Things that could be improved

[vorob]

There are no magic "one-size-fits-all" tricks here. But you can design a map in such way. You need to use projection textures and non-shadow-casting lights to sort of "manually lightmap" your level, just like modern game engines would do. This requires a lot of work and design, but it can be done. And what is most important, the lightgem will react correctly, so you don't need any other special hacks to maintain that illusion.

 

Sounds like shadows should be drawn... But i'm talking about real time soft shadows. Like in modern games

[peter_spy]

Actually dynamic lightning isn't much used in modern engines, maybe for moveable lights. Most lightning is static. Even stuff like flicker or pulsating is faked through materials, with textures and sine wave functions. At least that's how it works in Unreal Engines.

 

Faking lightmaps is hard, but you don't have to draw shadows manually. If you use modeling software, you could use it to design lightning of your map, and render it to textures, room by room. Then you can put them as projection textures in spot lights. I already tried it and it works, but that's tons of work.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Judith

[vorob]

Ye, its okay for games where light is just a decoration. But in darkmod/thief, from my point of view, everything should be in real time. So current state is perfect, just need to make shadows soft.

 

I think i saw a year ago darkmod with soft shadows. Just can't remember where... Maybe it was your wip screenshot?

Edited May 3, 2017 by vorob

[peter_spy]

IMO you have to make players believe that lightning is "realistic" or "real-time" – how you do it is another story I did tests with soft shadows and similar technique for Thief 3, but it's much easier in TDM, because lightgem reacts correctly. I'd love to see what SteveL did with soft shadows cast by meshes and geometry, if that's what he did.

[wesp5]

Okay, some of you here might remember the infamous discussion about making oil lamps exstinguishable like candles using the frob key. As the TDM 2.05 update broke the solution I had made for myself at the time, I recreated this feature thanks to the help of Destined and Obsttorte and decided to make a small addon for anyone who is interested in this. You can find the ModDB link below and it has the great side effect, that TDM is now officially listed as a game that can be linked to on the ModDB !

 

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/addons/the-dark-mod-oil-lamp-patch

Edited May 16, 2017 by wesp5

[nbohr1more]

The liughtgem fix is on the coding side, the appearence in game is a gui thing. Two completely seperate things, which can be worked on seperately. As demagogue already said you can easely create your own lightgem if you want to.

 

Regarding the size of the inventory/weapon icons. It wouldn't be too hard to implement the possibility to change the size of them. But a cvar would needed to be added so the settings can be applied. The cvars are however part of the source code, so the change would only apply in the next update.

 

Filed a bugtracker: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4393

 

Ping?

[Obsttorte]

On my todo list. I'll see that I can finish it before it gets cold. I have two weeks of in two weeks (tight time window, but doable I hope).

[Anderson]

I'm sorry in advance again for pushing this through, but will the issue with romanian character/font fix be implemented by 2.06? I'm seeing a lot of activity on the bugtracker, does that mean that final preparations are being done to release the update?

 

http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4523

[Taquito.]

Enhancing the light gem to capture sounds made by the player by adding some sort of ripple effect to show the amount of sound the player is making:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sound detector could rally add to the game-play since the player will now be aware of his own sounds making it the active element while lighting remains as a static element. This concept was used in the game This War of Mine and made the game play so satisfying and of nerve wracking at the same time:

 

Edited March 6, 2018 by Taquito.

[Taquito.]

Add movement sounds to the player when walking as well when turning around, more in tune with modern games: A mix of leather and coins inside a bag could work well:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B8ruB28zZA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTn8APYdicM

[peter_spy]

I would be easier to add a noise meter to the HUD, just like in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, but the AI alertness system gives players enough feedback about how noisy they are. That's what the first stage AI barks are for, all those "huh, what was that?" lines.

[Obsttorte]

The sounds played when the player walks on loud surfaces are louder then the ones played on quiet surfaces. This already gives the player an idea of how loud he really is. It is not a direct numerical feedback of course, but I am not a huge fan of those anyways. I belong to the (probably small amount of) people who actually liked the shroud in the latest Thief game and would prefer it over the current system. It adds some uncertainty to the game that really suits the gameplay imho.

