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Thief was a brilliant game for the era. The rendering of shadows etc was very well done and so also I believe it used 3D positional audio better than the contem

Thief was a brilliant game for the era. The rendering of shadows etc was very well done and so also I believe it used 3D positional audio better than the contemporary games

brobinson 5y ago
First game to use ECS (or an ECS-like system), too, if I recall correctly. DromEd is one of the strangest programs I've used.
- exikyut 5y ago
  Screenshots don't hold a candle to actually using something, but I'm honestly not too dissuaded to disagree with you: https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/DromEd?file=Dromed.png https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/DromEd?file=Dromed.png Seems to be downloadable at https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141708 https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141708 (and have a bit of a niche following) Googling the name also turns up a comprehensive 4-part YouTube video series from 2012-2013 showcasing the UI and how to build a level: https://youtu.be/C0dHgEaUCEQ https://youtu.be/C0dHgEaUCEQ (20:02), https://youtu.be/A1wm0RZXlh0 https://youtu.be/A1wm0RZXlh0 (41:50), https://youtu.be/UlVJHCcaUAo https://youtu.be/UlVJHCcaUAo (27:45), https://youtu.be/yyq5Z2ioM-0 https://youtu.be/yyq5Z2ioM-0 (11:31)
  - whoopdedo 5y ago
    The story goes that the editor wasn't initially made public because they thought it would be too difficult to use. After some persistent requests, they let a few people have the editor as a trial. Even without any documentation they were able to make new maps from scratch, which convinced Looking Glass. The tools were then included with every release of the games afterwards.
- qcumberqr 5y ago
  The Dark Engine source has been leaked and can be found in couple of GH repositories. The code really is an amalgamation of all kinds of past projects and architectures, without a really strong architectural design, I’m not surprised it would result in “strange” programs.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
We're the shadows actually rendered in real time or were they prerendered and baked into the textures along with the environment lighting? Genuinely curious. I could be wrong but, AFAIK, Doom 3 was the first game with real time shadows and dinamic lighting and every game before that employed various tricks that simulated those instead.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  The article doesn't make it completely clear but it infers the shadows were not dynamic because it affected the gameplay in that the player needed some certainty about where stealth was effective, and the level designs hinged on that. Great game. Thief and Descent were pretty challenging compared to quake.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    Quake actually got really hard in the last chapters. Those annoying purple blobs were murder
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >Thief and Descent were pretty challenging compared to quake. Well, after John Romero left id software in an disgruntled way during the development of Quake, id became creatively bankrupt, and their games were just tech demos for John Carmack's latest cutting edge 3D engine, wrapped in a half-baked "whatever, this is gonna sell" storyline and gameplay.
- Jare 5y ago
  Blade AKA Severance AKA Blade of Darkness was the first engine I ever saw doing "real" realtime lighting and shadows (they started in 1995 and by 1996 they had pretty strong level geometry dynamic shadows). The game itself came out in early 2001. There's even a re-release from late last year!
- kevingadd 5y ago
  Thief 3's lighting and shadows were mostly dynamic, but I don't think that was true for 1 & 2. The lighting tech in Thief 3 was fairly similar to what Doom 3 did - per pixel lighting with stencil shadows, etc.

Thief was a brilliant game for the era. The rendering of shadows etc was very well done and so also I believe it used 3D positional audio better than the contemporary games

brobinson 5y ago

First game to use ECS (or an ECS-like system), too, if I recall correctly. DromEd is one of the strangest programs I've used.

exikyut 5y ago
Screenshots don't hold a candle to actually using something, but I'm honestly not too dissuaded to disagree with you: https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/DromEd?file=Dromed.png https://thief.fandom.com/wiki/DromEd?file=Dromed.png Seems to be downloadable at https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141708 https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141708 (and have a bit of a niche following) Googling the name also turns up a comprehensive 4-part YouTube video series from 2012-2013 showcasing the UI and how to build a level: https://youtu.be/C0dHgEaUCEQ https://youtu.be/C0dHgEaUCEQ (20:02), https://youtu.be/A1wm0RZXlh0 https://youtu.be/A1wm0RZXlh0 (41:50), https://youtu.be/UlVJHCcaUAo https://youtu.be/UlVJHCcaUAo (27:45), https://youtu.be/yyq5Z2ioM-0 https://youtu.be/yyq5Z2ioM-0 (11:31)
- whoopdedo 5y ago
  The story goes that the editor wasn't initially made public because they thought it would be too difficult to use. After some persistent requests, they let a few people have the editor as a trial. Even without any documentation they were able to make new maps from scratch, which convinced Looking Glass. The tools were then included with every release of the games afterwards.
qcumberqr 5y ago
The Dark Engine source has been leaked and can be found in couple of GH repositories. The code really is an amalgamation of all kinds of past projects and architectures, without a really strong architectural design, I’m not surprised it would result in “strange” programs.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

We're the shadows actually rendered in real time or were they prerendered and baked into the textures along with the environment lighting? Genuinely curious. I could be wrong but, AFAIK, Doom 3 was the first game with real time shadows and dinamic lighting and every game before that employed various tricks that simulated those instead.

smackeyacky 5y ago
The article doesn't make it completely clear but it infers the shadows were not dynamic because it affected the gameplay in that the player needed some certainty about where stealth was effective, and the level designs hinged on that. Great game. Thief and Descent were pretty challenging compared to quake.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Quake actually got really hard in the last chapters. Those annoying purple blobs were murder
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Thief and Descent were pretty challenging compared to quake. Well, after John Romero left id software in an disgruntled way during the development of Quake, id became creatively bankrupt, and their games were just tech demos for John Carmack's latest cutting edge 3D engine, wrapped in a half-baked "whatever, this is gonna sell" storyline and gameplay.
Jare 5y ago
Blade AKA Severance AKA Blade of Darkness was the first engine I ever saw doing "real" realtime lighting and shadows (they started in 1995 and by 1996 they had pretty strong level geometry dynamic shadows). The game itself came out in early 2001. There's even a re-release from late last year!
kevingadd 5y ago
Thief 3's lighting and shadows were mostly dynamic, but I don't think that was true for 1 & 2. The lighting tech in Thief 3 was fairly similar to what Doom 3 did - per pixel lighting with stencil shadows, etc.