Things that could be improved

[Diego]

Third person is EVIL! kidding..

 

This has been discussed for several years and the bottom line is that it changes gameplay drastically, at least in thief/tdm kind of game. If you can see through walls you don't have to listen, decreasing the tension (just an example)

 

I like flying creatures too.

 

About the noisy shoes. This is one of those aspects that, IMHO, the mod team should have diverged from the source of inspiration. The material should be noisy independently of the shoes, like cranky wood, loose metal plates, etc. But that's not something possible to change now, as it would break all existing maps.

[pusianka]

When I say multi I mean coop mode and rather only for two people maybe three. When you play coop you usually contact with your mate and try to plan moves together. It would deffinetly affect the way mappers would create their maps but I guess there is no prob with putting an option saying "mission for 1 player only". I suggest you look at SCCT coop mode. It would be my favourite game if they allowed FM making. Really guys think twice before leaving this idea cause it can bring you many fans.

 

 

* thieves vs guards is not a good idea(as thievery showed) but let's say thief vs thief + big mansion with whole lot of loot and guards. Now that's more like it. Fight for loot and cooperate to survive guards attack or make a trap by making guards find the other thief first.

[nbohr1more]

There is a co-op 3rd person Thief style mod being worked on by another author:

 

Thievious

 

There was talk of sync-ing his project with TDM but he did not appear to respond to that idea AFAIK...

 

Once Thievious is released perhaps some generous FM authors will also make their missions available for use as maps in that mod too... but I suspect that the good stuff will stay here at TDM...

 

Maybe the author of Thievious will have a change of heart and share code and assets even...

Edited October 3, 2010 by nbohr1more

[pusianka]

I've seen this, if I only knew his address... I would leave him threating letters if he didn't want to change his mind...

[New Horizon]

...

 

Regarding your requests/suggestions for multiplayer and third person.

 

1. There will be no 'official' support for third person.

2. There will be no 'official' support for multi-player.

 

Some other group may decide to make their own '3rd person or multiplayer mod' for TDM, but it will be their responsibility to make sure the existing maps work, or break compatibility and take off in their own direction.

[Nosslak]

1. I would love to see ravens(or owls) flying away from the trees, roof tops or fences when approaching.

1. Flying creatures: Lot of work. Low priority. No plans in near future.

Damn, I was considering trying to make a raven as my next project.

[Fidcal]

Don't let me put you off. But new AI are the most difficult of every aspect of any game. We already have a raven or similar bird so an owl or bat might be a better idea. But a static model can only be stuck as a static figure up on a far inaccessible tree or roof. Getting it animated with suitable behaviour and sounds, plus flying, three-dimensional movement code we do not have yet. And how exactly do we want them to function? Flying high in the distance is one thing; fluttering up close with perching, walking, pecking, and death animations is another.

 

The simplest bird I can think of is a canary or songbird to go in our cage. It might be made to just turn left and right and open its beak with a steady song. But it would seem more like an animated music box (which might be fun) because what if the player shoots it with a fire arrow? Or the cage gets knocked over?

 

I don't want to discourage anyone but only to make people aware of some of the problems.

[pusianka]

"pusianka, on 03 October 2010 - 10:40 PM, said:

1. I would love to see ravens(or owls) flying away from the trees, roof tops or fences when approaching.

 

Fidcal, on 03 October 2010 - 11:15 PM, said:

1. Flying creatures: Lot of work. Low priority. No plans in near future.

 

Damn, I was considering trying to make a raven as my next project."

 

What are you waiting for?!

[Midnight]

I was thinking a raven would be perfect for one of the mission ideas I have, but not necessary of course. It would be nice if there was an animation where you could have the raven peck at a corpses eyeball. (there doesn't seem to be a suitable smilie for how cool/gross this would be!)

 

Is the difficulty with flight to do with creating something dynamic, i.e. an AI path? If the idea is just to have a couple of birds fly away when disturbed, could this be done using a spline type arrangement, where they simply follow a predetermined path while a 'wing flapping' animation is played?

