Renault on 25/9/2017 at 15:39
downwinder - How is your question relevant to this thread in the least? If you're going to ask insane and ridiculous questions, maybe you should start your own thread.
JarlFrank on 25/9/2017 at 17:44
I had ideas for FMs for a long time and thought "one day I'm going to build an FM". But the day I finally actually started to work on an FM was when the Newdark Novice Contest was announced early 2016. I learned Dromeding with the beginner tutorial, and then pumped out a small mission in a month... and I learned everything from scratch in that time! Shoes and Dresses was made in such a short time while I was still learning how to even use Dromed, so if you want to know what you can do as a beginner... just play that mission.
I had no level editor experience at all prior to that, so it's actually pretty easy to just jump into it.
downwinder on 25/9/2017 at 19:46
i just posted to make sure you not slacking :)
mxleader on 1/10/2017 at 08:00
I started with KOMAG's tutorial. Learning some shortcuts to resizing things and moving placed objects will make life much less frustrating and save loads of time. I picked some of the fan missions that had things I liked and deconstructed them to see how things worked. When that failed I got a lot of help in the tech forum. I seem to have a lot of trouble with keys and locks. Also, the most fun I had was making Christmas lights, an idea borrowed from Yandros. Also, I think ambient sound triggers gave me a lot of grief and is real art to apply so that the transitions are seamless. I also played about 400 fan missions before I attempted making my own. I think I'm getting excited to build another mission now.
qolelis on 1/10/2017 at 19:20
Like a few others I started with Komag's tutorial some 10+ years ago. I had looked at DromEd before, but Komag's introduction was what really got me started -- although it took a bit of time to finish it, because I always got sidetracked while klicking on everything to see what would happen. Then I sort of kept on klicking on everything until I had something playable. I worked on several missions at the same time, but only a few of them ever got released -- and now I'm sort of retired from DromEd, although I would want to do at least one more thing.
bbb on 7/10/2017 at 14:24
Around 2001, I came across Komag's site and thought I died and went to heaven. Started playing FM's. Then I got this crazy idea I could make an FM. Downloaded Komag's tutorial and finished the mission. Got frustrated, headaches and almost gave up multiple times but was able to finish. I was hooked.
Took the KOMAG tutorial mission and enhanced it. Eventually, it became my first mission- Lord Matt. My family played it (all Thief fans) and my wife said "you made this?"
Now 6 missions later, I have never stopped building although real life has gotten I the way, especially this year. I have. A rooftop mission 99% done and hope to start testing soon.
Finally, superb compliments to this community. I have never had an issue that someone here was not able to help me fix. Simply extraordinary.
Advice for brand new authors:
- think small for your first mission or you may not ever finish one
- build what you like. I add lots of loot in my missions because that is what I like
- use this community when you are stuck. There is a wealth of knowledge here
bbb
daniel on 7/10/2017 at 15:51
Man, we sure owe a lot to Komag! I had also used his tutorial several times, but I never made anything worth releasing, just a couple rooms to walk through with some guards that happily watched me pick a chest with 100 gold. :joke:
marbleman on 7/10/2017 at 17:36
Quote Posted by bbb
A rooftop mission 99% done and hope to start testing soon.
You just made my day :thumb:
zappenduster on 7/10/2017 at 17:57
I became Thief fan at the first moment when I taffed around in Bafford's manor after having installed that OM from a demo CD I found in 1998 in a computer magazine. Until today it's the only game I play, usually it is not the way to spent my free time but Garrett's world is an exception to the rule. Don't ask me why. ;)
BTW I tried to play Thief 3 one time but that concept didn't please me. I never tried Thief 4, I think it will be the same as Thief 3 and I guess it won't run on my computer anyway. Same for TDM, sorry ... :rolleyes:
To be honest, I discovered the possibility of playing and creating own fan missions by hazard, much much later somewhere in the web. I never asked myself before what dromed.exe and the other programs in the Thief directory were ment for. :cheeky:
As most of the authors I started with Komag's tutorial. Soon I started making the first steps by creating my FM, then, in 2008 I released my first FM
Garrett's Young Years which was later overworked and became part of a four mission XTra campaign. To me it is very important to have a story in mind before the FM construction begins. I like to refer to the OMs if possible since Garrett is not a character which is transferable in other haphasard worlds. :D
Well, I'm really not a talented architect but I always try to compensate that deficit by inventing a good and new story what is indeed not easy in view of the fact that there are meanwhile hundreds of FMs available. I always note ideas, scenes, dialogues and funny situations which are ment to be placed in the next FM. If the notebook contains enough gimmicks I start to build ... :idea:
So the three mission campaign
Reunion With Basso followed in 2012. Since then I noted several new ideas and even commenced constructing some VBR components but instead of finishing it I meanwhile translated several FMs which I liked very much into german and also translated by request some upcoming FMs into english and french. I also created and converted some (
http://meisterdieb.webs.com) objects and made some german voice acting as a welcome change. :)
But let's see if I will have time to continue building during the upcoming dark winter's evenings. I'm not a fanatic, I allow myself plenty of time ... :cool:
Cardia on 16/10/2017 at 22:12
I found a copy of thief 1 for sell in the books festival that took place in my high school, that was 2003 or 2004, when i played that game for the first time i felt a kind of magic and a pleasure i´ve never felt with other game, years later in 2006 i found the thief fan missions for t1 and t2, i got really excited with it, and in the moment i heard about this program called dromed i decided to give it a try and build something related to thief universe, i used Komag Tuturial to help me through with my first mission creation, and i admit it took me a lot of time to be able to handle with the basic actions, and back then my English was much poor than now, therefore i had many problems handling with dromed, and before there was no newdark which was even more problematic, since there were so many errors and crashes for little things. To be honest the only thing that led me to work with a 3d software such as dromed was the game Thief 1, my love for this game and also the thief 2 was so big that i wanted also so much to create something of the thief universe, as the years gone by i got also interested in producing other type of missions that do not fit necessarily in the Thief universe, it's been already 11 years i´ve been doing missions with dromed, and i plan to continue doing missions that fit the thief universe but also other alternative type of missions.