Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[greebo]

Texture blending can't be done like some editors, so you can't blend rock into grass with a paint tool.

You can do vertex blending in the D3 engine, that's also what I did in the graveyard section shown in one of the screenshots. It's also shown in the training mission (archery range). The model needs to have vertex colours and the shader needs to assign multiple diffuse/bumpmaps using the vertexColor and inverseVertexColor keywords.

[Baddcog]

But that's on a model, not in the editor. The difference is alot of peopl don't wnat to can't model.

 

Editors like Hammer actually let you paint displacements (patches) with a paint brush to blend the alpha layer of a material that has 2 textures assigned.

 

Honestly I think in TDM it would be easiest just to have a dirt path decal to overlay on grass. No custom model needed for the ground. \derp edit,

I guess that might not work

[AluminumHaste]

You can't really do that with a visible texture - only will a dark smudge. The reason is that you have to blend it and then it does not respond to local light. With care you might adjust its brightness to match a situation but a nearby torch or player lantern won't light it so any variation like dousing a torch won't change it so it will look luminous. Believe me I've tried everything I can think of. The nearest you can get to it is with one of my crumb decals. If you lay down all grass then a strip of one of the crumb decals on top it might work.

 

With Blender or some other modelling tool you would make a model path like the one in the trainer archery area and the texture can be blended on the model.

 

Here's an old test I did with some grass crumb decal over stone but it was far from perfect and I never submitted it. The dirt crumb decals are in Release 1 though so worth a try.

 

 

That looks pretty good, please submit

[Serpentine]

I'm not too sure, but if doom3 allows full alpha for masks, you could emulate texture splatting with a material shader, tho it would not be 'paintable' in the editor if you know where you want to use it and you dont mind some work it would be possible and quite quick once you know what you are doing(as all you would need to is customise the mask and add a copy of the mtr)

 

But then again, I dont know too much about masking in d3

[Fidcal]

That looks pretty good, please submit

 

The problem is you get fringe interference. It is basically a very fine series of crumbs - or put it the other way round - a series of tiny holes. What you see as you walk around is an odd effect depending on the angle of view, resolution, whether you can see into the holes or not. Imagine looking straight down you see alternating texture dots: grass/stone/grass etc evenly spaced (or rather spaced according to the thickness at that point) but crouch down and look at the path 20 paces along and the game has to scale down the detail. This is also true of the dirt crumb decals but they are more coarse so its not so bad. Example: the ash in the kitchen fireplace in Chalice.

 

I'll see if I can upload the map and texture somewhere so you can walk around and see what I mean.

[stumpy]

Cant you make paths with patches, patch for the path, and two patches for the grass on either side of the path, as basically a path through grass is a rut. if its a road then the path patch would be higher than the grass unless you've got a pavement/sidewalk, then you wouldn't have grass anyway.

 

 

_-----_ road

 

--___-- path

 

 

roads are usually convex to allow water to drain off them even the romans had convex roads,

while a path is concave due to being worn down by many feet, hoofs, wheels.

Edited January 23, 2010 by stumpy

[Fidcal]

Yes but the edges are too crisp and clean. That's what I've done in my map but it's not ideal. Probably the best way without a model is to take the stone and grass textures into a paint package and produce a third texture with them blended grass to stone. Then in game an extra patch strip between grass and stone with this half/half texture. I'm unsure how well it would align though unless you had just a straight path.

[Rek]

Thank you guys, I'm gonna try it out 

[Sonosuke]

Hi, can anyone tell me what "guid set to bu1hvjT8dzU" means? It shows up in the Console but I don't know since when.

[whisper]

Find darkradiant.exe. Right click it and go to properties. Go to the compatibility tab and disable desktop composition.

Then run the program and see if that helps.

 

 

Horay it works! Thank you!

[stumpy]

if your using the custom item entity to add an item whats the path for the icon image, and what graphics format and size should it be.

 

And how do I increase the size of a font in the <nameofmap>.xd file, I was adding text to a street sign the ones that point to a place in another map, but the text isn't big enough on the sign.

