So, what are you working on right now?

[Baddcog]

I think the pics look pretty good overall. I did notice the fog as a little ugly, but I think the scene would also be fine without it.

 

Still trying to figure out your hangup with non-round corners though I actually rounded some corners because of you and was told they'd be better off square (LOL) which I agree with.

 

Either way, I think people would be plenty happy with it as it is. Maybe you're aiming for super realistic, smooth ultra detail, but I'd rather play a mid detail mission this lifetime than wait an eternity for something that never gets finished.

 

Guess I'm dumbing down my expectations of my own work so I can release stuff and have fun with it. Too much time, too much headache just makes it no fun for me.

[Fidcal]

My own view is that there is no single valid view. Some Thief FMs were produced quickly, looked a bit rough, yet many players had a lot of fun with them; others are architectural masterpieces but took years to produce. Chalice took 27 days for the first build. Everyone on the team played it and had fun; let's say 90% fun. Since which I've probably done a similar amount of work tweaking it and now players get 92% fun. 27 day to get 90% fun; 27 days to add 2% more. Get my drift? Poor value. That doesn't mean you *shouldn't* try to make your FM as great as you can. Nor does it mean you should. I'm just saying, different approaches are valid. Of course the worst is to invest a lot of effort in a grand scheme and not finish it.

[dSpair]

The windows shining through fog is fixable. It needs a change to the material shader of the window texture. In the def you need to change the section eg:

 

Well, I really have to find out how to do that

[Fidcal]

Well, I really have to find out how to do that

Well if your asking for more details I can do that. Hell, I can create the def for you if you want and upload it somewhere. All you need do is let me know the names of the texture(s). We probably should include these in the next release anyway.

[dSpair]

I'd beter try to figure out this myself when I find time for some more DR work, thanks.

[Goldchocobo]

this is some WIP for my own test mission; don't think it will ever get released

 

 

 

 

 

Wow! Having just build a giant city, I'm wishing I could go back and add some of your detailing to it!

Nice!

[Chiron]

Love the snow...makes me feel so cozy

[xav]

 

... Not really Thief-like, is it? :-)

[Baddcog]

I think overall it looks good xav, I think it's the hazard stripes that make it un-thiefy. Without that I think it's pretty good for an inventors area. Maybe just rusty metal for contrast.

 

The I-beam might be a little out of place, that text doesn't make it look good either. Maybe try rusty metal.

 

The stone trim in middle of metal plates looks a little odd.

[xav]

well, strictly speaking, it's not intended to look thiefy. It does look something else, though. but i can't edit anymore today... after cleaning my keyboard, all of my shift keys have stopped working. and my arrow keys, i'm just finding out.

[STiFU]

One question: Is Blackheart manor still being developed? Haven't heard anything from that one since that video, which was amazing. So I hope it will be released sometime.

[Crispy]

Dram got hired by a gamedev studio so he has less time these days, but he has said that he hopes to finish and release Blackheart Manor at some point.

[STiFU]

Ah, good for him. Let's hope for the best... Thanks for the info.

[Xonze]

Been playing with this since the TDM was released:

 

 

[STiFU]

You people all seem to love snow!! Anyway, screens are looking good. Only the proportions of the building look a little weird to me, especially on the last screen. I guess the second floor should be a little higher above the windows of the first floor, which are hanging pretty low as well, but I guess it just seems like that because of the snow, right?

[Baddcog]

Looks nice Xonze. I like the arch and how you have the 2 rows of stone, looks cool.

[Xonze]

You people all seem to love snow!! Anyway, screens are looking good. Only the of the building look a little weird to me, especially on the last screen. I guess the second floor should be a little higher above the windows of the first floor, which are hanging pretty low as well, but I guess it just seems like that because of the snow, right?

 

lol, I've always worked on snow missions even in DromED. The proportions look weird because the snow is a patch and pulled upwards to look like it's been snowing heavily. From where I'm standing in the shot there isn't a patch, so I'm on the floor brush that the patch butts up against.

[Springheel]

I like that last city shot. Lots of character. I don't know what it is, but there's something very appealing about snow in Thief(y) missions. Maybe the combination of the snow and the warm glow of torches and candles, I don't know.

[Baddcog]

I think snow adds alot of contrast to a dark enviro and the fact that winter is a cold,dark,lonely season, I think that fits in really well with the gameplay.

[Noisycricket]

I agree, the snow looks nice.

 

In my ideas post, i mentioned custom animations for pulling down a hood from a heavy coat, for a special mission i was thinking about making, where the player would have to travel a few minutes through hard driving snow and fog to find an entrance to the main area. I was also thinking about a custom animation (which would be extremely easy to make) of the player holding his arm above his eyes (top part of the screen) for facial protection. Then have a trigger somewhere that made the arm go down and then pull the hood back. Also visible breath would be cool.

[Mortem Desino]

Visible breath could easily be a particle effect bound to the player. Trigger on when outside, trigger off when inside.

[Springheel]

I suspect frosty breath is one of those ideas that sounds neat until you actually imagine it. Do you really want repeated puffs of particle smoke suddenly appearing in the middle of your screen, obscuring anything you may be looking at? In real life, you can easily change the way you breath to keep that from happening, but not so in game (unless you want to start getting ridiculous and make some key controls for breathing).

[Noisycricket]

It could be made to look VERY unreal. But if it was subtle, not too dense... Im sure theres a sweet spot in there somewhere. If it was the same effect every time, that could be a big negative. I personally wouldn't have it come "out" anywhere on the screen, but below it, so you saw only the last half of it and it was spreading out and its velocity was slowing.

 

I hope this is done with guards at some point too.

[Springheel]

I personally wouldn't have it come "out" anywhere on the screen, but below it, so you saw only the last half of it and it was spreading out and its velocity was slowing.

 

Then it's going to look like your naval is on fire.

[Noisycricket]

Yeah, if it looked bad, it could look like all sorts of weird things. I'd guess it would have to be pretty thin to look right. It seems like it would be hard to do. If the particles didn't go off on their own at some point in their travel, that would be bad if they rotated around the character. So they'd have to be un-dense, wispy clumps that worked well as the player or a.i. turned there heads/moved.