mikjames on 11/1/2024 at 18:09
Oh, that's dissapointing, but understandable.
Did I mention purists :rolleyes:
Excellent work on the campaign though, incredible verticality I haven't experienced since Styx 1/2.
I mean, I suppose I can just upscale the textures, then replace most of them with HD mod textures, a few ini edits, and we're good to go!
Won't be releasing it to the public of course, but I know my rights Monsieur! I can edit me own files.
Sorry no disrespect. I just always find it funny when people oppose something that doesn't effect them in any way. Like is it just the thrill of control or...?
It's not like the high res crowd is threatening to take away your 16 bit glory days.
ZylonBane on 11/1/2024 at 18:45
Quote Posted by mikjames
I'm not one to have a huge problem with blurry textures, but the way they're done here where I can see the individual pixels (no blending at all)
Literally false, unless you've disabled lightmap filtering in the config file.
mikjames on 11/1/2024 at 18:47
Fine, maybe there is blending but I can still count the pixels so... Maybe the blending can't do much for a 64x64 texture.
Twist on 13/1/2024 at 19:37
Quote Posted by mikjames
Sorry no disrespect. I just always find it funny when people oppose something that doesn't effect them in any way. Like is it just the thrill of control or...?
I should probably leave this alone, but OUCH... "no disrespect?"
That's
immensely disrespectful. They spent 7 years of unpaid time and effort meticulously designing and polishing a very specific atmosphere and aesthetic and you somehow actually feel
righteous about wanting to piss all over their vision. :eww:
But you just don't seem to get it, do you? It's not about nostalgia or being a purist. It's about a specific aesthetic, atmosphere and art direction. And it's about respecting people working their asses off on their own time to create cool new experiences for us all.
The problem with the HD Mod isn't detail or fidelity. It's that it greatly alters the original art direction, and many around here feel its own unique art direction would best be described by Nigel Tufnel pointing at the screen, "It goes to 11!"
In addition, when an FM isn't very specifically designed with those textures, objects and visual effects in mind, it can create outright bugs or at least create incongruous areas where textures or objects clash terribly, either in aesthetic or level of detail. This has become an immense headache for authors.
If you like that aesthetic for the OMs, hey, you do you. But demanding people make their FMs compatible with it is just ignorant and insulting.
mikjames on 14/1/2024 at 15:54
Quote Posted by Twist
I should probably leave this alone, but OUCH... "no disrespect?"
That's
immensely disrespectful. They spent 7 years of unpaid time and effort meticulously designing and polishing a very specific atmosphere and aesthetic and you somehow actually feel
righteous about wanting to piss all over their vision. :eww:
But you just don't seem to get it, do you? It's not about nostalgia or being a purist. It's about a specific aesthetic, atmosphere and art direction. And it's about respecting people working their asses off on their own time to create cool new experiences for us all.
The problem with the HD Mod isn't detail or fidelity. It's that it greatly alters the original art direction, and many around here feel its own unique art direction would best be described by Nigel Tufnel pointing at the screen, "It goes to 11!"
In addition, when an FM isn't very specifically designed with those textures, objects and visual effects in mind, it can create outright bugs or at least create incongruous areas where textures or objects clash terribly, either in aesthetic or level of detail. This has become an immense headache for authors.
If you like that aesthetic for the OMs, hey, you do you. But demanding people make their FMs compatible with it is just ignorant and insulting.
Lol, calm down kid, I enjoyed the campaign as well for what it is, I just prefer higher resolution textures in 2024.
I can take issue with not allowing other community members to alter their "vision" out of spite/ego, while still enjoying the art for what it is.
Of course this is also a fellow artist's perspective. I'd be personally insulted if I put out a piece of music and it didn't inspire other artists to do cool stuff with it.
Or in other words, I don't really take ownership of the art in that way. Unless someone is blatantly ripping me off for personal profit, it doesn't matter to me how people want to enjoy the art.
Thinking Robot on 14/1/2024 at 16:04
I mean, if I wanted to play The Black Parade with higher resolution, I just could use the textures from Enhancement Pack 2 (EP2.zip) If I replace all contents of all fam folders with their EP2 texture counterparts it should work, right? This may require creating a backup of the Black Parade subfolder and may take an hour. All custom objects and textures will be untouched. Or will it mess up the whole campaign?
mikjames on 14/1/2024 at 16:27
Quote Posted by Thinking Robot
I mean, if I wanted to play The Black Parade with higher resolution, I just could use the textures from Enhancement Pack 2 (EP2.zip) If I replace all contents of all fam folders with their EP2 texture counterparts it
should work, right? This may require creating a backup of the Black Parade subfolder and may take an hour. All custom objects and textures will be untouched. Or will it mess up the whole campaign?
Well yeah in theory, but then you get a clash of low vs high res. What you want to do is comb through the textures individually, and only keep the custom textures that are absolutely necessary.
These would be textures that convey information to the player (think there were a few custom message boards), or textures that add a unique flavor (like the custom sun set textures).
Then you can run those custom textures through an ai upscaler. Then you just sort of mix em all together and hope nothing is still low res enough to stand out.
Though the difference in texture res between TBP and HDMod is so massive they'd have potentially needed to make everything from scratch anyways.
That's why this sort of gate keeping doesn't sit well with me. I'm not sure the creator of HDMod ever thought they needed "permission" to modify a mod, so it's possible they had already started a lot of good work that is now a waste of time.
mikjames on 14/1/2024 at 16:35
Also keep in mind that creative "vision" is meant to be experienced via a CRT.
I'm not parking my old bones in a computer chair these days for long gaming sessions with Thief.
I'm also not installing a CRT front projector when I have a perfectly good OLED.
OLED doesn't behave like a CRT, it needs those fine details in the darkness to avoid looking like an inky mess, whereas a CRT will just blend it all together naturally in a way that looks pleasing to the eye.
So I'm already failing to engage with the "vision" the way it was intended, what difference do textures make at this point?
CRT is dying btw, electronics techs in my area just don't want to work on them anymore.
So if people can't get CRT's anymore, how are they supposed to experience this gate kept "vision"?
Much the same as a functional society is built, it's usually better to just let people do what they want when aren't harming anyone...
Thinking Robot on 14/1/2024 at 17:18
Mikjames, I know what you mean. EP2 is still incomplete but pretty good at this point. It doesn´t only update textures but also updates 3d models the game uses for loot, diverse objects and even enemy AI characters.
Recently I found out marble and metal surfaces also reflect light, which looks absolutely beautiful on my new Laptop, running on WIndows 11.
Right now EP2 looks like a mashup of default Thief textures (only a handful) and enhanced textures (mostly). So it wouldn´t mind me if I had a mashup of textures - even if TBP seems to use a lot of custom low-res textures.
To support EP2 most FM´s dont´t come with their own fam or mesh folders, so the game uses the standard textures defined by the mod paths in your cam_mod.ini. Plus it also reduces file size significantly.
Dear authors, please don´t take it in the wrong way, the Black Parade is by far one of the best fan mission ever created and I am really amazed how you pulled this off. Despite this, many players really wish to play it with higer resolution, or at least EP2 objects and textures.
marbleman on 14/1/2024 at 17:58
Quote Posted by mikjames
Also keep in mind that creative "vision" is meant to be experienced via a CRT.
Where did you get this from?