When is a tile a tile material?

[Fidcal]

I used textures/darkmod/stone/flat/smooth/ceramic_tile_tan03 in the trainer as a loud surface but it was not as effective as metal. Checked the shader and it is 'stone' material. So, are we certain that all our tile materials are actually correct? As a mapper I would expect ceramic tiles to be tile material. Of course you can have a tile of anything but I think we're talking ceramic or marble tiles? Is marble supposed to be tile material?

[Springheel]

Well, that was a bit of a shady area we never really figured out. What is the difference between flat stone and tile anyway? I think the basic guideline we went with was that flat and smooth stone (marble) was considered tile, while uneven floors that might actually be "tiles" , like moasics, would register as stone for the purpose of sound propagation.

 

The problem is that tile really shouldn't be any louder than stone. In fact, in reality it would be one of the most quiet surfaces to walk on. We're following a Thief convention that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and our more realistic textures make that more obvious than the earlier games. Not much we can do about it now though.

[Fidcal]

I can go with 'smooth' because that reflects sound more like in a shiny-tiled bathroom is acoustically very 'alive'. There's a difference between shiny smooth tiles and continous non-smooth surfaces like rough stone. That's why I thought ceramic tiles should be classed as tile material and louder than rough stone. It's a bit late now but really the player ought to be able to quickly tell which surfaces are louder and ceramic tiles are easy to spot which is probably why LGS made them the loudest material. Now both mappers and players are going to be as puzzled as I am. Is it too late to change the ones that are clearly ceramic tiles? It's just gameplay not realism anyway.

[Springheel]

I have no problem if you want to go through them.

[Fidcal]

Yes, I don't mind. I think it's easier for players so there's no question 'that's a ceramic tile so will be noisy.' I think polished smooth marble or ceraimic is the key.

[Fidcal]

done.