Baddcog

here's another pic with Biker's particle setup.

I got a couple to show. Started over on my canal map idea, ironically I started the map with the same twists and turns as last time (must be stuck in a rut). But this time I'm focusing more on getting it done in a cleaner and precise manner so I don't have a lot of patches here and there that need fixed. I've got a little area done over the last few days, completely optimized and all major details in place. Still need to add roofs and continue on... I plan on a cross city adventure where you have to transverse a lot of houses and buildings to get where you're going with a lot of ledges and whatnot to explore.

From a photo perspective the last shot isn't that great. From a damn that door arch is cool perspective it's pretty awesome.

I agree, the glowy bit isn't needed, but having it draw out as you go as if you are drawing it yourself would be awesome. Sometimes it's good to have a map of a place you are casing, the rest of the time it's just good to be able to keep track of where you've been/empty spots in a place you are robbing.

Actually I had an idea I might try to get around to, which is putting your particle set-up on the wiki. Then anyone who needs it knows how to do it and who did it first Got it implemented in my map with a 'stretched' texture water patch and it looks pretty awesome.

I typically try to ghost but am not too serious about it. If I get busted I generally try to get away, if it turns to a killing situation I usually reload and try to redo it without it going that far. Also try to use as few items as possible. That's why I'd rather pick up items or buy them in store. Hate having to dump things like flashbombs that I never use. Even though I try to ghost I don't like being forced to. The more things that force the player into a play style or reloads is bad imo. Those objectives are fine and can add more to game play, but they should be optional. If you fail but want to pass you can reload on your own. Don't need to game to end and force you to retry.

^ to the last statement... everyone loves great graphics no doubt. The problem it takes so much time to fine tune and detail everything. I'd rather play decent looking maps with good gameplay then never play maps because they are being visually tweaked for ages. Most of us were happy with T2 anyway, and now we have bump,spec maps, real time lighting and patches. that's quite a bump up in graphics without much more work on the mappers side for a decent looking map. I think this map looks quite nice, the outside gives the impression of being wide open, there are nice details everywhere. As i mentioned before my only nitpick visually was that the stair railings were a bit rough. Certainly not a map breaker.

Have you looked at the trigger descriptions in DR? You might want a trigger_touch: Continuously tests whether other entities are touching and calls a script function for any such entities. When active, this trigger is fairly expensive, so use carefully. :if the player is touching it something will happen. Same could probably be done with S&R, probably the same cost. Just put a response on a brush to do whatever it is. Really depends on what you want to achieve.

You just need a trigger brush. When an ai or player steps into it it triggers... won't go into details. But make a cube, add trigger texture to it. right click>create entity... ------ The zones are just portal areas that you can customize. A zone can be one area or fifty. The boundry is whatever portal and the info-seperator on it. if a vp doesn't have it then that vp just isn't a border. They are used for sound changes, ambient light changes, etc...

Imma steal Bikerdude's water fall Might have to embelish a little...

very cool. I just could never get it together to make machines. looks like you have a nack for it

Is the grass non-solid? If not that should fix any issues. I didn't really play in it, walked through a little but that was all. --@Sotha, i don't particularly like the idea of object highlights. Seems kind of cheap to me. Better just to have thing not placed in impossible places. Just because you missed one book that was clearly on top of a desk doesn't mean you should nerf your maps for all players.

chutlu, need i say more?

I think it's highly situational but in most cases I like to have a map. Agree, it shouldn't be a purchase in the store if it's very simple. Most small maps don't really need it. depends on clues/objectives. maybe an objective is to rob so and so's house on Hill street. You can have street signs to let the player know they are on Hill, etc.. Maybe a higher security place would be hard for a thief to get an accurate map of. Possibly only showing places that certain servants have access too. Automaps in t2 were awesome, but i don't think we can do that. maybe??/ ----- I like the idea of sketching a map as I go, but i play in the dark so that's hard to do/look at.

just skimmed the thread. Surprised you haven't heard of Torchlight Tels. Anyway, their basica design is simple as far as dungeon pieces goes. 1st: dungeon type.. You enter a mine or cave or... Then there are tile sets for each type. each type is really nothing more than artwork (mine, cave, dungeon) The tile sets are: 4 way, 2 way (north/south), 2 way, (west/east), dead end... etc.. Then, dead end empty, dead end with chest... This can be divided into more variation of course. Say each tile is a 9x9 grid, if you exit one to the north in the east corner, middle or west corner... --- I know you probably understand that , just trying to throw in any ideas you can use. ========= Anyway cool project. Maybe cities could be done too to an extent. Would be tough to have good roof crawling, etc.. sight lines and whatnot. But it might not be that hard to set up a good set of tiles that could still make fairly interesting cities. Still, with dungeons it's easy to make tiles of rock tunnels that fit together and randomly attached will still feel fairly random. With a city you have to mix up bricks, etc.. or everything will tend to look the same. If you have canals you need to have a 'dead end' at either end no matter what that looks like it keeps going even if the player can't. (in a cave it could be underground water flow, etc..)

just tried a few reflective textures spanned across a few water brushes earlier and they were rendering correctly. However jumping in the water with caulk sky made the caulke have a reflection too 8O

hmm, quite possible they weren't deprecated or that I did it last and that wasn't uploaded. I hate having multiple installs, makes it too confusing. After hard drive/computer fixes I fired up DR the other day and found a bunch of weird stuff and realized I was working out of a 3rd install 8P - it was somewhere in between svn and 1.08 (maybe i dunno)

doing some mapping and just noticed all the torch versions are in the entity list (ie: lit and unlit versions) I see a few people made 'light entity changes' on SVN but it doesn't specify. Was just wondering if this was done on purpose or maybe I just hadn't organized them. (Would hate to organize them and just have it undone). ----- As always we have to recap everything or the discussion starts over so... all lights were organized so only LIT versions were in the list. Since typically authors want a lit light. It only takes one tick in the properties to start a light off (start_lit or extinguished).

spoiler, must've frobbed the book while I was noclipped blind frobbing inside desk, that's why i thought it was in there.

haven't made skins for the steam whistle yet, but it uses gold and copper textures. So you can easily change at least one of those by adding almost any skin of a metal object like a gaslight or loot. Or make skins with any metal you want

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edit, lol never mind there it is...

Also like to know, a few missions were updated but the info in TDM doesn't say what. Some of them don't seem of have a version number in the list...

OK, finished: Was a fun mission. Small but nice layout and some great details. Visually very nice (though a few minor nitpciks ... mainly curved stairs were a bit sloppy ) Bugs though:

I'd recommend author use monster clip liberally. They can still swing their sword through it, etc... So if you have a cramped little room, just clip it out more. The guard can still trap the player or whatever.