 

How do you make the dial pointer inside of a dial jiggle so it makes it look like the machine is on, I've already made it a rotation entity, do I have to do it in scripts, or is it possible to do it on the object.

[Fidcal]

For tga files use: guis\assets\hud\inventory_icons

For dds files use: dds\guis\assets\hud\inventory_icons

Size 256 x 256 with alpha channel for the transparent area. Recommended black soft (semi-transparent) border of a few pixels around icon.

 

You can't increase font size in the xdata. You have to make a custom gui file. Track down the gui file named at the end of the xdata. Copy it and change the textscale value. I think this only applies to readables but if there is also a world gui you need to copy that as well, eg, for name.gui look for name_world.gui. If you rename your gui to newname.gui then rename the world gui to newname_world.gui. Inside the world gui change the name of the reference of name.gui to newname.gui too.

 

Not done a jiggling dial pointer so I would have to experiment. I'd probably start with a trigger timer set to random and target it at the rotating mover entity of the dial. Other possibilities are a custom texture pointer decal where the movement is in the material shader. Such a shader would be of general use.

[Mortem Desino]

For your gauge needle, I'd probably use a darkmod/Func/Movers/func_shaking entity.

 

There's a spawnarg "shake" "x y z" for telling how much pitch, yaw, and roll it should wiggle. And the spawnarg "period" "seconds" how how fast it should shake.

[DeTeEff]

In previous Thief editors, there have been some limits of how many things you can put into your levels. T3ED had a properties count limit and so on. I believe that in T3ED EVERYTHING you put into the level snagged a "properties slot" and the slot didn't come back empty even if you deleted the model or whatever. That meant you had to careful plan every model/brush you added.

 

Are there any limits in TDM? Of course you cannot cram the level with models, surely it will stop sometime, but is there any dead end, where the level is outright "killed" if you add too much stuff? And most important; can you "reverse" and free up slots by deleting stuff and plan the level in another way?

[_Atti_]

Most of the limits are listed Here on the wiki

[DeTeEff]

Thank you But it doesn't tell if the total amount of entitys decrease when you delete them...It may sound obvious but as it seemed in T3ED the avaiable property slots didn't increase when you deleted stuff...So in T3ED you've got to be extremely careful over what you decide to put into your level...

 

Is there any way to show the total of entitys

[Serpentine]

In the toolbar : Map -> Map Info

 

Its displayed in the bottom corner

Quiet a handy little thing.

[Fidcal]

Yes, menu >map > map info. If you delete an entity you will see it decreases OK.

 

Althought the max entities is 8192 you need to test as you develop. Some [extra] entities are spawned in game.

[DeTeEff]

Why is there a white square on all handles on the cabinets? I believe there is some custom stuff you could add, but I fail to find anything...

[Baddcog]

That white square is supposed to be alpha mapped, but it was missed. I do believe it will be fixed in the upcoming update.

[Serpentine]

Just check that its fixed, I remember fixing it locally

 

@Fieldmedic - what custom stuff are you trying to add? or was that just referring to the cabinets?

[Springheel]

I'm not sure how it got that way in the first place, but it's fixed in the next update.

[DeTeEff]

Just check that its fixed, I remember fixing it locally

 

@Fieldmedic - what custom stuff are you trying to add? or was that just referring to the cabinets?

 

I thought the modelling team left som space around the handles on the cabinets and you were supposed to add some kind of square shaped lock on the door to complete the model...But as said, the whole thing is a glitch that will be fixed in upcoming updates...Perhaps I should disguise it for the screenshots I plan to take soon

[grayman]

I'm a newbie to this, and hopefully this question (my first) is going to the right place. (If not, please redirect me.)

 

In the Startpack Mappers' Guide, it mentions darkmod\maps\gamma_ref.map, but the map isn't there.

 

Does it still exist?

 

If so, where?

 

Thanks.

[Fidcal]

The gamma_ref map is now incorporated into the training mission. I'll make a note to change that reference in the next startpack update. thanks.