What new features would you like for the next NewDark update (Suggestions)

Feel free to share suggestions of what would you like to have in the next NewDark updated(assuming we will have another update), i will later post your suggestion at the Thief French forum in the hope that Le Corbeau might see them and consider include them in the next updated .

Me, what i would like for the next newDark updated:

- Support more quantity of high-res textures
- Support 3d objects with more faces/polys
- Prevent the ambient musics from playing with highs and lows when moving around.
- Support longer music/sounds
- Possibility to render a large number of objects at the same time with being viewed
- Possibility to do more complex constructions (in a way to reduce chances of having errors/scene to complex)
- Add new Brushes shapes (if possible)
- Fix the problem with textures that have transparent parts(png textures) and that are not well rendered in game mode. (like trees, bushes, flowers...etc...)
- Increase the frame rate speed in scenes with lower performace

to my best knowledge;

- you already can replace all the vanilla textures that exist with hires textures, so we already are at 100%, and there is no more percent beyond 100 in this case
- the engine already supports objects with a lot of polys, and even oldDark did if memory serves, so this never was a problem, all you need to do is to actually create the objects
- no idea what you mean with the highs and lows
- pretty sure you can have really long audio if you want, but doing so is considered bad practice
- NewDark pushed this pretty high already if memory serves, again, if you are running out of objects than there is a pretty good chance you are doing it wrong
- I think someone here mentioned that the current (brush?) limit is suspiciously close to max a 32bit engine can do, so we are most likely already maxed here
- hard to tell whether new brush shapes are possible, and even if, is there really a demand for them?
- afaik, texture transparencies work properly as long as you don't mess your textures up, so if they are broken ingame, you did something wrong
- personal advice: if you don't want bad performance in places with bad performance, don't create places with bad performance by doing things that lead to bad performance

I might be wrong of course, but pretty sure someone will correct me if that's the case.

Objects can not have more than 2000 faces, that's weak that very few faces, what the hell! why do you seek to contradict every single request i make? everything i suggest is stupid for you? it seems you´re calling me idiot.
Wrong! transparent textures don't render well i tested through many objects ,even with transparency set to 0.00 or 1.00 the problem remains .
You can tell in other word that my suggestions are an insult to you, or you might tell me to go f..k myself and not waste my time here. it feels like everything i do here lately is taken negatively, and i´m not talking about myself only, i see that everywhere, people seek to see negativism in everything.

If anyone else feels like this topic is a waste of time and there's nothing else to improve for the next newdark updated tell me and i´ll deleted it. I´ll gladly deleted this to prevent it to become a place for people to see it with despise.

The Source code?

Cardia, voodoo47, you two need a room together, to, *ahem*, sort out your differences?

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Originally Posted by Chaos

The Source code?

Cardia, voodoo47, you two need a room together, to, *ahem*, sort out your differences?

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Lol , havia de ser bonito , só discussões...enfim

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Originally Posted by Cardia

Lol , havia de ser bonito , só discussões...enfim

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:cheeky:

no, I'm genuinely interested in all the potential technical problems, but the list from the first post is a bit too vague to see any clearly, and most of them seem more like results of bad practice (such as using BMP images, improperly formatting sound files etc). for example, I believe I have a pretty decent grasp on how the (flora) transparency stuff works, and I have been able to get things I wanted to do working by properly formatting and editing the textures, setting appropriate mtl flags and not doing stuff that I know will result in problems. to comment any further on the original issue, I would need to know more than "the textures don't render well".

it also looks like I may have been wrong about the obj poly count, though I'm very sure I have seen some pretty detailed objects floating around the SS2 mod scene.

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Originally Posted by voodoo47

no, I'm genuinely interested in all the potential technical problems, but the list from the first post is a bit too vague to see any clearly, and most of them seem more like results of bad practice (such as using BMP images, improperly formatting sound files etc). for example, I believe I have a pretty decent grasp on how the (flora) transparency stuff works, and I have been able to get things I wanted to do working by properly formatting and editing the textures, setting appropriate mtl flags and not doing stuff that I know will result in problems. to comment any further on the original issue, I would need to know more than "the textures don't render well".

it also looks like I may have been wrong about the obj poly count, though I'm very sure I have seen some pretty detailed objects floating around the SS2 mod scene.

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I agree on NOT using BMP's or improper sound files.

voodoo47 , sorry my extreme reaction back there, the suggestions i made are upgrades of things that are acceptable but that have yet limitations and that can still be upgraded (i think). Tomorrow morning i will explain here well detailed why i gave the suggestion above, some of issues they still have . Now it's too late and i feel sleepy... it's time for me to sleep, good night.

Can you make mirrors/mirrored floors in the current one (without using that old trick)? If not, that would be cool! :thumb:

Hi Vaughan what a surprise! Yes mirrors that reflect , that would be very welcome.

Voodoo47, as for the textures, sure you can use many hi-res textures up to 2048x2048 if your map is small, or using mtl. format allows you to have more hi-res textures, but personally i don't like the way how mtl. textures are displayed in game mode, they look crappy pardon me my language, but for big maps like the ones i have in my previous mission i was forced to reduce many hi-res textures resolution in order to run properly the mission and to avoid video mode changes or textures being displayed in a messy way, i had many textures in 1024x1024 and i had to reduce all of them to 512x512 except two, the skybox and the mountain texture, and i had to reduce many textures from 512x512 to 256x256 resolution.

Objects with 2000 faces is good but thay are still very low-poly, for example these trees pack are of low-poly:

https://free3d.com/3d-model/trees-sa...oly-83892.html

However each tree model has to many faces , i reduced their faces to 2100 faces each object seperatly and they looked messed up, whether the leafs or the trunks. There are many low-poly objects out there that have much more than 2000 faces. so if objects were to be accepted with 4000 or 6000 faces in dromed that would be ideal.

when i mention high and low it means that ambient music when played in game mode have slight fades in and fades out unless you remain still or always in movement, in that case the ambient music will always play in the same volume, and the fades are more noticeable in musics with beats. It would be great if this could be improved

sure you can have long musics up to 20 minutes or more ,but to have them play this length of time you have to reduce their quality around 2205 Hz or less, but only up to 5 or 6 minutes of music you can have a quality of 48000 Hz, either way you can't have a 30 minutes music, and for longer missions it would be amazing to have many musics playing.

For authors who like to have maps well detailed, like for example have a huge square filled with people, tables, trees...etc that would be a dream realized for some authors, to have all the objects rendered at the same time when all of them are being viewed in one perspective. someone could say it looks like an 3d object asset store, but in fact it looks more realistic, that's way recent games are very detailed regarding objects, they are filled with many objects, so they can look more realistic and rich in information.

the errors of complex scenes are very rare, but they still appear in some circumstances , why not allow constructions even more complex?

as for objects that use transparent parts, i used png,tga,pcx,gif, mtl format , i set different values in transparency in the object property and they still don't render well, for example in this bush pack:

https://opengameart.org/content/bushes

i tried to have all models to be render properly in game mode, but with no success , this has been discussed here and no solution was given so far.
However Sluggs tree pack work well in dromed , they are well rendered with no issues at all, i don't know how he did that, or even the tree models from thief they render well even if sometimes we have to set their transparency to 1.00

@Sluggs: There's a video for something like this
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post2314957
The author might post the mtl for this.

I agree that the object poly limit and the bin format isn't up to date any more.
Thief 1/2 are limited to a single CPU core. Multicore support, that's it.
I wonder if this could be improved. Well, wishes :)

Some Dromed and general utility features would be nice.

• The ability to resize and maximise the Dromed window as you can with modern desktop applications, rather than needing to mess with Window Size config options.
• A 3D render/preview of objects in the object hierarchy, which would remove any need for the T2 Object List utility.
• The ability to copy-paste to and from the command terminal, as well as being able to cycle through previously entered commands with the Up Arrow.
• A save prompt when you close Dromed (or try to load another mission) after having made changes to the mission you had open. A nice safeguard for the forgetful :D
• Fix for the skyhack flickering issue (visible in the void area of The Sword with NewDark).
• Dynamic light shadows. We know it's possible and it looks fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jrEgdbRmGA
• Removing that frustrating issue where Garrett 'lands' loudly on an object after mantling on top.
• Allowing use of the quickload keyboard shortcut in menus, plus preventing the player from quicksaving when Garrett is dead (I've seen people do this a lot, and done it myself a few times).
• More save slots?
• Support for high resolution, widescreen menus and cutscenes, not just upscaled 640x480. Not essential, but might be nice to have.

Will add more if I think of any!

