"True First Person" Mode for idtech4

[RPGista]

Since its all been about crazy requests lately (at least from my part), Im gonna throw a bit more fuel into the flames - have any of you guys seen this:

 

 

Yeah, good old first person body awereness, in an idtech4 project, using the thief 3 model, no less. Now, we can admit that, once you have a fully animated character to work with, this looks really cool, and this guys done an incredible job. By the way, how come he is not around and working with us here in TDM? He was able to get so much stuff going for his mod, would be a crime to see it all going to waste... You can check his channel for more.

 

But anyway, for people that like this feature and got excited, lets consider a few things first:

- You need a fully animated player character for this to work. We dont have that. Detailed character modeling and animating is one of the hardest things to do in 3d art;

- You reintroduce the problem of another unwanted change in gameplay: projected shadows coming from the player that the AI should be able to notice (you cant have body awereness without it) - this has been discussed to death before and the consensus is that its not a good gameplay feature;

- Its basicly just an aesthetic change - it adds to the immersion, but doesnt really contribute much to the gameplay experience (apart fom the aforementioned problem of player shadow). So its a lot of work for little to no pay.

 

It is cool to see it working, though.

 

BTW, I should take a moment to praise the team here for the amazing work put into the TDM engine lately... I skipped a few updates and was blown away by how good the soft shadows look, how it all feels more... efficient and steamlined. You can totally tell that a lot of thought went into making the core game more modernized and more powerful. Kudos to you boys, stgatilov, duzenko, cabalistic, everybody, you know who you are.

Edited February 12, 2019 by RPGista

[Springheel]

I've never liked that kind of body awareness. To me, it actually REDUCES immersion, because it constantly reminds me that I'm not really in control of my body. I can't move my arm or foot out of the way if it's blocking my vision. I can't turn my head or look over my shoulder, but instead have to rotate like a mechanical doll. I can see that my foot isn't REALLY on the ledge I'm balancing on, and that my hands aren't really touching the ladder I'm climbing.

[Oktokolo]

By the way, how come he is not around and working with us here in TDM?

That is really odd. Why would one animate a player model for a game like TDM and for the same engine, TDM runs on - but not put it into TDM?

He seems to be interested in stealth, the "medieval" look, even got zombies and magic stuff in his test map...

 

- You need a fully animated player character for this to work. We dont have that.

What i have seen in the linked video would be good enough for an optional true first person mode.

 

- You reintroduce the problem of another unwanted change in gameplay: projected shadows coming from the player that the AI should be able to notice (you cant have body awereness without it) - this has been discussed to death before and the consensus is that its not a good gameplay feature;

- Its basicly just an aesthetic change - it adds to the immersion, but doesnt really contribute much to the gameplay experience (apart fom the aforementioned problem of player shadow). So its a lot of work for little to no pay.

Projected shadows would be nice. With or without AI detecting them from whatever distance.

Soft shadows also did not add to the gameplay - but they improved my TDM experience a lot.

[kano]

If you want projected shadows, just enter g_showplayershadow 1 into the console. It doesn't look that great because our protagonist's arms float at a strange angle, since he's not animated from the waste up...

Edited February 13, 2019 by kano

[jaxa]

I hear that Thief: Deadly Shadows music.

 

I've never liked that kind of body awareness. To me, it actually REDUCES immersion, because it constantly reminds me that I'm not really in control of my body. I can't move my arm or foot out of the way if it's blocking my vision. I can't turn my head or look over my shoulder, but instead have to rotate like a mechanical doll. I can see that my foot isn't REALLY on the ledge I'm balancing on, and that my hands aren't really touching the ladder I'm climbing.

 

How about with VR?

 

Sure, inside-out tracking, hand controllers, and an Omni treadmill can only go so far. For the rest, there's neural lace.

[peter_spy]

This is Thief 3 model, textures, and even animations, if I see correctly. The attack he uses to kill the doom 3 zombie is a blackjack animation. I never liked body awareness, not even in Thief 4, even though it was much better than in TDS. The worst thing they came up with though was those preset animations when you were getting loot from containers. That swinging motion literally made me sleepy (that and boring loot that consisted mostly of cutlery).

 

Edit: I wonder why he did use Doom3 vanilla instead of TDM though, he'd have all the stealth system and mechanics in place.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Judith

[Petike the Taffer]

I'm of the opinion that, while body awareness isn't bad per se, these particular types of stealth games are better off with some degree of abstraction. I.e. it's not really necessary to see your body, and as Thi4f proved, stealing loot by going through the same animation over and over again can easily get boring once the novelty wears off.

 

Though people complained about body awareness in TDS, I didn't mind it, though it would have been better with newer and more refined technology, for a somewhat crisper depiction.

