Thief II Light Shafts 2004-12-06
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Author: Alun Bestor (www.washboardabs.net/thief/)

Description
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This is a set of two light shaft objects for use in Thief II. The models included are:
shaftbl: single flat sheet of light-shafts
dshaftbl: two sheets of light-shafts, joined in a + shape (when viewed from above)


They use transparent 32-bit TGA skins, which means they're as smooth as a baby's bottom. Note that when you put objects with TGA skins in a mission or load a mission that contains them, Dromed will bring up a warning dialog that reads "Failed to load resource data <name of TGA image> (File: resman.cpp, Line: 1368)". You can safely ignore this and continue editing by pressing Cancel; pressing Yes or No will close Dromed. This warning will not show up when the mission is played in Thief II, so players will never see it.

Installation
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Extract this archive into your Thief II directory, or extract the files you want to their appropriate locations (where they are in the archive).

Usage tips
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I recommend making new archetypes for the shafts under SFX or Physical->Decorative (or anywhere where they won't inherit any physics model).

Most of the time you'll want to use the double shaft (dshaftbl); the single one (shaftbl) is only appropriate for very narrow gaps, like cracks in shutters.

The light-shafts look best with the following parameters:
Render->Transparency (alpha): 0.25
Render->Extra Light: 0.05 - 1.0 additive (tweak based on the lighting of the surrounding area)
Render->Light: Brightness 50, Z-offset 3
Render->LightColor: Hue 0.66, Saturation 0.33
Render->Spotlight: 25, 30, 0

In particularly dusty places, you might want to attach a dust particle effect to them. The following parameters look pretty good:

SFX->Particles
  # of particles: 25-50
  Size: 0.5
  Colors: 10, 104, 2
  Alpha: 32-64
  Fade time: 0.5

SFX->Particle Launch Info
  Launch type: Cylinder
  Box min: Z -3
  Box max: Z 3
  Min Radius: 0
  Max Radius: 1.25 (about 0.75 units smaller than the radius of the shaft itself)
  Min time: 2
  Max time: 5

Future versions
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This file will be updated from time to time: You can find the latest version at www.washboardabs.net/thief/models/, or email me if it has moved.

Terms of Use
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If you use these in your mission, please a) send me an email to let me know, before the mission is released and b) credit me in the readme file along with a link to www.washboardabs.net/thief/. If you have any questions, comments or requests, please email me at wet@washboardabs.net.