[pusianka]

Ehm where can we get this bird that is not animated?

[Fidcal]

It's not released yet because it's not working. You could nail it to a perch but that's about all at the moment. I don't even know if it has separate wing meshes so this model might never leave the ground.

[Springheel]

I have an animated raven but it's highly WIP. It needs a new skeleton and doesn't have a proper ragdoll. It also doesn't have wings, so it's really meant to be just a stationary bird perched up high somewhere.

 

Now that I know how to animate it, I just have to learn how to make a new skeleton. But I've had too many other things to work on.

[jaxa]

It's not released yet because it's not working. You could nail it to a perch but that's about all at the moment. I don't even know if it has separate wing meshes so this model might never leave the ground.

 

Failure to launch

[Sotha]

A raven would of course be nice, just like pigs and dogs and sheep and owls and cute little kittens.

However, things should be prioritized. At this stage the mod needs much more some common assets directly required by the setting. This would mean critical bug-fixes and variety of AI's, loot objects etc. In the end, typical thief mission probably contains interesting locations, guarding AI's and variety of loot. Specific animals could be described as cool-bonus-extra-thingies, seldom used when compared to AI's who act as a guards or other location specific personnel.

 

Cool-Bonus-Extra-Thingies can come later when the more critical things are already done. Of course, nothing prevents some intrepid individual of making raven, pigs, dogs, sheep, owls and cute little kitten models, animations and AI while the team focused on the important stuff.

 

Regarding your requests/suggestions for multiplayer and third person.

 

1. There will be no 'official' support for third person.

2. There will be no 'official' support for multi-player.

 

Thank God (or other compatible higher powers.)

[Nosslak]

Don't let me put you off. But new AI are the most difficult of every aspect of any game. We already have a raven or similar bird so an owl or bat might be a better idea. But a static model can only be stuck as a static figure up on a far inaccessible tree or roof. Getting it animated with suitable behaviour and sounds, plus flying, three-dimensional movement code we do not have yet. And how exactly do we want them to function? Flying high in the distance is one thing; fluttering up close with perching, walking, pecking, and death animations is another.

What are you waiting for?!

I've barely animated anything (some simple walkcycles, no lowpoly animations at all), I couldn't really find any tutorials via google and I also couldn't find any .md5 import/export script for blender 2.5. I haven't looked very hard yet as I won't start it yet, anyway.

 

Is the difficulty with flight to do with creating something dynamic, i.e. an AI path? If the idea is just to have a couple of birds fly away when disturbed, could this be done using a spline type arrangement, where they simply follow a predetermined path while a 'wing flapping' animation is played?

This is pretty much what I wanted to do. I wanted it to sit on a fence, roof or whatever, make some noises and when the player approached it would fly away.

 

A raven would of course be nice, just like pigs and dogs and sheep and owls and cute little kittens.

However, things should be prioritized. At this stage the mod needs much more some common assets directly required by the setting. This would mean critical bug-fixes and variety of AI's, loot objects etc. In the end, typical thief mission probably contains interesting locations, guarding AI's and variety of loot. Specific animals could be described as cool-bonus-extra-thingies, seldom used when compared to AI's who act as a guards or other location specific personnel.

 

Cool-Bonus-Extra-Thingies can come later when the more critical things are already done. Of course, nothing prevents some intrepid individual of making raven, pigs, dogs, sheep, owls and cute little kitten models, animations and AI while the team focused on the important stuff.

Yeah, you're probably right. I'll go do something else.

Edited October 4, 2010 by Nosslak

[Diego]

But flying creatures have very simple AI! One animation for standing still (not necessarily standing still, but moving very small distances within the same area) and flying away, for when the player gets near.

[LEGION]

...*no third person*...

 

Thank God (or other compatible higher powers.)

 

But for the sake of the PlayerShadow a more functioning ThirdPerson-model would be appreciated. At least anis for the selected weapons?

[Springheel]

But flying creatures have very simple AI! One animation for standing still (not necessarily standing still, but moving very small distances within the same area) and flying away, for when the player gets near.

