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Camera Obscura


Macsen

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I'd considered this before but was reminded of the possibility by Bioshock.

 

The idea is for a mission where you have to break into a building but, rather than stealing something, you have to take a picture of a person or item with an old 17th century camera.

 

Perhaps you'd have to take an incriminating photo of a lord and lady having an affair so you can blackmail them later. Or maybe take photos of the security around a vault and sell it to a thieves guild.

 

The catch is that the camera also uses a flash which will alert any one in the area that you're there.

 

A handheld camera that takes flash pictures would be a bit anachronistic, but I think it would be quite fun trying to get to the best vantage point to take the picture, and trying not to be seen doing it.

 

The obvious name for such a mission would be 'Camera Obscura'! :P

 

Lot me know wat you think of the idea. And any ideas as to wether this would be possible or not?

 

(BTW, before the mod team panics again, I'm not saying you should be adding this function as part of the core package)

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How about instead of a modern polaroid camera you actually have to set an old-fashioned pinhole camera down and let it stay still for a few minutes as it has a long exposure time. It would certainly feel more believable and still introduce an interesting gameplay challenge (is it safe to place the camera here? Can I get the picture before the patrols arrive?)

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I like that idea, but that might stop the player being able to look at the photos afterwards. And it would make it impossible to capture people on the move. Also the player might be short of patience if he has to wait for the camera for a few minutes.

 

Perhaps to add an element of that tension the player would have to set the camera down like you said and play around with a few knobs and whistles before it is set to take the picture. A bit like the lockpicking mini-game from Thief 3?

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Hmn. It could be fun, but it seems way too unrealistic to me. I mean such a camera is really huge and the playercharacter is probably not Guybrush Threepwood, who can fit anything no matter which size into his trousers... ;)

 

But hey, I just got an idea. Garrett has a kinda High-tech mechanical eye and also the camera-eye was introduced to us, so why shouldn't this camera be upgraded with a "picture saving" function. If you give a nice hint that some friend of Garrett has modified the normal camera-eye to take pictures now, that would definitely work for me. Of cours this implies, that the player character would have to be Garrett or at least someother guy who had a mech-eye procedure! =)

Edited by STiFU
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"That's the second-biggest duck I've ever had in my pants!"

 

While it's true that our player character doesn't have Threepwood pants, he can carry an infinite amount of stuff regardless. Yes, that's unrealistic. Do we care? No. :P

 

By the way, if you want to make a TDM mission where the player character has a picture-taking mechanical eye, go for it... just please don't call him Garrett. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I dunno, you could carry all kinds of pylons and antenna around in the last mission of Thief II and no one had a problem with that. Most cameras from that era could fold up retty small anyway...

 

OR you could have the camera as an item you have to hoist around just as you would a KO'd guard or cadaver. You could also transport it around the mission on a dumb-waiter and the like.

 

I'm not that keen on the mechanical eye idea. It goes far beyond Steampunk...

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Well, you're a beta-mapper, why don't you go ahead and make a mission like that? The actual camera model wouldn't be needed until the very end, and I'm sure someone would make you one at that point.

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Don't forget that security cameras were actually part of Thief 2. So it's not that strange.

There's also the magic route. The OMs used those eyeball plants. I'd just think that magic might be good if you want to keep the thing small.

 

Generally speaking, per the trend of some of these recent threads, I'm on the side that hopes that TDM will be friendly to a more open field of mission types for FMs, and that builders will take up the opportunity. I'm actually curious to see whether and how the character of FMs might change under TDM.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Well, you're a beta-mapper, why don't you go ahead and make a mission like that? The actual camera model wouldn't be needed until the very end, and I'm sure someone would make you one at that point.

I don't have an internet connection at my flat where my fastest PC is kept so can't download the latest Dark Mod stuff. I have internet at my house where I spend weekends but the PC is too slow to run Doom 3. I'm doing what I can with the stuff I have though and am currently building a copy of a local castle, but that's more out of interest in the castle than for a Dark Mod mission.

 

I'm not asking anyone else to build this mission for me, but there's no point for me to keep the idea to myself while I'm unable to build missions.

