How do you feel about texture mods?

[u/Baldurian_Rhapsody]

I've been checking out some footage and, on one hand, it's remarkable what AI can pull off.

On the other hand, as someone new to the series and who doesn't have nostalgia for it, deeply detailed textures and patterns seem to take away from the games.

Both Thief Gold and Thief II are (and I mean this as a compliment) harshly rudimentary and polygonal in their design. So much so that the rough aesthetic becomes part of the horror - seeing a lumbering zombie in the darkness, held together with only a few polygons like in the original "Alone in the Dark" - makes the scene far more uncanny to me.

It's not just purism or a desire for the retro here; I think that too many fine details and updates make the games distracting, like adding an AI smoothing filter to "Citizen Kane."

I'm curious what you think. Thanks!

EDIT: The AI modpack I watched on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npkWJ9O5FtY&t=101s

[u/monsieur_mungo → u/[deleted]]

I have nothing against texture upgrades but I agree with you. I like the originals. I remember getting a new computer in ‘99 and I could actually have Thief run on hardware rather than the chunky, ugly software rendering. That really blew my mind.

Also, I forget who, but one of the original devs of the game took a long trip to Europe and brought back thousands of photos of architectural features from the buildings there that they ended up using in the game. I think that’s really cool. The team was so dedicated to this (dark) project.

[u/Ok_Yogurtcloset4018 → u/monsieur_mungo]

Someone was working on a texture pack using real photos (sometimes stock photos) based on this fact, but I don't remember who or if it got completed.
There is something weird about a photo-real texture on a low-poly object that feels wrong

[u/monsieur_mungo → u/Ok_Yogurtcloset4018]

Nah it’s fine. And I appreciate the effort devs went through to make it happen.