TTLG|Jukebox|Thief|Bioshock|System Shock|Deus Ex|Mobile
Page 1 of 18 1234561116 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 445

Thread: The Thief Enhancement Pack

  1. #1
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland

    The Thief Enhancement Pack



    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 contributions, 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:
    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. <s>Due to the nature of the Dark Engine, making upgraded terrain textures is technically infeasible, as it would involve modifying every mission which uses them.</s> However, there are plans for an updated EP that will include terrain textures, as recent developments have made terrain texture replacement feasible.

    Q. I have multiple Thief installs, do I need to install the EP into every single one of them?
    A. It's certainly 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. A new release of the EP with higher resolution textures, including terrain textures, is planned.


    "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."
    Last edited by Nameless Voice; 5th Nov 2011 at 17:07.

  2. #2
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2001
    Location: Southern Tier NY, USA
    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
    Last edited by Lightningline; 31st Dec 2007 at 20:11.

  3. #3
    Member
    Registered: Aug 2001
    Location: LM's Dungeon
    Installed, and ready to give this a look, thanks for all your hard work guys and gals. Much appreciated. This should be interesting.

  4. #4
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    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!
    Last edited by Nameless Voice; 31st Dec 2007 at 20:36.

  5. #5
    Member
    Registered: Aug 2001
    Location: LM's Dungeon
    I just played a bit of the Seven Sisters, without a problem. Nice work, noticed the enhanced purple purse in my inventory, nice.

  6. #6
    Member
    Registered: Dec 2001
    Location: Southern Tier NY, USA
    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.

  7. #7
    d. 30.4.16 Always remembered
    Registered: Apr 2002
    Location: in our hearts
    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.

  8. #8
    she/her ⚧
    Registered: Dec 1998
    Location: Lyon
    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

  9. #9
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2003
    Sounds good to me. Thanks for the hard work put into this pack.

    Could we have some mirrors for this as well?

  10. #10
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    Quote Originally Posted by Lightningline View Post
    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.

  11. #11
    jtr7
    Guest
    Well, congratulations on reaching this milestone, NV!

  12. #12
    Member
    Registered: Aug 2006
    Location: France (Lille)

    downloading now

    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.

  13. #13
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2002
    Location: ColoRADo
    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.

  14. #14
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    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.

  15. #15
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2004
    Location: Australia
    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
    Last edited by Undead Gamer; 31st Dec 2007 at 21:34.

  16. #16
    Member
    Registered: Jul 2007
    Location: USA
    Hey this is a great pack! It's also at http://www.keepofmetalandgold.com

  17. #17
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2002
    Location: ColoRADo
    Quote Originally Posted by Nameless Voice View Post
    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

  18. #18
    Member
    Registered: Aug 2004
    Location: netherlands
    thanks nv, this is great!!

  19. #19
    Desperately Dodgy Moderator
    Registered: Nov 2001
    Location: Bohn Museum
    \o/

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

  20. #20
    Member
    Registered: Nov 2003
    Location: Thief fan since ca. 1999
    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.

  21. #21
    Member
    Registered: Mar 2001
    Location: Ireland
    Quote Originally Posted by sNeaksieGarrett View Post
    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.

  22. #22
    Member
    Registered: May 2001
    Location: Italy
    so... at the end you decided to release it ! well done Nameless...

  23. #23
    Member
    Registered: Aug 2001
    Location: LM's Dungeon
    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!

  24. #24
    Member
    Registered: May 2001
    Location: Italy
    Quote Originally Posted by BrokenArts View Post
    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 !

  25. #25
    1937-2018
    Gone, but not forgotten

    Registered: Jan 2001
    Location: Seaside, Oregon
    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?

Page 1 of 18 1234561116 ... LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •