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Noisemaker Concepts


god_is_my_goldfish

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I think that's the way to go. I like Domarius's wind-up idea as a way to make them reusable. So some kind of simple clockwork device, preferably not very big. And put it up the shaft a couple inches, so it isn't directly impacting when it lands. Thanks GIMG.

I quite like this idea. :) I'm with you on the winding animation being overkill though. :lol:

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If we really want to, we can just throw in some winding up "click-click-click...etc." sound effect somewhere, either when he picks it up, or before he puts it into the bow.

 

(That's the best thing about not having 3rd person. Way less anims)

 

I think it's really a case of "if it 'aint broke, don't fix it." Maybe it's just because no one ever used them much and never noticed the actual clockwork sound effects.

Edited by Domarius
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I already made some noisemaker arrow sketches a couple weeks ago that utilize a clockwork-like thing, but I haven't uploaded them yet. I'll try to upload those later today. I was going to refine the sketches more, but due to this discussion being brought up, I'll just show you what I have so far (later).

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I was trying to figure out a way the arrows could make the T2 clicking sound without using magic. Although my adventure in creativity was probably a bit of a waste of time, I wanted to try to show the mechanics of what I thought would be somewhat plausible; mechanically. The main reason for creating this is to show that if we go this mechanical route, we might want to encase the mechanics using an appropriate enclosure. I know this may not be 100% realistic, but it seemed kind've fun for me to imagine for the Thief universe.

 

How this noisemaker arrow works:

* When launched, the arrow is at it's fullest length. Arrow is at full extension.

* When the arrow strikes a target (e.g., a wall), the arrowhead sticks into the target. However, some energy is absorbed on impact as the tip of the arrow retracts into the air chamber casing, forcing the rubber gasket (which is attached to the arrow tip) to compress toward the rubber gasket stop. (I say arrow "tip," but I'm referring to the front 6"-12" (roughly) of the arrow.)

* This compression causes the air inside to be forced through a fairly small hole in the rubber gasket stop. The air that escapes through this hole does so at a high velocity.

*The air escaping the air chamber through this hole blows the wooden fins in the center of the wooden gear which causes the whole wooden gear to quickly rotate on its axis. I envision this to rotate pretty easily. A very well-designed mechanism.

* There are different sized pegs on the wooden gear, at varying heights. The distance between any two pegs also varies. The variety in peg sizes results in a variety of different *click* sounds being produced when the wooden hammer lever appropriate reacts, causing the hammer to strike the wooden platform. Some clicking sounds are softer, some louder; some possibly different pitches than others. The varying distances between pegs causes the delays between clicks to vary.

* The hammer striking the platform creates clicks -- naturally. Also, the hammer lever (opposite end of hammer) creates other various clicking sounds when it strikes the gears.

* There is spring tension in the hammer mechanism to allow it to return to it's default point. The tension is not so great, though, that it wastes all the energy that is being transferred through this system.

 

I wanted to throw this idea out there. I didn't create as many views as I wanted... and didn't get to finish my visualization of the hammer lever mechanism, but I hope it makes some sense.

 

With these mechanics, we could make the encasing larger or smaller, depending on how much sound you think will be created by the hammer. The encasing can also be pratically any shape we want it. If you feel this concept alone wouldn't be loud enough. then perhaps an amplifier and speaker could be attached to the inside of this. We know speakers existed in the Thief universe (Thief 2). The amp/speaker would also be powered by the impact the arrow makes on a target.

 

In-line with the need to re-use, this arrow could be reused. All that needs to happen is the tip needs to be re-extended. The fact that there are sound vents makes this possible, as air can re-enter the air chamber.

 

Note: My scanner isn't working, so I just made these from scratch tonight. The length of the arrow and other dimensions may not be very accurate. .

 

I liked GIMG's concept of the 'drill' appearance of the noisemaker. By somehow incorporating this into my concept (see 3rd pic below), we could imagine this would create the 'whirring' noise as it travels through the air toward its target, like in T2.

 

As a side note: I really don't like the fireworks idea. I hated them in Thief 3. I actually laughed the first time I heard it... I was like WTF??! Sounded like the 4th of July and just killed the immersion for me. It didn't seem very professional to me and I just loved the subtlety of Thief 2 clicks so much better.

 

Let me know if you need higher res shots of anything here.

 

noisemaker-arrow1.jpg

 

noisemaker-arrow-zm.jpg

 

noisemaker-arrow-alt.jpg

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I was trying to figure out a way the arrows could make the T2 clicking sound without using magic.  Although my adventure in creativity was probably a bit of a waste of time, I wanted to try to show the mechanics of what I thought would be somewhat plausible; mechanically.

