So, what are you working on right now?

[Sotha]

Q1: not that I know of. You could readjust light radius or position so that the light does not penetrate to another location, then make the light noshadows 1. Or you could make the complex objects around noshadows but keep the light casting shadows. Or you could replace a spherical light with a noshadows spot light and aim it so it does not penetrate into another location.

[7upMan]

Obsttorte, for your "show-off" screenshots (I mean those in post #3693), can you make them in a bigger resolution? They are so tiny that I can hardly see a thing.

[Obsttorte]

@ 7upMan

 

i made them so tiny because of the upload-size restriction

but they are 640x480, so the aren't really tiny

btw: I deleted the high-res ones

 

next time I'll use 800x600

[SeriousToni]

And always brighten them up a little

[7upMan]

but they are 640x480, so the aren't really tiny

 

They are on my two 24" monitors. XD

[Bikerdude]

Evening

 

Another update of the work that's been done on the Training mission, enjoy.

 

 

 

[STiFU]

Love the details. The trainingmission has become a really nice showcase FM.

 

Trainingmission with story

 

I was just thinking "The TM is so beautiful, but a story would really enhance its playing value and make it more interesting!". After all, the TM is the first thing most new players see of the mod and making it as interesting as possible, would be a wise move. What do you guys think about that? It could be something as simple as this: A newblood-thief wants to join the local thieves guild and finishing the TM is sort of a rite of passage. In the briefing movie the background story of said newblood could be told. I am thinking something dramatic. The newblood was forced to join the thieves guild to make a living, since his reputation around the town commoners has been destroyed by a plot against him and he can't find a legal job anymore or something like that. Something to set the mood for the mod and get the players tangled up in the beautiful dark atmosphere that is TDM.

 

Objectives would have to be added. Imagine something like this:

• Retrieve the XY from the Safe. A thief must be able to handle his lockpicks!
  
• Find XY hidden health potions. They were hidden by the other members of the thieves-guild.
  
• Bonus: You've found all hidden health potions. You're bound to be come a true master-thief and the respect of the thieves guild is yours!
  
• Defeat tier three in the arena to earn your respect around the guild!
  
• Bonus: You've won the arena, but always remember: Fighting is not the way of the true master-thief!
  
• Sneaking is the most important skill a thief must master. Finish the sneaking course to prove you're worthy to be a part of the thieves guild!
  
• Bonus: You are a ghost! The whole thieves guild is astonished by your achievement! (Received upon finish the whole sneaking area without being detected even once.)
  

Of course there should be a debriefing. The debriefing could for example show the newblood-thief scouting out his first ever thief-mission / target. It should be very vague, mysterious and interesting, so that this first thief-mission could be any mission from our mission-pool. The debriefing should get the player hooked and make him think: "wow, this is really cool, I want to play this first mission now!!".

 

Hehe, totally dreaming away here...

 

Edit: The newblood-thief should remain nameless, so that the TM could possibly be the background story of all the protagonists of the current and future fm-series.

[Flanders]

The training mission was a compromise between some who proposed a linear story driven TM (like in thief games) and some who wanted a free roaming practice area. It was agreed upon that the training mission had no background story and also no objectives.

 

To limit the amount of information and instructions for new players we should keep it like that. Now we already have a lot of text in the pop-up messages and in books.

 

So no objectives, no mission ending and thus no debriefing

[STiFU]

I understand that logic and I concur with limiting information and instructions to prevent overwhelming the player. However from a marketing standpoint, it would be wiser to make the TM also interesting rather than just educational. I know many players who would like to skip a tutorial for a game completely, let alone a whole mission. In our case however, skipping the tutorial is no option for a thief-newbie, hence my proposal.

 

By the way, I am not suggesting to add a lot of new literature to the mission. I was merely thinking about briefing/debriefing and editing the main book at the start or adding an NPC who serves as your mentor sort of. Maybe also some reformulations of existing texts, to make them sound less like a tutorial.

[Bikerdude]

Another issue I see with making it story driven is the physical layout, it would require too much re-working to fit the story and I for one am not really motivated to do that at this present time.

