Weird But Neat Things In The Engine. - by OldMeat
OldMeat on 25/7/2014 at 06:30
I was messing about with an really old mission I have been building on Dromed today and other than learning a couple of unknown things to me about the commands that dromed uses, like ctrl-alt-o brings up and identifies object names and numbers in-game while using Dromed, and also what seems like some redundancies in the edit trees, I have also noticed a few odd things while playing this game on either a FM or in Dromed.
Many have seen knocked guards after a save game is returned to, or when returning to a saved game a KOed AI will sometimes scare the daylight into a player by popping up momentarily to return to their former unconscious state.
While playing a FM yesterday a haunt that had already been dispatched was suddenly standing on top of a sarcophagus with it's hammer at the ready, yet he was still dead and could be frobbed as such. Another is how an AI will float if very far away.
Those are just a few odd things in the dark engine's behavior.
Today in that same mission I have been working on for so long, I had an exploded zombie's head wedge and spin for awhile and stop on the inside pivot to a gate. As I frobbed the gate to shut it, the zombie head started spinning and the gate would shut slowly. I picked up the head tried it again several more times by dropping it softly on the inside pivot of other gates and it worked almost every time.
This interesting technique could be used in some fashion as some kind of timer, or to slow the closing of a locking gate a guard might be shutting, or to let some more zombies in to attack other enemies.
What oddities has anyone else noticed while playing a game?
It would be especially helpful to know if these could be exploited for some practical use while playing a regular fan mission or old mission.
Dale_ on 25/7/2014 at 07:00
Oh I had no idea about the ctrl+alt+O... that's very helpful, thanks for sharing :))
A dead zombie's head kept turning to watch me as I ran around. Go to 10:52 to see what I mean -> (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0pCdj_sDN4)
Later as I reloaded, it looked like it had sprung back to life but I'm not sure if that was just the animation or if it was really alive... since it didn't make a sound...
nicked on 25/7/2014 at 11:49
Most of the AI issues are probably down to Efficiency settings which will stop the AI doing resource-intensive things like animating if they are a certain distance away from the player.
Sycamoyr on 25/7/2014 at 20:11
Quote Posted by Dale_
Oh I had no idea about the ctrl+alt+O... that's very helpful, thanks for sharing :))
A dead zombie's head kept turning to watch me as I ran around. Go to 10:52 to see what I mean -> (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0pCdj_sDN4)
Later as I reloaded, it looked like it had sprung back to life but I'm not sure if that was just the animation or if it was really alive... since it didn't make a sound...
That's eerie! It would be cool to have done that on purpose as part of making the "dead" undead seem even more frightening.
:eek:When are they truly dead? Not until ya blow 'em up. I think that zombie was just a bit stunned, typically they will get KO'd temporarily after loosing a certain amount of hit points. I wonder if it would have risen up again had you walked over its corpse?
Tannar on 25/7/2014 at 21:27
Yes, Sycamoyr is correct. That zombie wasn't "dead", just inert. The head turning is a New Dark feature for all AI. As long as the AI is alive it's head will face you if it is alerted to your presence. And the zombie was still "alive" in the sense that any zombie is "alive" in Thief.
Quote Posted by Sycamoyr
I wonder if it would have risen up again had you walked over its corpse?
You must not have watched long enough. He did walk over it and it did rise up again.
Xorak on 25/7/2014 at 22:25
One thing I never understood, is that every once in a while after killing an AI, instead of regular blood drops, the game would create floaty red droplets of blood that spiraled in the air.
Jitz on 25/7/2014 at 22:57
Quote Posted by Xorak
One thing I never understood, is that every once in a while after killing an AI, instead of regular blood drops, the game would create floaty red droplets of blood that spiraled in the air.
This!
I never understood why sometimes they were there and other times they weren't. Does the way you kill an AI make a difference?
Yandros on 25/7/2014 at 23:59
If a blood spatter somehow gets some velocity and rotation applied to it as it drops, that can happen I believe. I see it more often when using explosives like a fire arrow.
Jitz on 26/7/2014 at 00:20
Quote Posted by Yandros
If a blood spatter somehow gets some velocity and rotation applied to it as it drops, that can happen I believe. I see it more often when using explosives like a fire arrow.
So the rotating/floating blood was not by design?
I always assumed it came from the way I killed an AI, where I killed the AI, the type of AI or a combination.
Yandros on 26/7/2014 at 04:48
It may have to do with the way you kill or hit an AI, but I don't think it was by design, just an occasional fluke of the physics system (or a bug, if you prefer).
