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linfosoma

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We did test it, and it doesn't work.

 

The problem is with the camera position that mirrors use. Gil made a testmap for this two years ago and discovered that it would, at best, be horribly unreliable and inaccurate, and at worst, would crash the game.

 

if you don't want graphical glithes, having a portable mirror precludes having other mirrored surfaces on the map. Also, since mirrors work by repositioning the camera, they have to be carefully placed so that there's nothing behind them that can block the camera's view. This means that from certain positions the player's view in the portable mirror might be blocked when it shouldn't be, or the player might even be able to use the mirror to see through walls.

 

The reason some mirrors don't work correctly is because all the engine does is reposition the camera when rendering for a mirror. Anything facing towards the camera will be rendered, including things behind the mirror that shouldn't be rendered.

 

My point is that mirrors aren't things that can just be moved around anywhere with good results. Careful planning on the part of the mapper is required, so portable mirrors aren't feasible
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I think a mirror on a plank can not be done using a material with the "mirror"-keyword.

 

as quoted above these interact with geometry in sometimes unpredictable ways, plus the glitches you get depend on wether your light is casting shadows or noshadows. even a static free standing mirror is hard to do.

 

so maybe it is possible to do the hand-mirror if you don't use a mirror material but a different technique, no idea.

 

though i think it's a funny idea, i wouldn't go for it. doesn't add much to leaning IMO.

 

i have always been fascinated by the scouting orb. rarely used it strategically, more like a toy when i didn't need it anyways.

 

the first time i tried it, it was actually like "wow, i can SEE garrett! cool! and i can see guards passing him by. wait -- are these guys completely blind???"

 

 

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so maybe it is possible to do the hand-mirror if you don't use a mirror material but a different technique, no idea.

Mirrors in 3D games pretty much always use the same technique AFAIK. The only alternative I can think of is ray-tracing, which sees extensive use in film but isn't fast enough for real-time (yet!).

 

the first time i tried it, it was actually like "wow, i can SEE garrett! cool! and i can see guards passing him by. wait -- are these guys completely blind???"

Yes. Yes, they are. :laugh:

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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Why botter changing the laws of physics creating a portable mirror thing when you can just lean to a corner.
To see if any guard has made you and is waiting in sniper ambush without sticking your head out and becoming arrow fodder.

 

Besides, a guard (in an ideal world) could spot the light reflected on the mirror and see you anyway..

Best use is in diffuse lighting conditions, but I see your point.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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But you have to stick out part of your head before your eyes are around the corner, whereas you can get just a tiny centimeter of a mirror around the edge and see something useful in it, so there is a big difference.

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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I think if the tdm community wanted a mirror on a stick bad enough they could impliment it later, but I personally think such a thing at this point would be a waste of time. It's a very interesting concept though, I cannot believe I haven't seen it in a game yet to be honest.

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Personally I think mirror-on-a-stick would be a waste of development time (just lean, doofus), but wouldn't it be relatively simple to have an inventory item that, when "used", temporarily moves the player eye to some point on a held object? A handheld scouting orb, basically.

 

Actually, now that I think about it, a periscope would be damn handy. Scouting out areas above and below the player has always been a weakness in Thief.

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I think the periscope is a damn good idea.

It would look very cool and I cant remember seeing that in a game before.

 

Not to mention that it IS a lot easier to do that the "mirror on a stick" thing.

 

Now, what about selfshadows? I know that once again this is something you can activate as a cheat and that making it work would require an extra set of animations.

But its something that I really like (besides looking at my own two feet). Games like Riddick and FEAR have used this before and it really creates a feeling of "being there".

Edited by linfosoma
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Self-shadowing is already on everything that doesn't look like crap with it on. If by "self-shadowing", you mean the player's shadow, it is available but unsupported.

 

Edit: You can try it out in Thief's Den with "seta g_showPlayerShadow 1" in the console (remove the quotes). You can bring the console down with ctrl+alt+` or just ` in Linux (the tilde "~" key).

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Self-shadowing is already on everything that doesn't look like crap with it on. If by "self-shadowing", you mean the player's shadow, it is available but unsupported.

 

Edit: You can try it out in Thief's Den with "seta g_showPlayerShadow 1" in the console (remove the quotes). You can bring the console down with ctrl+alt+` or just ` in Linux (the tilde "~" key).

 

 

Yeah, I know, thats what I meant by "I know you can use it as a sort of cheat".

I know you wont be able to add this to this mod, but Im just saying that its really good. See Thief: Deadly Shadows for example, in my opinnion it makes a difference.

Edited by linfosoma
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But its something that I really like (besides looking at my own two feet). Games like Riddick and FEAR have used this before and it really creates a feeling of "being there".

I think that, for me, growing up playing first-person games where there was never any kind of visible player shadow at all (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Half-Life and so on), seeing my character's shadow tends to be a little unnerving. The same goes for body awareness. It actually feels less immersive to me.

 

Read my first coment, read your reply, then read my third coment. That SHOULD clear things out.

A little unnecessarily testy are we? I don't think any belittling is required today.

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Read my first coment, read your reply, then read my third coment. That SHOULD clear things out.

Clearly NOT, as you using the wrong terms to describe whatever the hell it is you're talking about and not enough detail to infer what it is. Read it again, and tell me where you describe in detail what the hell you're talking about.

 

I think that, for me, growing up playing first-person games where there was never any kind of visible player shadow at all (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Half-Life and so on), seeing my character's shadow tends to be a little unnerving. The same goes for body awareness. It actually feels less immersive to me.

That's funny. I grew up on those same games. I remember having exactly the same attitude about using the mouse to look around. It was just so unnatural.

 

Done well, full body awareness is one those things were you go back the old style and wonder how you ever managed. The problem is that so very few do it well enough to write home about.

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The periscope is one of the dozens of ideas that came up waaay back in october '04 when the mod started. There didn't seem to be much interest in it though, but it is as good as a mirror and easier to implement.

Periscopes are largely used in battle situations when there a risk of being shot at, and are a bit cumbersome for a thief, but can just be coded as a regular camera, so technically, the periscope makes most sense.

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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Clearly NOT, as you using the wrong terms to describe whatever the hell it is you're talking about and not enough detail to infer what it is. Read it again, and tell me where you describe in detail what the hell you're talking about.

That's funny. I grew up on those same games. I remember having exactly the same attitude about using the mouse to look around. It was just so unnatural.

 

Done well, full body awareness is one those things were you go back the old style and wonder how you ever managed. The problem is that so very few do it well enough to write home about.

I think that depends. If you see your shadow and it is nothing like you then no it doesn't. That is why the lack of speaking on the characters part was also part of games. This is all just opinion though. I think feet and shadows, body awareness are all fine and dandy, I just don't know that they add to immersiveness.

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