 

Now THAT is concept art as I love it. :) Not because it is plausible, it isn't. But because you went to all the trouble of thinking how it could make plausible that it at least to appear as working. :) Very nice indeed. I think if we had more such concepts it would be much more easier to model the stuff, then because the inner working of such a device also defines the outside shape if it. Making fancy stuff is pretty easy, and I always hate it in stories when I have to take such things as granted, without any explanation.

 

The main reason for creating this is to show that if we go this mechanical route, we might want to encase the mechanics using an appropriate enclosure.  I know this may not be 100% realistic, but it seemed kind've fun for me to imagine for the Thief universe.

 

Yes. That's exactly the point of good concept art. It should go into much more detail then ever will bee needed for the actual game content, because it will help and inspire the modelers and also give a frame as to how an object can look if it has the assumed properties that it needs.

 

I liked GIMG's concept of the 'drill' appearance of the noisemaker.  By somehow incorporating this into my concept (see 3rd pic below), we could imagine this would create the 'whirring' noise as it travels through the air toward its target, like in T2.

 

Definitely. That's why I liked GIMG's model as it could explain that easily.

 

As a side note: I really don't like the fireworks idea.  I hated them in Thief 3.  I actually laughed the first time I heard it... I was like WTF??!

 

Yeah! Me too. One reason why I'm oposed to that fireworks idea. And it doesn't make the arrow reusable either.

Gerhard

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Nice darkness, mine was just a gear and spring mechanism that's knocked foward out of a lock when it impacts, and can just be pulled back and spun to reset it. Yours works just fine though, i don't think i'll post mine up.

 

One critisicm, should it have a broadhead tip? It might be seen as useable as a weapon if it does. Either way, great work. :)

Edited by god_is_my_goldfish

http://www.thirdfilms. com

A Thief's Path trailer is now on Youtube!

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BUT!!! Why not just have it like a wind-up toy, and the impact just triggers the release?? That's the way I was proposing!

 

I just wanted to say that first. Because I think your concept art is f***ing awesome and you've put so much work into the concept and the concept art.

 

It seems like you put so much effort into this when a more believable concept existed.

 

Your self-energising idea is pretty cool.

 

However it would make so much more sense to wind up the device manually when you aquire the arrow, then when the head makes an impact, it pushes a trigger which releases the wound up coil (just like any old fashioned wind-up toy does) and the thing starts to unwind and click.

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Well, although it's interesting to know what's going on inside the arrow, it doesn't REALLY matter for our purposes. Although I personally lean more towards the wind-up idea myself, the arrow can still look like the concept presented. Just add some kind of wind-up mechanism on the outside.

 

And I agree we should remove the broadhead from the tip. We don't want anything sharp enough for it to embed itself into a surface.

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And I agree we should remove the broadhead from the tip. We don't want anything sharp enough for it to embed itself into a surface.

But that could be pretty interesting. Instead of always being able to retrieve the arrow, you would have to aim for a carpet or some wood in order to do so. Could work. The drawbacks would of course be that once you are in a position where you really need it, there might not be any wood or carpet there. So then you wouldn't be able to re-use it anymore. But since a lot of you seemed to think they shouldn't be re-usable at all, this could be a good compromise.

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But since a lot of you seemed to think they shouldn't be re-usable at all, this could be a good compromise.

Yes but "a lot of you" don't use the noise arrow at all, so I don't think that's very fair, as I said before. You should follow that noise arrow link I posted, and from there, look at the link to the actual discussion, where I gave reasons on why they HAVE to be re-usable.

 

I'm not in any way opposed to its actual sticking into walls or not at the moment, just the "a lot of you think it shouldn't be re-usable" statement.

If some of you have experimented, and think they're too powerful if they're re-usable, then I'm willing to listen. A comprimise could easily be made where the noise arrow only works once or twice on each guard, but you can keep re-using the same one on other guards.

 

I liked the sticking into walls idea at first, because it means it doesn't have to be different than the other arrows, but when it hits a hard surface, it's going to have to either; die (which I won't like at all), or bounce, which means I'll have to program it differently anyway.

 

But at least, if it stuck into something, it'd be easier to find, which is a problem I have with them at the moment in T2.

Edited by Domarius
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Yes, but do they have to be reusable all the time? It would add another element if you needed to aim for something special in order to be able to pick them up again. But I fear it might be too much to expect finding wood whenever you need to use them, so I myself would rather have them reusable all the time.

