Serpentine

If you have a good usb controller on a flash stick, it can be quite good when used with a netbook, on desktop hardware it usually just degrades performance.

Re : what to do with explosives

When I was testing out using woldspawn windows for your map I converted one of the static windows to brushes then made it back into a static, from there I made a new layer and replaced all the windows with the new static version, easier for dragging around etc. When it came time to save and test etc I just selected them all and reverted to worldspawn. As for the issue with rotating etc, I found that usually comes in if your section that you have pasted or I assume imported from a prefab includes statics or other entities, since they reference the origin of the map, when you rotate they will leave their vertex in some strange place. If the entities are just brushes you can select them all and revert to worldspawn, more complex things will require more manual work.

Yeah I assumed as much, but it didnt make sense when adding stuff to the training map and then realising it has no location markers I thought there would be some kind of default ambient flood and then areas would be added but need not be constantly connected. Anyway, sorted it out now and things are looking good.

Yeah, thats what I refered to with the 'tile' material sound issue, seems to be very prevalent with them(as well as them being slightly too loud) Another 'bug' with the material sounds is that jumping on metal sounds like jumping on wood, might be an oversight tho!

Your work is very interesting - I dont think anyone here would turn away your help! Just about the AO, what I was getting at with the comment of 'theres pretty much no AO' was that it would be a huge effort to render and check the textures, there are quuuuite a few of them! As well as should rage come out in Oct/Nov, we might have access to the render and while it would take quite a while to convert the mod into a full release - which I think is the direction things seem to be heading, wouldnt it make senses to just take a newer approach? I'm all for AO, dont get me wrong but I think simplifying the number of files and such would be of benefit to both players and content developers Valves SSBumps are quite interesting, I was very interested to see them in Episode 2, most of the benefits of paralax etc without the massive performance hit on lower end hardware. If you havent played around with them you might be interested by this abstract I will still try produce a map with AO sometime in the next week, moving back to uni at the end of the week, so will let you know how that goes.

Next you will declare war on our fungal friends! Where does it stop? crystals? moonlight?! madness etc etc I dont really think its much of an issue, if a mapper wanted to get around it they most likely could remake the fire

At the moment, you are using masks to identify the main heights, with ssbump generator you can use gaussian blur to identify the larger components and give them a specific height, from there you can layer on finer and finer details each having their own maximum depth. An easier way to explain it is : You have a wall texture with large bricks with surface details like chips and fine detail specks and hairline cracks. Using a large filter you will try to give the bricks a height, like 15 Using a medium filter you will try to seperate the more important surface details, giving height of 7 Using a fine filter you will try to get sharp edges and the surface 'texture', rough specks etc and give it a height of 2-3 Blending each of the layers together with overlay, you will get each layer adding to the detail for the first, giving you depth of about 20 something. In pictures : That isnt a great example, its using a 256x256 jpeg editor image, but whatever It takes a bit of getting used to, but even the basic results are pretty good compared, once you learn to invert layers to cancel out some details and use less blending for details which you feel dont need to be expressed strongly, it also makes adjusting the strength of the normal quite easy, so that you dont get super dark shadows or anything like that and such you can do some pretty fancy stuff without manual editing.

The way it applies to the ambient level is really nice - shows up very well! Lights do seem a bit bright, but hopefully the performance hit is reasonable and perhaps it could be included as some kind of alternative, until such a stage that the performance and gameplay consequences are understood/accepted. The torches and other light sources do seem a fair bit brighter, I understand why, but it does contrast a bit too much with the surrounding area, if there is a non-drastic way to bring them into line with the current ones I think that would be a good direction As for AO maps, I think TDM 1.0 shipped with a single one, I dont know if it would be worth the effort, but maybe I should set up a scene and see.

I carry my convenient tinderbox wherever I go That said - I do think it needs some sort of balancing - like it takes 2 minutes before a guard re-lights. I have had a few times where I take out a torch and a second later an AI pops through the door and relights it while being called various unflattering names by yours truely. But I do think that it helps make areas more dynamic and interesing. Another completely random thing : The lantern works underwater, not a real problem but just reporting if it isnt intended.

