Epifire

It just throws my lighting mood off is all. I figured it was just how the system worked but I'd been wondering what alternatives are (besides manually replacing the gamma loss). I tried to see if Nvidia Experience had a different result but sadly it faced the same problem.

Hey fellas, quick question for the Epi thread once again. So I was wondering about something. When taking screenshots (via TDM's screenshot function) is there a way to correct the gamma settings that aren't applied? For some reason whenever I take a screenshot I have to go and edit the gamma in Photoshop to correct the results to what I actually see in game. Otherwise everything looks over brightened and kinda ruins good lighting.

Neon, PM me some suitable references and I'd like to take a crack at making some plaster materials for you. I need some practice with Substance Designer anyway, so at the very least it shouldn't be any time out of your way.

I'm not encouraging it on small things but I tend to use 1024 all the way up to 4096 with good performance. 4k is pretty beast for file size though, and I've only used on really massive model sets (bunchs of meshes to be used in a single scene) or one giant model. My recommendation for greater performance is to combine multiple models onto a single texture sheet (within reason). The downside is say you make twenty different models that all rely on the same resource, that one giant resource gets loaded even if you only use one of those models. So, combine textures wisely.

Do the spawnargs have to be used in conjunction with the script though? I'd used shoundshader references in the past but only via script or spawnarg exclusively.

Never had any luck getting them to work. I tried just targeting the speaker labels that contained the sounds and then the actual sound reference names themselves but could never get that to work. I had used, $mover_object.decelSound("tram_stop"); in the past but no luck in getting that to work. I was able to use conventional methods like, $snd_electrical_loop.activate($player1); but anything for the movetime, accel and decel sounds I couldn't. One thing that occurs to me now; does the decel script have to work in conjunction with the decel sound spawnarg (set in the tram mover) as well?

Man, something that simple was all it took. Thank you! I knew it was something in my setup as I had tried practically everything else. I honestly wish I was more knowledgeable about what the different operators performed, but it's still gonna be a while before figuring all that out. Documentation is pretty vague, and to non-coders like myself it really just comes down to seeing select examples of what the different functions achieve. Now here's an interesting one (kinda looping back to what I asked before) is about a simple math function. How to make the script check the move time, subtract six seconds off that and use that to time the trigger on the decel sound. It's not crucial but that would remove a whole entity array that's doing the job manually from a from DR. I'm really just curious on the syntax because I know we have math operators that should be able to do this. The two things that confused me was if the move time could be checked from script, if it's a value supplied via a spawnarg. The other is how to carry that value over (in the script) to achieve proper timing. It's really inconvenient to manually set the decel trigger time, so if it's possible I really want that to not have to be done in the final version.

All the time, and 1 * 0 garbage is left over from the references I pulled these off of originally. They ended up working for my original uses so they stayed, as they weren't breaking anything. The blend add stage is just for the arc card to glow, as it's pretty drab by itself. This setup you posted works but only along one axis of movement. It's still missing vertical and horizontal motion in this instance. Time is needed as the control of the movement is required to be rapid (along vertical movement) and much slower horizontally. Done right this should allow me to stage arc bolts that move/slide across two rails.

Just an off the cuff thought here, had you tried noclipping to see if these lines converge on any given point? If it's consistent, it could be used kinda like a point file to localize the problematic entity.

I'd tried getting a math function setup based off that same page actually. Don't think I had the right syntax though. EDIT: Oh now that I think about it, there is something that's on topic I had been meaning to ask. I have one thing left for the tram and it's a mtr bound effect. Problem I'd been having is I don't can't seem to be able to have a scroll function working on both the U and V axis. I actually just can't get horizontal scrolling to work at all and it's been a bit frustrating. I was told scroll and translate specified the two different axis of movement but no such luck... tram_arcbolt_001 { noshadows nonsolid twosided { blend diffusemap map models/darkmod/props/textures/arcBolt_card alphatest 0.5 scroll 1 * 0, (time * 4) translate 0 * 1, (time * 1) VertexColor } { blend add map models/darkmod/props/textures/arcBolt_card rgb 1 scroll 1 * 0, (time * 4) translate 0 * 1, (time * 1) VertexColor } { blend diffusemap map models/darkmod/props/textures/_transparent alphatest 0.5 inverseVertexColor } } I tried swapping out the 1 * 0 values after the translate and scroll commands but that didn't seem to have any change when tested. Also, this specific material fades the arc bolt out to transparency (via vertex blends). Mentioning that now to avoid confusion about the VertexColor lines.

Voted! Hope she can get a new roof!

So far I actually have it all working now. The difference being that the decel sound has to be fed a manually added delay (minus six seconds of whatever the actual move time is). If I ever get around to compacting this more I'd like to get a script that finds the move time and does the subtraction automatically. Thus I'd be able to remove some DR entities and clean that end of things up a bit more.

