TouchyUnclePhil on 25/7/2019 at 09:04
Im wondering if anyone has tried or would be interested in collaborating to make some automated tool(s) for extracting data from the original games? (sort of like how those engine port mods work for the elderscrolls games)
I know there are manual ways of doing this, and i intend on seeing if i can extract bafford's manor from thief gold and seeing if i can import it into the unreal 4 engine. To be clear, im not intending on remastering a whole game or even a completed level (nor do i intend on "releasing" any copyrighted materials), im just curious to see if i can get the geometry working in ue4, then just mess around with it, and see where i can take it from there. I dont have much experience with software development, that said my day job is software developemnt (as a junior, not been at it long) so my programming skills are lacking to say the last (but i am some what handy with the ue4 editor).
So, since the source for the engine has leaked a number of years ago, im wondering if anyone has tried to make some tools for "converting" the game data (animations, models, sound files etc..) into somthing that would be more readily usable/recognizable by modern game enignes? If thats a solid no (like theres not even some half started attempt someones tried at one point) does anyone know quite how ridiculous of an undertaking it would be? and if theres any materials they could through my way on where or how to even start figuring somthing out? Cheers.
Yandros on 25/7/2019 at 12:17
I moved this to The Editor's Guild where you should be more likely to get responses as this is a technical question.
PinkDot on 25/7/2019 at 12:37
If you need to get a level geometry - that's trivial. Open up the .mis file in Dromed and type in a command:
It saves out an obj file with a material file(s) into the Thief main folder.
You can do a search for this command on the forums - it's been discussed before.
Exporting out lights directly from the MIS file can be done as well, and I did that while ago for my (never completed) 3dsmax script.
Other formats are also known like BIN meshes or BIN objects. There are plugins for importing these for different software:
Blender Toolkit:(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136431)
(I think RSoul is currently remaking this one for newer version of Blender)
Dark Animation Tools(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145752)
(this is for working with meshes (AI) and motions
There's more than that, I believe.
The knowledge is out there, but the question is, what's your ultimate goal? There has been a couple of attempts to recreate some Thief levels in different engines, with different level of accuracy and interpretations.
Example:
(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147813)
TouchyUnclePhil on 25/7/2019 at 12:44
aw sweat thanks, thats really helpful. Any plans to finish your script? Or is there not much point to now?
PinkDot on 25/7/2019 at 13:07
In terms of geometry import - no, there's no need to, since New Dark has this command mentioned above.
Besides, I don't work much with 3dsmax anymore.
I might do a similar thing for Maya one day though.
TouchyUnclePhil on 25/7/2019 at 21:09
cool i've not heard of thievery, the dark mod is pretty awsome but doesnt quiet hit the spot. The main reason i want to work on this is, is for VR, i know there was a VR doom 3 mod but as far as I know no ones build one compatible with the dark mod (and made fan missions with actual levels from thief). Im making a VR game separately anyway (completely different genre) so everything i do with that i can just plugin, probably more interestingly for a normal 2d mode, ue4 has lots of new interesting features that would be amazing for thief, steam audio does some pretty amazing sound propagation/simulations and now with real time raytracing for the lighting, it could look phenomenal. Of course would be a lot of work to get half of this stuff working, and juggling projects with my limited free time will mean progress is slow, but i think it would be worth it.
Dalai on 10/8/2019 at 03:13
Hey, that looks cool! The textures and lighting look a bit washed out compared to Thief though. Did you place the lights by hand?
TouchyUnclePhil on 10/8/2019 at 16:40
thanks! I did place the lights by hand, not sure how to export them from the game but im sure it'll be easier to just do it this way, the texture materials dont have the proper values applied yet so thats y they are currently washed out, probably should have spent more time on it before taking screens :D