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Here is a storyline for consideration:

 

The thief has been hired by a sorcerer to secure some important magical information from a rival. The information are a series of ancient glyphs set into a huge stone tablet that is secured in the second sorcerers castle. The first sorcerer doesn't need the tablet, just needs to see the glyphs to read them and thats enough. His rival has powerful magical shields blocking vision spells, divining pools, etc. so magic is not the answer here. So he consults with the thief and decides to hire him to do two things:

 

One, break into a local inventors shop and steal this new fangled camera thingy. None of the magical shields can defend against a mechanical photo being taken and and cameras are so new that no one has taken them into consideration as a threat. The storyline would benefit from the different themes at conflict, old magic versus new tech.

 

Two, sneak into the castle of the sorcerer with the tablet and take photo. After dragging the camera in, setting it up and snapping one picture, the thief merely grabs the plates or whatever, forgets the camera, and makes for the hills. If the flash does not attract attention, I would give the thief about a five minute lead before a scripted AI comes into the room to "discover" the camera and sounds the general alarm. Adding a bit of spice to the thiefs exit.

 

Three, return to the inventors shop and develop the photos in their crude lab, of course this time the shop is crawling with security beasts and guards after the theft of the camera, so it would be a different experience.

 

Four, return photos to the sorcerer who hired the thief, perhaps with some last minute double cross or something for a twist.

 

I would propose making the camera actually heavy for the player to carry, when you have picked it up, you are restricted in that you cannot run, if you drop too far while carrying it it hurts you a bit, and that you are quite a bit slower/clumsy. Just a few simple things, nothing like exhaustion bars or anything, but it would really make the camera parts challenging and it would seem to add a bit of realism. You would have to scout ahead, take out AI or whatever, then go grab the damned camera to move it to the next point. This needn't go on forever, just on your way out of the inventors shop and into the sorcerers lair. Some sections with unbeatable AI would have to be carefully timed, creeping across a large floor with the camera, hearing the approaching footsteps, the shadows seem miles away....

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Yeah considering that Cameras back in the 19th century had an agonizingly long exposure time and were enormous, I feel like anything less than something magical would require too great a suspension of belief. However, perhaps something that infuses technology with magic might be suitable; also it could be a prototype being created by a Mage perhaps? Or something of more divine origin. Like some kind of relic, an eyeball of some sort where images it sees are magically transferred to parchment.

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...I feel like anything less than something magical would require too great a suspension of belief.

 

Gotta love a universe that flips all logic around. ^_^

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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How about instead of a modern polaroid camera you actually have to set an old-fashioned pinhole camera down and let it stay still for a few minutes as it has a long exposure time. It would certainly feel more believable and still introduce an interesting gameplay challenge (is it safe to place the camera here? Can I get the picture before the patrols arrive?)

Well, unless they happened to be asleep and perfectly still, all you'd get is a blurred mess.

 

It's like that Death Ray on Harvey Birdman

"X's tool of choice is an ungainly silver death console with a telescoping laser emitter that uses obsolete vacuum tube technology. X often misses opportunities to attack Birdman with his death console because it takes a long time to recharge after he fires it."

 

It'd have to be based on magic I think. :)

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Gotta love a universe that flips all logic around. ^_^

Hah, if you think that's crazy, you should check out Tales of MU. (Sexually explicit fiction warning! NSFW. [No pictures, just text.]) It's set in a magic university in a world where the laws of nature as we understand them are turned on their head. Not only does magic exist, but science (as in the scientific method) actually doesn't work. The author calls it the "general magical fiat", though it's more subtle than that... anyway, I won't bother explaining it all here. Read the story if you're interested. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I don't think the internal workings of the camera matters that much. Since there are great steampunk robots stomping around this world and all. I'd prefer the photo to be of a person or, better yet but probably harder to code, persons rather than a solitary object. If you just have to stand in front of something solitary and take a picture of it you might as well steal it, but having to take an oppertunity to photograph someone who's on the move makes things more dynamic.

 

I like Maximius' idea of having to break back in to the inventors shop to develop the photos however, and the shop being on higher alert because the camera is gone.

