Cradle type missions

[Tels]

It's awesome in Prey. Whether it's appropriate for our setting is perhaps a matter of taste.

 

I guess it would make Constantine's-mansion-style missions a lot more interesting! Still, I was amazed at what they were able to do in Thief with just textures and blocky geometry. My favourite bit in The Sword is that room with corridors leading off it in all directions. If you stand in the middle, it looks like they're all identical; but if you walk up most of them, the "doors" are too tiny to walk through and much closer than they look. Only one of the corridors actually leads anywhere, and you can't tell which one it is until you've investigated each "corridor" in turn! It's an awesome use of perspective; probably the best I've seen in any game, before or since.

 

</gush>

 

Yes, that optical illusion was very cool. I am always wanted to redo a mission in this style. You could do it much better (and more fany) now

 

Also, please note that D3 /TDM already has portals, just look at the typical sky and note that through triangles you see the skybox, essentially looking through a portal.

[Tels]

I'm quite excited to see what the Doom 3 engine might be capable of in the same area; that is creating levels with a really surreal feel to them.

 

Wait until you play my Old Mill map

 

It even adds to the horror genre of levels we were discussing earlier; I envision a genre map that is a maze-like insane asylum that is designed to make its inmates go even more insane. The thief has to navigate these twisting corridoors filled with all kinds of crazy stuff whilst nameless terrors stalk him through the shadows. Hehe, it could be really scary blending surrealistic environments with 'boogotcha!' moments

 

I still remember that I was chasing some sort of "thing" through that twisted maze of corridors only to find out they just played some (random?) sound effects, and all the time I thought there was really some sort of tiger around the next corner

[Crispy]

Also, please note that D3 /TDM already has portals, just look at the typical sky and note that through triangles you see the skybox, essentially looking through a portal.

It's not at all the same thing in gameplay terms, though, since you can't physically interact with it. That's the challenge; making physical objects (including the player) and physical obstruction tests pass through the portal and behave in the manner that you would expect.

[Tels]

It's not at all the same thing in gameplay terms, though, since you can't physically interact with it. That's the challenge; making physical objects (including the player) and physical obstruction tests pass through the portal and behave in the manner that you would expect.

 

Ah. I don't think it is complicated, tho, albeit the devil is in the details, as they say Unfortunately, we do not have the engine code yet, so we can't even star to on that. (not to mention getting v1.0 of the MOD done is kinda priority number one now...

[Gildoran]

If you think it's easy, feel free to make a portal mod to demo it.

 

I agree with Crispy. If you designed an engine for that from the ground up, then it might be doable, but D3 and TDM rest on the important assumption that space is Euclidean.

[Tels]

If you think it's easy, feel free to make a portal mod to demo it.

 

I agree with Crispy. If you designed an engine for that from the ground up, then it might be doable, but D3 and TDM rest on the important assumption that space is Euclidean.

 

Really? I thought D3 uses a portal-based space division, but heh, what do I know...

[Gildoran]

As far as I know, it uses portals to limit visibility, not to connect space (hence why they're typically refered to as "vis-portals"). It assumes two objects are nearby each other only if their coordinates are similar.

[Tels]

As far as I know, it uses portals to limit visibility, not to connect space (hence why they're typically refered to as "vis-portals"). It assumes two objects are nearby each other only if their coordinates are similar.

 

I was more thinking about the render code, not the objects itself. But you are right, the physics code would need a major overhaul. Which it probably needs anyway, if you compare it for instance to stuff like havoc...

[Crispy]

Ripping out D3's homegrown physics and replacing it with something like ODE is a tempting idea, though it would probably require engine source to be able to pull it off. One of those "maybe in the far distant future but certainly not for 1.0" things.

[Nyarlathotep]

Nah, unless I'm severely mistaken, D3 physics are entirely in the SDK.

[Crispy]

A lot of it is, yes, but I don't think all of it is. Some of the collision-handling code isn't, and I remember Ishtvan was saying that something in the engine kept resetting a physics property that he was trying to modify.

 

Anyway, we won't have time to do it in the near future, so this is all pretty academic. Unless of course we get a sudden spontaneous influx of capable programmers and all our programming tasks are unexpectedly finished within a month, leaving us all suddenly scratching our heads for something to do. (Come on guys, I know you're lurking out there somewhere. Apply already! )

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, there is some low-level collision detection outside the SDK in a class called CollisionModelManager. My experience was that I tried to change the axis matrix on the clipmodel as a way to dynamically scale things, but something outside the SDK kept re-scaling it back to its original size, or re-normalizing the matrix or something.

 

Anyway, I think it would still be possible to rip out all the physics and put in ODE, then adapt it to the existing system for collision checks. There's no gaurantee that you'd get a playable framerate after doing all that though, assuming the new physics system does more calculations than the original.

[Dunedain]

I'm perfectly happy with the wonderful things the DOOM III engine can do as is, no need for major alterations. I'm glad we have such a superb engine to use for The Dark Mod that will allow gorgeous and intricate Thief fan missions to be made.