Thief Deadly Shadows Gameplay

[Denisha Padley]

Id like to know how the Thief games handled one of their most important aspects, the lighting and shadows, including Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows), as it seems to have made some clever use of dynamic lights. I'm interested in everything and anything about it, but for research I'm especially concerned about algorithms, what considerations went into them, and especially how they connected it to how the player was affected by lights/shadows, etc.

An interesting thing about Deadly Shadows is that most lights in the game (if not all) make the player and other actors cast a shadow. I wouldn't suppose all the lights are dynamic lights with real time shadows, but then, since there's hardly ever more than one or two lights in the same place, that might still be the case. I'd love to know.

I don't know how they made it but there are two different approaches you talk about. The first one is the gameplay approach, you know where lights are and if they are on or off so you might gather a 2-dimensional map of your light sources and just interpolate between player distance and light source origin to obtain the visibility increase of the player character.

The second one is the graphical light/shadow thing. You have two different kinds of objects here that cast shadows, on the one hand anything dynamic. Those objects need either a realtime shadow or you have some rules that determine how pre-backed shadows could apply to those objects and just move the shadow decal origin. Those objects could be a human walking in front of a window or something destructable, anything that dosent change it's plane so the shadow could be cast to that plane as pre-backed texture. On the other hand anything static in your level. Those objects are mostly pre-backed to some kind of shadow map, turning dynamic lights on/off will then enable/disable those shadow maps for display

I was wondering, and thinking back to Thief Deadly Shadows, is it possible to have lights that don't light anything, but still cast shadows? I was wondering whether it would be a possibility one could have a set of baked static lights, and then having a second set of lights that give no light but just cast those shadows on the player and certain other actors. Might there be a gain in performance from something like that?

The first one is the gameplay approach, you know where lights are and if they are on or off so you might gather a 2-dimensional map of your light sources and just interpolate between player distance and light source origin to obtain the visibility increase of the player character.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is a stealth video game where the player takes the role of Garrett, a master thief. It is set in a fantasy/steampunk world resembling a cross between the Late Middle Ages and the Victorian era, with more advanced technologies interspersed. It is the third game in the Thief series, and a major departure from the first two games in the series, different in both appearance and gameplay.

One of the game's major new features was the ability to explore The City. While previous games sent Garrett straight from mission to mission, Thief: Deadly Shadows allows him to walk the City streets between missions where he can steal from passersby, spy on the townspeoples' daily lives, and search for sidequests in addition to major story missions. The game also introduced an ability to switch between first and third person views, and to flatten against walls.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is a first-person and third-person 'sneaker', similar in gameplay to the previous games in the series (Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age). The player takes the role of Garrett, an independent master thief who aims to steal his way through the City, using stealth, devices and weapons, in order to complete objectives and make profits on the side. The player may steal from or mug innocents for loot, and avoid, distract, attack or knock out guards. Loot and weapon ammunition may be stolen simply by 'touching' it, when close enough. Locked rooms and chests can be broken into after completing a lock-picking minigame.[2]

Mission levels may be traversed by sneaking through the shadows, since walking or running will alert nearby guards, who detecting the presence of a vandal will search around for an unknown face. Upon discovering the player, the guards will give chase and possibly hunt the player down. In order to make minimum noise, the player must actively monitor the noise each action creates, and use the environment to their advantage (such as a quiet carpet floor). The player may usually view a hand-drawn map of the immediate surroundings, realistically, the player's location is not indicated on the map and must be deduced from the surrounding landmarks. The game has a fairly open-ended structure, allowing the player to approach every objective in multiple different ways. Upon completion of all objectives, the mission ends and the plot is further revealed through cutscenes.

After each mission, the player reappears into the nearest district within the City, which may be freely explored by foot. Most civilians don't recognize Garrett as a criminal, although wanted posters are frequently visible on City walls. City areas unlock as the player progresses through missions. Within the City, the player may sell previously stolen goods on the black market to Fences, for gold, which can be used at various Shops to purchase weapons, equipment and supplies.[3] Special loot such as "Artifacts" cannot be sold but are involved in the objectives and plot. As they are collected, loot, gold, equipment and weapons retain in the player's inventory through the game, making it possible to 'hoard' for later use. While exploring the City, the player may break into homes for additional loot, spy on and steal from the townspeople, and complete the occasional side quest. Allying with major factions will motivate its members to fight alongside the player, against the City Watch guards.

