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UPDATE: Fan Mission: Briarwood Manor by NeonsStyle - First Mission (14/08/2018) UPDATE 1.93


NeonsStyle

Poll: Mission Rating  

37 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay:

  2. 2. Story & Text: story telling, briefing

  3. 3. Design: Aesthetics



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Thanks guys, the Briefing conversation is ALL Crowind. I think its perfect as is. :)

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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I always preferred the style of TDS and T1 but the briefing and screenshots are promising. The graphical approach of using silhouettes is a great idea. Goldwell did the acting fantastic as always.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Congrats on the release. Will give this a try within the next days :)

 

Btw: If you are rating your own mission you might be a bit more modest :ph34r:;)

  • Like 1

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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This mission is not for low end PC's. The house is fine, but the garden will make lower end PC's grind.

 

It isn't for the higher-end PCs either. You have over 6500 drawcalls at starting point, that's like twice too much. My GTX 1060 PC slows down to 20 FPS. The interior seems to be fine though.

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That briefing video is insanely good. The visual style is so nice, I loved the robed figures and the silhouete aproach. Goldwell's acting and voice is amazing. Stellar job, guys. Digging that trailer too, I appreciate all the work involved in setting up those camera shots. Liked the ending, when its goes crazy... Very cool, man.

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I don't think I did a proper beta test of this. I think I just downloaded it, tried to load with my SVN TDM, and got a crash to desktop. LOL.

 

What's the deal with EAX?

 

@jaxa: As for the crash, just check there's no savegame folder in the pk4 there shouldn't be, I was pretty careful with that. The mission loads fine.

I just downloaded installed and it ran fine. If the game supports EAX then it should work, I've done nothing to support it. To be honest, I'm

not sure what it does for sound Jaxa lol

 

@Judith: I have a medium PC quad core 3.4ghz PC , with a GTX 760 under Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and I get between 30 and 60 fps in the garden. I would be

highly surprised if you are getting 20fps with a 1060.

 

@Bikerdude, the changes you made to the LOD around the front yard made it look very ugly, so I removed the LOD changes you made. Thanks anyway BD. :)

 

@RPGista, thank you so much. The briefing is one of Crowinds best he feels, and I agree.

 

@Goldwell, Thank you :D

If the game supports EAX then the map will. However I've done nothing to support it if the game doesn't.

Edited by NeonsStyle

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Neon, here's a screenshot along with the stats:

 

Clipboard01.png

 

From my experience, if DCs go above 3000, the framerate starts to go down, at least in most cases. And it applies both to my (decent) desktop PC and old laptop, so I guess it's not a problem with GPU hardware, but rather with high number of instructions clogging the CPU>GPU pipeline. My desktop PC has Core i7 3.05 GHz CPU and my laptop runs on Core i5 2.5 GHz, and they both have similar "DC threshold". Both are capable of running much more demanding titles as well.

 

Edit:

 

I guess high number of DCs is mostly due to multiple fog emitters? (or massive transparency impacts general performance) Maybe changing those to static planes (or regular fog) would help? This area is probably too small, but if you wanted to have something like Silent Hill 2 fog, it would be better to have one emitter attached to the player (with proper offset, particle sources, etc, etc). I did something like that for TDS years ago, but with snow blizzard effect; it looked cool and used much less resources than multiple emitters set in the scene. You'd have to switch it on and off with scripts when player enters and exits the building though, that might be hard to set up to look convincing.

Edited by Judith
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@Judith, just turn your LOD down to Normal and you should get a decent FPS. Otherwise drop it lower. I understand not everyone can

afford to get good machines, but I'm an artist IRL, and I will never cut quality in favour of performance. I will make it work well on a medium

Desktop PC, after that sadly you just have to drop your LOD or other settings.

 

I did say it's going to make low end PCs grind.

Edited by NeonsStyle

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Well, NeonsStyle rated the mission not as perfect. :P

BTW: thanx.gif for this ... erm ... excellent mission.

 

LOL Humility forbade me haha

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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@Bikerdude, the changes you made to the LOD around the front yard made it look very ugly, so I removed the LOD changes you made. Thanks anyway BD. :)

All you needed to do was as mentioned when we last worked on it, was increase the LOD distance values. I also see some of the VPs that seal against the barn are broken, this will be adding to the DC count.

I guess high number of DCs is mostly due to multiple fog emitters?

Nope, I remove them and it made a 100-200 DC difference. The perf issue is its a single wide open space with lots of models, I tried to mitigate this by setting lots of them no shadow and changeing lots of the trees to LOD entites.

 

If NeonsStyle ever does a bug fix run I am happy to do another perf run.

Edited by Bikerdude
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So I've just taken a quick look to see how the performance is.

 

CPU: i5-6500 @ 3.2GHz

RAM: 16GB DDR5 (forgot the clocks, but more then 1GHz)

GPU: AMD R9 390

+ a proper mainboard

 

I get 20-22 FPS on the outside :o:unsure:

 

 

First of all, my first mission also suffered performanc issues, so don't take this personal. However, I must admit that I am with Judith. I can understand that you don't want to have any cuts in regards to your artistical vision, but the performance stands in no proper relation to the visual appearence. And there is lot of possibilities left untouched that would have increased performance.

