Epifire

Hey quick question, how do you get a camera position to be rendered in real time to a material surface? Wanting to create a neat effect but I'm having a hard time tracking down documentation on the matter.

Yeah I think I messaged around asking anybody at one point if I could look at the current resources for it. A lot more busy just trying to wrap up current requests and getting back to the portfolio but I'd still like to help out on that again if I ever get the chance. Had talked to Kingsal at one point about what adding my own NPC's would take. So while I'm busy af right now, I'm still really keen on working with animations (especially since I'm now learning Maya). ? I just wish id4 had more broad plugin support with other, more modern modeling apps.

It will probably have to change for me in the future but I hate drawing myself my own concept. It's a strange thing but I feel a lot more comfortable (usually) just hammering it out in the editor rather than going through a ton of concept. I do the thing where I take down notes that I toss on my desktop and usually refer to online references of the real thing I'm trying to attain the look of. But that's also from a modeler's standpoint where I do a lot of blocking and going over the design in the early stages of it anyways. However. Having very rarely been given 1:1 concept art, I will say knowing the shape and color pallet to something before even starting it blows my mind. I think drawing your own concept really depends on your workflow because I used to do it in the past but dropped it because it somehow gave me tunnel vision on the scope of the project right off the bat.

I brought it up originally just to hear our coder's thoughts on the concept. As mentioned in the status, I'm a big advocate for implementing (or improving) tech already very well associated to other idtech branches rather than trying to overhaul it's core architecture. We can improve things within a certain degree but at present, even if you had new tech to run TDM on; you'd have to patch the majority of our assets just to render it correctly. What I really would like to see added to TDM follows as... -Parallax corrected cubemaps with batch node building and macro-asset assignment (possibly my most asked/requested feature). -Optional lightmap system for BSP brushwork. -Vertex paint mode for displacements/patches in DR. I rant all the time in the TDM chat about cubemaps because it's such a powerful yet underused feature in TDM. A: it's barely accessible and B: it's current projection method limits it's practical usage. Current cubemaps do not shift via the player's spacial coordinates and they're really a damned pain to create for them to be feasible. Source Engine cubemaps weren't a great deal better in the projection side of things but the build method was 50x better than what we've got. Bare in mind it still uses player position to take the six sided snapshots but it treats the cubemap nodes (placed by the mapper) as player coordinate data to batch build all cubemaps from a single console command. Would stringing together entity positions in a batch automation be that difficult to create in our instance? Lastly I bring up the cubemap assignment/usage. Probably the most painful part of our current system is it requires you to painstakingly create a new material definition for each time you want a new cubemap for a new asset position. My proposition before was to have a generic default block running a kind of if statement. Exactly as our param syntax can look for code additions, my idea was to have this generic block (in a cubemap optional material) look for a cubemap keyname. That if referenced in the model via spawnarg, the material would modify the expected path and fill in the cubemap keyname. This would mean you could have 10+ cubemaps all being based off the same parent material. No more custom MTRs for each! All the mapper would have to do then is drop in a cubemap node, match that node's keyname to a spawnarg on said model needing reflections; then build cubemaps via console command. A fair bit of additional framework I can imagine but that is the ideal situation I could see us benefiting from as a whole. Just improving what we already have, without needing Nvidia specific hardware.

Just got the alternate, "smart" paths worked out; bug free! Thanks again all, I'm sure I'll be back this way when I get some more gameplay nonsense to work out!

Thanks for the responses everyone! Interesting glitch I run into with stims. The stim method works great until I introduce another trigger targeting the NPC with an additional path. Currently I have them making an NPC either walk left or right depending on what trigger the player walks through. What's odd is that the right trigger works without a hitch and NPC walks on the right path upon triggered. However if I place an additional (left) trigger into the mix just labeling a different path, the right trigger breaks. Instead the NPC will always walk left as long as the left trigger volume is present. If I delete it, the right trigger works no problem again. So the entity method Jack posted does work (even if it's a couple more steps) but I just wanted to figure out one last thing. What command can target the other trigger to kill it (kill and remove from stim don't actually work)? As of right now, left or right trigger are set to active at the same time. This introduces the problem that the NPC getting teleported in, gets re-teleported since the other trigger once is active. My goal was to issue a kill/remove command to the adjacent trigger volume to negate that problem. I only tried this method with stims so my question is what's a manual method for externally targeting a volume for deactivation/removal? My only guess is it's a stims bug (or possibly my lack in understanding) so I'm needing more options.

Hey I had a question. So I have a scenario where I have an NPC being teleported from black box into the map. However depending on what trigger_once the player uses, I need it to modify the starting path the NPC starts to patrol on. Still getting the hang of this method as my brain still works in Source Engine I/O direct entity events. So yeah to recap I just need to be able to assign a different path depending on what trigger is targeting the NPC. Thanks!

Well lets put it this way, I was in my teens when I started here (2013). I'm 23 now so I feel like I'm probably one of the youngest members here.