The main thing that comes to mind is more room brush shapes. Considering how important proper sound propagation is in Thief, it is a little surprising that we get only simple blocks (/cuboids) for the room brushes while at the same time being able to build pretty complex shapes using the terrain brushes, shapes that don't lend themselves very well to being covered by blocks (without leakage, improper overlaps, "near-infinite" subdivision, etc...). Adding just a wedge-shaped room brush would probably make a big difference.

Exposing more engine features to give script authors even more control would be nice. Being able to crouch under water could also be nice: I've always found it a little odd that Garrett cannot enter the same spaces under water that he can over water (few people swim vertically, but, apparently, Garrett does, so allowing underwater crouching would compensate for this).

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Originally Posted by Cardia

What new features would you like for the next NewDark update (Suggestions)

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Translation: Make NewDark run my ridiculous vanity mission because I have no idea how to work within reasonable technical constraints.

well, that's why I was saying that a lot of that stuff sounds like a result of bad practice. basically, if something isn't working right, the reasonable thing to do first is to check whether one is not doing something wrong.

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Originally Posted by Tafferwocky

The ability to resize and maximise the Dromed window as you can with modern desktop applications, rather than needing to mess with Window Size config options.
The ability to copy-paste to and from the command terminal, as well as being able to cycle through previously entered commands with the Up Arrow.
Fix for the skyhack flickering issue (visible in the void area of The Sword with NewDark).

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- oof, you want dynamic resolution. while possible (Doom4 on the Switch is doing it to keep the framerate up, iirc), I don't think it's being used in any modern pc games, because it most likely is all sorts of pain and suffering.
- you can cycle previously used commands with tab.
- is that the thing where parts of the level are popping in and out if you build it with impossible geometry? I think there is a var for that.

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Originally Posted by voodoo47

- oof, you want dynamic resolution. while possible (Doom4 on the Switch is doing it to keep the framerate up, iirc), I don't think it's being used in any modern pc games, because it most likely is all sorts of pain and suffering.

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Not really dynamic resolution, just a resizeable editor window. I'm pretty sure other editors allow this, even if it might require a brief black screen in the 3D viewport as it reinitialises each time you resize it.

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Originally Posted by voodoo47

- you can cycle previously used commands with tab.

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Good to know! Still, copy-paste would be nice to have.

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Originally Posted by voodoo47

- is that the thing where parts of the level are popping in and out if you build it with impossible geometry? I think there is a var for that.

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Yeah, that's it. The config option indicates there's a compromise where the bug won't occur, but you'll also have less accurate rendering. Would be good not to have to choose.

Hi Cardia!

Reflective surfaces would be good for things like a solid sea (like in my Jetpack demo).

@Unna Oertdottir: I'll download that vid next week when I have more credit in my phone. Thanks. :-)

I would like to be able to make a larger air brush too, without errors, so a bigger world to work in would be nice! :cheeky:

PS. Would it be possible to use say, .obj files as well as/instead of .bin files? Would save a lot of messing around!

great suggestions Tafferwocky , i love the idea of Dynamic light shadows.

OpenGL 3.3 (or later) core profile renderer with order-independent transparency.

Just support for normal maps would be pretty awesome.

Anyone else got suggestions?

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Originally Posted by nicked

Just support for normal maps would be pretty awesome.

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I disagree. We'd end up with some textures having normal maps and others remaining as they are. We have the original textures, the Enhancement Pack, the NecroAge and the HD Mod, all with a huge number of textures. And that's before we also count the custom textures for terrain, objects and AI meshes. Who's going to make the normal maps? Will that person also go though the 'diffuse' textures and remove any excessive fake shadows? Those shadows are nice when a texture is perfectly flat, but combining them with a normal map would make the light and shadow look odd.

I think part of what attracts people making to Thief FMs is the relative simplicity, from the technical side. Support for normal maps would become an expectation, which might put people off making their own textures.

In other words, I think that ship has sailed. It left port in the mid 1990s.

I just mean as an optional extra. It would be a lot of extra work if a mission author wanted to include normal maps, but not really any different to any other new setting controlled by an MTL file. Things like reflective windows are complex enough that they're not in regular use in every mission, but they're there as an option if someone wants to go that extra mile.

I'm not sure it's even possible to have normal maps under DX6 (they were introduced in gaming in TDS era, so DX8.1). Still, they require new skills and prolong making content quite substantially, especially if you're a modeler (baking stuff). Specular textures are roughly in the same category. They are a bit easier to create, and they will up the quality of your materials a lot. Still, knowing how to make a good diffuse/normal/specular combo requires a lot of learning and practice.