 

First of all reducing the LOD setting doesn't help much. It reduces the draw calls by 200-300, which is less then 5% in areas with 6000+ such calls. Therefore the performance impact is neglectable ;)

 

The portals in the back on that screenshot that leads to the shed with the horses could be closed at such a distance. You can't see inside on that distance anyways

post-11230-0-48504100-1499856886_thumb.jpg

 

The light count on some surfaces in the back is pretty high (bright colors like white or purple stand for 4+ lights, which is bad.

 

post-11230-0-54355200-1499856984_thumb.jpg

 

The tris count on the road is pretty high. The same counts for the fences and all those bushes. You should have used LOD here.

 

post-11230-0-68125000-1499857096_thumb.jpg

 

So in summary: Nobody says your mission is bad (haven't played it yet, so I don't know :) ). But as said performance is an issue, and performance is part of the artistical process of creating a mission. So this is some criticism you have accept, because it is valid. And refering to LOD as a solution if this doesn't has an effect is no real help here either ;)

 

I would suggest that you try to understand were the issues are coming from and learn from it so you can do it better next time. That's what I have done after ruining the garden in Old Habits 1 :D

 

 

I'll report back once I have played the mission.

  • Like 4

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Neon, the problem is we're not talking about low-end PCs. My PC runs Dishonored 2 in 1440p with all settings on very high, with TXAA. It's not a low-end PC.

 

As FM makers, we need to have some perspective. Players will be frustrated with things like that. It's not about artistry either, more like honest down-to-earth craftsmanship. it's not like visual quality TDM offers right now is something of a 2017 or even 2012 title. It's somewhat above Deadly Shadows, while system requirements for scenes like that are many, many times higher. Ultimately it's indeed your decision, but IMO we should do our best to avoid that kind of gaps, or at least to bring them to more reasonable level.

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@Judith, forgive me. :) Your PC is a medium PC. It's worse than mine, though your video card is better. I

get 30 to 60 fps in the garden. In the house it's a solid 60 fps. I know you're very particular about performance, but I am

not. I am happy with the performance level. It works great on medium PC's, but those around 3ghz and lower tend

to struggle a bit. I'm sorry, but I like to build for the better machines rather than the lower ones.

 

@Obsttorte, I disagree about the quality drop off with performance. Bikerdude added LOD to all the bushes around the garden,

and when I saw it, it looked horrible. The hedges all looked like they were brushes at a distance until the LOD kicked in. Oh

and I will never take offence Obsttorte at the truth. :D I'm not a sensitive soul. :)

 

I agree, it's a bit hard on performance, however as I said, I made it for medium PC's and up. :)

 

I'm not going to change the performance of it, I think it's great as it is. This was all talked about during the build,

and over several performance tweak sessions by the more experienced mappers. This shows what I get on this PC

 

 

 

Intel i7-3770 CPU @ 3.4GHz 4 Cores, 8 logical Processors with 32 Gb Ram with GTX 760 Video card

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzXUERbu2M8

Edited by NeonsStyle

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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So we have similar level of performance: you're playing at 1080 and my native resolution is 1440p, that requires more power. Yes, I am worried about performance more often than not, mostly because I assume that if someone asks for more computing power, he/she has a solid grounds for it, like eye-candy models, or hi-res 2K-4K textures. But you've made your decision, that's fine. What is more important, the interior has solid 60 fps all around, and that's where the majority of gameplay takes place.

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Congratulations on the mission! It is very good to see new mission designers release something!

 

My impressions:

 

 

The architecture is often simple but it is done right. A lot of the mission looks very good due to the careful use of lighting, texture choice, and a generally inventive aesthetic. Some of it is looking mighty fine, like the dining room, the underground passage, or the library.

 

I admit the story's emotional weight missed me, and I found the dark secret distasteful. However, this is a personal concern about modern media and its ways of dealing with sordid subject matters, and I understand if it clicks for other folks. Discovering some of the other secrets was definitely cool, with good (if simple) clues.

 

Gameplaywise, it is a rather straightforward mission. You can't really go off the rails, which has its downsides, and it could do with more interconnectedness - multiple ways of going through the game spaces, and a more looped layout could have allowed you to tell basically the same story while letting the manor house "breathe" a little. As it is, it is a bit "corridor-room-room-room-corridor-room-room-room" if it makes sense, and it has too many keys blocking your progress. Letting the player live a little and piece clues together still allows you to control the plot at critical junctures.

 

 

 

All in all, I hope to see more from you, and looking forward to what you will come up with next!

  • Like 4

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I'm playing at hard difficulty, and I'm stuck.

 

 

I have five keys, front door, parlor, master bedroom, dining room, and lobby. There's a stairway that leads to a room that leads to a catwalk above the room with the really difficult guard. Opposite that catwalk is a door, clearly to several bedrooms and the latter part of the mission. Where is the key to that door? Also, where is the key that unlocks the Crown in the art gallery?

 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

- prjames

Edited by prjames
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