Both the PC and Xbox versions of the game are relatively easy to play, with conventional and reconfigurable shooter-style controls. The first mission is an interactive tutorial that guides the player through a typical robbery, set in an Inn. The player may save progress at any point, and must do so manually from time to time, since the game never autosaves.[4]

The Xbox version has considerably more tactile controls since it uses a game controller instead of an all purpose keyboard. Within the lock-picking minigame, a rumble effect can be felt based on the relation between the lock picks and tumblers. Moving the left analog stick gently makes Garrett creep, and forcefully makes him run.

Deadly Shadows may be considered the defining game of the Thief series, being the most refined and technically advanced. It has received almost universally positive reviews, with its greatly improved graphics and lighting, music and sound effects, gameplay and level design.

Its realistic and immersive 3D graphics and visual effects, along with motion-captured, lip-synched character animation, improve significantly on the earlier Thief games. Fully 3D animated interfaces span the game, even when not in missions.

New to this Thief game, the player has the option to play the game in first-person or third-person perspectives, or switch back and forth during gameplay as convenient. The third-person viewpoint makes the game easier to play, considering Garrett and nearby guards fit easily into view. The narrowed vision first-perspective alternatively makes for more immersive gameplay and would probably be preferred by players of the earlier Thief games.

It features a compelling storyline which explores "the City" and interiors of various notable and beautiful constructions, such as the Keeper Compound, the Sunken Citadel, St. Edgar's Church, the Shalebridge Cradle and the Wieldstrom Museum, all locations within the City.

The characters and guards within the game are from varied Factions within the Thief universe, the Keepers, Hammerites, Pagans and Kurshok. Heavily fantasy-themed creatures like ghosts and robots were dropped, in favor of human characters, human undead (zombies) and humanoid beasts.

Like the previous Thief games, the storyline primarily revolves around a major incident, which is the final and dramatic activation of the Final Glyph. This is the most powerful magical object to ever be revealed in the Thief series. Also unique to this game is the antagonist, the Hag and her minions.

After Looking Glass Studios, the developer of the original two titles, went out of business in 2000, many former employees moved to Ion Storm. Here they began developing the long-anticipated third part of the series, Deadly Shadows. The same voice actor, Stephen Russell, was selected for the lead character, Garrett.

Unlike the original two titles, Deadly Shadows was developed simultaneously for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox. The game is powered by a heavily-modified and tweaked version of Unreal Engine 2.

Like its predecessors, Thief: Deadly Shadows has received almost universally positive reviews, garnering a GameSpot rating of 8.3 with an 8.5 rating from selected notable critics[6] and the PC version has reached an average score of 8.6 on IGN. The game also won IGN's "Editor's Choice" award and "Game of the Month" award for May 2004.[7][8]

Most reviewers praised its artistry, exceptionally refined standard of lighting, graphical and level design, visual and sound effects, music, immersiveness, voice acting and extremely solid gameplay.[6][7][8]

Some of the more prominent features and design aspects of the previous Thief installments were either significantly modified or removed entirely. Rope Arrows are replaced by climbing gloves which alter Garrett's ability to traverse vertical obstacles and navigate levels. Garrett can no longer swim, turning any pond more than a few feet in depth into an impassable barrier. Any mortal creature that enters deep water will simply fall to the bottom and instantly die. The blackjack is no longer able to knock out anyone who is alerted, and is only effective when striking from behind. This circumvents the popular flash bomb and blackjack attack that was a staple maneuver of previous thief games. Holy water can no longer be used to imbue water arrows with undead destroying power and is instead thrown to the ground like the oil flask. While this significantly reduces Garrett's ability to destroy the undead it is not a major obstacle since the undead do not usually appear in large numbers in Thief: Deadly Shadows. Garrett's metal eye now provides a night vision ability and Scouting Orbs are no longer available, perhaps indicating that the now disbanded Mechanist order were the only people who could manufacture them.

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