No combine (Shift-K) function?

[Dave_Billing]

Hi

 

I use Darkradiant primarily for making base Doom 3 maps, and apart from its propensity for causing windows to think it has frozen when switching between lighting and other modes (in some cases it actually does) it is a very good editor. However, when it comes to the issue of creating breakable lights, I am unable to do so due to the fact that this requires 'grouping' the light entity with the light patch. Doom 3's built in editor allows for this, but I cannot find this function anywhere in Darkradiant. I could use the built in editor, but I am accustomed to using Darkradiant, and am reluctant to edit maps in another editor for fearing of creating problems with the map. How do I 'group' two entities in Darkradiant? I must emphasize the difference between 'group' and 'connect' or 'bind' as I understand the latter two.

[Obsttorte]

Can you be more specific about what you mean with "group"?

[Dave_Billing]

Can you be more specific about what you mean with "group"?

 

Group, as in combine entities as one. Selecting a light entity that is grouped with a func_static patch selects both instead of just the light entity. This is evidently necessary in order to make proper breakable or flickering lights in Doom 3.

[Lux]

I can't recall exactly how but there is a way to select and then cycle through all the entities contained within a func_static. Play around some and you'll probably find it. Shift click, ctrl click, ctrl-shift middle click, I can't remember. Its been mentioned in some thread though so a few searches would probably turn it up.

[Obsttorte]

There is a model_broken spawnarg. Btw., what is the patch for?

[Dave_Billing]

There is a model_broken spawnarg. Btw., what is the patch for?

 

The patch is the light texture itself. In Doom 3, the breakable lights resemble a light entity surrounded by a brush with the default texture. Interestingly, after pulling apart the Doom 3 maps, the light patches which are merged or grouped with this light entity appear green in the main viewport and some distance away from the main light entity itself. Obviously, in order for the effect to work properly they must be grouped together, but there is no discernible way to do this in DarkRadiant. As you can probably tell, I'm learning mostly through reverse engineering and trial and error haha.

[SteveL]

Not sure how applicable this is to Doom3 but in TDM you make a breakable light by adding a model to the light plus giving it health. That's done through a spawnarg rather than merging entities, but the two do then appear as a single entity in the editor:

 

Select a light -> 'N' for entity inspector -> type model and - in the two text boxes below -> hit Enter -> cilck on your new model spawnarg and a button will appear to let you select a model, which will appear in the editor as part of the light entity

 

See this post by Tels for the rest of the detail. I have no idea whether this will do what you want in Doom3, but Tels' wording implies that it's common to the two.

[Dave_Billing]

I've found the best way is to simply go into Doomedit and shift k all the lights with their appropriate light patches. I've managed to get Doomedit running properly and it hasn't caused any issues so far when I load the map in Darkradiant.

[Brenton]

Thank you so much for this post!  I have been trying to bind the lights/mesh/flare to the strobe light for a couple of days now and not getting anywhere.  I can't find any tutorials or explanation about doing this anywhere.

Using the DoomEdit specifically to bind all my lights/meshes with Shift-K and then returning back to DarkRadiant appears to be the only solution.  Of course, then it looks like a big ? mark in Dark Radiant, but I can live with it just to get the effect working.