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If you just have to stand in front of something solitary and take a picture of it you might as well steal it, but having to take an oppertunity to photograph someone who's on the move makes things more dynamic.

 

 

I forgot to mention, the stone tablet it BIG, thats why he can't just pinch it.

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I have a much more challenging idea for a mission.

 

You have to escort a master painter into the mansion, and sneak him up to the lord's chamber so he can paint the portrait of the lord's mistress without being spotted. Then you have to sneak the painting into the furnace room in the basement, without smearing it, so that you can use the heat to dry the paint rapidly. Then you have to return the portrait to your employer.

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I forgot to mention, the stone tablet it BIG, thats why he can't just pinch it.

What I meant is 'you might as well pinch it' is that creating an objective where you simply have to approach an inanimate object to take a picture isn't much different from an objective where you have to steal something.

 

The difference with taking a photograph of people who move about is that there are more factors to take into account than a mission where you just steal something. You a have to take into account your location, how you're going to get the two together in the same shot, how you're going to get them facing away from you so that they don't see the flash, how you're going to get out of the location you've put yourself in, and so on... I think there's more scope for replaying a mission and trying different ways to get the shot you need, than if you were taking a picture of an inanimate object.

 

You have to escort a master painter into the mansion, and sneak him up to the lord's chamber so he can paint the portrait of the lord's mistress without being spotted. Then you have to sneak the painting into the furnace room in the basement, without smearing it, so that you can use the heat to dry the paint rapidly. Then you have to return the portrait to your employer.

Why not just get him to pain the portrait at his house? We all know artists paint to a romantic ideal rather than the idiosyncratic facial features of the person in question so it won't matter.

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The difference with taking a photograph of people who move about is that there are more factors to take into account than a mission where you just steal something. You a have to take into account your location, how you're going to get the two together in the same shot, how you're going to get them facing away from you so that they don't see the flash, how you're going to get out of the location you've put yourself in, and so on... I think there's more scope for replaying a mission and trying different ways to get the shot you need, than if you were taking a picture of an inanimate object.

 

Ok I think I see where you are headed. Let me try something a little different, its not exactly what you are thinking of but consider it: The thief is hired to get a photograph of two important individuals together who should never be meeting, rival factions leaders or something who are scheming behind the backs of their respective organizations. An interested party needs proof and tells the Thief about the Inventors guild shop where this new fangled camera thingy is kept. They also know where the drop off site is for the messages between the two targets so you have a bit of inside info to work with. So now the thief must:

 

1. Break into the inventors shop, and steal the camera, which is bulky and carries the restrictions I mentioned in the last post.

 

2. Break into the HQ one of the two target individuals and steal the information from their message drop site about the time and location of their next meeting. This would also give a break from dragging the camera in time for...

 

3. Drag the camera to the meeting site and find a location where it can be set up as an ambush. Maybe this would be a good timed mission, you have fifteen minutes to drag the thing across the City to the small warehouse, find a suitable spot to set it up, then wait. When the targets enter the warehouse and are in position, the thief takes the photo. Or maybe it could be made much more difficult, perhaps the Thief would have to lure the men to a certain place or something, just enough noise to draw them to the position but not enough to give himself away. Then flash acts like a flashbulb, blinding the targets temporarily, giving the thief time to grab the plates and make for the door. Then he has to navigate the City back to his hideout to end this phase of the mission.

 

4. Back to the inventors for development, extra security in place now of course. The Thief would have to ghost his way in as any disturbance would never let him finish developing the pictures. Once they are done, he must make his way back out but need not bother ghosting. Maybe a different kind of developing that doesnt take hours and hours can be dreamed up for storyline purposes.

 

5. Meet with employer to hand over photos for cash, last minute double cross for twist.

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Yes, that's the kind of mission structure I was considering. But rather than having a time limit on your actions you'd simply have to find a way of getting the two together. For instance you'd find a readable saying 'When thou want to meet, leave a rose upon my desk' or something, and then of course you'd have to do the same on the other side before the first person has become bored of waiting and left.

 

I'm still not a fan of the idea of having to drag a big clunky camera around, however. I want the player to be like a paparazzi, grabbing whatever shots are available in the heat of the moment rather than having to set everything up beforehand.

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