RJFerret
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Posts posted by RJFerret
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I like the inspired by real world location idea too, and might be more welcoming for newer mappers than a non-standard gameplay theme (although creative ideas, the sunrise one I'd thought of previously, but also like the play as a soldier/Builder turn around concept: inspiring).
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*swims across, climbs the ivy, mantles onto the top, puts an ear to a door, picks the lock, slips inside and quickly ducks into a shadow...
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I used heathaze, and also didn't just put the existing lava texture on a flat surface, but a couple curved, so at least it appears to be coming up from a spot and "flowing" outward. A crackling sound and red lights completed the effect.
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Not inspiration as so much as instruction:
Thief vs. Deus Ex - A Design Discussion
A 60 minute talk between Warren Spector and Doug Church, very interesting.
Thanks for that, the stuff at 27 minutes about combat difficulty, which has been discussed here a bunch recently, and the stuff later about inventory, which also has been touched upon (more in terms of interface, but also provided items/shop), really helps solidify my thoughts.
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One issue with "get it working by deadline" and "polish it off later", is the later won't happen as there isn't the same motivation anymore. Other priorities will supplant the revising and since it's already "acceptable" and played...
Since different people have different time constraints, I'm more a fan of the size/scope idea. This also might help inhibit feature creep. It doesn't have to be physical size, it could be number of entities/objects, treasure, main characters, objectives, etc.
I also like the idea of house building as a simple contest. Then, a follow up contest would be implementing those assets, it would be interesting seeing the results of different designers' implementations/stories.
PS: Link to the current contest? Am I blind to a pinned thread? Google is finding stuff from 2012.
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It does raise the barrier to mapping, especially as newer mappers wouldn't know there's an issue ahead of time, then need to spend time resolving it, sorting out if the prefab is broken or their own installation has an issue, and then potentially creating their own from scratch or trying to fix what they have in place now.
There are so many weird barriers to creating content, the fewer the better IMO, especially with something as ubiquitous and prevalent as doorways, so critical to this gameplay. :-)
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Where's the environment it'll be used? Inaccessible to the player underneath?
Try offsetting the regular AI model underground, then use a bound item(s) as the visual representation the player sees above ground. If you bind it to a joint other than spine, it might even have some up/down motion, although changing angles with that might defeat the "reality". (Like if an arm was raised and something was bound to it's wrist a meter above, it would appear to fall way back.)
Alternatively have the AI sit, or perhaps jump, or provide monsterclip speedbumps to vary vertical motion. You might even be able to negate damage to lower portions of the clip model that'll "physically" still be there?
(I did this exact thing in Second Life as my Halloween costume, buried my avatar, had a transparent 2D particle pic of myself as a "ghost" visible above. I've done a bit of a similar thing here already, just not so extreme.)
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I've had something similar happen not from TDM, but a commercial MMO, and running the video card "control center" application would reset things usually. If not, it had a "reactivate controls" button which would. HTH.
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The heathaze is in the tdm_base_01.pk4 under glprogs. It is a 'distortion effect' that you can use in a material file. Some glass textures in tdm_glass.mtr under tdm_textures_base01.pk4\materials\ use it. What is it you want to achieve?
Adding lights to lava may have made it feel brighter, but it's been looking rather cold. ;-) Thanks for the tip of where to go exploring next!
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Lol it's still true most players avoid combat cause they suck at it.
I'd revise to, "...most players avoid combat 'cause they are ignorant of how to make progress with it." Note that once they are informed, those that desire to, become capable.
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Anyone know where I can find "heat shimmer"? The effect that distorts things seen through it because of air motion? I'm finding nothing searching for "heat" and none of the "haze" effects I've tried match it, but I seem to recall having seen it in missions.
PS: Yes, doh, models can't change their pivot. Yes Goldwell, worldspawn lets you move the pivot point directly, it's entities that throw me with needing the tab, and I was assuming (yeah, I know) an entity since the rotating/moving.
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In order to move the origin point press V and grab that middle point that shows (it should have red/blue/green lines moving outwards from it) and move it to the middle edge of the item you are talking about. It allows it to rotate properly
You likely have to hit "tab" before you hit "v" (in case you are trying it and the pivot point isn't appearing for you).
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I did this just the other day.
It's not as simple as a spawnarg on the AI unfortunately, but not as hard as the complete stim/response system.
Step one, select any brush (worldspawn) and target the AI you want to be a corpse. This will trigger the AI upon world start.
Step two, give the AI you want to be a body a response (via Stim/Response menu selection under the Entity meny).
That response will be "Trigger". This is what gets activated by the worldspawn targeting it at map start.
In that Trigger, add the Response Effect, "Kill". The target entity is the name of the AI.
