RJFerret

Reminds me of Second Life, very nice...and LOL at the ending comment, way too funny right then!

I increased mine too: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15271-is-it-possible-to-increase-fov/

Done. And thank you once again. :-) PS: Wasn't certain which category to put it in. Tracker doesn't have 2.01 version available to select yet.

If the former is broken, how to setup a trigger that affects AIs repeatedly but not the player? Is there a better way than having to clone a trigger_entityname for each AI that might follow that path?

How does one use the "trigger" spawn arg on path nodes? I've set it to a speaker or light, and tried it on a path_corner as well as path_lookat to no avail. Does it work? If so, how?

Why not simply loop path_anim? Then have the new path set alert_idle_only? (Or alternatively use an alert objective to switch to a non-anim-looping path.) PS: I have no idea how readily it can be done with conversations, I have yet to find a useful explanation or tutorial of how to do them.

There are tools for measuring results, FPS isn't a good measure as your equipment performs differently than others, and some people's systems handle tris better than draws, or vice-versa. Also things that might not impact your FPS, will have significant impact on others (or vice-versa, it may impact your FPS, but not be worth spending time optimizing because it'll perform fine for most others). r_showprimitives 1 (you want drawcalls <1500 generally) r_showlights 1 (or r_showlights 2 to reveal volumes, you want only a couple lights per surface) r_showlightcount 1 (red, green and blue are OK, cyan and purple will be poor performing, white significantly slow) The number of AI in a space is significant, but also apparent. r_showportals 1 (to test that your visportals are properly preventing other leaf areas from being rendered when they shouldn't)

Tab currently does this.

Without spending five minutes on a video... Yes, most lights already flicker/flash by default. Worst case to change color simply turn another colored one on in the same space. Mechanical stuff is done with "movers", some of which, like elevators, involve scripting for user control of them. Basic stuff like gears, rotation, swinging, back and forth linear can be done without scripting, if the control is nothing more than turn off/on as compared to turn on in this direction versus another direction. Teleporting objects around takes care of many things. "Triggers" let stuff happen based upon various conditions.

Ahs, check out the rest of the environment, is there a time the target crosses a less noisy surface? Do you have moss arrows? Mappers often design spots where it's more challenging to do things, and then times when it's easier, that way you as a player can choose what environment to exploit your skill ability. Or they design things and provide tools to mitigate the challenge. If the designer gives a tool to dampen sound, then fills the map with loud surfaces, guess what they expect players will do? Sometimes things are designed intentionally to be excessively challenging, so the player is encouraged to find another route around, or another time of approach. Or have it so players get to choose, quiet carpet in a more lit area or louder wood floor in a darker area? Remember, the opponent of this game isn't the AI, but the environment and how you work with it. Either way, it sounds like practicing your blackjack targeting in a less stressful space, so it succeeds on the first attempt might do more for you? PS: For helmeted guys that you'd think can't be blackjacked, aim for the lower back of their head, top of the spine, back edge of the helmet, if you are intent on knocking them out. The targeting window is obviously intentionally smaller.

Afterthought: you can even blackjack from directly in front of them if conditions are right.

Perhaps install the "Sound Alert & Blackjack Trainer" mission and use it for practice? I haven't experienced the problem you describe. Quite the opposite, I find blackjacking makes the game too easy. But what you do describe sounds like you are approaching too close on a noisier surface. That mission has all surfaces so you can learn how close you can get without them hearing, and how far you can be. The second part of your post makes me think that's more of an issue causing the first. If you aren't targeting where it'll work easily, might you be getting closer than necessary and alerting them needlessly?

Sounds good, glad too. :-)

Perhaps overreaching functionality now? The original intent seemed to be enabling mappers to find brushes that weren't aligned with their neighbors, since we work on grid, typical problems result from one getting off grid from it's neighbors. (Either protruding in, or not reaching far enough to connect.) It'd be redundant to detect leaks (dmap does that). Overlapping would have value (z-buffer flickering), but plenty of things intentionally overlap (monsterclip). However a "hey, mapper, are these brushes supposed to not be aligned?" would be useful methinks. (Then again, most of my leaks nowadays come from something aligned to the wrong grid line, or a visportal aligned to another that needs to be shifted away.)

Heh, no, it would make no sense for the sky to be clear when it's snowing, and cloudy after the storm has passed away. And also no, two stories (most of which isn't seen in this pic) is the plan here for game-play reasons (which pokes into spoilers territory). But otherwise, thanks.

Another temporally shifted set, now that this street, which I started work on beginning of Dec., finally has some details: just added the statue, banner and made several ground geometry changes tonight to add dimension and break stuff up (not that you can see that in the pics). Interesting how the cloudy sky is so present, compared to the clear starry sky.

In the "savegames" folder within whichever FM's folder in "fms". IE: darkmod/fms/fm-folder/savegames

*nods, yeah, you're ahead of me. ;-) That was why I was saying high enough so a horizontal visportal might close. Doubling them might be good, I was envisioning a set surrounding the roof/road vertically up to sky which would be perpendicular and negate the need to double. That way when the horizontal wasn't in line with the bottom edge/roof edge, it would close. It's only if the player goes to that edge to look down, which is when you'd want it open anyway. At least the other three sides of the building would be closed then. Corners would be the worst spots, since every roof leaf in sight as well as more than two on the road. Although they can be touchy, it technically is possible to put them at angles too, such that you can keep them out of line of sight for longer, if that makes any sense.

It will be feasible if the main road that traverses zig-zags, so there are corners interrupting line of sight for visportals. (You can also use them horizontally, which might help if the accessible roof height is high enough.)

Hear, hear. I wish I knew a way to pull that off. The nature of the beast precludes seeing over a roofline, nevermind going over it.

Perhaps leave that to the user? Currently one of the techniques to find internal leaks is to save just the worldspawn to a separate map file, seal up the visportals, and work with that. Obviously those changes would have to be replicated (or merged) with the main map. So I could see doing that, and using your script (if it doesn't pop up every mitered or sloping brush) for insights first. It would be confusing for users who didn't know to perform that routine first though.

Tips for performance here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks

I have to run out, but my initial look has some significant news... The hard part is over, with some TLC I believe we'll see quite a promising mission in the future!

I don't believe the texture tool uses grid units (which are 1.1 inches) but much finer control. You'll note if you go all the way until your texture wraps around, it's very conveniently a value of 360. Since textures are applied to surfaces of varying sizes, texture values don't directly relate.

(FYI, to download from that site, one needs to enable web browser cookies as well as your browser's referrer. It doesn't give you an error message initially to let you know that, but will give an error message later if you let it have access to cookies without the referrer.)