Moonbo

Is there a "none" animation that you can load (i.e. the AI just staying in one place completely still)?

Thanks springheel :-).

Hey Springheel, I got static models to work properly (and even to spawn using Arcturus's ambient_AI head def) but I can't get it to work with actual AI heads. If I define the head model as an MD5 mesh I'll just get an error in game saying something about missing joints, and I don't know how to load a head as a static model :-/. So the issue is I don't know how to get existing AI heads to work with Arcturus's setup. Update: Okay, so what I did is dug into the def file that comes with the AI heads pk4 and from there I could get a list of the model names of the AI heads. When I used those names w/ Arcturus's ambient_AI head entity then it worked. It's a bit clunky right now since I have to sort of run through the def file and try to find the right head...is there an easier way to identify the model definitions of the AI heads?

Wow, thanks guys for the thoughts :-). Biker - give me a few more days to polish things up and make the latest round of fixes you recommended and then I'll send it back your way.

So I'm trying to set up the func_animates as detailed in the thread that Springheel linked to, but I'm having problems attaching heads. I tried installing the def file that Arturus had for the moving heads, but while the heads will show up in darkradiant, they absolutely will not show up in-game (not even as a black box). Any thoughts? Are there any FMs out there that use func_animate with heads?

Well, built the interior of the church this week, still need to build out the gameplay & swap out the AI's w/ func_animates but would love to get some feedback on the general architecture/lighting. The big concern w/ the lighting is that the player needs to be hidden so the top and sides of the church can't be too light...I guess I'm just worried that things are too dark. Any recommendations or thoughts would really be appreciated.

Hey Springheel. If there is, it's not in the standard download.

I don't think there's an entity for that particular model, unless I'm just not seeing it. There's one for a three-candled chandelier (much smaller) but not for the larger six-candled one.

Thanks for the feedback on the AI's, I'll probably be setting up that part of the map this weekend so we'll see how it goes :-P. A bit of a random question but I'm trying to set up some (func_static) chandeliers in my map but the only models I see are lit and flickering (namely the chandelier_6candles model). Worst of all because it's a func_static if you have two of them there's no way to modify the flicker speed so they all flash about at the same speed...is there any way to turn off or modify the flicker? Alternatively are there other, similar models?

Well that's a very convenient cvar, I'm just depressed with how green everything looks on my map...I was sure that I didn't have any overlapping light radii. How does the engine count lights hitting objects? Also, does it count lights behind closed visportals (i.e. if there's a light with a huge radius inside a building with it's entry visportal closed, does the engine still hit objects in its radius outside of the building)?

Hey Badcog, how did you get your lights so close together like that, without any black gaps between them? Are they intersecting?

Hey guys, So I'm trying to put together a scene with about 10 or so AI's sitting/standing in chairs in the same room. Now, I know having that many AI in close proximity will probably kill performance, and I don't need them to do anything but stand still and play idle animations (no need to look for the player, go on alert, say any barks, etc). Is there any way to create "dumb" AI's that fit that description, just standing in one spot idling without having all the other things that AI do going on in the background? Additionally (if I need to improve performance even more), is there any way to load an AI model as a func_static (possibly as a reskin of one of the statues)? I remember something like this being done in Heart of Lone Salvation (the woman who drank the sleeping potion) but don't know how it was done. Thanks!

He Pusianka, so far I've only used stock textures in the map, so everything in those shots comes packaged w/ the game and wasn't taken from somewhere else. I think I swapped out those textures for more standard warped glass anyways, the colors were too jarring.

Thanks RPGista, that did the trick :-).

Is it possible to take a collection of brushes/patches and treat them like a door (mover)? I you need to turn the collection into a func_static first? Thanks.

Keep in mind though that in the latest version Darkradiant there is a bug where moving around sloped func_statics will cause them to change their shape, so be wary of that.

One other downside to func_statics is that they can't be cut in half by visportals. If you have a big func_static and have a visportal running through it, the full func_static will be rendered even if the visportal is turned off. This could affect performance.

Hey Serpentine, I most certainly do have a copy of the map where the crash was happening. I'll PM you with two versions, my last snapshot pre-crash and first post-crash.

Solved it! I tried all the various fixes recommended (adding visportals to smooth out how many entities were in each leaf, applying the 4 GB patch, copy/pasting the whole level into a new pat) but nothing worked. So, as a last resort I just started erasing parts of the map until dmap started working and then looked at what was wrong w/ the stuff I erased. It turns out that as part of the changes to the map I had moved around some angled brushes. Due to a bug in darkradiant these brushes got deformed in the move and were clipping into the surrounding brushwork. The amount of the clipping was tiny, like less than 0.25 units, but I guess that was enough to cause dmap to crash. Once I snapped everything to grid, the problem went away. And now, I'm going to bed :-).

All these pics have got me inspired, and wanting to pitch in :-). This week I've mostly just been trying to fix the map for Bikerdude's (insightful as usual) feedback. So not much new BSP, but lots of moving stuff around and polishing. I still can't find a way to fix the $!@ dmap crash that's affecting the map though...anyways here's the updated rear of the church. Feedback always appreciated: I've got a question that I'd love to get everyone's thoughts on. Once I build out the interior of the church I'll be at about the mid-way point of what I've planned out for the FM. Right now the entity count on the map is about 2,500. I've always wanted to make the whole FM a single map so that players could have a seamless experience, but the dmap/map loading process in general is now taking a pretty long time. Also the fact that I have this dmap crash that I can't solve is getting me nervous. Do you think it makes sense to split a mission with that entity count across two maps using the campaign feature? The downside is that this will pull the players out of the experience as the second map loads, but the upside is that I'll be able to iterate faster and not have to worry about issues with the second half of the map affecting the first... what do you guys think?

Nice! How'd you put together that crumbling wall? Are those bricks just func_statics?

Huh, does that count for lights and func-statics sticking into worldspawn? I'll see if I have any badly placed speakers in the map.

Well, since I'm new to mapping, don't have any youtube vids of my work, but at the end of this vid is a decent chunk of dialogue that I had a lot of fun writing for a previous modding project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrXoY1xL75s

Sure, I'm just about done polishing up the section I'm working on so I guess I'll flip it over to Biker then :-P.

Hey AluminumHaste, I tried deleting those files and then re-demapping, but I still got the crash. I also tried erasing all the human AI's I added recently, and that didn't do anything either :-(.