March 25th Update

[woah]

Everything look and sounds amazing! With every update, I have this urge to go back and play Thief because the look and atmosphere in your screenshots is very reminiscent of Thief 1/2, but is also fresh. And all of the amazing things your programmers are accomplishing, with the AI and player-movement for instance, are very exciting--especially when considering how radical they are in your typical first person game.

 

Of course, these are roughly the same words you hear from me now and then, but I have an obligation to express my fondness of all of your work (so you'll just have to deal with these pesky threads every once a in while) ;D .

 

By the way, the spiders in Thief scared the hell out of me--even the little ones. I could never muster up the courage to take one on in close range combat; I would always just run or attack from a distance. It took me a very long time to enter the storage room filled with spiders on the shipping level, and even longer for the cold storage room upstairs.

[Macsen]

Why doesn't the spider in that picture have a texture on it? I know the Dark Mod has textured spiders about.

 

Also why does the holy water have a cross on it instead of a hammer? That looks like a gaffe to me.

 

Otherwise, everything looks great.

[Nyarlathotep]

I remember in Thief: Gold I always used to drown the spiders in the first mission. The rest I would just avoid like the plague.

 

I really like the inventor model, btw. GG, AScottK, gg.

[Springheel]

Also why does the holy water have a cross on it instead of a hammer? That looks like a gaffe to me.

 

A cross is more universally recognized as 'healing' than a hammer. Besides, you could argue that it is just a stylized hammer:

 

http://www.fractionalplates.com/cgi-bin/ed...p;catalogno=8.6

 

Why doesn't the spider in that picture have a texture on it?

 

All the spiders in that image have a texture. Not sure what you're talking about.

[Ombrenuit]

Everything looks great...except, well no offense, the belchers. The art style looks amateur in comparison with everything else done, and it just looks out of place.

[Komag]

I like 'em, but I can see what you're saying

[sparhawk]

A cross is more universally recognized as 'healing' than a hammer. Besides, you could argue that it is just a stylized hammer:

 

http://www.fractionalplates.com/cgi-bin/ed...p;catalogno=8.6

 

Maybe I'm too stupid, but they are talking about hammers on this site, but only show cylinders and bars with handles.

[ascottk]

I remember in Thief: Gold I always used to drown the spiders in the first mission. The rest I would just avoid like the plague.

 

I really like the inventor model, btw. GG, AScottK, gg.

Thanks

 

Everything looks great...except, well no offense, the belchers. The art style looks amateur in comparison with everything else done, and it just looks out of place.

It's only one screenshot & they rarely do them justice They look a lot better ingame.

[Springheel]

The art style looks amateur in comparison with everything else done, and it just looks out of place.

 

What exactly do you mean by "the art style"?

[Nyarlathotep]

Maybe I'm too stupid, but they are talking about hammers on this site, but only show cylinders and bars with handles.

I think he was referencing the first picture:

 

It's only one screenshot & they rarely do them justice They look a lot better ingame.

I hope so. At this point the belchers look like they're off-balance, not to mention looking like a model ripped from Unreal 1. More constructively, the head, neck and body aren't really distinct, and while yes, that is sort of the idea, even in reptiles that do look that the distinction is more pronounced. One thing that will help with the balance problem is to tilt their bodies slightly up (they look forward-heavy) and to animate their tails to look mostly stiff down the main length, but flexing mostly near the end, like a dinosaur (particularly with the one of the far right, in a crouched position). Also, I don't really like the silver eyes on the green ones; black looks more realistic.

 

Of course, take my comments with a grain of salt; I still get all pissy about the hands being mitts instead of having actual fingers. (Seriously, is it really necessary to sacrifice that sort of important detail when it only takes 150-250 polys per character to make it look right--especially when it can be lodded down at a distance? )

 

Edit: Oh, I'm not sure I like the gray spider texture. It looks like it doesn't have a diffuse map at all (the eyes seem to be colored in).

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

I must also be stupid bcause they're talking about bars of iron and calling them hammers.

[AtariThief]

Thor's hammer is the shape of three symbols.

One looks like a sort of axe, another looks like a hammer shape, and one looks like a cross.

 

Might this help?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor%27s_hammer#External_links

http://www.mackaos.com.au/Articles/Mjol.html

 

I get the feeling those bars are mearly named Thor's Hammer as a sales gimmick.

Edited March 28, 2007 by AtariThief

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

Must be a gimmick. Because I thought theyr were selling replacement handles for your worn-out Thor's hammer heavily used with righteousness.

