiots will refuse to play TDM because it based on D3 engine it feels Thiefy,it plays like Thief,but when you expecting awesome missions based on newer engine and getting this,you obviously be frustrated in mod in general

Yeah, but that proves my point. If certain missions DO feel thiefy to you, then how does TDM NOT feel thiefy because it's in Doom3 ENGINE. It's not like Thievery. When played thievery I still felt like I was a clunky space marine due to the movement. To me the movement was tuned at all to feel different. TDM doesn't feel like the Doom3 guy at all. And it's not like the texturing even in ugly maps with our worst textures looks Doom3 ish at all. The Mod has been modded enough that no real resemblance to Doom3 exists, unless someone uses Doom3 assets. But most of a mission not feeling thief probable has more to do with atmosphere created by the mapper than anything. Thief used ambient music heavily, and really well. If a map doesn't have that it is a major 'breaking point' in having that same feeling. ----------- This whole discussion is about that point. The FM's aren't TDM. They are built with it. If an author fails to capture the Thief feeling, it's not because it can't be done. But I still feel quite thiefy in every map I've played. It has to do with equipment, what my expectations going in are, etc... I think we have an over abundance of people who are just so picky they won't even allow themselves to enjoy the experience, too many preconceived notions of 'playing Doom3', 'it's not thief' ,etc.... Where as Thief FM's almost always feel 'thiefy' because there are no preconceived notions to buck.

Thats pretty cool, I saved a few of your posts by now about variety on AI path maps, I look foward to more missions with strong sentry networks! The Beleagiered Fence is one of my favourite maps because of that. By the way, whats the mission scenario, if I may ask?

actually,he played and enjoyed T1/2 and some FMs.Graphics have no matter,design and gameplay does maybe T1 graphics (models,textures) are aweful,but level design is really great unlike some TDM fms yeah,but nobody recommend them as best FMs You're gonna burn alright. the problem is people recommending bad missions

LOL. @SH, take on-board what Greebo stated a few posts above. If you cant control yourself then only poist when you have DR editing or a game play related question's And following on from BC's post above, I think you should point your friend at the Top missions thread insteadbtw you still really need to work on your english, sometimes what your trying to say just comes out wrong.

I updated this package on my server: http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/scripts/I18N_script.zip The I18N.pl script had a few corner cases it coudn't deal with (both occured with SaintLucia.pk4), like multiple comments in a row, or some placeholder strings for invisible objects. I'll upload the converted missions in a second, stay tuned

There is no persistent city hub the way Thief 3 did it, but there are multiple city-based missions, some rather expansive.

sneaksiedave:Also, something that many might not know (not that it matters) - she (Gillian) is a silly, goofy person.... Yes, I saw an interview with her once and it was actually rather jarring. I used to be a fan of the X files when it first came out, and she always struck me as being bright and sexy. I knew it was a TV show but I thought she had to have some kind of decent processing power. Oh no. Not even close. Shes dumber than a box of dumbasses and a lot of the appeal disappears when she starts talking. This is not some mysoginistic rant againts women, to be clear, its targeted right at her. Stoned is absoluteley correct, the interviewer would pose a simple question, Gillian would look around blankly for a second, purse her lips, and then mumble some blather out that sometimes didnt seem to be addressing the question at hand one little bit.

I think you have a valid point. Hands down to the TDM team, but i do think that it still feels very lacking. I dont think the Fms are to blame, but the fact that its made out of D3. Its really hard for me to feel immersed into the missions, when i play i don't feel like, i am a thief stealing from a rich nobles mansion. I feel like a dude sitting at my computer, pressing buttons. Perhaps the fact, that i have been mapping more than i have been playing fms, ruin gameplay for me a bit. ONT I will not contribute to this thread, i really don't want anyone to feel self concious.

Hi RPGista, sorry, I nearly overlooked your post and now it is too late to do anything. I will upload tomorrow or at last Wednesday all the converted missions so you can start translating them. (The old method meant I needed to run the script with the original english and the new portuguese version, that works, too, but I think the translation is easier for you if you have just a list of strings). Also, I will upload a file with the currently missing Portuguese strings. There are not many missing I think

And one hour with Gimp later we got quite a few new shiny russian characters. There are still a few dozend missing, but this is enough to render the two headlines we have (New Mission and Setting) correctly: Bed time for me! Hyeron: No news is good news then I hope still that some more translations for missions roll in. If the problem is the I18N.pl script, I can pre-convert them all and upload them for you guys, if that is whats holding FM translations up!