 

Having the player making noise when turning is an interesting idea, though, as currently he can turn and turn and will never make any noise doing so, which isn't really optimal imho.

[Springheel]

I'm not sure what the point of a noise meter would be beyond cluttering up the HUD. The player can already hear any noise they make, and can judge from an AI's reaction how much of the sound they heard.

[Amadeus]

Too many games these days clutter your HUD with all kinds of garbage that you end up paying more attention too then the environment your in. I'd much rather use my brain a bit and trust my instinct over relying on yet another HUD object to add to the screen.

[Taquito.]

The point is basically the same as the light meter, to make the player constantly self conscious of the noise he's making. That's why I used This War of Mine as example cause is something you have to play to get the feel of the concept. It doesn't need to add clutter, it can be as simple as this:

 

A side meter flickering from green to red:

 

 

 

 

Same as the light meter, the player has visual cue when hes standing in light or shadow and the AI also reacts to it just as noise. So it's just about making the player self conscious about it all the time.

[Taquito.]

The sounds played when the player walks on loud surfaces are louder then the ones played on quiet surfaces. This already gives the player an idea of how loud he really is. It is not a direct numerical feedback of course, but I am not a huge fan of those anyways. I belong to the (probably small amount of) people who actually liked the shroud in the latest Thief game and would prefer it over the current system. It adds some uncertainty to the game that really suits the gameplay imho.

 

Having the player making noise when turning is an interesting idea, though, as currently he can turn and turn and will never make any noise doing so, which isn't really optimal imho.

 

 

Good point about the surfaces. In Alien Isolation the player makes a sound similar to the leather and coin bag I described when you move the mouse too quickly while turning around.

[HMart]

I'm also not a fan of a noise meter the less clutter in the GUI the better and more immersive imo, so i'm with Springheel and Amadeus on this, if you want to judge noise just use your ears and the enemies comments. But if anyone wants to implement this i remember seeing on the idtech 4 source code something about a sound meter so perhaps the code is already there and just needs some tweaks.

Edited March 6, 2018 by HMart

[peter_spy]

IMO, the light gem is there only because noone invented better way to provide feedback to players on their visibility. AI level 1 barks do exactly that for audio, leaving proper margin of error for players.

[Springheel]

The point is basically the same as the light meter, to make the player constantly self conscious of the noise he's making. That's why I used This War of Mine as example cause is something you have to play to get the feel of the concept. It doesn't need to add clutter, it can be as simple as this:

 

The lightgem is only there because it's very difficult for a player to tell how much light is hitting him. There is also no other feedback to tell a player how much more visible moving quickly or drawing a weapon makes him.

[nbohr1more]

I kinda like Taquito's prototype for the purpose of making TDM more friendly to hearing impaired players.

It might also be a better UI for lock-pick sounds (visual feedback) than the green \ red pulses.

 

As long as it's optional...

[peter_spy]

I agree on the lockpicks, I had to turn down the difficulty, as the time window on average is too narrow for me. Don't even want to know how it works on higher levels.

[Springheel]

It might also be a better UI for lock-pick sounds (visual feedback) than the green \ red pulses.

 

 

There is already visual feedback unless the mapper specifically sets it up without. By default the handle/lockpin jiggles according to the sound pattern. The red pulse is only there to tell you that you don't have the right lockpick selected.

[HMart]

I kinda like Taquito's prototype for the purpose of making TDM more friendly to hearing impaired players.

It might also be a better UI for lock-pick sounds (visual feedback) than the green \ red pulses.

 

As long as it's optional...

 

Good thinking that never passed through my head, this could be indeed something that hearing impaired players could use.

[Taquito.]

The light gem makes noise take a backseat. I'm rarely concerned about the noise I create unlike lighting cause the light gem is right there on my face. That's the point. Is more of a sub conscience thing. In This War of Mine, noise is as important as line of sight and it does a lot of difference cause there's a visual cue for noise.

[Taquito.]

Another concept.