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

[vfig]

It would be insanely great if we could use Squirrel (or something) to script Dromed. Even fairly limited scriptability would be transformative and open up vast new capabilities and ease of mapping.

The dromed command scripts have some uses, but they can't really be used to manipulate brush/object positions and properties in a programmatic way.

[Azaran]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd love better software mode emulation (currently replicated by changing "tex_filter_mode" to 0 in camext.cfg). The already fixed the lighting issues for it on one of the recent updates (for which I'm very thankful), but it would be nice to have a perfect replica.

I believe the main difference is that Newdark uses 32 bit colour, while 8 bit/256 colours were used in Old Dark - as a result, the latter has a grittier effect that I love. So maybe adding a 256 colour option?


NewDark



Old software mode:

[PinkDot]

It would be insanely great if we could use Squirrel (or something) to script Dromed. Even fairly limited scriptability would be transformative and open up vast new capabilities and ease of mapping.

The dromed command scripts have some uses, but they can't really be used to manipulate brush/object positions and properties in a programmatic way.

I second that. Python would be even better!

[gamophyte]

It would be insanely great if we could use Squirrel (or something) to script Dromed. Even fairly limited scriptability would be transformative and open up vast new capabilities and ease of mapping.

The dromed command scripts have some uses, but they can't really be used to manipulate brush/object positions and properties in a programmatic way.

Since 1.25

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthre...=1#post2352241

[PinkDot]

The request is about scripting inside the Dromed itself - not the scripts that run in the game engine. So, this would allow writing custom tools, that would automate all kind of tasks inside Dromed.

[gamophyte]

The request is about scripting inside the Dromed itself - not the scripts that run in the game engine. So, this would allow writing custom tools, that would automate all kind of tasks inside Dromed.

Ohhh gotcha, misread it, and was wondering what was going on lol. That would be nice.

[PinkDot]

I'd love to have some kind of a rudimentary facial expression system, based on idea of blend shapes (or morph targets, if you like).
Similarly to the half-finished Face Textures system, that somebody somehow made working - can't remember who it was now - but this time, we'd be able to blend between different meshes. So, for each character, you could have a few facial expressions like angry, smiling, surprised, sad and a couple more... And also one for mouth open (or different vowel shapes) and one for eyes closed.
This way, you could blend them together for effects like:
- emotion expression - confused, angry, raging for alert states, scared when fleeing, surprised when spotted a body etc..
- blinking
- eye closing on death/KO
- simple talking system, where mouth could open, based on the spoken lines (a function of a volume to control the open mouth strength)
- optionally a more sophisticated system would involve blending different shapes of mouth, based on a meta file for each wav (it could have emotional hints, for conversations etc..) - again that guy managed to generate some files for certain sound files (I think he made the archers conversation from the Life of Party, IIRC, but I might be wrong). In case of lack of the meta file, it would reverse to the simple system as above or none, in case of missing blend etc...

For each blendshape (morph target), a blending time could be defined in ms, but even if it switched instantly or the time would be hardcoded (like over 2-3 frames), that would be already an improvement (although with a risk of looking a bit funny)

Now - the most important thing - you may ask who and how could make high poly models with all these facial features? Well, there are software, that could do just that, like Character Creator 3. Or even a custom setup of blend shapes in a 3D app. Still, some work involved, but with a group effort, it's not impossible. The amount of life this feature would bring into Thief's AI could really prolong the life of this game and FMs for another long while.

[vfig]

I'd love to have some kind of a rudimentary facial expression system, based on idea of blend shapes (or morph targets, if you like).
Similarly to the half-finished Face Textures system, that somebody somehow made working - can't remember who it was now - but this time, we'd be able to blend between different meshes.

That "somebody" was me—the demo video, with links to the writeup and the .mis file in the description, is still up on youtube. And since ND 1.26 this should be fully usable for speech. That demo didn't explore it, but the Face Textures system also supports facial expressions (which can be used together with or independently from the mouth animations), with five possible expressions. It should be straightforward to use these from scripts.

So a great deal of what you are asking for can already be done in T2 with the existing Face Textures system. But as far as I know, nobody has expressed any interest in using either the mouth animations or the facial expressions parts in an fm. If you or anyone else actually wants to get this up and running, start a suitable thread for it and I'll be happy to provide technical info and scripting support.

[PinkDot]

Ah, thanks for revealing yourself!

I thought that was a really good job you've done there, and clearly Le Corbeau must have been impressed as well, as I remember the update he did shortly after in 1.26, that fixed a bug you had encountered.