 

Edit- Oh! Well, sorry about that phrase then! :)

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Well, although it's interesting to know what's going on inside the arrow, it doesn't REALLY matter for our purposes. Although I personally lean more towards the wind-up idea myself, the arrow can still look like the concept presented. Just add some kind of wind-up mechanism on the outside.

 

And I agree we should remove the broadhead from the tip. We don't want anything sharp enough for it to embed itself into a surface.

It matters in-so-much that we can have a mechanical explanation for the Thief 2 style clicks. I don't like just throwing it off to 'it's magic.' I can just see our write-up now -- "Including, oooh, *magical noisemaker arrows!*" That seems like a cop-out to me when the clicking sounds are so mechanical, even though magic is possible in Thief. It also matters in that to have a mechanical solution, you need proper housing for it. We could make any fanciful design we want, but I think it's somewhat important to know what's going on inside, as Sparhawk mentioned.

 

As for the broadband tip, that was just a quick and simple way to make it look like an arrow. We could have a cork at the end for all I care.

 

Having it wind-up would be cool. We can somewhat keep the same mechanical theory of the hammer and pegs inside instead, just wind it up I suppose. Wouldn't need an air compression chamber in that case; although it might look kind've funny to have a wind-up lever on the outside. I guess the lever could be mounted flush, though, where you can then pry your finger underneath and lift up. I'm okay either way. With my idea, when the arrow is re-extended there could be some interesting clickity/ratchety noises associated with it -- to get some aural satisfaction. I made this concept a week or two ago; and it's just a mechanical idea to go along the other ones presented as an option.

 

I can re-use broadband arrows in Thief 2, no problem, after they've been lodged into a wall. Are we not going the same route with Dark Mod? I much liked being able to find and pick up my broadbands. I just assumed this noisemaker would work the same way, as far as being able to pick it up. Might be kind've cool to be able to shoot it into the top of a wall or a ceiling and have the AI think the sound is coming from above. And then to retrieve, launch a rope arrow and go snag it. I don't see any issues with this, and actually much prefer it than having the arrow just drop to the ground.

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It matters in-so-much that we can have a mechanical explanation for the Thief 2 style clicks. I don't like just throwing it off to 'it's magic.' I can just see our write-up now -- "Including, oooh, *magical noisemaker arrows!*" That seems like a cop-out to me

 

Saying it's magic is no more of a cop-out than saying it is mechanical. But knowing that it is wind-up is sufficient for our purposes. Trying to plan exactly how it works is fine if you enjoy it. But we don't need to be getting into discussions about how every internal thing should work. As long as it looks good, that's enough.

 

And then to retrieve, launch a rope arrow and go snag it. I don't see any issues with this, and actually much prefer it than having the arrow just drop to the ground.

 

If we put a broadhead arrow on it, then it should sink into any wooden surface, meaning it could be quite difficult to retrieve, especially if you don't happen to have a rope arrow. It should also do damage when it hits a creature. And if the arrow is sticking out of a wall, it points directly back in the direction of the shooter. If it bounces around it's less clear where it came from.

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Magic is used to explain the impossible. When all other real-world options are exhausted, magic is left to explain. (or religion). Thus, my feeling as though magic is a cop-out. My attempts at making it mechanical were an attempt to keep the noisemaker grounded in the real world. You prefer raw, real-world explanations for most everything else DarkMod-related, I thought you might appreciate an attempt at a real-world explanation for the T2-style noisemaker.

 

Oh well... -- well the mechanics of my design included the arrow getting shorter upon impact to work; thus, the mechanical design could (have) potentially had an impact to its modelling, coding and how the player interacts with it. Just as a wind-up mechanism would. If I merely proposed a noisemaker arrow that got shorter upon impact and had a vented barrell without explaining the theory behind it, you guys would've been "WTF?"

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Magic is used to explain the impossible. When all other real-world options are exhausted, magic is left to explain. (or religion).

 

Magic is simply a different kind of physics, when done properly. Whether it is 'real world' or not only matters if your game takes place in the 'real world'.

 

Saying, "the arrow makes noise because of magic," is no more of a cop-out than saying, "the arrow falls to the ground because of gravity."

 

But anyway....

 

You prefer raw, real-world explanations for most everything else DarkMod-related, I thought you might appreciate an attempt at a real-world explanation for the T2-style noisemaker.

 

You might be confusing me with somone else...I'm the guy that voted for the magical noise arrow. :)

 

I don't think we need to worry about exactly how the noisemaker, mines, or robots actually *work* as long as they seem reasonably consistent with the rest of the setting.

