Baddcog

Once again. OS 'es are programmed so users don't have to type code to get simple things to work, that's progress. if linux wants to hang out in the past and make everyday users lern to prgrm then it's always going to be the same old story.

Honestly the worst part of modelling for me in TDM is the back and forth between text files. Mostly it's just material files, which can be copy/pasted for the most part and just put in your texture names. So it's not that bad. def files if your objects move and/or have attachments. Mostly just having to jump back and forth through folders, even worse is having a clean game to test, then moving them to svn to upload... After a long day of work it gets confusing. But you have to do that in Source, plus compile. ------- Can't say anything about the grid scale really, not sure what XSI uses or if it can be adjusted :ie: Max lets you use feet, meters, generic units. generic units work pretty well. IF you can import .ase you could make some grid snapped cubes in DR, export as .ase and then import them into XSI. Ah here... here's an .obj and an .ase , they have a 1x1x1 DR cube and a cube the approx size of an ai (84 units tall) (doors are 48x96 tall)tdm_gridsize_obj.txt .tdm_grid_size_ase.txt just change the extentions to .obj and .ase respectively. ------ architecture models would be great to have too, something we're a bit shy on atm.

^Yup, funny how when I mention I don't like it I have technical impairments and have no ability to deal with basic things it's not an insult or condescending remark, I'm just a typical windows user right? But I get called out for using linux stereotypes. ----- Also, Steam doesn't say anything about what they support, they just give a link to Ubuntu and you have two choices, stable or new shit that might not work. As a new user which one would you go for? The one that works or the one you have to juggle?

Actually you are wrong. If I had grown up on linux and jumped to windows I would have pushed 'install' and steam would be installed and I'd be using the computer for what I want, not trying to figure out how to make it do what it is supposed to do. There's a distinct difference. Do you want to work in programs or do you want to work on getting them to work? I'm also not over reacting so get that knot out of your panties, like I said if you are offended because I said FUCK LINUX you have ISSUES. I can deal with basic things, do it all the time. The question is do I WANT to waste time trying to get linux working? Nope.

Basically lights are always on (unless you turn them off) and they always hit everything that their radius touches. With standard lights (right click >add light) and some model lights (electric ones mainly) you can see the bounding box radius in DR when you select it. Unfortunately the entity lights don't always show this, candle and torch models have a flame particle attachment and the attachment spawns in game. The actual light is attached to the particle flames, so you never see the bounding box. But the radius' for single light sources are typically pretty similar to each other. So you can place an electric light where a torch is in DR to get an idea of the radius. visportal closings only effect rendering/sound. They don't effect lights on/off states. Imagine a light in a street right next to a portal. It shines around the corner where the player can see but the portal closes, if the light turned off the player would see it. A torch on a wall might not seem to light up the tris on the other side of the wall but that is only because the wall is casting shadows onto them. If you put noshadows 1 on a light next to a wall, then you'll see that light on the other side. Of course the closed visportal does help still. If you are in a hallway with a torch on the wall and the torch touches tris outside, closing the portal doesn't stop the torch from touching the tris outside, but since those tris aren't rendered it doesn't effect performance. The problem comes in the outside most likely where there are high amounts of detail in a large space and that torch is one more light than you expected to be effecting the performance. ------ Basically I'm building winding streets with a building that can be entered here and there. So I'm not having an issue with lights on both sides of the wall. You can also use more noshadows lights because they aren't shining on both sides of the wall. Then in the case where it may be a problem you just have to be careful about placement. Sliding a light down a wall a few feet might get rid of a bad overlap situation. Putting in a fake noshadows light can extend the bounds of a light and give overlap without performance drain.

Lol, 'technological impairments. Not everyone is a computer nerd, I actually go out in the world and do things. I've spent a LOT of time working on TDM. Good thing I had Windows, otherwise all I would have ever done is futz with linux distros, reinstalls and trying to figure out why even a simple linux dl'ed .exe won't work.

