[30 Nov 2023] The Black Parade -- RELEASE THREAD

Kerrle on 12/12/2023 at 04:52

As you say its minor, but I agree that it can feel...different.

Though I also tend to play without texture filtering, which likely magnifies the difference.

Darkness_Falls on 12/12/2023 at 05:01

Quote Posted by Twist

So try what DirkBogan and skacky have been recommending:

Quote:

Go to the cam_mod.ini file in your Thief 1 install folder and add a semicolon ( ; ) in front of any lines under the "Mod paths" heading. These are likely to include uber_mod_path and mod_path lines. Alternately, find the MODS folder in your Thief 1 install and rename it.

I haven't had any issues yet (well, except for some audio static/pops sometimes), but I see TFix put the following mods in mine. Is it okay to remark this whole line out, considering it also mentions something about "candles+mods"? Just double-checking to make sure The Black Parade doesn't need any of this:

Quote:

; these are normal mod paths which are applied after the active FM in the search order
;mod_path MyBowMod+.\TexturePack
mod_path usermods+mods\packfix+mods\candles+mods\EP\Thief1+NecroAge\Thief1+NecroAge+EP2\Thief1+EP2+mods+mods\t2skies+mods\EP+FMdml

Thanks!

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Quote Posted by Ramirez

Only just finished mission 1, amazing stuff so far.
The mission seemed to be very high contrast. The light sources are very bright and shadows very dark. It's causing me some eye strain. Is there anything I can adjust to get a more even balance? My monitor contrast is 50% and gamma is pretty low too, and brightness is 59%.

I had a similar problem, and couldn't get my monitor settings or in-game gamma settings to make shadows or shadow textures look good. Looked very high-contrast, blotchy, 800x600 or something. Difficult to see leading to eyestrain, as well, which I'd also never experienced with Thief before.

The true (big) cause of shadow issues was my nVidia Control Panel settings! I went to: "Display > Adjust desktop color settings", and bumped Brightness up to 60%, Contrast up to 52%, and Gamma to 1.14. That IMMEDIATELY made my shadows sooo much better; I could see details in the shadows much more easily and they weren't blotchy anymore. Your mileage will vary, but you really should try and see if it helps you.

I also adjusted the settings directly on my ancient Samsung LCD monitor: Cranked up the Backlight to 8 (out of 10), set Contrast to '100', and Brightness to '58'. (I set Brightness low enough to remove the luminous gray of LCD screen when viewing blacks/shadows.) Every monitor is different, of course, but this works well for me.

I may adjust these later depending on if I play during day, or at night, or as I play the game more. However, the in-game gamma controls (+ and - hotkeys while playing) probably now work well enough to at least allow me to effectively adjust for daytime vs. nighttime gaming.

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T2-Style Walk/Run in T1:
Also, if anyone wants T2-style run movement in T1 (where holding Shift key makes you go faster), you might try this. I recently got a new hard drive and had to do this again to play The Black Parade with controls I'm used to. Otherwise, I think T1/TGold defaults to running all the time, and it's a pain (or impossible?) to make the game work like T2 via the keybindings screen alone:

Quote:

1) Open with 'Notepad' your personal bindings (.bnd) file located in the install path of your Thief Gold game. (Mine was "cfg0006.nbd" located in "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\thief_gold\SAVES")
2) Add this line into the code, without quotes: "bind shift +runon"
3) Save the doc and close Notepad
4) Launch the game and go to the Customize Controls area
5) Remove/clear any bindings you have for "Run Forward"
6) Remove/clear any bindings you have for "Speed Toggle"
7) Bind the 'w' key to "Walk Forward"
8) Save bindings
9) Load mission and rejoice in having Thief 2-like walk/run controls!!