All non-software assets (models, textures, supplied maps etc) are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. So yes, all you have to do is give credit and make avaliable any changes that you make under the same license - you dont have to use the textures etc as they stand! Good luck and it'll be interesting to see your fm in action

The issue is still there, I will add a note on the tracker. It is by far more noticable if the NPC gets close before noticing the door, if that happens he will try to close it and then re-alert himself that it is open and will try to open it... after a while you have a cluster of guards having a dorgy. Not to mention what happens when one of them gets stuck in the way of the door

Ok, got through most of the not-power-of-two dimention textures : textures\darkmod\decals\dirt\ long_drip_pattern01 textures\darkmod\stone\flat\ smooth_ceramic_tile_tan02 textures\darkmod\stone\flat\ smooth_ceramic_tile_gold01 models\darkmod\props\textures\ bc_stair01 models\darkmod\props\textures\ bc_stair01_local *fixed the normal a little bit, still might be wrong but looks better in game* They can be found here : fixed texture rar The following textures do not seem to be referenced by any model or material shader, they were not changed - as they might need to be removed : models\darkmod\props\textures\ table_medallion models\darkmod\props\textures\ table_medallion_s The gui assets have been left, I have no clue how to deal with them. I did give them a test, no complaints in console and everything looked as it should.

Good work Far too much effort for my liking, while I enjoy texture work and find it very relaxing - that is a bit too much like hard work! I think there is room for multiple normals for a small number of textures, your wall looks like it belongs on an external wall while mine looks like it is meant for some cheaply made housing or something, the sloppy mortar work sort of vanishes in yours. Anyway, a good example of why people need to talk up about textures that need reworking, with different spec/normal or even diffuse work and why when looking at textures there is no right or wrong way to do things - no magic bullet tools either! Done a few of the resizes, will get them up soon. Not going to do the gui asset resizes as I dont know enough about them, if the area changes - will they allign correctly etc.

I'll sort the DDS's out in a bit - is there any super specific format that TDM uses? do we generate mipmaps?

If you're remaking normals - Crazybump is ok, but its not really suited to textures that TDM requires a lot of. I have found SSBump to be great for making normals however, its also far more configurable but takes 10-20 minutes to really learn, once you have the hang of it you can do some great work really quickly, all it lacks is a 3d render. Crazybump is great for spec maps and such tho - you really need to use the tools together to get the most out of it. Textures like this where you are mixing large and small elements show up way better when you can define what large things are and what the medium size things are, you can adjust how much depth there is and what type of blends, the fine detail is also quite a lot more realistic. For other things like grass textures there is no comparison with the end results... From left to right : default - minimal effort ssbump - average effort crazybump - average effort ssbump I was unable to replicate a similar normal in crazybump, no matter what I did, short of inverting the whole normal, the mortar always stuck out and looked wrong. I've used CrazyBump for far more time than I have SS and I always feel that the results of the slider changes are pretty erratic and never 'what you expect', theres a certain misdirection between expectations and results for me. Anyway, that was just a quick example - Tho I really do dislike that wall texture at least I now have a normal that makes it look a bit more interesting

I was going to post about materials that people think needed new normals last night, thought I'd leave it til this morning. But you've beaten me to it! Will add it + links to the OP, very nice manual work!

Yeah, I've tried all of that. But, having a look at working examples it seems that they all use a lot more locations, I have a feeling that I am only placing a single one and then testing that - while I would need >1 to have it work in the first place... I'll play around with that later. Havent been using an info location for the initial ambient.

Nah, I checked and they are perfect, I used a hole to the void to check after a manual inspection, both were fine. The portal works perfectly ingame, r_showtris 3 and r_showportals 1 show it is working correctly. Going to look for more maps that use locations tomorrow and see how/if they are working.

Ok, soooo I want to deviate from the global ambient light. I have a lovely deadend room, it has a working portal at the door, the room is sealed correctly. I add an info_location and a location seperator on the door. I set the ambient_light on the info. I dmap, start the map and it doesnt complain about the seperator in console, so that is working - the location however does not seem to work and I cant find a way to 'see' the location besides for ambient/sound.I have tried creating locations a few times, sometimes they work - most of the time they seem to only do sound. the visportals and such are always set up correctly. I could create some kind of black lighting, but that is not ideal. So - is there some kind of magic logic that I dont understand when using locations? is there a way to 'see' them ingame(without using the ambient)? There doesnt seem to be much documentation on them, so I have no real clue. Any clues/help would be great!

While this thread is more focused on the story aspect, a lot of ideas and good discussion can be found in this old thread on a similar topic, found it while looking for something else : Linkage

The shadow is caused by an area of the patch right next to the light; light gets under it and causes that... its pretty tricky to narrow down sometimes tho

It's been in a few of the FM's so far - I think its just a material issue, I'll have to look at which of the waters they are using. Will get around to that in a bit

This map has a good chance of blowing your mind Excellent work Melan!

The author of the thread seems unable to rename it, as such could a mod please rename it to something about texture/material issues. Updated OP to reflect that. Also : I checked out the handle alpha issue and it hinted at something a bit strange : What are the guidelines for alpha? I've noticed the use of masking quite a bit but it doesnt make sense to use a full mask if the diffuse layer is already a dds, surely DXT3 would be fine? And also, there are a number of model textures that use 512x512 when they are storing <256x256, is there a reason for this?