Importing Thief Assets?

[New Horizon]

Well hell, then this capability already exists!

 

Right?

 

Pretty much. I was thinking about it in the shower and that's pretty much all you would need to do. Doom 3 is a dream when it comes to making FM's. None of the extra work that has to go into T3 FM's is needed. Just drop the custom map.pk4 into the darkmod directory and play.

[Macsen]

I was thinking about it in the shower

 

Too... much... information...

[Dram]

pretty much just its not legal by default hehe

[ZylonBane]

Well this is cool then. When missions start rolling out in a year or two, there could be a "Requires Legacy Assets" tag for FMs that indicates a standarized subset of the TDP/TMA CRFs must be present in a specific location in the D3 folder.

[Domarius]

Well you see - when devs rename a ZIP to CRF or PK4 or whatever, all they are saying is "This is a zip file, which has a particular folder structure inside it that follows a standard that our game expects."

[Dram]

@Dom: I checked the file structure, it's all organized into folders which can easily be placed into the normal d3 folders. Anyways, to make this asset thing legal you would have to make the "convertor" which basically copies the .crf files into the darkmod directory and renames them to pk4, applying any needed structure changes. An eula might be needed too.

[New Horizon]

@Dom: I checked the file structure, it's all organized into folders which can easily be placed into the normal d3 folders. Anyways, to make this asset thing legal you would have to make the "convertor" which basically copies the .crf files into the darkmod directory and renames them to pk4, applying any needed structure changes. An eula might be needed too.

 

We, won't be making a converter. A converter isn't needed anyway. The crf's are just standard folders and if some FM author decides to build a mission that requires owning the game, they can instruct the player on how to very quickly copy the crf folder into the 'darkmod' folder and rename it to pk4. Done, no need to waste time on a converter when it's just a 10 second job to move and rename it.

[Dram]

alrighty.

 

calm down, it was just a suggestion

[ZylonBane]

The crf's are just standard folders and if some FM author decides to build a mission that requires owning the game, they can instruct the player on how to very quickly copy the crf folder into the 'darkmod' folder and rename it to pk4.

And ideally, there will be a standardized set of instructions for doing this. Much like the procedure for making System Shock 2 mod-ready. Just shuffle some files around once and you're set for life. None of "This FM requires so-and-so CRFs from so-and-so version of Thief". Those things are small enough compared to the Doom3 assets that people may as well just copy the whole lot of them.

 

Damn handy that CRFs are plain 'ol ZIP files. Those LGS guys really knew how to make a moddable game.

[Domarius]

Software is advanced to the stage that its much more efficient to take methods of doing things from different people that can do those individual thigns much better than you. JPG, MP3, ZIP, etc.

 

Makes me wonder how those old dos games ever crammed so much in with their lousy in-house compression techniques. I was looking at a new graphics engine made for Ultima 8 (called Pentagram) and the in-house compression on their textures was crap compared to just plain zipping them up.

[ZylonBane]

In fairness, ZIP does have a certain RAM and CPU overhead. The in-house schemes were probably optimized for speed and memory usage.

 

These days it's easy to forget that not so long ago computers were barely able to play an MP3 in realtime. Now we use them for sound effects in games. Complex compression algorithms got cheap. Moore's Law be praised.

[OrbWeaver]

And ideally, there will be a standardized set of instructions for doing this.

 

This functionality could be integrated into GarrettLoader. If the Thief games were already installed, and GL knew about them (which it would), it could automatically copy the SND.CRF into the right place. If not, it could prompt the user to insert the Thief CD and copy the files itself.

[SneaksieDave]

There it is. Exactly right OrbWeaver.

[Domarius]

Good points ZB - well it just makes it all the more impressive that they got in what they did, back then. I think the best example is Another World - everything was done with polygons, making for the smoothest animation, packed with cinematic sequences and 3D effects, loads of custom action sequences, all on a single floppy disk...

[bob_arctor]

Intriguing discussion, however I'll play COSAS for Thief classic stuff. I'd imaging once playing some TDM it would be odd to have old Thief sounds in there. Plus the novelty of TDM encouraging people bored of T2 FMs (Same old mechanics) may be spoilt if it's like T2 FM again.

 

Something new yet still steampunky/victorian and about thiefing is what I want, and it looks like that's what you guys are cooking.

[OrbWeaver]

I think the sounds are one aspect of the originals that people do not get bored of, especially the ambient sounds.

 

Even TDS kept some of the sounds from the first two games, including the "boom" sound that signifies the start of a level.

[pakmannen]

Ours is more of a *DUUN* but I like it anyways

 

Strictly technically speaking, our sounds are of a greater quality than the ones from Thief 1/2, but that's to be expected - a lot of years has passed.

 

We are following in Thief's footsteps when it comes to the attention we pay to the soundpart of the mod. Once we release this thing, it's gonna be good people.

[sparhawk]

Right. The maps I played so far really felt like Thief. The ambients that I heard there were so good that they could easily be coming from an original thief game and you wouldn't know the difference.

[ZylonBane]

Even TDS kept some of the sounds from the first two games, including the "boom" sound that signifies the start of a level.

Ever listened to that sound (keehit_s.wav) at around 4X normal speed?

[Subjective Effect]

No, but I know you're going to tell us what it is slowed down. Come on, spit it out.

[ZylonBane]

I said 4X, not 1/4X.

[Vadrosaul]

Sounds like someone hitting a homerun in a hallway.

[OrbWeaver]

Interesting, I will try that. It is amb_start.ogg in TDS if anyone is looking for it.