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Let's Map TDM With Sotha: The Bakery Job


Sotha

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That ambient lightning part might be a bit confusing for newcomers. Ambient lightning is good, not only because it brightens the pitch-black areas. It also works like color range standard for movies and television (e.g. movies never use 0-255 color range). It allows similar experience for people using different brands and models of hardware. There are millions of combinations of monitor brand, model, Windows color profile, graphic card driver and settings, and the in-game gamma setting. Ambient lightning is the easiest way to take it all into account.

Edited by Judith
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Part 7 about lights is up.

 

@Judith,

 

The benefit with nightvision approach is that the mission will not look so washed out, which is why I wanted to use this here. It has not been experimented with much yet.

 

I do agree that the nightvision is probably not the newbie mapper's default choice, which is why I talked about the ambient world lights in the video. Should have probably talked more about it though. It probably isn't a terrible mistake on my part, though, because most likely the newbie mapper will be referred to the A-Z guide anyway, and that covers the ambient world lights.

 

I am thinking that if I calibrate myself properly in the training mission gamma room and set the nightvision lamp brightness to decent level, it will work for the majority of the people. If it doesn't, the player can always tune their ingame gamma settings to the brightness level they please.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Well, that's what the color range standard is for. It will look a bit washed out on every screen, but there won't be any pitch-black parts, and users can adjust brightness and contrast as needed. All games and movies use that. Some games use that night vision system too (like Thief reboot), not instead of ambient light setting, but as a complementary measure.

Edited by Judith
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Hmm. I might be wrong, but didn't doom 3 use total pitch blackness? That way you had to use the flashlight and you could not gamma-cheat your way out of it.

 

Also modern games like Rust have pitch black nights that force the player to use light sources. Increasing gamma does not make anything visible in the darkness.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I guess you guys have already mentioned things I was thinking. I had trouble with angled sealing brushwork too. Even when I got it to seal, it still has sparklies at the seams. The other thing that can kill sealing brushes are tiny slivers, gaps, overlaps, and angled intersections.

 

Another thing, just a small caveat, technically you could use a nice modeled walkway. You get AI to walk on it by overlaying it with an invisible clip brush with the right material (so the footstep sound is appropriate). AI can also see and walk on patches, which aren't brushes and don't seal, and are most useful for bumpy and angled terrain for AI to walk on.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Speaking of walkways, whether using mesh or brush for stairs, as a rule of thumb they should have a sloped collision model to avoid that jarring screen shake when player goes up or down. Typically our brain ignores that kind of movement when we climb the stairs, but not on screen ;)

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Speaking of walkways, whether using mesh or brush for stairs, as a rule of thumb they should have a sloped collision model to avoid that jarring screen shake when player goes up or down. Typically our brain ignores that kind of movement when we climb the stairs, but not on screen ;)

A rule of thumb denotes a default from which other designs can extrapolate. I disagree that a sloped collision surface is a rule of thumb in TDM.

 

A smooth transition depends on your riser and tread dimensions. An 8 unit rise with a 16 unit tread provides a smooth travel experience for the player, and no sloping collision brushes are needed.

 

If the steps are fancy, with bull noses and the like, or the worn concrete steps available in TDM's prefabs, a sloping collision surface might be better. If the surface is beneath the steps, the AI will place his foot on the steps, and it looks more natural. A collision surface that's above the steps--especially one that slopes--can create unnatural foot placement, which is no problem from the player's POV, but is a problem when the player is watching an AI navigate the steps.

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A rule of thumb denotes a default from which other designs can extrapolate. I disagree that a sloped collision surface is a rule of thumb in TDM.

 

A smooth transition depends on your riser and tread dimensions. An 8 unit rise with a 16 unit tread provides a smooth travel experience for the player, and no sloping collision brushes are needed.

 

If the steps are fancy, with bull noses and the like, or the worn concrete steps available in TDM's prefabs, a sloping collision surface might be better. If the surface is beneath the steps, the AI will place his foot on the steps, and it looks more natural. A collision surface that's above the steps--especially one that slopes--can create unnatural foot placement, which is no problem from the player's POV, but is a problem when the player is watching an AI navigate the steps.

 

Yup, that's why I used this phrase. TDM accommodates a bit for steps that are 8u high and 16u long for player movement, mostly when going up the stairs. Going down still looks jarring, and the AI looks awful traveling in this zig-zag motion, whatever the direction. Sure, the slope is a tradeoff, and sometimes things look a bit floaty, but it's still less distracting than blocky stairs.

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Depending on the severity of the slope, it can actually make it much more difficult to navigate for the player to use a slope as opposed to multiple small steps. AI are generally okay with it, but the player cannot move up slopes very well unless they are quite gentle.

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I haven't tried slopes steeper than 45°, but both player and AI seem to handle that. AI looks a bit weird though, the way they bend their knees looks kind of creepy. I'm trying not to go over 22,5°, which is basically a slope for 8x16 steps. I haven't tried any spiral staircases yet, I guess those might be a problem with slopes.

Edited by Judith
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Hmm. I might be wrong, but didn't doom 3 use total pitch blackness? That way you had to use the flashlight and you could not gamma-cheat your way out of it.

Yes, it did. Hence the 'gloom not doom' statement in the A-Z Tutorial section about ambient lighting :)

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Btw. you can get rid of the static with Audacity noise reduction tool. Since it's a uniform noise, it will be fairly simple to get rid of. AFAIR, you just have to select the noise sample and then Audacity removes the noise automatically from the whole track.

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Btw. you can get rid of the static with Audacity noise reduction tool. Since it's a uniform noise, it will be fairly simple to get rid of. AFAIR, you just have to select the noise sample and then Audacity removes the noise automatically from the whole track.

 

Noooooooooooooooo

:D

 

If you do, you have to provide a separate version with static. ^^

Edited by OGDA
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