The Thief Enhancement Pack

[Nameless Voice]

This project is an effort to improve the quality of the graphics in Thief 2: The Metal Age, and also in Thief: The Dark Project and Thief Gold.
The ultimate goal is to replace all the old, low-quality objects and textures from Thief 1 and 2 with versions that have higher polygon counts and texture resolutions, while keeping as close to the originals as possible.

The Enhancement Pack is compatible with Thief 2: The Metal Age, Thief: The Dark Project and Thief Gold.
Installation is a fairly straghtforward process; simply extract the archive to a working Thief install, and run the installation batch script.


This project would not have been possible without the contibutions, help, support and advice of the following individuals:
Vigil, Eshaktaar, Digital Nightfall, R Soul, Yandros, Wille, Targa, Schwaa, G'len, AssiDragon, Redface, DarkDragon, TheNightTerror, Nightwalker, Nicked, ZylonBane, Spitter, TF, Kolya, Ajare, Telliamed, Lady Rowena.

Download


Mirrors:
FileFront
South Quarter
Thief - The Circle
The Keep of Metal and Gold
RapidShare

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Will the EP cause custom resource-heavy FMs to crash?
A. No, it should not. The main potential problem here is Thief's palette limit (which is around 256 unique palettes), but I have taken great care to reduce the number of palettes used by the EP, so that it now uses -3 palettes (yes, that's a minus). To be a bit more specific, the EP uses 40 palettes, but overwrites textures from the original game that had used 43 palettes. While it is still theoretically possible for the EP to cause a crash, due to the combination of textures used in an FM, it is very unlikely.
I managed to successfully load all three maps of Calendra's Legacy with the EP installed without a crash - something that was quite impossible until I had optimised the EP's palettes so well.

Q. Will the EP interfere with the custom resources in existing FMs?
A. Probably. I've taken great care to avoid such issues, but there will still be some. Please remember that this is only the first release of the EP, and it has only had a brief testing period; if any compatibility problems with existing FMs are brought to my attention, I should, hopefully, be able to address them.

Q. Will the EP cause issues with future FMs?
A. Most probably not, but that will be the concern of the authors of those future FMs to make sure of.

Q. Will the EP override modified but not upgraded custom resources from FMs
A. Under most circumstances, no, but unfortunately there are a few exceptions, such as the new sword and flash bomb models.

Q. Does the EP work with Thief 1 / Gold as well as Thief 2?
A. Yes.

Q. Is the EP compatible with other upgrade packs, such as Daemonite's meshes for Thief 1?
A. Yes, though depending on how you install Daemonite's pack, the default Thief 2 sword model that it included may override the EP model. To solve this, merely delete the files ArmSw2.bin and ArmSw2.cal from the mesh folder. Alternatively, a better but more complex solution is to add Daemonite's pack as an extra resource path after the EP.

Q. Does the EP upgrade terrain textures?
A. No, only objects are affected. Due to the nature of the Dark Engine, making upgraded terrain textures is technically unfeasible, as it wold involve modifying every mission which uses them.

Q. I have multiple Thief installs, do I need to install the EP into every single one of them?
A. It's certainlny the easiest way to use the EP with all of your installs. You could, alternatively, manually modify your darkinst.cfg files to point to one central location for the EP.

Q. Is this the only release of the EP, or can we expect more at some point in the future?
A. It's too early to say right now. If anyone mentions improving any more objects to me in the next month or so, they can expect to be hit with a high-polygon but still very heavy hammer.


"We have grown, but there is still much to be done;
many that live in darkness who must be shown the way.
For it is the dawning of a new day."

[Lightningline]

Won't something like this cause some missions to crash ? For instance the readme for Lady Rowenas latest "7 Sisters" specifies that any custom texture packs must be removed and put in a safe place or it will surely crash. I mean missions like her's push the dark engine to the max already. Sounds great and thanks for the hard work but with more detailed missions comming out I do not want to install this if crashes are iminent. Just curious

[BrokenArts]

Installed, and ready to give this a look, thanks for all your hard work guys and gals. Much appreciated. This should be interesting.

[Nameless Voice]

Lady Rowena was just being cautious. I played The Seven Sisters with the EP installed without a single issue.
The main potential problem here is Thief's palette limit (which is around 256 unique palettes), but I've taken great care to reduce the number of palettes used by the EP, so that it now uses -3 palettes.
That is to say that, in ideal circumstances, it uses 3 palettes less than those objects would use if they were using the original Thief 2 artwork.

I haven't tested it in that many of the bigger FMs, so I can make no guarantees, but I just loaded all three parts of Calendra's Legacy - the closest mission I know to reaching the palette limit - without a crash.

Edit: Now I forgot to thank Lady Rowena in the credits for giving me that excellent idea for reducing the number of palettes!

[BrokenArts]

I just played a bit of the Seven Sisters, without a problem. Nice work, noticed the enhanced purple purse in my inventory, nice.

