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Ultra Realism Possibilities?


obscurus

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::off topic:: i would love to help model random objects ie: furniture, chairs, glasses ect...

but i can't find an MD5 plugin for maya if anyone could point me in the right direction i'd whip up a few things and apply.

YOu don't need to convert static objecs to MD5, that's only for animated models.

Doom cannot use .ma or .mb formats, so static objects have to be in lightwave format. It can handle .ase as well, but we're trying to stick to lwo.

To apply, all you have to do is show some pictures of models you've made. not actually deliver game ready models.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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YOu don't need to convert static objecs to MD5, that's only for animated models.

Doom cannot use .ma or .mb formats, so static objects have to be in lightwave format. It can handle .ase as well, but we're trying to stick to lwo.

To apply, all you have to do is show some pictures of models you've made. not actually deliver game ready models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does anyone know of any export plugins for maya that can export to lwo? :unsure:

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Well, I just finished reading this interesting and quite long thread. :) There have been some

intriguing points made.

 

First off, I want to say that I'm very psyched up about this mod! :) Thief fans are in desperate need

of a set of tools that will allow creation of elaborate Thief fan missions that are authentic to

Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age and that has great graphics to boot, and this

mod will make that fully possible. Excellent work, guys! :)

 

I wanted to comment on the whole save-game issue. Springheel made a good point on a particular

subject in a couple of his posts. I, too, like to explore levels in Thief very much. Get on top of things,

or climb rope arrows and just admire the architecture from different perspectives, sometimes I'll sit

by a window in Thief III (a.k.a. T:DS) just to enjoy the super cool stained glass church windows

and watch the moonlight pour in through the window in shades of blue and gray as the dust particles

dance in it's light. Or see if I can climb high on a ledge or battlement just so I can take in the view

of the surrounding buildings with their lit windows and interesting roofs or perhaps the city skyline

in the distance. Ahh, I love doing stuff like that. :)

 

In Thief II, for example, I was in a Hammerite or Mechanist cathedral and there was this brass or

bronze angel sticking out high in the air from the wall on one end of the main cathedral chapel

and there was a balcony not too far from it. And I wondered if I could shoot a rope arrow at the

right distance into one of the ceiling beams so that I could leap from the balcony railing and barely

grab the bottom of the rope as I fell at a downward and forward angle. And then climb back up

the rope and jump off at the top of the rope, up near the ceiling, and then fall far enough forward

that I could get onto the top of the angel. Well, after some tries, it worked! I was just barely

able to make it onto the angel. :) It was cool to look around the large hall and enjoy the view from

an angle not really intended for the player to be looking from. It was a challenging jump and it

was fun to see that I could make it.

 

But if there were limited saves forced in the game, I would never have risked such a thing so likely

to get me killed if I missed my jump. Or dared to waste one of my few valuable saves that I

might really need later in the mission on such a trivial thing. But that would also greatly lessen

my enjoyment of the levels in the game, if I couldn't take such risks for things not important to

the mission, but that I really like to do. Since restricted numbers of saves per level/mission will

always be an option only, and never forced, it's really not an issue. But I just wanted to point out

that Springheel is right when he says there are reasons for wanting unlimited numbers of saves

during a mission, even on expert difficulty, that have nothing to do with making the mission easier

to complete, but are related strictly to the enjoyment of exploring the level and getting into interesting,

and sometimes difficult and dangerous to reach, locations in or on the buildings. :)

 

Anyhow, I can't wait to see authentic Thief fan missions in the DOOM III engine. They are

going to look spectacular! :)

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Yes that's why it would be an option if its ever implemented.

 

Personally I don't see why save points would limit your exploration though. You could always load previous save games and explore them - save points only limit WHERE you can physically save. A few minutes spent running to where you wanted to explore the 2nd time around is worth it for the extra suspence IMO.

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Ah - that's why its an option, you can just turn it off when you want to explore.