 

On the latter front, whether to see loot getting picked up, or just see it disappear - mentally filling in the gap of me bagging said loot - I'd go with the more abstract, "disappearing" option any day of the week. It's the sort of abstraction that might seem game-y if you overanalyse it, but in terms of practical performance and experience, it's not a deal-breaker at all. Also more stimulating for the imagination than an uncannily animated hand over and over again, and this is what Springheel probably means when he mentions the immersion factor.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Petike the Taffer

[freyk]

I would like to see body awareness as well, But as an option in TDM.

(and also the shiny-ness effects from the video)

 

It seems the creator is working for D3 mod mars city security and knows his skills.

(files of this project are publisched so people can look to the code)

(maybe its a one-man project?)

 

Is there somebody who would like to contact him and point him to our project? (trough yt or moddb?)

 

Some recent nice videos:

 

And a D3 one in the spoiler.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by freyk

[RPGista]

I believe he is (one of?) the authors of that Thievous doom3 mod. It seems hes pretty much a one man team, he refers a few times to using community assets and code to speed things up. The reason he uses doom3's engine is because his project is aiming for a multiplayer, coop experience. What least thats what I gathered. I can probably send him a hello, but Im pretty sure he knows about tdm and other doom mods/tcs, I mean, its a small community.

Edited February 13, 2019 by RPGista

[peter_spy]

The artistic choice is a bit dubious though, with all this erratic DOF and bloom/hdr that makes my eyes bleed. At least if we're talking stealth games. Still, it's tons of work for one person.

[chakkman]

I've never liked that kind of body awareness. To me, it actually REDUCES immersion, because it constantly reminds me that I'm not really in control of my body. I can't move my arm or foot out of the way if it's blocking my vision. I can't turn my head or look over my shoulder, but instead have to rotate like a mechanical doll. I can see that my foot isn't REALLY on the ledge I'm balancing on, and that my hands aren't really touching the ladder I'm climbing.

 

I think all of this will become obsolete once it is ported to VR.

 

Personally, i really like this view. I had no issues with it in Chronicles of Riddick and other games. Actually, for me, it adds to immersion.

 

Now, if the guy would port that to a more modern engine...

Edited February 13, 2019 by chakkman

[zergrush]

Some recent nice videos:

 

 

All those underground torches either run on an expensive propane/kerosene bill, or they will be making it impossible to breathe there very soon.

Edited February 13, 2019 by zergrush

[Springheel]

I hear that Thief: Deadly Shadows music.

 

 

How about with VR?

 

 

 

VR doesn't really change anything for me (although I've only tried a few games, to be fair). When they leave the body as an abstraction, it's fine. If they try to model it, I feel like I'm piloting a meat mech.

[AluminumHaste]

I actually use the player shadow now, even though it's not animated, i love it.

Even though I can't see my body, I'm rarely looking down to such a degree that I would see my body anyways.

[jaxa]

I feel like I'm piloting a meat mech.

 

You are, my friend. You are.

Edited February 13, 2019 by jaxa

[demagogue]

I'm not a fan of body awareness per se, but I'd like to see more player animations in 3P view, which we can do already and I believe could still be done & look good even without body awareness. Right? It'd be a lot of work, but it'd be worth it.

 

And if that guy wanted coop, I wish he'd do that as a TDM fork as well. Then we'd have the chance of getting all of our maps with coop as part of the deal. Why have 8 maps when you can have 100+? Also same caveat: granted a lot of work, but worth it. (My intuition is it'd be such a radical change it might have to stay a fork, but if it worked, maybe the exe could be packaged with the rest of the mod. Well I shouldn't count chickens before they hatch anyway.)

[AluminumHaste]

OMG TDM coop.......SLOOOOGGGGEEEE

There's a few of us in Canada close that could play with decent ping too.

[Springheel]

OMG TDM coop.......SLOOOOGGGGEEEE

There's a few of us in Canada close that could play with decent ping too.

 

You, me, and maybe NH...anyone else?

[MayheM]

I myself prefer thief 1/2 style with its head bobbing. Anyway, i think the only game that has decent and balanced body awareness is l4d1.

[nbohr1more]

OneOfEightDevils is a forum member:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/user/10522-oneofthe8devilz/

 

We have discussed his project and possible cooperation a few times before.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14015-idtech-coop-medievalfantasystealth-universe-projects/

 

It seems that he prefers Thief: Deadly Shadows and would like his project to be akin to it but with more combat options.

 

He didn't seem to be interested in any of our AI designs, Lightgem, or other TDM specific features.

 

To my knowledge, he did not even ask to use any of our assets.

 

As for this demo, I think Judith is right. I vaguely recall that he converted the model and animations from TDS to Doom 3?

 

He's done that type of thing in a few cases, I think he even took the Doom Marine model from Doom 3 and rebuilt the high-poly

model by extrapolation of the low-poly and normal map. Though, many of his experiments are with commercially created models

in other games he cannot legally share most of those examples.

[lowenz]

All those underground torches either run on an expensive propane/kerosene bill, or they will be making it impossible to breathe there very soon.

