jay pettitt on 25/2/2005 at 03:56
I've got a simple job planned for just as soon as thief3editorrelease_jan2005.zip has finished crawling down my phone line. (by some time next a week at this rate)
I thought I'd gather a few taffers together and have a go at recreating the Bafford's mission from Thief 1, document the process right here in this thread and hopefully throw a few tutorials together on the back of it.
Obviously the level design is, for the most part, done. Meaning that it will be possible to get straight down to learning and using the editor. Some changes will be needed to allow for the lack of swimmable water, and perhaps a few other issues that might arise. But hopefully nothing too heinous.
Its a large mission - so I'd be looking for a team effort if anyone is up for it. I'll welcome contributions from anyone - no need for previous experience. It's all about the learning...
I'd guess that the best approach would be to split the level into chunks. With each willing volunteer taking on one such area before stitching the chunks back together later. Perhaps preparing and distributing a rough mock-up of the basic geometry first - so the chunks will hopefully fit together seamlessly at the end.
If you're interested in taking part or have suggestions - post here... :)
deadman on 25/2/2005 at 04:59
You should definitely get a hold of Dario if he's around. That guy's done some bee-you-tea-full looking stuff in Unreal and obviously shouldn't have as much as a learning curve as us vanilla taffers right off the boat. This is a great idea though, other than doing what worked for DromEd, opening up the OMs and 'having a look' and trying to deduce what was done from there.
Is Dario still working on Faceless? ;)
deadman.
scumble on 25/2/2005 at 10:04
It's not a bad idea jay. Theoretically, modular construction isn't a problem, given that you can assemble a number of static meshes. The difficult bit would be ensuring all the measurements were correct, and figuring out the best way to "modularise" the design.
I'm not sure whether it's better to make large chunks in a modeling program or smaller building blocks.
sparhawk on 25/2/2005 at 10:08
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Some changes will be needed to allow for the lack of swimmable water, and perhaps a few other issues that might arise.
In this map it shouldn't be so much of a problem. You can easily put a ladder into the well where you enter the water, and instead of all the water it will just be a sewer system. IMO that's just as realistic and doesn't hurt the gameplay design much.
LordK2002 on 25/2/2005 at 12:03
Quote Posted by scumble
It's not a bad idea jay. Theoretically, modular construction isn't a problem, given that you can assemble a number of static meshes. The difficult bit would be ensuring all the measurements were correct, and figuring out the best way to "modularise" the design.
I'm not sure whether it's better to make large chunks in a modeling program or smaller building blocks.
How about using Load Zones? :joke:
jay pettitt on 25/2/2005 at 14:34
I'm going have to do a smallish experiment or three with the modular construction to see what's possible and what isn't. I seem to remember that is was fairly easy to import geometry, but not so obvious how to import other content. Unless someone has some experience doing something similar with unreal ed and can offer some advice...
Quote Posted by sparhawk
You can easily put a ladder into the well where you enter the water, and instead of all the water it will just be a sewer system.
I was thinking much the same thing spars - or perhaps having a load zone half way down the well to jump into. The 'jump' was quite a cool moment. That said; I'm sure one could add a little extra interest to make a long descent down a ladder into a cool moment too.
Perhaps more interesting is the swimming pool in the courtyard. It provided fool hardy taffers with a useful short cut/escape route from the top floor to the ground floor exit. Perhaps a giant statue or other piece of architecture leap onto and clamber down instead?
goldwolf on 25/2/2005 at 14:35
A great idea and one of the first things that came to my mind when I heard the editor had been released. I`d love to help but I`m a lowly artist and my map building skills are non-existant, but you do have my support :thumb:
sparhawk on 25/2/2005 at 14:45
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
I was thinking much the same thing spars - or perhaps having a load zone half way down the well to jump into. The 'jump' was quite a cool moment. That said; I'm sure one could add a little extra interest to make a long descent down a ladder into a cool moment too.
Well, that probably wouldn'have to be THAT deep and the sewer system could be used to go further down afterwards bending downwards. Jumping into a loadzone would solve one "problem" that you couldn't do in the original level. You can't get back up just like in Baffords, so that might even be better if you want to simulate the map in those areas where TDS falls short for the conversion.
Quote:
Perhaps more interesting is the swimming pool in the courtyard. It provided fool hardy taffers with a useful short cut/escape route from the top floor to the ground floor exit. Perhaps a giant statue or other piece of architecture leap onto and clamber down instead?
Don't remember that pool. Where was that?
jay pettitt on 25/2/2005 at 14:55
Bafford's had a courtyard in the centre of the mansion. There was a pool deep enough to dive into from the top floor for a quick exit - if you were feeling brave. Quite a few of the missions in T1 had an alternate watery escape route.
still got 22hrs of download to go for thief3ed :( so...
I just had a play with UnrealEd 3.0 that shipped with UT2k3 and found that chunks of levels - including geometry, textures, meshes and actors can be readily imported, exported and stitched together using the t3d file format and the import... and export... options in the file menu. Huzzah. Hopefully this feature is intact with thief3ed. Of course there will still need to be some coordination to ensure that level geometry matches up between chunks.
Antero90 on 25/2/2005 at 16:38
This is just an idea but someone ported Bafords to ThieveryUt a while ago.
Thievery is based on the unreal 1 engine but maybe you can export the geometry of the Thievery level.
I believe there is an option for that, at least in ued 2.