 

I envisaged a system that records this in the save file, so if you disable save points, the menu screen will show this as will the stats screen, even if you enable them again, so that you know for sure if you're playing with them on or not, or if you had to enable it at all to complete the mission. The only way to back track would be to load a save game where you didn't have the option on.

 

Same as killing a guy and then saving means the kill total will be one point higher on every subsequent save game.

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But if there were limited saves forced in the game, I would never have risked such a thing so likely

to get me killed if I missed my jump.  Or dared to waste one of my few valuable saves that I

might really need later in the mission on such a trivial thing.  But that would also greatly lessen

my enjoyment of the levels in the game, if I couldn't take such risks for things not important to

the mission, but that I really like to do.  Since restricted numbers of saves per level/mission will

always be an option only, and never forced, it's really not an issue.  But I just wanted to point out

that Springheel is right when he says there are reasons for wanting unlimited numbers of saves

during a mission, even on expert difficulty, that have nothing to do with making the mission easier

to complete, but are related strictly to the enjoyment of exploring the level and getting into interesting,

and sometimes difficult and dangerous to reach, locations in or on the buildings.  :)

 

Anyhow, I can't wait to see authentic Thief fan missions in the DOOM III engine.  They are

going to look spectacular!  :)

 

 

Well, if the game isn't intended as an architectural exploration simulator (and I don't believe it is), I see no reason why an unlimited save game systems should be available. To do what you are describing, all you need to do is flip god mode and or noclip/fly on - same effect in the end, and you don't need to worry about waiting for the game to reload each time you stuff it up.

 

If you enjoy repeatedly loading from some point in the game just to get on top of some difficult-to-reach piece of architecture, that is fine, but again, I see no reason why the developer should spend time bulding a save game facility just to cater to aspects of the game that are peripheral to the main aim of the game.

 

That said, you needn't worry, as Doom 3 natively supports unlimited saves, and I am sure the Dark Mod team won't mess with it. :)

 

Maybe they could implement tourist mode, so the AI doesn't regard you as a threat, and you could leap from the tallest buildings without risk... ;)

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To do what you are describing, all you need to do is flip god mode and or noclip/fly on - same effect in the end, and you don't need to worry about waiting for the game to reload each time you stuff it up. 

 

I guess you are aware that this is not the same. Of course I can use noclip and go anywhere I like, but this is not the same as actually reaching that point thorugh gameplay means. And we have no plans of implementing a godmode. maybe we will, but it is not a priority, even though this is rather easy to do.

 

In HL2 I had a problem with a monster. I was fully stuffed up with ammo and I shot everthing at it, and it still didn't die. In such cases I usually don't use godmode. I rather use an unlimited ammo and try to kill the beast, because even though this is also cheating, it is very different. In godmode nothing can happen to me. When I just use unlimited ammo, I still have to fight the beast and it can still kill me, so it still requires some skill, while godmode or nocluip requires no skill at all.

 

If you enjoy repeatedly loading from some point in the game just to get on top of some difficult-to-reach piece of architecture, that is fine, but again, I see no reason why the developer should spend time bulding a save game facility just to cater to aspects of the game that are peripheral to the main aim of the game.

 

It's the other way around. We are NOT building a savegame in order to support such playstyle, we are building it anyway and it can be used for that as well.

 

That said, you needn't worry, as Doom 3 natively supports unlimited saves, and I am sure the Dark Mod team won't mess with it. :)

 

Whatever the game Doom 3 can do or not do, doesn't matter much to TDM, because this is a total conversion. This means we are building an entirely new game, and you can not rely on a feature of the D3 game to be existant or working the same in TDM as well. We are not doing a mod, we are doing a TC.

 

Maybe they could implement tourist mode, so the AI doesn't regard you as a threat, and you could leap from the tallest buildings without risk...  ;)

 

That's what noclip is for.

Gerhard

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In Thief II, for example, I was in a Hammerite or Mechanist cathedral and there was this brass or

bronze angel sticking out high in the air from the wall on one end of the main cathedral chapel

and there was a balcony not too far from it.  And I wondered if I could shoot a rope arrow ......