[Lightningline]

Could someone please post some comparison screenshots. I'm sorry here..I don't mean to be over critical but I really messed up my T2 install about a month ago with a beta and just don't want to have to do it again with all the extra crap like patches and custom scripts again. Thanks I dont like to use my T2 CD any more than I have to. Usually just for instalation.

[Lady Rowena]

Edit: Now I forgot to thank Lady Rowena in the credits for giving me that excellent idea for reducing the number of palettes!

Lol, the idea was yours. I was just complaining.......I have no merit, anyway you already mentioned me in the readme of that specific program.

[Digital Nightfall]

Lightningline, for the past several years the following thread has followed the progress of this patch. It's chock full of images comparing.

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97198

[shadows]

Sounds good to me. Thanks for the hard work put into this pack.

Could we have some mirrors for this as well?

[Nameless Voice]

Could someone please post some comparison screenshots. I'm sorry here..I don't mean to be over critical but I really messed up my T2 install about a month ago with a beta and just don't want to have to do it again with all the extra crap like patches and custom scripts again. Thanks I dont like to use my T2 CD any more than I have to. Usually just for instalation.

You do realise that you can just clone a Thief 2 install (with making a few minor changes to the darkinst.cfg), right? I haven't actually installed Thief 2 in years.

In any case, uninstalling the EP is a simple matter of deleting a single file, and, restoring one .cfg file which the installer backs up automatically (though the latter is not necessary if the EP file is removed).

There are numerous comparison screenshots in this thread. I wouldn't pay too much attention to any posts from before 2007, though. And don't worry, that apple didn't ship with the finished EP.

Edit: Added Thief - The Circle / Dennis Nixon mirror.

[jtr7]

Well, congratulations on reaching this milestone, NV!

[cardia1]

Great this sounds like good news, as soon as i get home wich will be only this endweekend i´ll test this new improvement graphics, hope it will speed up some fm´s gameplay, i´ve been playing the "7 sisters" and it runs well in my pc, i had fms were the gameplay was was being in low velocity like "Alan´s factory" wich is a great mission , but i´ll add more memory to my pc to fix that problem, anyway i´ll test this new Enhancement Pack with the "7 sisters" and will report the effects...by the way i´m loving alot this new 4 missions by Lady Rowena.

[Schwaa2]

Did you ship the tomato though
Ah, I'll never get tired of that joke, I am so pathetic.

Anyway NV, thanks for all the hard work, you've been at it for quite awhile.

And I back NV up on the pallette thing, he has compressed all the released stuff into 3 pallettes that's nothing. I have missions where my custom stuff alone probably uses 30+ pallettes before I learned to compress them (with NV's help) and they never crashed.

[Nameless Voice]

That was minus three palettes.

To be a bit more specific, the EP uses 40 palettes, but overwrites textures from the original game that had used 43 palettes.

[Undead Gamer]

Are future fm missions going to be affected that much with the enhancement pack installed

Edit: Just installed lord ashton series and man much better new textures and models

[Shadak]

Hey this is a great pack! It's also at http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com

[Schwaa2]

That was minus three palettes.

To be a bit more specific, the EP uses 40 palettes, but overwrites textures from the original game that had used 43 palettes.

Oh, well that's better see, 'cause I thought it was 43 +3

[nightshifter]

thanks nv, this is great!!

[Yandros]

\o/

Thanks for all the fantastic work, NV! I can't wait to finally see these new models in game!

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Holy crapola, its out! I wasn't expecting this to be done until some time next year! From what I followed, I thought there was still more objects to get straitened out. Guess I was wrong.. (or is a "patch" going to be released if more work is done on the pack?) One thing I must ask though, does it have any of the same textures used from the original enhancement pack, or are those redone too?

Anyways, thanks NV and everyone else involved! Gotta download now.


Nice picture above btw.

[Nameless Voice]

One thing I must ask though, does it have any of the same textures used from the original enhancement pack, or are those redone too?

A few, but not too many.

And the pack isn't 'finished' as such, and it probably never will be. A lot more models could be redone. There may well be more releases after this one.

[sterlino]

so... at the end you decided to release it ! well done Nameless...

[BrokenArts]

The improvements are great! That is not even truly expressing how it looks. Doing this breaths new life into thief, words cannot convey my thanks to everyone involved.

Wonderful!

[sterlino]

The improvements are great! That is not even truly expressing how it looks. Doing this breaths new life into thief, words cannot convey my thanks to everyone involved.

Wonderful!

I totally agree...... i just made a trip on my campaing with that pack installed : DAMN.. is really a great thing ! all is shiny and beautyfull !!

thanks Nameless you done an incredible job !

[theBlackman]

I have all three THIEF on my system. Do I need to install it in each, or just in one. IE. TDP, TGOLD, TMA each require an installation or can I just install it in TMA?

I'm also running No CD. Will that make a difference?