New T2 Mission! Actually its The Great Tree in T2, hehe

[Komag]

Okay, I've spend a couple weeks converting The Great Tree over to Thief 2, with new textures and some tweaking here and there (didn't change any actual designs), so:

HERE IT IS

Also, to commemorate this release, I've uploaded a movie I made playing the old T1G version using only 1 rope arrow, which you can watch (over 150meg! Not for 56k'ers):

(removed link - available on FMDVD #2 from now on)

Here are some screenshot comparisons between the old version and the new one:

















There are still plenty of places you can get stuck, and there is still the occasional rope arrow bug that send you flying to your death, so quick-save often!

[Yandros]

Woohoo! I loved the original and can't wait to play this new version... thanks Komag!

[john9818a]

I just downloaded it Komag.

[Sluggs]

Ditto.

[Morrgan]

To my shame I have to admit I never got further than the first rope-arrowing in the T1 version, and that was certainly not because of lack of effort. I guess I'm just not vertically inclined... That's always bothered me for some reason, so I'll be sure to download the T2 version and give it another try!

[Garrett]

yeah, cool mission. Im downloading it.

[The Mike]

Wierd, last night I saw the "Spider Caves" post and was thinking "Man, I would have preferred a Great Tree port..." Speak of the devil!
But yeah, downloading!

[*Zaccheus*]

I've always wanted to play one of your FMs !

[Belthazor]

I can't wait to try this out, it looks awesome!

[deadman]

Whoa... Adjust the levels on those screens, Komag . Or maybe you were ashamed and wanted to hide the detail . Must see that video, now..

EDIT (after 'reviewing' the video): Question: do you always shake your mouse at enemies you've taken down or incapacitated, Komag? If so...... *bursts out laughing* Err, well, no comment, actually.. Wouldn't want to make any enemies Funny, though.

deadman.

[Komag]

I DID spend time adjusting the screens to a good brightness to my monitor, but I've gotten reports from a few that they remain too dark - I'm estimating around 20-30% of you can't see them very well, due to your monitor brightness/contrast being turned much lower than mine I suppose

[deadman]

Well, speaking for myself, my brightness is at 50%, while my contrast has remained at 100% for a while. I also use Adobe Gamma's monitor calibration, which obviously isn't as good as a colorimeter, but it's better than nothing. Also, I've noticed many a time that screens will appear darker in IE (or Opera, in this case) than in Photoshop or an image viewer. Don't exactly know why except to say each uses it's own method (let's say, color profile, though that would be an incorrect term) of interpreting an image. I still don't think only 20-30% can't view them with all the detail.. If only for the fact that I do use Adobe's resident gamma correction utility.. Or maybe you think that's the problem?

How exactly did you fine-tune them? I'd suggest just opening 'em up in Photoshop and playing with the middle slider in Levels (Gamma adjustment). I've noticed this seems to produce better-looking results than dragging the right slider (white point) to the left, even if there isn't any information at 255. Also, another trick would be to duplicate the layer once, set it's blending mode to Screen, and repeat until you have a much brighter image, though this admittedly will over-process lighter areas after a while. But if you really wanted to fine-tune it from that stage and thought some areas still needed work, I'd simply mask out (you can use the eraser, since you're working with multiple copies) any really bright areas and repeat the process of copying..

I know glare can be partly at fault for myself (horrible light shining in from the window, washing out detail and forcing me to compensate by really pumping up the gamma while playing), though they are dark even without it interfering..

deadman.

EDIT: Here are the first two with simple Levels editing (middle slider) in Photoshop. Give or take a bit, these show much better detail on my setup:





Idea: we should start a thread where someone posts an uncorrected capture and we each correct it to something that looks good on our monitor. We then compare and let others vote on which looks best for them. It'll give a better idea of how to correct so the majority see them well, assuming one gets more votes than others .

[MrMunkeepants]

Unlike most of the posters here, I'm not having trouble with the pics - I'm having trouble with the mission! I can't get off the ground I've searched for a guide, or hints, but can't find anything helpful. Can someone give me a clue or seven?

[jiansonz]

I´ve only played the first version and I gave up shortly after taking out the first bugbeast. I think I will try again now that there will be much less "rope-rocketing".

[Komag]

I made them somewhat brighter now...

[Dario]

Originally posted by deadman
EDIT (after 'reviewing' the video):deadman.

Ahem,* uh, what, what video are you talking about here?

[Komag]

as noted in the first thread, I removed the video link but it's still on FMDVD 2

[The Fire Eater]

Thought I had played the Original but find that this game looks completely foreign to me so don't think I did play it earlier. However, I'm now playing this and I cannot find any fruit anywhere so far? I don't understand it as I've traveled around a bit and not seen even one?