[sparhawk]

Yeah. I also wondered about that. I thought that they might be talking about pieces so you can construct your own individual hammer, or something like that.

[Crispy]

All the spiders in that image have a texture. Not sure what you're talking about.

The grey spider (second from left) doesn't really look like it has a texture until you look closely (and even then it seems like it's just the normal map, no diffuse map).

 

Thanks for the praise, woah! Always nice to hear that one's efforts are appreciated... (Not that I can take any credit for the most recent progress. Stupid uni. Still, I did fix one bug...!)

[Nyarlathotep]

The grey spider (second from left) doesn't really look like it has a texture until you look closely (and even then it seems like it's just the normal map, no diffuse map).

That's probably why I don't like it. In all seriousness, what spider has ever had that particularly bland shade of grey?

 

(Not that I can take any credit for the most recent progress. Stupid uni. Still, I did fix one bug...!)

Tell me about it. I'm pretty much going to be buried until next Thursday.

[Macsen]

A cross is more universally recognized as 'healing' than a hammer. Besides, you could argue that it is just a stylized hammer.

Well it obviously didn't work because I thought it was holy water, not a healing potion. And why would a hammer be shaped like a cross? Wouldn't it make it heavy at the top and hard to use?

 

The cross is only recognized as 'healing' because it's the symbol of a real world religion that doesn't exist in TDM. Otheriwse it's just an instrument of torture - not healing at all!

 

All the spiders in that image have a texture. Not sure what you're talking about.

The white one looks like someone forgot to apply a texture to it. Also some legs seem to have shadows while others don't.

[Gildoran]

Also some legs seem to have shadows while others don't.

I'll guess that screenshot is of the D3ed render-preview, which tends to have shadow mistakes.

[Springheel]

Well it obviously didn't work because I thought it was holy water, not a healing potion.

 

My mistake. I meant that a cross is more universally recognized as a 'holy symbol'. That's what happens when I try to squeeze my comments into a five minute coffee break.

 

And why would a hammer be shaped like a cross? Wouldn't it make it heavy at the top and hard to use?

 

I doubt hammers that were actually used were shaped that way. Stylized symbols often don't look precisely like the thing they represent.

 

That's probably why I don't like it. In all seriousness, what spider has ever had that particularly bland shade of grey?

 

T2 had ivory-coloured spiders, and someone on the team requested an ivory skin, so I made one. I'm certainly not going to force anyone to use it.

[Maximius]

Will the spiders have different powers like the ones in the Precursor games? Didn't one throw its webs and others fireballs or something, I think someone made fire spiders for one mission or another. Everything looks really good though, great work guys!

[Springheel]

We haven't talked about giving the spiders special powers. Spiders weren't really high on our priority list, but since the model and basic animations were already done we decided it was worth getting them in-game. I doubt we'll go much further than that before the first release, though it's something that mappers could do without too much trouble if they wanted.

[Macsen]

It seems a bit strange to expect the player to recognize it as a cross, and therefore holy, but also recognize it as a hammer and therefore not a cross which would be completely out of place in TDM, but, at the same time, recognize it as a cross. It's enough to make me cross eyed. *boom boom*

 

I'm also confident the player would realise that the hammer is a holy symbol in the Dark Mod universe - With all the statues, banners and hammer-related stuff the mod has produced it's be hard not to. Those hammers don't need to be cross shaped for people to appreciate their significance, so why does this hammer need to be?

 

I'm annoyingly nit-picking now, so I want to stress than 99% of everything else in those pictures look great.

[Springheel]

Those hammers don't need to be cross shaped for people to appreciate their significance, so why does this hammer need to be?

 

The symbol doesn't NEED to be cross-shaped, but since: 1. it already is, 2. that makes it easily recognizable to players (even those not familiar with the TDM setting), and 3. it matches hammer-shaped symbols from our own history (thus making it consistant with the TDM setting), the sum of all that is that there is no pressing need to change it (which doesn't mean it won't happen).

 

I'm annoyingly nit-picking now

 

[Aceyalone]

Well, havent checked out the site for a couple of days, so I didnt come up to what was going on lately!

 

Anyway, one word! Great work guys, really! Its a pleasure seeing this project is still going and evolving like this! You all do some great stuff and still I cant wait to this project alive and kicking! And so does every one that loved Thief universe!

 

GG!

[Arumakani]

Why doesn't the spider in that picture have a texture on it? I know the Dark Mod has textured spiders about.

 

 

It lookslike a mechanical/ Inventor sort of spider thing.