I want loot-glint!

[STiFU]

Hey Fellas. In another thread the old discussion about distinguishing loot from junk was briefly mentioned and I would like to discuss it a little further without derailing the thread. So here we go! In conclusion, It's been said, there is a general agreement that we are not going to see any silver loot because of this problem, which is a shame, because everyone loves variety. I then thought of an easy way of how to communicate the value of an object to the player:

 

I often have problems deciding what's loot and what's not as well. I mean by now, I know the models, but at first it was weird sometimes. And now that I read this, I thought "Hey, why not make a different colored frob-highlight for loot objects?". I am thinkig of a yellowish one. It's not as intrusive as Lootglint, but it still gives the player feedback.

 

Another solution would be to fade a very faint loot-glint in, when the object is highlighted and fade out, when it's not. This would be a compromise between TDS-glint and colored-loot-highlight, but I'd vastly prefer the other method, because this one would make small things like rings easier to find. At least if the fade- (and activate-)timespan is not set to a high value. Anyway, I don't want to force a new feature into TDM here, I'd just like to discuss it.

[New Horizon]

I hope it doesn't have to come to either of those solutions honestly. I think the results look pretty good so far with the enhanced specular. As for the difference between silver junk, and sliver loot...could we not simply dirty up silver junk more...and not give it a specular?

[Baddcog]

Honestly I think it was Spring that didn't want silver items to be loot. More specifically I think he didn't want the teapot/creamer/sugar as loot. I think Silverware also came up as a reason to not have silver items as loot.

 

I don't know, maybe we can change this stance before 1.1 goes out.

 

I agree silverware should not be loot. Mainly bacuase we can set up a whole table for dining to look good, and if silverware was loot the player would have to grab 50 pieces off of a table. That would play like Mario Bros. ching ching ching ching...

 

But now I've got skins for the teapot in copper, brass, and was trying steel. But steel looked better for silver than my silver did so...

So the silver teaset can now be used on wealthy houses, and there are skins for junk teapots for anywhere else.

In the long run, players would get used to anything, even if we left the silver teaset as non-loot which to me makes sense too.

If a thief is breaking into a manor to steal loot, it's usually a 'goal item' and picking up other loot as a bonus.

Picking up a 2 foot tall decanter would be a little silly when he's trying to be nimble and get the big loot prize. So I can see limiting silver loot to goblets and smaller. Basically most of the gold stuff is goblet or smaller anyway, so that would carry over to silver loot just fine imo.

 

I'd actually prefer having silver and gold as loot since they are both precious metals (sans silverware). We do have silver coins and ringsalready , so why not skins for the other loot items like statues, builder icons, etc...

 

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I'd rather not have any loot glint at all mod-wise. Hopefully people just won't hide loot in aweful places and things like rings should be placed somewhere fairly obvious.

 

However on a personal basis you could go through and change the frob highlight for a very easy way to see a difference in frobbing. Wouldn't glint, but you could change the highlight from white to golden and when you looked at loot next to non-loot it would be obvious which is which.

 

Youd have to copy/paste this into all entries in tdm_models_loot.mtr

   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend       gl_dst_color, gl_one
       map         _white
       rgb         0.40 * parm11
   }
   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend       add
       map         models/darkmod/props/textures/plate1_d
       rgb         0.15 * parm11
   }

 

and probably need a new map, for _white. Or can that color be changed just by putting _yellow in there?

 

It's all one text file so it would be easy to copy/paste all that. You have to update for new loot, and custom loot in FM's would be included...

[Springheel]

Honestly I think it was Spring that didn't want silver items to be loot. More specifically I think he didn't want the teapot/creamer/sugar as loot. I think Silverware also came up as a reason to not have silver items as loot.

 

I've got nothing against silver loot...I've even made some. There was never any official decision regarding silver loot, other than that it should clearly LOOK like loot. A simple silver fork is not great for loot since you can't tell by looking at it if it's silver or just polished steel. But if something is highly ornate and decorated (like your creamer set) then that's clearly valuable. I've always felt that tea set should be loot (with the possible exception of the pot, which it could be argued is too large)

[Baddcog]

Yeah, it was a long time ago so I probably am mistaken on what exactly we decided. I'd have to search threads and don't have much idea where to begin

 

 

I suppose we could make loot out of the sugar and creamer but doesn't really matter to me. We should deffinately make skins for all the gold loot items at some point. Maybe not the stuff that uses the winebottle tex.

But I think the statues, builder icons use the gold01 base tex, I can whip up a silver base tex.

[Springheel]

But I think the statues, builder icons use the gold01 base tex, I can whip up a silver base tex.

 

Well, that's the thing. None of those objects are particularly ornate, so it would be quite difficult to tell the difference between them and a regular steel one. Unless we made an engraved, ornate skin.

[plasticman]

There is some good thinking in STiFU's idea, but I'm not sure if I would like it in game.

 

This is because Darkmod's way to handle objects is so different from Thief. In Thief it makes you feel stupid when you accidently grab some junk, there may be guards nearby and you have to look for a silent surface to drop it again. But in Darkmod you can move things very close to the surface and drop them without making too much noise. So this is no trouble.

 

I also think there's a gain in it when you have to pick up objects, it faintly resembles a process of evaluating them (at least that's how I imagine it). You don't know if that goblet is valuable until you really touch it, estimate it's weight, etc.

[STiFU]

 

However on a personal basis you could go through and change the frob highlight for a very easy way to see a difference in frobbing. Wouldn't glint, but you could change the highlight from white to golden and when you looked at loot next to non-loot it would be obvious which is which.

 

Youd have to copy/paste this into all entries in tdm_models_loot.mtr

   {
        if ( parm11 > 0 )
        blend       gl_dst_color, gl_one
        map         _white
        rgb         0.40 * parm11
    }
    {
        if ( parm11 > 0 )
        blend       add
        map         models/darkmod/props/textures/plate1_d
        rgb         0.15 * parm11
     }

 

So THAT's how you do the frob highlight. I've been searching quite some time in the source code for the frob highlight... I played around a little with the material definitions. You can alter the color of the highlight by defining the brightness of red, green and blue instead of a total rgb-brightness. But this method is not really applicable. Sure you could change the definition in that material file, but there will sure be many FMs with custom lootobjects and you'd have to edit it again and again. But now I understand why you wanted to use frob.vfp for the highlighting. All materials would then just link to that file and frob-highlight of all models could be altered by editing it. It's a shame it didn't work, because the step from one frob.vfp to a second one for loot-highlight would be very easy...