BadManiac on 20/2/2008 at 16:05
Just a general question, why are there so few missions released for T3? Unreal Editor is a pleasure working with (not tried the T3 one specifically, but I've made levels for both UT and UT2K4), so how come there aren't many people doing them?
As a side note, is anyone working on something actively? I've made several UT/UT2K4 levels years ago, but I'm terribly out of practice, altho I might be able to offload some work for someone at least, and learn while doing. I've not tried my hand at exteriors, so I'd rather steer clear of those for now. But interiors should be ok.
New Horizon on 20/2/2008 at 16:32
Quote Posted by BadManiac
Just a general question, why are there so few missions released for T3? Unreal Editor is a pleasure working with (not tried the T3 one specifically, but I've made levels for both UT and UT2K4), so how come there aren't many people doing them?
As a side note, is anyone working on something actively? I've made several UT/UT2K4 levels years ago, but I'm terribly out of practice, altho I might be able to offload some work for someone at least, and learn while doing. I've not tried my hand at exteriors, so I'd rather steer clear of those for now. But interiors should be ok.
It's a bit different from Unreal Ed. Scripting was ripped out...and assets have to be ported into the game with 3dmax 5.1 specifically. You can model them in whatever app you want, but then they would have to be exported.
MH.TheFreak on 20/2/2008 at 17:19
New Horizon, you bring it to point. :thumb:
Judith on 20/2/2008 at 17:46
Quote Posted by BadManiac
Just a general question, why are there so few missions released for T3? Unreal Editor is a pleasure working with (not tried the T3 one specifically, but I've made levels for both UT and UT2K4), so how come there aren't many people doing them?
As a side note, is anyone working on something actively? I've made several UT/UT2K4 levels years ago, but I'm terribly out of practice, altho I might be able to offload some work for someone at least, and learn while doing. I've not tried my hand at exteriors, so I'd rather steer clear of those for now. But interiors should be ok.
1. T3ed is pleasant to work with as well, the interface is the same as in Unreal Ed 3.0.
2. There's no unreal script, because it was replaced by dev's own system. It takes time to get used to it, but you can do almost everything with it :)
3. The approach is similar as in UT2004, but it's better to use as much static meshes as you can, instead of using brushes. You don't have texture/material library, you have to use 3dsmax with Ion Shader plugin to create your own materials. The limit is just the same as for other unreal 2.x engines - 4096 x 4096 textures. The main difference is that this engine supports per pixel lightning and normal mapping.
4. There aren't many T3eders because big nice levels with nice visual quality require 3dsmax 5.1 - not higher not lower version, which is hard to get these days. Besides, this community consist of dromeders, who always worked with tons of brushes, not static meshes. Instead learning T3ed they decided to make their own Dark Mod Thief-inspired, Doom3-modified engine, which would be more similar to their building habits.
5. Still there's lack of documentation on many things in this engine, which apparently has many secrets to discover. The community was greatly confused about what we can really do with Flesh engine (forgive me but I won't mention people more or less responsible for that situation, or we'll have another fight here..) and abandoned it almost completely. We have very small group of people actually doing anything right now. Let me mention those I remember: Ziemanskye, Nomad, Tiens, Flux, CrackedGear, Beleg Cúthalion, Flecha das Sombras, Abru and me :) Here;s my T3ed gallery: (
http://www.putfile.com/judith_one/albums)
BadManiac on 20/2/2008 at 17:55
So you HAVE to have 3DSMax to make anything at all? You can't start making levels by re-using meshes, brushes and textures from the original game content, like you do with the Unreal editor? And if so, is there a community made pack to use, seeing as I have logged all of NO hours and zero minutes in any 3D modelling package and have the artistic skill of a brick locked in an unpickable safe eaten by a pregnant hippo... I might have to give up before even trying if that's the case. :(
Judith on 20/2/2008 at 17:58
No, of course you can use OM's resources to create your own mission, without any external application. That's how most of the available T3 missions were made. It's good to make such mission for a start, after that you'd probably want to make something based on your own resources.
BadManiac on 20/2/2008 at 18:23
Plenty of stuff available in the original game. Like I said, having no artistic talent I've always had to rely on already available resources, that's not likely to change.
Thanks for your replies, nice to see the community is still so active. I've only just re-re-re discovered Thief, and re-re-re fallen in love ;) Just played the sunken citadel mission last night! :)
I've also managed, through no small feat of pure genious to get Thief Gold running on my dual core in XP SP2 with a GF8800GT on the 171.xx drivers :D I sortof prefer the more stealthy aproach of T3 tho, I never did agree with a thief carrying a longsword. :weird:
Judith on 20/2/2008 at 18:51
Quote:
Plenty of stuff available in the original game
True. besides, you don't have to create your own stuff to show something new. You can "paint" original static meshes with your own textures. If you need to create your own materials, just say it here, there are a few people with 3dsmax 5.1 who could do it for you, as long as you provide all the textures :)
Beleg Cúthalion on 20/2/2008 at 21:00
Please don't tell me I'm the only one who not only never used UnrealEd but neither any editor at all before T3Ed...?! :weird:
But to add my two cents from a beginner's perspective: (
http://www.shadowdarkkeep.com/) He-who-must-not-be-named (:p) wrote a tutorial that got me started after I realized that I had to build my own T3 mission if I wanted to play one. And with a lot of help from the frequenters around here I'm now on a level that I can at least build (the "appearance" of) a whole mission... which appears to me as the bigger half of what you have to do at all – means, it keeps you busy for a while.
Tools for making textures are basically for free. If you don't want to use (only) the higer-res textures made by John-P you can grab a dummy matlib made by str8g8 for about 100 textures with different properties (stone, grass etc.). He also offered his custom static meshes on his homepage and I'm bothering the guys around here to create a platform to share things like that for those who have no 3DMax Studio 5. So, long story short, it is no problem making TDS-like fanmissions with T3Ed and I think (and hope) that we can push the limits we see now a bit further. Respectively...they already have been pushed. We've seen bigger levels than the original ones, we've seen some rope arrows which are a thousand times better than no rope arrows (don't beat me for ignoring mathematics, but I liked them), I've seen scripted things in some FMs that really impressed me...and we even saw that TDS can look more modern (i.e. like Thief 1/2) for those who cannot leave (or expand) their original Thief impression.
Ah, and New Horizon still has a version of a tweaked T3EnhancEd which he
promised suggested to release soon. :sly:
Too much text with too few information I guess...
Judith on 20/2/2008 at 22:15
Beleg, I don't see the point in releasing the new version of T3Enh. It's incompatible with the vanilla T3game install and editor, so if you're making your own FM with those tools you can be sure that almost noone will play it.
Quote:
Please don't tell me I'm the only one who not only never used UnrealEd but neither any editor at all before T3Ed...?!
You don't know what you loose :) Actually, if we had what we have plus material editing options from UT2004... Man, those shaders and combiners look awsome even today. Not to mention what it would be like if we had terrain tool...