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Hmm, okay. We'll agree to disagree; no way of meeting in the middle on this one (RE: magic as a cop-out) ;)

 

I know u voted for a magical noisemaker arrow... but no, I remember past conversations where mostly "real world" was your cup of tea for our thief :)

Edited by Darkness_Falls
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For the mechanism, better than a wind up key is to make part of the device cylindrical, with a segment of it that can be twisted back to wind it up again. I was gonna do mine this way, though i think we could do this with your exterior design anyway.

http://www.thirdfilms. com

A Thief's Path trailer is now on Youtube!

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Good idea, Goldfish!! That way you don't need some key sticking out of it, that would screw up the trajectory! Excellent thinking :)

 

Springheel, I personally really appreciate the amount of thought Darkness_Falls is putting into this. If someone wants to know, they can look it up. And then they would be more immersed in the world. We can use it as a document in some mechanics shop or something, that you could find and read as a point of interest.

 

Darkness_falls, I think you meant to say "broadhead" arrows, everytime you said "broadband" arrows.

Unless they are connecting to the internet to find out information about their attacker during flight so they can target their weak point. Heheh.

Edited by Domarius
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Springheel, I personally really appreciate the amount of thought Darkness_Falls is putting into this. If someone wants to know, they can look it up.

 

I think DF enjoys doing this kind of thing, so that's great. I'm just saying we shouldn't feel that it's necessary to discuss *exactly* how things work internally before going ahead and making them.

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But it affects how it will look! That's another good reason why I think we should do it a little bit at least. You come up with something that looks kind of practical and believeable and original, instead of something that just "looks cool" which you can tell has been designed to just "look cool".

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What do you think of oDDity's boilerbots? I don't think they were designed just to 'look cool', but at the same time I doubt he made any schematics to decide exactly how everything is powered internally. Ditto with the flashbomb, the mines, the furnaces, etc. If we had to design exactly how everything worked internally every time we wanted to make something mechanical, nothing would ever get done.

 

That's my only point.

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Domarius wrote: Good idea, Goldfish!!  That way you don't need some key sticking out of it, that would screw up the trajectory!  Excellent thinking :)

I agree; good thinking GIMG! Failing the air compression method, I like this alternative better than a wind-up lever process. (It *might've* looked kind've funny to see our thief winding up an arrow like it's a music box. But if we really wanted the wind-up, we could go with my earlier suggestion and mount the lever so that it's flush with the arrow cylinder and you pry your finger underneath and lift it up to start winding.) I should say, though, that any of these three options for re-setting a noisemaker arrow (pulling the end out; winding it up; or twisting the housing) would be fun to do.

 

Domarius wrote: Springheel, I personally really appreciate the amount of thought Darkness_Falls is putting into this.

Thanks Domarius. The old Thief 2 noisemaker didn't make much sense to me. It bothered me at first, but i got used to it. I think deep down, though, I still wished there was more of a 'logical' explanation for their sounds; considering they were so mechanical in nature. I wasn't happy with thinking there was some sort of magic dust that was sprinkled on them. (Being facetious.)

 

Domarius wrote: Darkness_falls, I think you meant to say "broadhead" arrows

Doh! Yes!!! Thanks for catching me on that. I have no clue why I've always said "broadband." I think that's what I read the arrows to be when I first played Thief, and it kind've just stuck with me. Duuuuuuuuuude :ph34r: Thanks again!

 

Springheel wrote: I think DF enjoys doing this kind of thing, so that's great. I'm just saying we shouldn't feel that it's necessary to discuss *exactly* how things work internally before going ahead and making them.

I do enjoy it. I agree that most things don't need a presentation of the innards, but for noisemakers -- where we're discussing whether to use beads/ball-ball bearings, or clockwork, or fireworks, or whatever -- I thought it might be nice to bring logic (rather than magic) into my explanation for the clicking sound. Afterall, I'm trying to sell my idea so of course I'm going to try to bring explanations to the plate ;) I guess I'm just used to concept artwork for Star Wars and stuff where external designs take into account the internal components. Trust me, though, I know it's not necessary for everything. If I start doing steampunk concepts, most of my designs that I come up with probably won't have any mechanical rhyme or reason.

 

Springheel wrote: And if the arrow is sticking out of a wall, it points directly back in the direction of the shooter. If it bounces around it's less clear where it came from.

Good point. I noticed Thief 2 doesn't have an arrow tip on their's. Makes sense that you don't want it lodged into a wall, showing where it came from. Maybe some code can be created to make the noisemaker fall in a random fashion to the floor when it hits something, so it doesn't reveal which direction it came from. I say this because I think in T2 it usually fell straight down, unless you shot it from an angle. I think our's should have some sort of tip on it, though -- even if it's just a very dull arrowhead. It looks kind've funny without anything...

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