[Springheel]

After all, the TM is the first thing most new players see of the mod and making it as interesting as possible, would be a wise move. What do you guys think about that?

 

I don't favour the idea. It would require a tremendous amount of redesign of the map, for starters, and Biker has just finished a massive upgrade already. Secondly, the entire TM is full of instructions talking to the player, not the thief character. You can't create an immersive story while at the same time explain meta-game control concepts like frobbing and lockpicking (let alone gamma menu settings).

[Sotha]

Yeah, no point in changing the official training mission.

 

However, nothing prevents someone from picking up DR and making their own training mission. That would be a nice prelude for a mini campaign that introduces the character, is short and linear. And most importantly presents all important stealth gaming principles in a reasonably simple form.

[Diego]

I always found the training mission to be gorgeous, and now it's getting an upgrade? wow

[Flanders]

The only thing i consider feasible about this is adding a better immersion enhancing intro movie/briefing. That wouldnt need changes to the map itself.

 

So if anyone (from outside the development team) is up for making a sort of flavour movie...

[STiFU]

The only thing i consider feasible about this is adding a better immersion enhancing intro movie/briefing. That wouldnt need changes to the map itself.

Well, that was basically all I had in mind, aside from maybe some minor xdata editing... ^^ (As I had stated numerous times before :-P )

[Bikerdude]

The only thing i consider feasible about this is adding a better immersion enhancing intro movie/briefing. That wouldnt need changes to the map itself.

Got an idea for a story board..?

[ungoliant]

how the crap do you add a storyboard to an FM that has a brightness/contrast calibration room??? personal vote: no briefing other than calibration / game mechanics / hotkey advice.

[Bikerdude]

personal vote: no briefing other than calibration / game mechanics / hotkey advice.

just thinking aloud, maybe just a intro vid to tdm kinda like the promo vid that was released years ago.

[Bikerdude]

This isnt strickly Darkmod, but good god its not far off! Here is a sample of what the undisputed master's of the art has been upto with the new Thief 1.19 patch, but that's not to say his mission didn't look good in 1.18. I have asked him if he wouldn't mind giving us a copy of his textures in the size he downloaded them from CGtextures....

 

[Seuchensoldat]

Da fuq? At first I thought it was TDM, but then I saw the light gem and was like:

[Melan]

That looks very good, but mainly because of the texturework and soft shadows. The architecture consists of a few rectangles and one (1) end cap. Import the same assets into DR and you've got it normal-mapped and probably with way more polys.

 

(Come to think of it, could we theoretically up the texture dimensions to 2048x2048 or 4096x4096?)

[RPGista]

Sorry guys, but regardless of the game, that room is as simple as it gets, the whole mood comes from the textures and how they work together.

 

Edit: Melan beat me to it!

 

In fact, I have to find time to come up with a A-Z step by step on making new materials and putting them in your mission, as it is quite rare to find TDM mappers going beyond the base assets (= clearly there's a difficulty there).

Edited October 5, 2012 by RPGista

[Bikerdude]

In fact, I have to find time to come up with a A-Z step by step on making new materials and putting them in your mission, as it is quite rare to find TDM mappers going beyond the base assets (= clearly there's a difficulty there).

I need to learn how to create normals from existing textures, as its something thats holding me back from adding more & better textures to the mod.

[Radiant]

Oh my god... it looks nearly photorealistic.

Now I want to try to make some case studies, to immitate this picture in TDM. x_X If only I had more time...

 

Sure, Melan is right about the level of architectural details but the author did a great job at lightning.

 

@Bikerdude: Give Crazy Bump a try for normalmaps. Just create a greyscale image in Photoshop first, then use it in Crazy Bump.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Radiant

[Bikerdude]

@Bikerdude: Give Crazy Bump a try for normalmaps. Just create a greyscale image in Photoshop first, then use it in Crazy Bump.

Found a free app that is very simple to used and even uses cuda - SSbump Generator (http://ssbump-generator.yolasite.com) it can even create normals with ambient occlusion.