Lol, funny responses. Believe me I've gone through this like 4 times. The problem with Linux? You HAVE to want to spend time working on your OS to use it. Sorry, I don't have a computer to work on the OS just so I can use things, I like to actually be able to install things that are supposed to be installable and work. ie: Steam. There's a steam DL on their page that's made for Ubunutu, they specify the Ubunutu page specifically. I dl it and install and it says there's a problem but I have to be a linux nerd to know how to fix it because they sure as hell don't give me a clue what it is. It says 'this is broken' and that's it. So I use the Ubuntu dl manager and download steam. Again, I'm getting an installer FROM LINUX SUPPORT. And it doesn't work. I also chose the 12.04 package of Ubunutu, not the newest one (and it says 'supported for 5 years/stable). Yet I can't even dl and install a simple program, when I try I get an error saying something doesn't work and when I search google I get no results. Tell me, without being a linux nerd or wanting to spend time fixing it how am I (as a user) supposed to know what to do? So yeah I got linux baby issues or whatever. But I don't want to grow up into a linux nerd, I just want an OS that isn't chock full of problems and issues at every point. ------ And 'fuck linux' should only get you bound up if you have OS issues. Seriously, do you do linux programming, is it really that close to your heart? It's a freaking OS. Don't be so sensitive.

Well, I'd rather see a zombie in ripped shorts/pants than a genitialia-less mesh. In Doom3 they were just silly, they weren't missing because the were rotted off or anything. As far as general consensus I couldn't tell you what is best for TDM, but having a nutsack and no sign of a penile protrusion seems a bit weird too.

That's using shadow material, which casts shadows on itself (the model). So if the shadow mesh sticks out then it can leave a weird shadow. If you use shadow2 however it fixes that issues (shadow 2 has NoSelfShadow property). Issues with that material: the arm of a statue won't cast it's shadow on the body. While not 'realistic' in game it's not all that noticeable really. The shading from lights still shades the model properly so that usually covers it up anyway. Noselfshadow materials don't cast shadows on themselves or OTHER noselfshadow materials. So if there is a crate in the statues shadow, and the crate texture was NoSelfShadow it also wouldn't get a shadow from the statue. But this is even less of a big deal, mostly Shadow2 is used on shadow meshes, so you'd never see if one shadow mesh has the shadow from another shadow mesh anyway. Also, all objects have a shadow mesh, so the textures won't have a NoSelfShadow property (or at least shouldn't, some may.. I dunno, I learned about this pretty late in the game). Their textures will have noshadows though, as you don't want the crate AND it's shadow mesh casting shadows.

lol yeah too much collision mesh is required for moveables (anything player can throw). Has to be very simple, basically 7 sided cylinder or less. Put collision material on it, there is a list somewhere for our specific col mats. ie:collision_metal, collision_wood... For large unmoveable objects collision can be multi material (wood and metal) and the main purpose is to simplify collision of arrows ,etc... Not as important but it doesn't hurt. shadow mesh is just a very simple shape that gives the basic shape for shadows. this is VERY important. Biggest impact to performance is shadowcasting/dynamic lights so everything needs as low a shadow as possible. export both those meshes in the same file as the model. model can be multi material to use existing resources, of course fewer is better pref (fewer draw calls) ------- Polycount is tough. Good judgement helps. I like things like goblets to be at least 8 sided, player sees them a lot and up close. But 200 polys is probably more than enough with a shadow of 40 maybe. Ai are around 5,000 I think with shadows of 1500, maybe 2000 max? Of course LOD's are now in place, so a fancy goblet could probably be 500 tris, with maybe 2 lod's at 200 and 100. (shadows of 150, 75, 40) A goblet needs higher shadow tris just because of the shape. We only have about 10 models currently with LOD as it was a late development (1.07 I think), so 1.08 got some new models and I loded them. They need their own files. Maybe call them goblet_01_hi goblet_01_med goblet_01_low ----------- Difference than with source is materials and def files. Source had things like LOD's in the model file. We have a definition file (def), text edit with notepad++ (for linux compat), it tells things like lod's , attachments (light sources) weights, etc.. (these are used in game as entities, not as models, models just sit there with no additional properties) Materials are somewhat like source. (.mat) they have the material name, properties (metal, wood), and all the textures used (diffuse, spec, normal) plus they have shader instructions so it's best to copy/paste existing ones. The shader instructions work with out world ambient light , without it they will be wonky. textures are 512+, ai are probably 1024, 2048 depending

1: you tell us 2: see 1 3: probably some stuff on the wiki, see link up top... busy playing tf2 atm we can do LODs now thatnks to Tels, so yes good to have. same as source for models basically but only export, no conversion programs, so thats nice. I'll be back, happy to help with any questions...

