Gondule on 10/12/2017 at 01:36
I remember the guy who created it gave shit to the guy who did a pretty damn good job up-resing the textures for Deus Ex. I think that Deus Ex was handled better when it came to whoever did the HD Texture pack for it. It definitely retained Ion Storms overall vision with minimal changes. Now I am certainly nit-picking. I would like to say some of the earlier levels in TDP/Gold are done pretty damn flawlessly. I understand this a volunteered project but still I wanna voice my opinion. But when you get to 'The Sword' you start to notice where one guy really fucked up. For example, I'm not sure if anyone remembers this area specifically but, I will list them in order.
Garden Area: There is a hidden nook with some fire arrows stashed there. In the original behind the Fire Arrows is a nonsensical window that looks out to the stars. What this guy failed to realize was that this is intentional. It is Looking Glass's way of foreshadowing that something is not right with this place. Yes I do realize there are more hints throughout the level for that notion but this subtle one is ruined completely because this guy decided to brick up the hole.
Moss Garden: So there is another area tied to the garden area where if you jump up you can get an extra Moss Arrow. In the HD version of this room it honestly looks like a fucking amateur made it. It looks absolutely shit. He added extra moss hanging from the platform and it looks really really bad. To elaborate it really bothers me how much hanging moss is in the room. The biggest issue I have with it is the visual noise it creates in a calm room and also how symmetrical the hanging moss texture is. It just conflicts with what moss should look like. The fact that it is essentially a square texture wrapped around the platform it just looks messy. Whereas in the original a majority of the Moss was on the walls and surrounding area. Adding "more" doesn't mean "better" and that is what this guy failed to realize here as well.
The Huge world area: So we all know the big moment in this level that is kind of the "WTF" moment. Overall I think it is handled pretty well here. However, once again some things just seem to be slapped together to just "Get it done" that is the vibe I feel. There are giant books with wood textures and metal textures on them. There is a ring that fell down the sink that instead of having it's original ring "look" it now has a stone texture wrapped on it. I mean again a lot of my problems boil down to these minute details. Call me "picky" but this matters to me because I am the type of person that really relishes every little detail in any Immersive Sim. So when I see this stuff it just naturally conflicts with what I know how it should be.
I also wanna say that even though I am pretty blunt and don't mince words I still just wanna provide feedback to this mod. The great thing about mods is that they can be edited and worked on in perpetuity so I just wanna have this be a record of my findings throughout my play-through. I saw that one of the devs mentioned that a lot of the textures they went with weren't necessarily what they'd personally pick. I also totally understand that it's hard to recreate what Looking Glass made one to one, IN HD. I get that and I still commend all the work put into the mod overall, I just wanna provide my feedback to what I noticed that I think should be handled differently. I have been noticing all these minor changes that gave original game "Creepy" "Atmospheric" and "Mysterious" vibes. A lot of the stone faces on walls throughout many levels have a basic Lion face on them Copy/Pasted in the HD Texture Pack. Whereas in the original version they have creepy faces on them.
Nightwalker on 10/12/2017 at 02:51
I don't really see the point of this post. It's an optional pack that you can uninstall if you don't like it. Personally, I prefer the original but that's not to say others agree.
Nameless Voice on 10/12/2017 at 03:24
The HD texture pack is a reinterpretation, it was never aimed as a minimal-changes replacement.
You want the Thief Enhancement Pack 2 for that, but it doesn't replace as many of the textures as the other packages.
Gondule on 10/12/2017 at 04:02
Quote Posted by Nightwalker
I don't really see the point of this post. It's an optional pack that you can uninstall if you don't like it. Personally, I prefer the original but that's not to say others agree.
The point of this post is to provide criticism to whoever made this HD pack. I chose the most offending occurrences I encountered in my play-through. I could've listed more but I didn't want a huge post. I can have a differing opinion and voice it, it is my right as a consumer and a fan of Looking Glasses games.
Corsair on 10/12/2017 at 05:02
9 threads down from yours is the one for this HD mod. You could post in that instead of making a whole new thread for it.
Yandros on 10/12/2017 at 06:07
1. You're free to voice your opinion, but you broke a few forum rules in the process (language and starting a new thread instead of posting in the existing one).
2. If you're going to go to so much trouble to criticize "the guy who made it" you might want to at least refer to Gecko by his name. I personally find your post rude and disrespectful. You could have raised all your points and criticisms in a more constructive way.
3. Your criticism isn't constructive or particularly well-reasoned, you mostly just say that this thing or that thing looks like ^#*$, or that it changed the intent of LGS. Quite an assumption to make that you understood their intentions. And as NV said, this pack was never intended to be a faithful reproduction of the original textures; Gecko did it himself and took artistic license where he chose to. If you don't like it, uninstall it.
4. It's "Looking Glass", not "Looking Glasses". Hard to take your post seriously.
P.S. Nightwalker, you missed one F word. Thanks Russ! Got it now.
voodoo47 on 10/12/2017 at 10:20
Quote Posted by Gondule
In the original behind the Fire Arrows is a nonsensical window that looks out to the stars... ruined completely because this guy decided to brick up the hole.
I did that - technical reasons. might bring it back should they get resolved.
also, not every thing is an intentional display of sheer awesomeness - some are anomalies, discrepancies, or outright bugs. remember, the original devs were still just people, trying to meet deadlines, working late hours, and using crummy tools.
and as mentioned, we have a bunch of options available here, so if you are unsatisfied with the artistic direction of hdmod, you can try out other packs, like EP2 or NecroAge. or TFix light, if Constantine's starry hole is your thing.
DarkThief Darek on 10/12/2017 at 18:35
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
You want the Thief Enhancement Pack 2 for that, but it doesn't replace as many of the textures as the other packages.
Just some quick question on that: Why is after all those years the EP2 pack not completed? Is there not enough demand for it and are the missing textures still the original textures?
Usually I still like the original low res textures, but it would be cool to see Thief with high res textures that are 100% faithful to the original textures. :)
But I guess it's a pretty difficult job.
Nameless Voice on 10/12/2017 at 19:07
The missing textures will just use the original textures.
Textures are missing because it was a community project where people contributed the textures that they'd made and I gathered them together. I am not a particularly skilled 2D artist, and making replacements with the necessary quality myself was mostly beyond my skill. I was also very picky about what would work as a replacement. I wouldn't just put in a random texture to replace an original with no other replacement. I'd rather keep the original low-fi texture than replace it with something that looks too different.
You (or anyone else) is free to submit high-quality true-to-original replacements for any of the missing textures and I'll happily include them.
The relevant thread is (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140187) here.