 

I think it was the demo of T2 where you could play a version of "Life of the Party." I ran all over the map killing and fucking around, and I thought I had killed everything, but wait, I hear the voices of Mechanist guards!?! Where could they be? They were on the rooftop level of the mechanist cathedral. To get up to them, I had to scour the map for boxes, then carefully stack them inside the chimney to hop up and lintle to the next crossbeam. It took me about 2 days to stack, climb, and save my way up. Sure enough, when I exited the chimney, there were two guards wandering around up there. It looked as if LGS had started to build the top floor as a play level and then quit for whatever reason. After killing the AIs, I used a speed potion to run/climb to the pinnacle of the cathedral and then I jumped off and fell a thousand miles to my death.

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And? What does it mean? I already explained it above. This godmode is in DOOM not in TDM, and if we don't specifically support it, it does not mean that it will automatically available in TDM as well, because it may need to be adapted as well. Noclip is different, because it directly affects the rendering. But I would have to check the code to see if we need to support it or wether it will always work. But you shouldn't take it for granted that all aspects of D3 will work the same in TDM as well. We already accidently disabled some debug feature because we didn't took care of it in our additional code. A godmode doesn't come for free. It has to be implemented just like everthing else.

Gerhard

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As sparhawk pointed out, there is a huge difference between actually exploring a level for real and

activating console cheat commands and floating through the walls and such. That would be zero fun.

 

I actually accomplished these things as Garrett, from his perspective within the Thief world, and

my reward was overcoming the difficult tasks and enjoying the splendid views. And I think the LG guys

would actually like to know that their levels are so well crafted that a player would want to take the

effort in the middle of a mission to explore them and look at them for long periods of time from

different locations just for their aesthetic beauty, even as loot and danger beckons him in other parts

of the level. :)

 

Anyhow, to each his own play style. :)

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Yeah, it could also be used to give players with the skill and ingenuity a way to get past some guards

or a dangerous area of the level that they would otherwise have to deal with more directly. Or to

give players a neat place to stand at to get a really spectacular view of the surrounding area. A reward

for being observant. :)

 

By the way, that was cool how you found those guards on that roof. :)

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And? What does it mean? I already explained it above. This godmode is in DOOM not in TDM, and if we don't specifically support it, it does not mean that it will automatically available in TDM as well, because it may need to be adapted as well. Noclip is different, because it directly affects the rendering. But I would have to check the code to see if we need to support it or wether it will always work. But you shouldn't take it for granted that all aspects of D3 will work the same in TDM as well. We already accidently disabled some debug feature because we didn't took care of it in our additional code. A godmode doesn't come for free. It has to be implemented just like everthing else.

 

 

There is a very good reason why you need to include god mode: It is a very important development tool for mappers to test certain aspects of the level. That is the original reason it was invented, it wasn't put there just so players could cheat. It allows the mapper to playtest a range of gameplay situations without having to reload constantly, and it is different to noclip. You would be silly to disable it, it would hamstring the toolset for mappers.

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We are not disabling stuff, but that doesn't mean that we are supporting it either. If it is not available in TDM then usually it is not there because we removed it, but because nobody bothered to make sure that this particular stuff works. We are not doing a merge of D3, we are developing TDM. We have enough work as it is, and we certainly wont go out of our way just to keep such stuff working if it is not needed for TDM.

Gerhard

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Yeah, it could also be used to give players with the skill and ingenuity a way to get past some guards

or a dangerous area of the level that they would otherwise have to deal with more directly.  Or to

give players a neat place to stand at to get a really spectacular view of the surrounding area.  A reward

for being observant.  :)

 

By the way, that was cool how you found those guards on that roof.  :)

 

 

Its funny what a thrill it is to find Easter Eggs and stuff like that. When I start making some maps of my own, I would like to include some E.Eggs in the form of little side adventures that you wont get to enjoy unless you really look for them.

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