Fuck Linux lol, Once again I decided to try dual boot. This time Ubuntu 12.04... i dunno. Actually installed off a usb stick easily enough and on another HDD partition of it's own. And it shows up UNDER Win7 so I can boot up and walk away and not go straight into Linux instead of windows (major pet peeve in the past). Now I can choose it ONLY if I want. So as far as that goes it's OK... But still. Try to install steam from the steam DL page... some missing/broken lib6 crap... UGHHH So I find Steam in the software manager, have to sign up for a 'purchase' DL (even though it's free... UGHHH). Then try to DL and there's some incompatibility missing something or other and no info online... Instead of Linux they should just mail you (or tell you to find) a brick you can beat against your head when it's time to do the simplest of simple things. It would be more fun and you'd be more productive.

yup, Linux games on steam are 50-75% off right now. Play TF2 on linux and you get an ingame 'tux' the penguin. Lol, TF2 promo's. Looks like they favor Ubuntu. http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/ sale lasts a week, looks like about 30 games, some decent ones.

You just need to learn the workflow better. Collapsing edges is the way to go when manually decimating and it doesn't take that long, plus you get the results you want.

Well, I used a world ambient over the entire map, that gets rid of pitch black so player can always see what they are doing. And there is some light overlaps I'm sure, not paying too much attention to that. Up to three overlaps really won't have too much effect on performance. The stairs are being hit by the light on the wall and the torch (there are lights in the tower windows, but noshadows I believe, and their radius is small). Then the torch and window light may intersect. The window and the blue light may intersect a bit also. The ground is mostly patches with caulk underneath so no really large polys that get hit by many lights at once. Likewise most of the building polys are split up quite a bit. Almost every single unseen face is caulked too, so no wasted performance. Same shot with r_showlightcount 1 and r_showtris 1 The pink I believe is 4 lights hitting the tris (ambient world is one but it doesn't cast shadows). (black=0, red=1, blue=2, green=3, pink = 4... white is 5 or 6 plus) You can see there are only 10-20 tris that even get hit by 3 shadow casting lights. And for higher detail things like the pillars I add noshadows 1 to them, then make a simpler shadow mesh just like an object.

thnx, tonight at work I focused on the view the other way. (and made it less yellow ) (the difference in FPS is pretty good PC to pretty bad laptop)

You can simply delete the old mesh to remove it... Or leave it attached to the bones if it is to be the shadow mesh. or just attach the new head to the old (shadow), then reweight everything. It all needs to be rigged to the bones to be exported. if you don't change any bone names it should match the anim files just fine. ----- She is looking much better now btw, very nice head.

Not too long ago Gabe Newell said in an article 'No to Linux' basically. Guess something changed. I think he must've realized that any market share lost is market share lost. They already were halfway there anyway and had many customers asking for the support. But he also said they weren't going to make their own console, and now it looks like that's exactly what they are planning, especially after he saw Win8.

still making progress...

probably not needed but this made me think of something. A possible checkbox to close touching portal. Not needed for glass but if someone build a stone wall that needs blown up, would be nice for the portal to be closed (but like I said, probably not necessary, don't even know if it would ever be used anyway.

watching an episode of the Community on Hulu, this one is pretty good (first I've seen). I think everyone here would like it.

Smashing!!!

The blue/yellow one on the right are the 'chipped' glass skins I added for 1.08 (sourced from cgtex I think), the others have been in the mod for quite some time.

I wouldn't recommend having different versions of the map. It's confusing for players (downloading, testing, responding/asking questions about map, etc...). You'd need to beta test everything twice. If you update you'd have two maps to update. And that still doesn't solve your main concern of running out of entities.

hmm weird, maybe i was on a much earlier page when I made the post this morning right after i woke up, lol.