 

How do you pathfind when the AI is flying?

[Diego]

How do you pathfind when the AI is flying?

 

There's no need to overcomplicate the bird is there for aesthetic reasons (and maybe make some noise when he flies away)

 

Make one animation of him moving his head and jumping a few inches here and there and then loop back. Add another animation for him to just fly in a predefined direction. It's limited, but unless you want them to deliever messages it's probably enough

[Springheel]

Add another animation for him to just fly in a predefined direction

 

That's easier said than done. Without flying code, an AI's origin must always be on the ground. The bird could hover X units off the ground, but that would look ridiculous.

[Noisycricket]

Just want to jot this down even though it sounded as if a flying creature with A.I. is a no-go at this particular point. But somewhere down the road i'd love to see these made. They would fit right in to the TDM world imo. From Borderlands, Rack:

seen here starting at 6:57. I was really impressed with the various idle animations and the flying animation, in particular, was silky smooth. BTW, also for future reference, their attack pattern was fairly simple and they seemed to fly in a narrow oval shape when attacking. Great for immersion too imo as they look really cool when perched...

 

Another pretty cool thing borderlands had was shooting stars.

[Melan]

Yeah, that sort of weird monster would be great - and could be a TDM signature creature like bugbeasts and craymen in Thief. Plus if it is a fantasy monster, people might be more forgiving about it not behaving like an IRL animal. Of course, it will be done if there are people who are willing to put some serious work into it.

[pusianka]

"There's no need to overcomplicate the bird is there for aesthetic reasons (and maybe make some noise when he flies away)

 

Make one animation of him moving his head and jumping a few inches here and there and then loop back. Add another animation for him to just fly in a predefined direction. It's limited, but unless you want them to deliever messages it's probably enough"

 

how about makin just the animation of jumping? You could say he is hurt xD

[grayman]

How do you pathfind when the AI is flying?

 

 

A bird that simply flies around doesn't need pathfinding. It just executes a smoothed-out random walk, with constant collision checking against its surroundings.

 

I.e. ...

It's 600 units before I hit something, and a turn takes 100 units, so keep going in this direction ...

It's 150 units before I hit something, and a turn takes 100 units, so I'll turn. I'll make a few collision checks to see which turns are available. Okay, let's do this one ...

Complete turn, straighten out ...

It's 1500 units before I hit something ...

 

The bird could randomly decide to land on a "flat" surface if collision detection told it the surface was flat. Take off again some random time later.

 

Put multiple birds in the air and you have an opportunity to add in flocking behavior.

 

If we want it to attack the player, then that's a different story, because that involves flying to a specific location.

 

 

[Tels]

A bird that simply flies around doesn't need pathfinding. It just executes a smoothed-out random walk, with constant collision checking against its surroundings.

 

I.e. ...

It's 600 units before I hit something, and a turn takes 100 units, so keep going in this direction ...

It's 150 units before I hit something, and a turn takes 100 units, so I'll turn. I'll make a few collision checks to see which turns are available. Okay, let's do this one ...

Complete turn, straighten out ...

It's 1500 units before I hit something ...

 

The bird could randomly decide to land on a "flat" surface if collision detection told it the surface was flat. Take off again some random time later.

 

Put multiple birds in the air and you have an opportunity to add in flocking behavior.

 

If we want it to attack the player, then that's a different story, because that involves flying to a specific location.

 

If the bird is something that is high up, it doesn't even need collision detection (like an eagle).

 

However, not to dampen any spirits but I think it might be worthwhile to fix our already existing AI (*cough*horseandrats*cough*) before we open up another can of worms.

 

F.i. adding "avoid light" behaviour would add greatly to our AI, be it rats, or other beasts, because when it exists, it can easily be adapted to other things (avoid sound, avoid water), just plug in another fitness function and you are done. Right now, it is impossible, leading to a lot of silly behaviour (for freeroaming things like rats and spiders), or you are stuck with predefined paths.