Moonbo

Hey Sirtaff, I can try looking into it more when I get home from work, but if its still busted you can always make the readables by hand. The readable editor wasn't in the first few versions of TDM, and the wiki still has the instructions on how to make them manually.

Hey Melan, Only in version 2 when the zombie and the humans use the same skeleton. I had the same idea :-).

@Biker, just trying to have enough variety :-). @Lux I see what you're getting at, but it's too late to change now since I use the whole crystal cave motif throughout the level. I might try varying the light colors though.

Another update on the level. Things are heading towards the finish line, with about half of the final area built out...I can't quite see the end of the tunnel, but I do see a little bit of light peeking out :-). Feedback and crits appreciated as always:

Are you targeting the waitfortrigger node or the ai? I believe you need to tigger the ai. Edit: glad you figured it out :-)

Looks good Tyler! One thing I've noticed from perusing the forums is that a lot of starting mappers will come on with an *amazing* screenshot and then disappear from the face of the earth. I think they're suffering from exactly what you're describing, which is that after realizing that it takes them so long to make a single room, they just sort of give up. For me, it took about 2 weeks to create my first small building (two rooms, one on top of the other). After that though, it does start getting quicker when you begin to learn the hang of things. What I would recommend is pick the level of detail that you're comfortable you can carry on through to the end of your mapping project. It may not be mind-blowing, but it's better to have a completed map than a few screenshots. And you can always go back and add more detail later if you feel like it. My personal rule of thumb when it comes to detailing is to make sure that there's no large blank spaces (i.e. there's always something on the wall, ceiling, floor etc), and you're definitely @ that level w/ your screenshot. My only recommendation for the shot would be possibly to make the room more compact (there's a lot of empty space around the bed which is only going to be useful if there's an AI walking around to the various points of the room), BUT that's only a preference thing, it's fine the way it is :-).

How *that's* teamwork!

Yes, that'd be great. Having more choices when it comes to ambient tracks would be a wonderful thing :-).

:-(, see that's the problem. The werewolf vocal set defines the sound shaders being used and is going to have to be gutted for standalone because it includes a lot of Doom 3 sounds, so I can't just create a separate vocal_set and still be compatible with 2.0 (I think). One idea I had...If I look at the zombie AI it looks like they don't have a vocal set, just a series of spawnargs...is this a possibility, that I can just set up the vocalizations on the AI via spawnargs instead of a vocal set? Because the spawnargs point towards the sound shader directly (and not the definitions) then it should still be compatible when the sound shaders are redefined in 2.0?

Thanks, So if I just put a shader of the same name in my sound folder it will overwrite the one in the default pk4 files? Will this still work with v2.0?

I'd like to modify a vocal set to stop a specific audio file from being played (to be precise the "sniff" sound from the werewolf vocal set). Now, I know that the werewolf vocal set is going to be redone in TDM 2.0, so I can't just make a custom vocal set. My initial plan was to override that part of the vocal set via a spawnarg. The "sniff" sound is tagged in the vocal set to be played for "snd_alert1", so I put in a spawnarg redirecting "snd_alert1" to another sound. This didn't work. Does anyone have a way to do this?

One thing I've noticed though which is really annoying is that the AI are *incredibly* good at spotting corpses, even if they're in the shadows. Has anyone else experienced this? I've been in situations where I'm in a large patch of shadow, I've got a corpse shouldered, and AI are walking around. As soon as I drop the corpse, the AI will see it.

Those textures look like they're all stock, but they look a lot better on your computer than on mine Melan :-O.

@Biker, thanks, I tried using "paste shader natural" but I just got a pop-up saying that the patch shape wouldn't allow natural pasting. @simplen00b, yep those are wood :-), and yes they'll be rope arrows though I've tried to make all mission critical areas reachable by just mantling in case people lose or miss the arrows.

@ Melan, it's one mission, but it's become pretty large at this point...I just hope Darkradiant doesn't explode on me before I finish mapping everything. @ Sotha I'm hoping to get it into beta testing in about a month (knock on wood).

Thanks :-), I'm looking forward to playing The Accountant too! I do have some lines that need to be voiced for the FM, so I'll PM you when the mapping is all done and I've finished up the script.

Yeah, I'm a newbie mapper, but I really have to credit the community. There hasn't been a single question that I've asked that I wasn't able to get an answer for :-).

So I redid the setup of the next area of the map based on everyone's feedback. Mostly that involved increasing the scale by about three times to make it more imposing, as well as adding some climbing gameplay (thanks Sotha for that one :-). Here's a before and after shot. Initial concept: Final version: I was just going to have this area be an intimidating-looking facade that the player would walk through, but Obstortte put together a really good custom AI for the map and I needed to have more gameplay space to properly introduce it. So here are a few shots of the built-out interior (sorry if they're dark, but you'll see why this particular spot needs a nice contrast between bright light pools and dark areas when you play). Feedback and crits greatly appreciated as I really do try to respond to them!

Looks good Capella, I really like how you've set up the sidewalk trim. One recommendation is that you might want to vary the height of the buildings (even by putting a fake elevated roof on one of them) so that the player's eye sees more variety.

I'm a CPA and a financial analyst with a new daughter, but I try to always make time for writing and game dev stuff and can usually squeeze in 20 hours a week. Surprised to see so many post-grads here :-O.

Not sure if anyone posted this yet: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/194149/Thief_producer_on_nextgen_dev_Were_trying_not_to_go_crazy.php

Thanks Kvorning, that's exactly what it was :-). I copy/pasted that part of the map into its own file and still got the crash. When I deleted all my visportals, the crash went away. The weird thing was that if I deleted only enough visportals to remove one leaf I still got occasional extreme slowdowns (especially if I mantled through a visportal), but if I deleted more then I had no issues at all. If any Darkradiant gurus want a look for future DR improvement let me know and I can mail them the map segment.

Hey Letran, You're going to want to make a "func_pendulum". If you want to see an example in action, open up Tears of St. Lucia in Darkradiant and look at the swinging lights that are set up above the streets.

I gotta say Capella, that's a really nice pic.