[Beta testing 2.12]

Test the performance of the trainging mission on low end hardware, I guess. We are the potato force. 

[Exterior Leakage Woes]

Are you aware of the pointfile feature? Dmap writes these .lin files into the maps directory. Display them with File->Pointfile and look for red lines that visualize problems like leaks and visportal problems.

Which faces of a brush are sealing depends on the material assigned to the face. I don't know exactly which ones seal and which don't. 

[Beta testing 2.12]

I made an entry on the bugtracker with the a savefile attached.

[Beta testing 2.12]

In the same mission , under the certain circumstances, when using a health potion another item is used immediately after (like a spore bomb or mine). I can provide a savefile.

[Beta testing 2.12]

Volta 2 crashes to desktop on mission completion before the "mission complete" screen appears.

Edit:

Spoiler

It only happens when I put Belero on the elevator instead of shouldering him.

 

[On code style]

14 minutes ago, STiFU said:

As a developer, you spend about 80% of your time just reading code. So, optimizing for readability is very important. The more information you can gather just by reading without cluttering up the code (by needless comments) the better. Hungarian notation helps immensely to quickly prase the displayed code in your brain.

That is interessting. I also do not find hungerian notation helpful in any way. Exactly the opposite in fact. 

I was doing a lot of functional programming recently, where code is very short and concise. Maybe that's the reason. It is simply not needed there.

[Beta testing 2.12]

Playing Tears of St. Lucia, I noticed really bad framestutter in the church. It seems to happen around the builder guards. The game starts to micro freeze at a short interval (every second roughly). I don't know if this a beta or a mission issue.

[Fan Mission: Sir Talbot's Collateral by Baal & Bikerdude (15/04/2015)]

3 hours ago, thebigh said:

There's one I can see but can't figure out how to reach 0.0

Spoiler

There is a rope arrow in this mission. I assume you mean the doll.

But you can also climb on the chandelier. It is a bit tricky, but possible.

 

[Fan Mission: By The Cookbook]

Congratulations on the release!

This is a very nice looking, small mission. I really like the layout of the street and back alleys. Well done.

[Fan Mission: Sir Talbot's Collateral by Baal & Bikerdude (15/04/2015)]

New version is up.

Here's what's new:

• A high quality version of the intro video
• Subtitles made by datiswous
• Kingsals new footstep sounds (from his excellent Volta missions) are included (with his permission)
• Background image and ambience (music by Gigagooga) in the main menu
• The climbable vines were made more noticeable
• Removed the absence markers from all the loot. Guards wont be seemingly randomly alerted anymore
• Better textures in a few selected places
• Some model updates/improvements made by Bikerdude
• 3 new hidden loot items
• A lot of unnecessary files where removed from the package
• A lot of smaller fixes

[Fan Mission: Sir Talbot's Collateral by Baal & Bikerdude (15/04/2015)]

Hello, 

Bikerdude and I updated the mission. The new version is ready for testing.

 

[[2.10] Volumetric Lights]

It is probably the shadow maps for VLs that cause the performance drop. But thanks for the advice. I decided to not use them in the update, but will try them out in the future.

[[2.10] Volumetric Lights]

I am considering to replace the fake moon beams in Sir Talbots Collateral with volumetric lights.

But I need information on some issues:

• Do you they work well enough now? Are there issues with stencil shadows? I remember early posts mentioning that.
• What performance/quality options are there? I use a weak notebook a lot, and want to keep the mission running on it.
• Can I turn of volumetric rendering without disabling lights?
• Any other things I need to be aware of?

[[Feature Proposal] Frob to Use World Item]

The new system is great and, in my opinion, does not need changing.

But just for the sake of this discussion: what if the default action for bodies (drag or shoulder) could be chosen with an option? A simple checkmark that switches these around (either short frob = drag and long frob = shoulder or the other way around)?

Both variants would be ok with me.

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

1 minute ago, HMart said:

It is possible to override "core" files in TDM, without messing with the original files, from the beginning.

Yes, but I am talking about explictly NOT overriding core files.

This is about only overriding specific decls. If you package your own version of a file in the base mod, you will override EVERYTHING that is declared in there, thus reverting updates that might have or will happen in the core mod.

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

2 hours ago, snatcher said:

This is a nightmare for both mappers and modders, and not only in the audio department. As far as I can tell, and unless you employ elaborated tricks, it is all or nothing.

Things can change, though.

It actually is possible to override single declarations without touching the core files. I just got it to work with a footstep sound replacement. At least I think so, I am not a hundred percent sure yet.

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

Is it possible to override a single definition (from a .sndshd file for example) instead of whole files?

I want to replace some footstep sounds. If I include the sound shader defnition files, I'll have to keep them up to date with the base mod, and I don't want to do that. Instead, I just want to override single definitions in a separate file. Is that possible?

[Beta Testers needed - working title: By The Cookbook]

I'll give it a spin.

[Parallel lights usage]

I replaced the moonlight setup in Collateral with a global parallelSky light. It seems to work as expected and is much easier to setup. Cool.

 

@stgatilov

The moon light entities had "nodiffuse" set to 1. I don't remember why. What effect does this have?

"nospecular" was also set. Does this have a noticeable performance impact?

[Beta testing 2.12]

This is something I'm working on currently. I'm having isues with stencil shadows (beta212-03, maps work correctly in this case).

The left edge does not cast a shadow, while the right does.

 

Edit: The problem went away after further work on the map. But I guess I need to look closely for issues like this. They are easy to miss.

[How I blackjacked an armed guard to death in 50 seconds, without him or his colleague even realizing I'm there]

Must have been rats.

[[2.12] Increased Mantle Speed]

I'm fine with the new mantle animations. The only difference I even noticed is the increased speed. I didn't mind the old, slower mantling, but it is good the way it's now (my opinion of course).

Concerning the view roll:

In my experience, when moving around in real life, I do not really percieve small head roll movements. So exaggerated rolls "feel" off to me (that also concerns leaning). A default mantle roll of 0.5 seemed best to me.

[Beta testing 2.12]

I did play a little with the last two betas (stencil shadows) and did not notice any lighting/shadow issues. I did not look that closely, though.

[Beta testing 2.12]

I like the new frob system. It does work on rats, too. Imagine the thief slinging a dead rat over his shoulder...

I haven't tested this extensively and I don't remember which fm it was. Someone should look into it.

[Fan Mission: Sir Talbot's Collateral by Baal & Bikerdude (15/04/2015)]

I also sometimes wonder what would happen if someone decided to put crates in narrow doorways or in front of doors to block guards.

Would that break the patrol routes? I never tried it.