joebarnin

Wow that was quick! Thanks everyone; I should have the mission ready tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest.

I'm looking for a small number (3?) of beta testers for my new mission "The Heart of Saint Mattis". It'll be ready for testing in the next day or two. Sign up here, and once we get a quorum I'll create a topic in the Beta Test section. Regards, joebarnin

Here's what I did. I took all of the .pk4 files from my \darkmod install, and unzipped them to a different directory, in this case c:\dm_all. (I use 7-zip, and it will extract multiple zips all in one go). So all of the pk4s are unzipped to a single folder hierarchy. If I'm looking for a file by name, I just use Windows search on c:\dm_all. But, if I want to search within those files, I use Textpad Find in Files functionality. I search the entire c:\dm_all folder hierarchy, limiting it to the following file types: *.vfp *.skin *.map *.pfb *.mtr *.def *.script *.sndshd *.prt *.xd *.lang *.gui*. It takes a minute, but that way I can find descriptive text, and also objects that are defined in text files. For example, let's say you are interested in atdm:ai_builder_priest_combatant. You won't find a file with that name, but if you search within text files you'll find that entity defined in the file 'tdm_ai_builder_priest.def'. It's important to limit the file types because otherwise it searches through all of the graphics files which is a waste of time. Anyway that's what I do. Maybe there's a better way.

Thank you, taaaki!

hint 1a hint 1b hint 2

Congratulations Jack! I had a great time with this mission (beta testing).

Jack - I'd be happy to beta test. To be honest, I probably shouldn't be your first choice; I wouldn't count myself as an expert DM player. But I'm here if you need me.

Good ideas, thanks. I was trying to stop the patrol as a work-around for a glitch (bug?) that I am seeing. Here's the scenario: I have an AI on patrol that I want to temporarily 'hide', then eventually return. The hide() method doesn't seem to work - he's still there, you just don't see him. So (at Event A) I use setOrigin() to move him to a blue room. At a certain point (Event B), I call setOrigin() again to return him to the world. This works fine, if the AI was not on a patrol. But, if the AI was on a path/patrol, sometimes he'll hang out in the blue room for a short time (20 seconds?), and then he'll suddenly disappear and show up somewhere else in the map (usually with falling damage). This problem doesn't always happen, but it only happens when the AI is on a path. So my assumption is that the path code gets confused after the setOrigin, and sometimes tries to move the dude incorrectly. I was just trying to avoid this problem by cancelling the patrol just before moving him. I'm actually rethinking this entire scenario, to destroy() the AI instead of moving him (at Event A), and then recreating a duplicate AI at Event B.

How do you get an AI to stop patrolling? I'm writing some script code, and one of the things I want to do is stop a patrol. I just can't see how to do it. I tried removing all of the path_ entities, but that just crashed DM. What am I missing?

Yes, that would work. The problem is, what if the player extinguished the candle before the script moved it? Spawning a new one will relight it. I can't tell if there are script calls to determine if a light is extinguished (in which case I could spawn it either lit or extinguished).

(the previous post was me too). I'm trying to move a light using a script call (e.g., $myLight.setOrigin(newLocation)). Works fine for most lights, but for candles in holders (for example, atdm:moveable_holder_round_plus_candle) it moves the holder, but not the candle itself. Probably something to do with the fact that atdm:moveable_holder_round_plus_candle entity has a "def_attach" of the candle itself (atdm:moveable_candle_default) - the def_attach'ed candle is what isn't getting moved by the setOrigin call. Has anyone run into this before? Any ideas?

Oh wait, "0" in lock_pins actually means "10", which is the maximum. Try using "1" - that's the real minimum (1+5). It's a lot faster than "0"

I'm not an expert, but looking at the code, I think 0 is the best you can do. As you mentioned, +5 gets added. There is a setting to override the +5, in darkmod.cfg seta tdm_lp_base_count "5" But in the code, if this value is less than 5, it looks like it gets set to 5. So, at least by my reading of the code, setting it less than 5 doesn't do anything. But you can try it and see if it works.