Source: (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150095&p=2454967&viewfull=1#post2454967)

Note: @Cigam has a quick tip that might work (posted right after the post linked to above). They said CAPS LOCK might work as a run default/walk default. I never tried that. I also never tried loading T2 keybinds into T1. Up to you what you wish to try :)

taffernicus on 12/12/2023 at 06:57

Quote Posted by nicked

Both those bugs are pretty standard dark engine AI/pathfinding bugs when you get missions of this size and complexity, not much can be done about it unfortunately.

i recollect encountering another minor bug at the abandoned space in warehouse or factory area in M3, i presume it's a dark-engine specific bug :
1. The huge spider leaped backwards few feet away when i shot it with broadhead arrow
2.The hammerite guard leapt forward an inch swiftly after getting stuck walking into electrical meter box

But i am unable to reproduce the bug again thus far, i dunno what conditions should be met to trigger that bug again

Inline Image:

https://i.imgur.com/0jiBeEA.png

Imic on 12/12/2023 at 11:38

This mod is good. Really good. I went into the first level thinking about how incredible the level was, how beautiful the design was, how expansive the world was, and came out of the second level shaking uncontrollably with less than half the mission's total loot in my pockets and with a newly acquired fear of the colour combination of red and green. I didn't think it was going to be that bad, but nothing could have adequately prepared me for the second mission. I don't usually replay games, but once I've finished the next eight levels I'm very tempted to give it a second go just to see what I missed. This is really, really good.

chk772 on 12/12/2023 at 13:36

Quote Posted by Komag

While I've loved the first two missions so far, the ultra high res signs like that do feel out of place. Mostly the custom stuff fits in well, but another example I'm not fond of is the very rounded open top grain sack I've see a couple times. Stuff like that is very minor to me though, doesn't lessen the overall thrill of this experience thus far!

TBH, I hardly noticed stuff like that, with the gamma set like I prefer it (pretty dark).

That's how you should play these games, right?

vfig on 12/12/2023 at 15:37

Quote Posted by MeisterdiebderEchte

in addition to my post, I have now witnessed some ongoing error messages in my thief.log-file that most likely correspond with the graphic issues. Don't want to paste the whole thing here since it's very long, but here is an excerpt:

Code:

FATAL: trying to set non-power-of-two sized texture in lgd3d (512x352)

this error in the log shows the problem. this is not your fault; this is not due to any mods you have installed; this is because a number of the textures in TBP are ill-sized. the dark engine (whether running under directx 6, or directx 9 with newdark) requires all textures on terrain and objects to be power of two sized in each dimension. for many players, their graphics driver does not strictly follow the directx spec and loads ill-sized textures anyway (as all modern hardware is capable of handling them), and so this issue often goes unnoticed even for fm authors and beta testers.

you might be able to resolve this by updating your graphics drivers, if it so happens that a newer driver is less strict about following the spec; but that is not particularly likely.

this really needs to be fixed by the TBP team, adjusting the problematic assets to the best power of two size. i did a quick scan to find how many texture files have this issue, and will pass that on to the team.

Azaran on 12/12/2023 at 15:47

This has the best hidden loot in FM history.
I'm scouring entire levels, and coming up 1000-1300 short.
I suspect there's some uber-hidden stash in each one, or some unually valuable object I'm missing, but damn, wtf

chk772 on 12/12/2023 at 16:09

Quote Posted by Azaran

I also think that the loot is too hard to find.

Generally, in most FMs. In 90% of the original games' missions, I got 100% loot.

Twist on 12/12/2023 at 16:38

Quote Posted by Darkness_Falls

Just double-checking to make sure The Black Parade doesn't need any of this:

You can rest assured The Black Parade doesn't need any of that. While they packed the campaign in a way that ignores those mods -- they should do nothing -- having them enabled can still, potentially, cause problems somewhere along the way. For playing The Black Parade, it would be best just to disable them all.

If you're using AngelLoader, it's super easy to disable mods for just this campaign without needing to enable them again for other FMs or the original game.

Regarding the binds: With NewDark, you can use the same user.bind for both Thief games. The only difference, of course, being the additional tools in T2. But the binds for those tools just won't do anything in T1 (aside from the mechanical eye), so you can leave them in there.

I have a similar setup for my movement in both games: I default to walking, then bind +runon to the front thumb button on my mouse and +creepon to the back thumb button.

Vortex85 on 12/12/2023 at 16:55

Finished TBP today on Expert and it was really, really great - 10/10 campaign! I am looking forward to trying again on different difficulties. Maybe a Normal playthrough finding the quickest way to complete each mission, and then a really thorough playthrough to find as much loot as I can - there was definitely a lot of loot that I missed on the first playthrough! Most of these missions have me itching to get back and try them again now that I am familiar with everything I can go in prepared!

Thanks to the team for making this! You did amazing work!