mcmike1489 on 3/5/2019 at 09:46
What are some good tips and ideas on where to start building a mansion/estate mission in Dromed? Rather than just putting random air brushes around the grid that could make it into a city instead. This is my first time making a fan mission on my own. I know how to place air and solid brushes around the grid and place objects. Just trying to figure out how to organize and structure it properly.
Renault on 3/5/2019 at 16:16
You'll potentially get dozens or hundreds of different opinions, but the best way is to learn from the original authors. Check out the OMs and see how they did it.
mcmike1489 on 3/5/2019 at 18:05
Oh ok, yeah It's better to see how the original authors built the original mansion/estate missions in the game. I'll have to figure something out.
mcmike1489 on 3/5/2019 at 19:33
I believe I already have the unstripped mission files in my Thief 1/Gold and Thief 2 root directories. It comes with the games itself. I tested it and it works just fine without any errors or crashes as Dromed 1.26 Final should. But thanks anyway.
Renault on 3/5/2019 at 19:52
The .mis files in your root directories are actually stripped, if you open them up in Dromed, you'll see there are no brushes. You can play the missions, but won't be able to inspect or edit the geometry.
I do think though that for either TG or T2, the unstripped versions might be on the 2nd disc under an /extras folder or something like that. In that case you'd have to copy them over to your PC manually.
mcmike1489 on 3/5/2019 at 19:55
Oh I see, thank you. I didn't know that. Or maybe I forgot. I'll download the stripped mission files then. Yeah, it's in the GOODIES folder in the Thief 1/Gold root directory.
PinkDot on 3/5/2019 at 22:07
The general approach for building mansion type levels is:
- large air brush(es) to carve out the space for entire level
- solid brushes to block out the main shape of the building
- air brushes for rooms / corridors / doors and windows as needed
- finer architectural details for things like staircases, detailed pillars, balconies etc.
This order of brushes is important as it affects the final complexity of generated world geometry, during portalization process.
You also want to start with higher grid settings (16) and gradually working towards lower ones (12 or 11 - never less than that) , to keep things manageable and prevent unnecessary details, causing performance issue or simply errors during portalization.
If you have some floor plans for your mansion, you can use the viewport background image feature of New Dark to have a visual reference for the size and layout right in the viewport. Do a search on this function for more details.
john9818a on 3/5/2019 at 22:46
IIRC the unstripped missions from T2 are in a folder called 'missions' on one of the disks. If you want to play them you will need to optimize, room brush and pathfind each one you use. I think all you need to do is run pathfinding but it wouldn't hurt to process everything.
One thing I started doing is I space my floors so that there are 12 dromed units between the floor of one story to the floor of the next story above. This allows steps that are .75 units to fit evenly as 12 is divisable by .75 16 times. This also allows for 10 unit high rooms and a reasonable space between first and second stories. A good stair step size is 1 unit deep by .75 high. Width can vary to however wide you want your stairs to be. This is just my suggestion but you can use whatever you like. :)
mcmike1489 on 4/5/2019 at 00:15
Cool, thanks! This is very helpful and also I want to build a fortress/castle as well since they do use the same similar setup. I'm a big fan of mansion/estate/fortress/castle/bank/museum missions that It's very addicting once I start to construct every detail of it. Wish me luck! As far for building a multiple story building in general for example a 3 story mansion. I have not learned how to build something like that yet, only a one-story structure.