I'm trying to make an Objective of having the player put an object in a certain location. I've been banging my head against the wall for 3 hours on this, I just can't get it to work. I followed these instructions, and I also looked at several other FMs. For the life of me I can't figure out what I'm not doing right. I've got an entity with "objective_ent" "1", and a nice big info_tdm_objective_location, and the Objectives set up just the way the documentation says. But when I put the object in the location, nothing happens (the objective is not met). Has anybody run into any 'gotchas' trying to get this to work?

Thanks for the reminder. Done: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5037

Not sure where to best to post this, but here's a recent experience with dmap causing a crash. I was working on a map, and all of a sudden, dmap started crashing (TDM vaporized, no error dialog or anything). I turned on qconsole.log (seta logFile "2" in darkmod.cfg), and the last entry in the qconsole.log was: [store AAS] This made me think it had something to do with pathfinding/AAS. Luckily I had a backup version of my map from a few hours earlier. I compared the two, and one of the big changes in the 'bad' map was that I added a bunch of Monster Clips (which of course affects AAS). Though a tedious process of elimination, I determined that one specific Monster Clip was causing the crash. I have no idea why; it was more-or-less identical to several others in the same area (each surrounding a bench in row of benches). I remembered reading something about this, so I made the brush one unit larger in each direction, and the crash went away. Go figure. Anyway, just thought I put this out there for future searching.

I'm doing something similar in my mission. What I found is that you have to create a new particle definition. Let's say you want to make a green candle flame (based on light_candleflame). First, in your custom def file, define: entitydef light_candleflame_green{"inherit" "light_candleflame" "model_lit" "tdm_fire_candle_glare_green.prt""_color" "0.10 0.8 0.1"} _color will make the light that is cast green. The "model_lit" is the key to making the flame itself a different color. It needs to point to a new particle definition (the default is "tdm_fire_candle_glare.prt", which is yellow-orange). You can use the Particle Editor in DR (Entity > Particle Editor) to clone tdm_fire_candle_glare to tdm_fire_candle_glare_green (you'll need to create a custom .prt file). Then you can modify each of the Stages of the new particle (the Shader tab lets you mess with the color). You probably want to Toggle Visibility of the stages to see each one individually. Hope this helps.

I love this mission! Great use of horizontal and vertical spaces. Nice city layout. A seemingly never-ending set of optional objectives to find and complete. When I grow up, I want to be able build a mission like this. Thank you Bienie!

I don't know what's causing this. In similar situations, when I'm desperate, what I usually do is search all of the mission text files for the string in question. For example, use Textpad, Find in Files feature, search for "map", include subfolders, files with these extensions: *.vfp *.skin *.map *.pfb *.mtr *.def *.script *.gui *.xd. You'll get a bunch of hits but maybe one will explain what is going on?

One idea: open your <mission>.map file in a text editor (e.g., notepad). Search for "atdm:map_of" and see if there is more than one entity of that type. That will at least confirm that there is only one map_of entity.

re: the lute issue. I just did a few tests, and it looks like removing a speaker doesn't work - the sound keeps playing. I made a trigger_once that called a script, and the script called $myspeaker.remove(). Just like you noticed, that didn't work. The workaround I came up with was to just move the speaker to a far away 'blue room' (inaccessible to the player) using $myspeaker.setOrigin(). That effectively silences the speaker.

Is there a script call to determine whether the player has a certain object in his inventory? Specifically, there are two objects involved. Player has Object1 in inventory, and they Use it. Object1 has a custom scriptobject defined, and the inventoryUse() method is called. All of that works fine. But within that method, I want to determine whether the player has Object2 in his inventory. I looked through the script reference, but so far I'm not seeing it.

I'm getting some weird shadow things. Here is a video: If I change the light to a simple ambient light, the shadows go away. I don't see any stray brush or entity that might be causing this, and also the way that it moves as the player walks is interesting. Does this look familiar to anyone?

I'm no expert, but here's an idea, if you can't figure out a better solution. Create a separate NPC for each trigger_once (identical NPCs, but separate entities). Each NPC uses a unique patrol. Each trigger script kills off the other NPCs. That way you get a unique path depending on the trigger_once. Kludgy, but if you can't come up with a better way...

Can you send a screen grab or even better a video clip of the behavior? Maybe it will ring a bell for someone. Also, a question for the experts - is there a way of installing an old version of TDM? I ask because raymeld said that the problem occurred when he upgraded TDM. Maybe he could go back to an older version. Or is that a real bad idea?