I recently was brought over to the project method. But no you actually can keep all the files loose (while still in the same hierarchy). You shouldn't have to create a PK4 from it, at least I know I don't on my current mission. The upside is you know where you're going to find new assets (easier) since it's all contained under a single folder. I tend to like to share projects around a lot to get things tested, so I'm trying to look at a method for quickly batch copying edited files to a local repository. Or at the very least a local version control app that I can tag files once in and then run the app to collect any recently changed versions. I recently had overwritten the wrong mtr file by accident and am still kicking myself over the mistake. Not meaning to derail your topic any, but the batch version control felt relevant.

"Sir I'm here to inform you your coach has arrived" Almost done, just some electrical works to finish up and maybe some script polishing to make more than one tram usable on a single map.

Yeah believe me XSI has the support but the smoothing is completely broken in my own tests. You still have to run another app (Lightwave or Blender) to finalize the export and correct the smoothing data. I currently use XSI + Lightwave to handle my modeling at current but I didn't know Modo had such a wide file type support. Softimage stopped getting decent file support around the 2011 era when the company decided to stop focusing on it. There are plenty of Python script addons out there, but the databases storing them are starting to get archived since it's just so old now. I still use it but the sad sad truth is after nearly a decade of using it I probs gotta pickup Maya or 3DSMax.

Ohhh man I always wondered where this thread went when I came back years later. Uhhh, I don't think I ever found much luck in Softimage exporters as it was discontinued by Autodesk about a year ago or so. Now it's fallen so far out of the user base it's hard to even get proper google info search going for it. I basically just went to Blender for final exportation as it had mostly working LWO support. Which at this rate is just the superior file type for id4 anyway since it's very compact and is the native file type.

Thankyou! I'm very happy to see this getting done as I was stuck trying to get the gameplay end of it in place for the past month. Once I have a whole working scene with this in it I wanted to record a video of the whole thing in action. To be sure I'll definitely circle back with the finished model at the very least.

That's the magnetic driver plates that move the tram on the bottom. I plan on making a non-riding version of it and since I'm also constructing suspended bridge style railways it's very possible.

Well the time has come. As some of you know I've been working on making a fully functional tram vehicle for TDM. I finally completed my work on the highpoly and wanted to share some renders on the design before I head to retopo and baking/texturing. As of the time of writing this the tram gameplay itself is fully functional (with sounds and two way motion). Now I just have to finish the tram itself as well as a railway track set to use for it's path.

Ahh yes glad our server had a repost again. I want to encourage other members of Discord (even for direct message and PMs) as it features a speedy file transfer option adaquate for handling small files, textures, maps, etc. The default is an 8mb cap but it can go to 50 if you're one of those folks who foots a small bill to support Discord. NOTE: You're never asked to pay anything in Discord, the only thing it grants is extra privileges if you feel inclined to do so. I still say we should have a maps and art thread to avoid immediate announcement/content burial. I know people like to talk maps and models a lot and it's kinda nice to have a select corner for the eye candy. Beyond that I think the other two we have is fine. Maybe a poll to see what people think?

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What if you did something a bit crazy and had a particle system always running (when the light source is active) but modulate the light material and the ones used in the particle based off a sound file? You could then tie both into a single sound file playing. I guess the problem with that might be particles already spawned would light up outta nowhere. Unless there's a way to enable a particle cull on spawn based out of a transparency check. The theory behind that is if the particle is invisible > remove. So it would be killing the particles off until the opacity kicked back in. Talkin like some screwy UE4 kid here though, cause I'd imagine something like that would be pretty costly. So the limitations would be directional particles, like smoke or sparks with a long trail would look strange. Particles that could benefit from this would have a contained bounding and center (such as electricity or beams) without the noticeable spawn snapping. Best I could come up with, hope it helps.

OH, derp. Yeah that makes a lot more sense than what I was initially thinking. So it accepts the script but I'm getting the feeling this mover doesn't behave like normal movers. I say that because both in the spawnargs as well as these direct script functions, it hasn't actually played the sounds when the tram accelerates, moves, etc. It's strange because I assign timing values for all those modes of movement but the sounds don't seem to play in those occurrences. This does make me wonder if it's a sound shader problem, like not having it play globally or something. If it was something like localization that would make perfect sense as to why I can't hear it. I'll have to have a look at that, or just see how I can trigger these sounds manually based on mover events. Yeah I just tried setting global on the sounds but still no luck, I just don't think the mover is triggering them for whatever reason. EDIT: Well I did a little bit of finagling in the script and just manually kicked the loop sound in. So if for some reason we can't figure out a way of making the base functions for accel, decel and move sounds work; then I can do this other weird means of getting the sounds in. Only thing that's really off is the, "tram_stop" decel sound because I don't have a value that I can use to kick that in. However I don't know the syntax for it but I made the assumption it could be kicked in via a speed check. I'd have something that would check mover speed and it would be delayed in the script to check after the initial acceleration time is over. Again I don't know the syntax for it but I'd have the stop sound trigger if the speed dips below the max run speed. Great part about this method is the max run speed can change depending on what the mapper uses but it wont change what the speed check does as it only uses a value less then whatever it's currently running at. A decent theory at the very least.