It was very hard for me to get a start on this map too, kept getting killed for one reason or another, but with a little enginuity, flash bombs and using the hopping froggies to help dispel some of the spiders (still took damage though LOL) and got up in the tree with having used all my three potions and with 6 (I think or 5) health points I started to climb. Seeing tree beasts, etc. I managed to get around them without incident and got into a tree house. Now this has me a bit confused...not sure if I got into lower or upper house? I think it might be upper but if not then I haven't found that one yet. It's the one that had the escape route in it and I went down to see what I could see. The objective has clicked off...but of course I couldn't open the gate or whatever and of course didn't have the other two objectives I guess finding the one "pickpocket" is the key? Or maybe that's that silly one extra pickpocket that's a bug from the original series?

Anyway, which house did I find for sure? Is the other one where I have to encounter the tree beasts then? Where are these darn fruits to be found...do they look like the usual fruits we find for health restore? Plus, I don't have the foggiest idea where this super health fruit pathway is...so many branches, so many dead ends etc.

And what purpose does tripping that scope do for ya, anything? I dunno, mainly I guess I'm disgruntled at not finding at least "one" fruit by now I even climbed on the very top roof of the house I found and nothing there either, except I saw another mushroom light even higher up somewhere but didn't see any forseeable way to get there from where I was. I did finally manage to dispose the "Haunt" but on reload, let the "Z" carry on his duties! Ta and Good Hunting!

[Komag]

Sounds like this is a very strange mission for you, as I suppose it is for most people, hehe

As a general rule, the fruits are on the outskirts, the outer "branches" around the outside parts of the tree.

You still need to go a LOT higher up the tree yet. You'll very definitely know when you've reached the top of the tree, it's wide open up there with the tippy tops viewable.

The treehouse you've found is the main bottom one, the upper house is much smaller (and there's even a tiny way-upper house). and the Telescope does nothing, just part of the story.

A strategy that many players have taken on the ground is to sneak around and take out many AI with arrows, effectively clearing out the area before going anywhere up the tree.

Good luck!

[deadman]

Originally posted by Komag
as noted in the first thread, I removed the video link but it's still on FMDVD 2

He he, which encoder did you use, anyway, Komag? I don't remember where I saved it, but I remember it being a few hundred megs more than I originally suspected. Yes, it is 20 mins long, and yes, it is (if memory serves me) 640x480, but man, you need to try DivX 5.03 (or whichever is the latest version) or come up with a streaming version. That sucker packs a punch Oh yeah, and I tried the new version, but the spider-frog combo is just too much to handle. Man, those guys creep me out. Once I'm not so lazy I'll get by, but for now, I'm protecting my comfort zone

deadman.

[The Fire Eater]

Thanks Komag for the helpers...so OK...guess I climb higher but I did see outer areas from my position and gave me an impression I was near the top? LOL

Outer areas of branches...well that's kindof hard to determine which branches to take to get there, since it's so camoflaged I tried some of those kindof places, I thought, but nothing showed up there...even got stuck doing so but definately save often so I can recover.

As far as going around tree area and killing creatures...that's what got me mostly in trouble. I'd shoot something..being hidden naturally, and the little devils would notice their slain brother (even if it was at least partially in darkness or dark) and come searching to where I was an attack, especially the froggies jumping into me. Too many different scenerios to get into but none-the-less, a very difficult task for the most part. So then on my last attempts to get to tree in question, I shot a rope arrow into one of the outer tree branches, shot a creature, ran and jumped up on rope then some of them gathered underneath, including a mama spider. So I took out my sword, came down just enough so that when a frog came close enough, hit the tip of my sword, exploded and killed mama...and variations thereof Not the best, but it worked well enough so that I was able to kill most and then able to get down and closer to big tree to get rid of a few more with my arrows. Yes, the combo of spiders/frogs was fairly tough to overcome! Even when I shot the "papa" spider, LOL, he/it was definately in darkness but because one of the kiddies route took it nearby...it still noticed and made a reaction to it's body? Weird for sure, I thought since it was hidden (as in a hidden guard scenerio, shouldn't have reacted I would have thought?).

So now at some point soon in time, I will get back to it and see what I can achieve Ta and Good Hunting!

[laco]

Great mission from what I've played so far, Komag! I've played the Thief 1 version, but don't remember finishing it, so I'm giving that a shot this time.

Just wondering about the size of the health bar and light gem - I thought it might just be my computer or something, but it looks similar in your screenshots. The hud is tiny and hard to see no matter what resolution I run in. I guess it doesn't matter as much in this mission compared to more stealth-based missions, but I was just wondering whether this was a design decision you made?

I would assume it was something to do with a custom script or gamesys, but I don't remember it in any other mission I've played.

Anyway, just wondering. Thanks!

[Komag]

It was a gameplay decision I made when releasing the mission (along with some of my other releases)

I feel the original hud is intrusive to a more "pure" first person experience, so I minimilized it to the point that you can effectively not even notice it's there until you want to actually look down and see it for the info you need at the moment.

If you just don't like that though, you can override it by deleting the dark.cfg out of the .zip file (for the light gem size) or deleting the whole obj folder for the shield gif (blood drips, basically) and gem color

[bukary]

Where can I download Komag's GT video now?

[Komag]

nowhere, sorry. It's only one FMDVD 2 at this point (it's around 150meg, and was eating up too much bandwidth)