So, yeah - what I'm asking for is kinda similar in a concept, except, that I'm interested in having a 3D modeled faces these days, rather than just a texture. And ideally if the shapes could blend, rather than switch, that would be really awesome.

[gamophyte]

I've always been a fan of that video. I think I recall you could plot out the images for your own custom voice sets too. But I can imagine it's a lot of work, for kind of being reminiscent of south park. That's no bash, it's super cool as is. If I were an artist I might try to make more convincing mouth shapes. Then again, some of my monsters don't really talk, might be interesting to implement them in BD, if I have time. Then again also you aren't right up on guards most of the time when you're avoiding them, and behind them when knocking out. At a distance it might be very immersive.

[Ascobol]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd love better software mode emulation.
I believe the main difference is that Newdark uses 32 bit colour, while 8 bit/256 colours were used in Old Dark - as a result, the latter has a grittier effect that I love. So maybe adding a 256 colour option?

Old software mode:

You are definitely not in the minority, I also want this and have heard people elsewhere mention that they want it.

[DirkBogan]

Others have mentioned this, but you can come much closer to achieving this look if you set "tex_filter_mode 0" in cam_ext.cfg.
In addition to 'looking more authentic', this also has the advantage of removing the obvious edges that filtering causes on badly aligned textures (compare the top and sides of the doorways):

Filtering ON:


Filtering OFF:

[Psych0sis]

Texture filtering off has been a godsend since I learned about it, I recommend it for those who want that very old nostalgic feel

[Azaran]

Yeah I know about text filter 0, but it uses 32 bit colour, while old software mode used 8 bit I think. See my comparison here.

Basically hoping for a 256 colour option to finally emulate the original perfectly

[vfig]

Slightly OT: I recently learned that you can run squirrel scripts in Dromed in editor mode, and Daraan made scripts specifically for this usage! But it's more like a hack than a reasonable option for editor scripting, as it has no concept of selection or terrain brushes and no good way of dealing with existing objects either.

Back on topic: in the absence of an editor scripting interface, something that would be of great practical use for me is a dromed console command to change the selected roombrush to belong to a concrete room (either by id or by name). Since I usually create roombrushes for the sake of sound and ai long before I figure out what concrete rooms I will need (combinations of script needs, eax settings, ambience zones, and automap zones), going one by one through the room brushes and the Create->expand concrete rooms, select one->Create workflow is very tiresome. It would be improved a lot if I could bind various concrete room ids to hotkeys to get rid of the need for the ui mousing.

[Sperry]

I'm not sure if this is at all possible, for a newdark patch or some other thing, but I'd think it could be great to get the Dark Engine beyond new linguistic barriers, such as discussed in these threads (Japanese, Korean, etc.):

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150585

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116613

[ZylonBane]

Yeah I know about text filter 0, but it uses 32 bit colour, while old software mode used 8 bit I think. See my comparison here.

Basically hoping for a 256 colour option to finally emulate the original perfectly

So write a shader to do it. NewDark added custom post-processing shader support in the last version I believe.

[vfig]

So write a shader to do it. NewDark added custom post-processing shader support in the last version I believe.

It did. Azaran: Check out sw_cc_notes.txt in the newdark distribution, and the example cc-dither16.fx shader which I think should already do what you are wanting.

[Azaran]

It did. Azaran: Check out sw_cc_notes.txt in the newdark distribution, and the example cc-dither16.fx shader which I think should already do what you are wanting.

Yeah I tried, those shaders don't work. I'll ask in the ND thread, maybe there's something I'm missing

[Azaran]

Not sure if this is possible, but it would be great to somehow have the available shaders listed in the video options in the game itself, so you can choose which rendering you want in-game

[trefoilknot]

Mesh colliders for objects!

[PinkDot]

Mesh colliders for objects!

+1

[Master of Dromed]

I want if possible 25000 total brush limit (with at least 15000 terrain brushes), 50000 cell limit, a much bigger pathfinding database limit.. I'm tired to hit the cursed dromed limits in everything i do..

[howeird]

Make FMSel with the look and feel of darkloader or one of the other loaders but still work with LInux. I always have to dig through the folder to find the 'read me' file. At the very least have it tell the user if it is a Thief or Thief 2 fm that is being loaded.

[skacky]

You can see mission's readme file in FMSel by right-clicking on it and hitting View Info File.


Also the easiest way to store FMs with it really is to have two separate folders, one for each game, and have the T1 FMSel point to the T1 folder and T2 FMSel point to the T2 folder.