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Lightgem Discussion (graphics)


sparhawk

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Something like that, but I'd prefer it if it were angled a bit. I noticed a piece of jewellery my wife had that looked like it might be useful. The pic is a little blurry:

 

lightgem4.jpg

 

If we can combine something like this with your and Pak's idea, I think we'll be set.

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Bingo, that's exactly what I was thinking. The points between the 4 main ones could be half the size. If it were slightly angled like you were saying, we would definately be in business.

 

I posted a link in the documentation heading to a list of all the doom 3 world tutorials. There is one section in particular about the GUI editor that interested me. I'm going to take a look at it and see what else can be done with it. The author used it to replace the existing hud with the classic Doom hud. Pretty neat.

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I think that bit of jewelry is perfect. My vote to base it on that.

i suppose the advantage of the light gem representing a real world (well kinda real world) object is to maintain the suspension of belief. The wierd compass/light gem device in T3 was quite practical, but it felt dissjointed to me.,
As opposed to T2's square block thing, that doesn't look like much of anything?

The light gem is a tool for the player. It's to simulate being able to look at your own body in real life and seeing how much darkness you're in.

 

Although if we have body awareness, it could negate the need for such a gem.

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Even with body awareness, the gem would be required. Players simply aren't going to want to constantly look down at thier body to check if they're in the shadows or not. We don't have peripheral vision in the game, which is the only way that you could really check to see if your in shadows constantly without a meter.

 

We could do it the way that Riddick did it, with the screen getting bluer the deeper in shadows you get, but the goal here is to make something for thief players, I like the design posted above, and think pursuing that would be the best solution.

Edited by god_is_my_goldfish

http://www.thirdfilms. com

A Thief's Path trailer is now on Youtube!

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Even with body awareness, the gem would be required. Players simply aren't going to want to constantly look down at thier body to check if they're in the shadows or not. We don't have peripheral vision in the game, which is the only way that you could really check to see if your in shadows constantly without a meter.

You are right there. You don't have to actually LOOK DOWN at your body in real life. You can see it at the edge of your periphery all the time.

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You are right there. You don't have to actually LOOK DOWN at your body in real life. You can see it at the edge of your periphery all the time.

Not really. :) When I look straight ahead I usually don't see my feet. Only a small part of my chest. But is this really important? Will it add to the atmosphere if we do this? Or will it be just another thing on the screen that reduces screen estate? In real life, you are usually not aware of this, because your brain filters this out, so you only recognize it when you really think about it (as I do right now :) ).

Gerhard

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well I'm one of those hardcore guys who completely wiped out the T3 UI in the ini files and played with no lightgem. It really doesn't make they game that much harder. Through level design and placement of shadows, you can let the player know pretty much all the time when he's in shadow by looking at his surroundings.

THe way I play is just not to let guards have a direct line of sight to me, whether I'm in complete darkness of not, move when they have their backs turned, etc.

I would vote for no lightgem, but I'm sure most players wouldn't agree.

I would prefer a flat shape which hides at the bottom of the screen though, rather than that spikey round shape.

How about something completey different. and playing an ambient or musical sound progressively louder as the player comes into full light and vice versa?

Subtle of course, we'd have to come upo with the right sound that would add to the tension.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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I would prefer a flat shape which hides at the bottom of the screen though, rather than that spikey round shape.

How about something completey different. and playing an ambient or musical sound progressively louder as the player comes into full light and vice versa?

Subtle of course, we'd have to come upo with the right sound that would add to the tension.

We could such a thing for AI awareness, but I don't htink it really works for the lightgem. The sound would increase the tension and is most likely not associated with the light/shadows but the overall danger.

 

This would mean that, if the player is in an empty, but well lit, room the sound would indicate danger even though there is none. I think this wouldn't work well.

Gerhard

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It wouldn't indicate danger, just that he's in full light, and it doesn't have to be a blasting sound, but subtle as I said. It wouldn't take new players 5 minutes to get used to the light/shadow sound/music, which would obviously have to be distictive.

There should be no danger sound telling you when AIs are close etc.

I imagine it working perfectly. We need to be innovative as well as copying THief, surely?

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

- Emil Zola

 

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It wouldn't indicate danger, just that he's in full light, and it doesn't have to be a blasting sound, but subtle as I said. It wouldn't take new players 5 minutes to get used to the light/shadow sound/music, which would obviously have to be distictive.

 

The problem that I see is that Thief requires a lot more of hearing on the player part, than most other games. I don't know if we should really add to that by giving shadow information this way. Also it doesn't really feel natural to me, to have an auditive feedback on a visual experience.

 

There should be no danger sound telling you when AIs are close etc.

 

Just an idea. :)

 

I imagine it working perfectly. We need to be innovative as well as copying Thief, surely?

 

I think from the coding point of view it doesn't really matter wether we increase the sound or the colour of the lightgem. So we could test it as soon as we have the functionality that triggers the lightvalue. I can't really say that I can judge this just on the description. I would need to see how it feels when playing.

 

As of being innovative. Of course. But we should also be aware that not every cool idea is good in gameplay. When I try to counter your arguments it's not because I want strictly to turn down your ideas, but we have to take a look at it from all angles. And I have no experience with gamedesign from the developers side. :) So I can only try to imagine how it feels when I would play it, as long as we have no prototype.

Gerhard

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So it would be possible to do a mock up of this realatively easily then? I'd like to see if it worked. I think anything that gets away from the current abstract, iconic way of dealing with giving the player information in games (i.e. the HUD) is a good thing. Just because every game has been using it for 20 years doesn't mean it's the best solution for every game.

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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So it would be possible to do a mock up of this realatively easily then?

 

A mockup is not so easy to do as in graphics, as we have to have some code in place already. Once we have this, I don't think that it should be hard to implement such alternatives.

 

I'd like to see if it worked. I think anything that gets away from the current abstract, iconic way of dealing with giving the player information in games (i.e. the HUD) is a good thing. Just because every game has been using it for 20 years doesn't mean it's the best solution for every game.

 

I agree with this. :) As long as the information gets across and doesn't hurt gameplay I'm all for it. The less HUD we need the more immersive it could be (I think).

Gerhard

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I would vote for no lightgem, but I'm sure most players wouldn't agree.

I would prefer a flat shape which hides at the bottom of the screen though, rather than that spikey round shape.

How about something completey different. and playing an ambient or musical sound progressively louder as the player comes into full light and vice versa?

 

I don't think ambient noise is workable, since there will be other ambient noise going on all the time, not to mention listening for map-based audio information. It would get too confusing.

 

As for removing the lightgem, that's a piece of cake. We'll have an option in the Options menu to toggle it on or off. The lightgem is one of the classic Thief icons, so I don't think we should get rid of it.

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As for removing the lightgem, that's a piece of cake. We'll have an option in the Options menu to toggle it on or off. The lightgem is one of the classic Thief icons, so I don't think we should get rid of it.

Agreed, there should definately be an option to remove it...but we still have to keep in mind that we are creating an editor for people to create their own Thieflike fan missions. We shouldn't really deviate too far from the course we have set, which is to capture a Thief 1 and 2 style game. Not to be a nag, I just want to make sure we stay focussed. ;)

 

Should we all decide to stick around for a large campaign then I definately want to push the envelope and see what we can do to improve the gameplay in new and interesting ways. For now though, lets give the fans what Eidos won't. :)

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I don't think ambient noise is workable, since there will be other ambient noise going on all the time, not to mention listening for map-based audio information. It would get too confusing.

 

As for removing the lightgem, that's a piece of cake. We'll have an option in the Options menu to toggle it on or off. The lightgem is one of the classic Thief icons, so I don't think we should get rid of it.

