Stan_The_Thief on 16/9/2004 at 06:53
Has anyone been able to import anything from TDS in to use with DromEd2? Like textures, objects, AIs, that kind of thing?
I don't own TDS yet, but I did take a look at the Demo. It seems like it would take some effort to utilize that new kind of resource files, but I believe it is possible. Someone created a patch for Thief 3 earlier, that would replace the texture in-game with more detailed ones, so I guess there is a way to meddle with the rest of the resources, and ultimately - to apply them in DromEd2. (As you might have guessed by now, I myself have no idea how to do it.)
As concerning the possibility of DromEd3 ever coming out, I don't think it ever will. And, I think, the community doesn't need it. Just as the release of DromEd2 meant an end to the first DromEd's missionworks, so would DromEd3 make all the current FM projects nigh-obsolete. The difference before was, that people could easily convert DromEd projects into DromEd2, whereas an upgrade of DromEd2 missions to the new-technology DromEd3 would probably be impossible.
If only we could make the most out of TDS resource base right now, by trying to convert things "down" to DromEd2, we would avoid having a huge gap later, between the many people leaving to learn the new editor, and the few of those who think that there's more than enough capabilities of DromEd2 to employ.
What do you think? Can TDS resource base be dissected and fed into DromEd2? Has anyone tried to convert things this way already?
Vivian on 16/9/2004 at 16:58
Well, I will apologise a lot if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be akin to trying to jam a CD into a tape deck?
Gingerbread Man on 16/9/2004 at 17:14
More like trying to jam a Volvo up a cat's bum.
Dark Arrow on 16/9/2004 at 17:16
Technically it would be possible already, but I'm more concerned about the legal part of it.
Gingerbread Man on 16/9/2004 at 17:25
Unless you mean "We could resample and resize all the textures, remodel all the meshwork into objects with roughly 100th of the polycount, and rebuild the AI from the ground up" I'm not sure how you can say it's technically possible to force DromEd to use T3 resources. The engines are totally incompatible in pretty much every regard.
Stan_The_Thief on 16/9/2004 at 18:25
Well, like I said, I don't know anything about how this can be done. :) But there must be some way at least part of the resources can be converted. Resizing the textures doesn't sound too crazy, and something probably can be done about those objects. I don't mean converting things at the same quality - of course there would be some loss to DromEd2's limitedness.
As for the legal part, I can't imagine there would be any conflict. I mean, nobody in his right mind would try to use this to extract financial gain. The resources got "ripped off" from other games into various editors plenty. I guess unless there's a specific prohibition, it should be okay to do it. No?
Ottoj55 on 16/9/2004 at 18:30
TDS uses the same textures and such far too often, like the wainscoating in the mansions, its the plug texture from thief 2, the same texture used on the ends of turbines, just laid out for something different. and the metal beam texture is used in every single building in the city. i could be more creative than that. its a matter of size, and palette choices, you can do a lot in thief 2 with families of 256x256 textures with very similar palettes. as for the models, i prefer building my own.
Gingerbread Man on 16/9/2004 at 18:35
You'd still have to figure out how to get AT the resources first, and then how to convert them to something you could work in. It's all very well to say "Sure, resizing / resampling textures not a problem" except we're not talking about pcx or gif here... many textures and skins are multi-channel things, and there's no way to translate that into Dark. You could maybe fudge an alpha channel, but you'd never be able to do specularity or combiners or pretty much anything other than a basic image texture.
Seriously, it would be like trying to get DromEd to use the resources from Half Life. Except without having a PakExplorer, WorldCraft, or even much of an understanding of how Half Life resources work in terms of engine and renderer.
GORT on 16/9/2004 at 18:37
I'm with Ottoj55 on the objects. It's a real pain in the ass trying to reduce the poly count of a high poly count model. Better off making your own. Trust me, I know. :tsktsk:
MOG on 18/9/2004 at 13:28
Has anyone been able to import anything from TDS in to use with DromEd2? Like textures, objects, AIs, that kind of thing?
I'm sure I could do the textures - no problem :D
Even into D1, but it would look little more crappy :cheeky:
(oh no I got to bold again)
Greetings !