LOL

[New Horizon]

OneOfEightDevils is a forum member:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/user/10522-oneofthe8devilz/

 

We have discussed his project and possible cooperation a few times before.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14015-idtech-coop-medievalfantasystealth-universe-projects/

 

It seems that he prefers Thief: Deadly Shadows and would like his project to be akin to it but with more combat options.

 

He didn't seem to be interested in any of our AI designs, Lightgem, or other TDM specific features.

 

To my knowledge, he did not even ask to use any of our assets.

 

As for this demo, I think Judith is right. I vaguely recall that he converted the model and animations from TDS to Doom 3?

 

He's done that type of thing in a few cases, I think he even took the Doom Marine model from Doom 3 and rebuilt the high-poly

model by extrapolation of the low-poly and normal map. Though, many of his experiments are with commercially created models

in other games he cannot legally share most of those examples.

 

Yeah, I spoke to him a few years back and he had absolutely zero interest in doing anything in cooperation with TDM, and yes he did a straight port of the TDS assets into Doom 3.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Greetings to everyone. I have been messaged by Freyk over at moddb.com and decided to reply to his questions and requests here in the forum. The core TDM members and devs might still remember that there had been a couple of attempts in the past by me and others to see if there is any common ground/interest in a cooperation thief themed idtech4 multiplayer/coop project. And back then it seemed that the differences in artistic and gameplay-wise development direction were diverging too much to actually be able to establish a team of devs, ready to dedicate some serious non-paid development time to it.

 

And so I guess everyone went on with what we were busy at the time. Whenever I could, I kept myself updated about the TDM project development and you guys surely made some impressive progress both technically and community wise.

 

In terms of my agenda with a thief based project (among many other projects) I decided to push on development of my Doom3 MCS PVE/COOP project (where an update release is due this year) and then use that new codebase to continue work on a thief themed idtech4 multiplayer/coop title. Now naturally as most of the time I am a "1- man-army-team" these endeavors are multi-year-commitments but the TDM team itself is no stranger to decades long dedication driven by the love and passion for idtech4 and the thief universe...

 

In the past years many iterations of my thief themed idtech4 WIP project have been internally tested and further developed and once the MCS update is published I am looking forward to further delve back into developing those features into a full-fledged playable project, which is also why sadly I am currently not at will or liberty to share assets or code from the project, unless a new dedicated devteam (as unlikely as this may be) is formed with the goal to develop a multiplayer coop thief themed idtech4 project to completion.

 

Thanks for your interest and keep up the great TDM dev work.

[zergrush]

Greetings to everyone. I have been messaged by Freyk over at moddb.com and decided to reply to his questions and requests here in the forum. The core TDM members and devs might still remember that there had been a couple of attempts in the past by me and others to see if there is any common ground/interest in a cooperation thief themed idtech4 multiplayer/coop project. And back then it seemed that the differences in artistic and gameplay-wise development direction were diverging too much to actually be able to establish a team of devs, ready to dedicate some serious non-paid development time to it.

 

And so I guess everyone went on with what we were busy at the time. Whenever I could, I kept myself updated about the TDM project development and you guys surely made some impressive progress both technically and community wise.

 

In terms of my agenda with a thief based project (among many other projects) I decided to push on development of my Doom3 MCS PVE/COOP project (where an update release is due this year) and then use that new codebase to continue work on a thief themed idtech4 multiplayer/coop title. Now naturally as most of the time I am a "1- man-army-team" these endeavors are multi-year-commitments but the TDM team itself is no stranger to decades long dedication driven by the love and passion for idtech4 and the thief universe...

 

In the past years many iterations of my thief themed idtech4 WIP project have been internally tested and further developed and once the MCS update is published I am looking forward to further delve back into developing those features into a full-fledged playable project, which is also why sadly I am currently not at will or liberty to share assets or code from the project, unless a new dedicated devteam (as unlikely as this may be) is formed with the goal to develop a multiplayer coop thief themed idtech4 project to completion.

 

Thanks for your interest and keep up the great TDM dev work.

Are you aware you are subject to the GPL tho? While you're not obliged to share code now, you will be, as soon as you put out something as minor as a test build. Either way, this feature is not that interesting for TDM either, although the animations, if your own, look pretty sweet.

Edited February 14, 2019 by zergrush

[oneofthe8devilz]

Are you aware you are subject to the GPL tho? While you're not obliged to share code now, you will be, as soon as you put out something as minor as a test build. Either way, this feature is not that interesting for TDM either, although the animations, if your own, look pretty sweet.

 

Not if I don't use the GPL code in the first place but instead the Doom3 1.3.1 SDK released back in 2007.

 

DOOM 3 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT KIT LIMITED USE LICENSE AGREEMENT

 

There has been this great controversy in the past where none of the original Doom3 coop multiplayer mod developers (OpenCoop and LastManStanding) have actually released their source code and they can't be forced to do so due to the original Doom3 1.3.1 SDK Licence.

 

MCS is being developed through that very same licence too and a followup of a thief themed project will most likely be as well.

Edited February 14, 2019 by oneofthe8devilz