Well we can argue over whether we 'think' it would work or not, but let's just try it at some point and see)

I think you underestimate how many sounds the human ear and brain are capable of keeping track of subconsiously.

As long as it's very distinctive and subtle, I can't see a problem with it, and of course it wouldn't be necessary to play the sound at all in a fully lit room where it's obvious that you're not in darknes, it's only necessary where the light falls under a certain brightness, so the scale of soft to loud wouldn't have to be that great.

IMO, no type of darkness meter is required at all, since it's obvious 95% of the time from your surroundings, and if you're ever in doubt, just don't let guards look in your direction.

I think the Thief fans will be expecting innovation from us, not conservatism.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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IMO, no type of darkness meter is required at all, since it's obvious 95% of the time from your surroundings, and if you're ever in doubt, just don't let guards look in your direction.

I think the Thief fans will be expecting innovation from us, not conservatism.

The lightgem is really a concession to video games. The problem is that, at the time when the original Thief was conceived, there was not enough computing power to make the render realistic enough. As a result the player could often happen to stand in some shadow (as it was rendered) but was brightly lit (or the other way around). To compensate for these calculation errors. If we forego this, then we must be sure that a shadow is always a shadow. Meaning: The internal representation of the shadow must be consistent with what the player can see on the screen. If we can not guarantuee that, we must have a lightgem. And of course not every player is a hardcore player, so we would have to provide for those as well, unless we want to go for an elitists player crowd which will cut down the popularity of the mod.

 

Personally I think if we provide customizability on such issues that should cover most player types. You can play your style and others can play theirs.

Gerhard

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oDDity, I really appreciate your innovation with the sound thing. I to would like to see if we can do it another way.

 

But I can't agree with doing it in sound. Too many times, I have found myself standing dead still in the game, trying, nay, straining to hear even the slightest footsteps or talking, to decide if I should make that mad dash across the foyer in broad light. Hearing them in advance would save my life. When we're talking about sounds that quiet, practically anything can block them out.

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Ok, brainstorm away, but we only have sight and sound to work with, and if you rule out sound you're left with sight - i.e, a gem of some sort.

 

 

..unless we use Garrett (or whatever he's called) himself as the lightmeter. You look down at yourself, and see how much shadow you're in, I'm sure it would be no more technically difficult than a lightgem icon.

Of course in real life it' possible fr the top half of your body to be brightly lit and the bottom half in shadow, but for game purposes, there will only be one amount of shadow for the whole body.

You're already going to program body awareness in right? So we may as well put it to good use.

Edited by oDDity

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

- Emil Zola

 

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I think the Thief fans will be expecting innovation from us, not conservatism.

 

In some cases, yes. However, there are some things that are very much tied to what makes thief "Thief". Elemental arrows, blackjacking and the lightgem all fall into that category, IMO.

 

If the lightgem can be toggled off, problem solved. Those that don't want it don't have to use it.

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Yes, but that's just copying Thief warts 'n all.

Thief was not a perfect game, they came up with solutions that they would probably have done differently had they been making the game with todays technology.

There's no point letting ourselves be hampered or constrained by the same difficulties they had six years ago.

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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I do agree with oDDity in principle, but for this stage of our work the goal is to create a set of editing tools to allow fans to create their own Thief style fan missions. We waited so long for T3 only to have it come out and slowly fizzle, and our dreams of fan missions with it. That unfortunately means we follow the established conventions of a lightgem and other such old school tactics. :) We can still toggle them off, but they are still there for the fans. One last hurrah shall we say. I would say that this project was born of of 3 equal parts. Necessity, Nostalgia, Love. So, for now I say we stay focussed on the editing tools.

 

I don't mean to come accross like I'm shooting down such ideas. You bring up excellent points and I agree with them. Nothing should stop us from pulling out all the stops for our own campaign should we make one. With that we can deviate and improve as much as we like. :) When that time comes, I say we blow the lid off this sucker and see what we can do.

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