Okay, I just did a couple tiny edits to the mesh and general smoothing. In other words I finally took the time to actually hit upload So here it is! I didn't end up doing the glass shader (still a possibility) but to be done right it would have needed a secondary mask. The mirror also would have seemed strange in contrast to the lens getting a cool shader and the mirror being left opaque, so I just left it as is to not get too noisy. Kinda woulda been overkill in the materials for something so small I think. http://www.mediafire.com/file/mf1hyfgavli1c6y/microscope_001.zip/file

I'm not exactly on the VR bandwagon but the world and single player narrative experience looks really promising. Get some strong Bioshock vibes in some of those scripted door animation. That's a big compliment if you knew just how much I love those games.

Yeah I actually had a bit more variation of the specular in Substance Painter but it's always a bit of a guessing game as to how much comes through. Personally I went for a tad less grunge than I usually do because on models this small it tends to distort the normals details from the bake. And (for what I assume would be expensive in TDM lore) I thought just aged metal with high polish would fit just right. As far as the rest of the room goes this is just my proptest map. All the other models (besides the table) were my other projects and requests still renting out the space.

Believe me, this is about ten years now of trying to do something decent with models. It's a long time coming but hopefully I can still get in at a company to ship a title or two... sometime

@Judith If you were wanting to know, this was one of those rare moments I did your specular wood method (this being a much cleaner piece). It sits at 1,347poly which isn't bad but considering I don't think anyone will be equipping an army with telescopes in TDM, I think the enhanced detail limit will do fine. I'm pretty burnt after trying to finish this on a work day (who needs sleep right?) but yeah I'm gonna try that glass warp when I get off work tonight. Also important, I need to know from Dragofer if you want this set as a debut piece (in your FM) or if you're fine with it seeing community use right away? I don't like to wait on distributing finished models forever but I like to give the requestee the benefit of whether or not they'd like it to make a splash in their FM first. Get back to me on that when you can.

Alright, sorry this took me a little bit but going off of the brass definition of the first shot, I tried to match the tones and overall aesthetic best I could. Also, I'd like to apply a glass warp shader where the little lens pieces are currently opaque. Not gonna lie I tend to hate making clean metal anything for id4 but this turned out alright I think. Lemme know what ya'll think!

Yeah last I recall, the general thing I was told was to delete the DR temp folder in AppData and restart. Not sure what causes it myself but I think it's been a persistent (if primarily annoying) bug that's been around for a while.

Tom, a very easy way to find out what models are mine in TDM is by searching anything followed by _001 at the end of the name. I have this old habit I picked up back in my HL2 modding days where all my model names read something like, "basic_model_001" by default. I sorely need to update both of these pages (especially the Artstation ) but I've been stuck in my rut of fun TDM work rather than working on career assets! So yeah trying to just get my own basic fan mission together and ship something more than models for a change. But yes, these are my (slightly dated) pages... https://www.artstation.com/epifire https://sketchfab.com/Epifire I've got at least three requests I'm trying to finish up for people before I take on more but I definitely enjoy all the different projects people clue me in with.

Welcome! I'm interested in hearing more of your development background as you talk about your YouTube videos. We certainly can't get enough of good (and furthermore up to date) information and tutorials. Many core id4 (doom3) features still exist and function as one might expect. The areas TDM diverts is where the gameplay mechanics and rendering systems are concerned. I'm still holding out for updated cubemap systems with parallax correction but our coders are some of the best I've had the chance to work with in all my years working on mods. They'd have a lot more to say on that than I could.

There definitely is Brandon work in here (but it's not until maybe four levels in) as I'm just starting to hear some of them pop in now. It also says there's mixed authors on Zan's Patreon (Brandon included) but it's a pretty diverse track going here. Lovely to hear his work again for sure.

Was playing a lot today. I gotta say I really enjoy the pacing. The puzzles are indeed tough but I'm okay with that. It's very classic and has enough environmental tells to explain what you should be looking for but also makes you claw tooth and nail to find some bits out without noclipping or looking up guides XD

Holy shit I was about to say I could really hear the Brandon influence. I actually remembered his handy work in the JJR2 stuff from when it was still, "Epic Megagames" but yeah you can't mistake his synth usage. Definitely gonna have to play this.

I actually haven't seen any of these e-mails either.

Vanished that's some of the best lighting direction for a street view I've seen in a long time. It's a very simple kind of color scheme that still pulls off loads of visual interest throughout. However the interior shots feel a bit stark in the comparison when sat side by side. I think it's mainly to do with the single lighting color giving a very even look. Whereas your exterior relies on kind of a three tone (very D1 Lady Boyle streets vibe) and I think your interiors could pop just the same with a similar treatment. Certainly this comes down to whatever your artistic approach decides but I really like what you've got going in either case.

Aight, last one here so I'm just bumping to get final thoughts before baking this out. Only a couple additions being, mirror, lens, draw handle and small flange bits for cooler definition... I'm hoping I can get away with the inspection lens (sitting mid way up at an angle) having a glass shader applied. It would just rely on the normal map but it should provide some neat visual interest.

Alright so combining a couple elements of different kinds (and trying to stick pretty close to design) I've got the start of the highpoly here... I can edit some stuff in this phase but I wanted to get the inspection lens and the bottom end mirror (keeping it pretty simple) and finishing this up quick.