Voilà, one dead equine. Note that it actually goes through the death animation at map start as it's killed, so you don't want the player start to be in earshot or they'll hear that as they click to start the map.
PS: And added to the Dead Bodies wiki page, so it doesn't have to be dug out of the forums.
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Greetings and welcome!
As someone who recently went through the learn to map process, yes, start with the A - Z tutorial in the wiki. It's designed to give an overview of most things and is fairly comprehensive. After that, the Startpack provides the framing elements for your own mission, once you understand what you need.
Pain points are learning that things don't simply rotate like in other software (you'll understand when you try it). And a secret is the tab key let's you resize Entities. (You'll learn the difference between "Brushes" (primitives in other systems), "Entities" (of which the oft referred to Func_Statics are subsets), and "Models".)
As for FMs, I had your thought in reverse, as I tend to be motivated to map driven by bringing a story to life. So had the thought once I finished with my current endeavors, that I might request stories from those less inclined to build themselves.
Although I've read about translations/localization in the wiki/forum, I don't fully understand it, it sounds like item names are replace with codes, so there can be a mail merge like file, or something like that. It seems most don't take advantage of the system currently. It also sounds like it should be changed so item names could be the codes, eliminating the need to go through trying to find every time and change it's name to a code.
But those more aware than I should chime in on these other subjects!
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Done. I hate it that people are so dumb that they can't be bothered to figure out why it looks so bad. Like really? They must have seen my screenshots all over the internet and when their game looks nothing like the screenshots they should put 2 and 2 together at least.
To be fair, how would someone know it should look any different and isn't an intentional effect? Most backgrounds are heavily treated as it is.
How is one to know you have to go through a text config (Darkmod.cfg) file line by line randomly guessing what might affect it for you?
As far as I know, I've never seen anyone other than me actually post the line you have to change. The only reason I knew something wasn't right was because I saw a random post by Springheel expressing the exact same complaint, why video footage had blurry backgrounds but clear text. The first thing I told a friend who was going to try out the game was to let me know if it was all blurry as we could fix it, sure enough.
Until there's a way in the settings in game to disable the stuff that does that without loading a text editor, and some way for users to realize it's not an intentional graphical effect, it'll continue.
PS: For those who might not realize their backgrounds aren't supposed to be soft focus, the line to change is: seta image_downSize "1"
Instead make it: seta image_downSize "0"
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One option would be to have a hot key for the other items which ignores the keys and readables
That'd be nice, and skip pots, picks and mines, basically only cycle the non-staples.
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I've added on to AluminumHaste's original instructions on patch splitting with how to do the actual cutting in a spreadsheet, where the grid makes it a bit more straightforward to do either direction.
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Sotha: I believe the tile is at 0.5 scale, and it is indeed a bit big. Every material I add defaults at that scale and they usually look too big. Is there a way to change the default texture scale for DR?
In preferences, Primitives (counter-intuitively), you'll find "Default texture scale" and may change it to whatever you'd like.
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This might be easier than my texture question apparently was...I'm trying to float an AI over the brush level the player walks on, monsterclip failed until I raised it 48 over the other, but the AI will wander until alerting to the player, then it won't move, just rotate like it's blocked.
Without an AAS (changing it to "elemental" or "-") it works fine and chases/attacks, but throws the obvious error at the map start.
So any suggestions to float or hover an AI?
(Fly offset doesn't seem to do anything, or I'm not properly implementing it. I read mention of a hover hack but haven't been able to search it out.)
To clarify, I just want the AI to navigate appearing higher than the player's floor, with both able to travel/interact in the same locale.
PS: I forgot to mention that actually makeAAS elemental causes a map inhibiting error. Also the monsterclip hack has the limitation that other AIs in that space would be at the wrong height.
---------Edit to answer my own question for future searchers... "offsetModel" does exactly this, I don't know how I missed it previously having gone through the spawnargs individually, but I did.
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And there's the question. How do you keep combat usable for newcomers but still challenging for experts?
And more importantly, fun. Fun has to have a reward commensurate with the challenge. Elements of that include the player feeling in control, that they can influence the outcome.
I've been thinking about this question since you posted it. At first I felt TDM had good design in that regard, as you can adjust settings to influence combat. However I believe I have realized some issues.
- Control. The threads that have recently been posted complaining combat is impossible reveal that players do not feel able to affect the outcome. "Two hits and I'm dead." The fatalistic result negates pleasure, or time to learn.
- Training. The training mission fights do not resemble game fights in the least. They don't hit back if you don't move, so they teach lack of movement. It's not communicated clearly when to successfully parry, so it appears parry is ineffective.
- Ignorance. Different AI do different amounts of damage. In other games, more hazardous opponents are distinguished differently. I didn't realize opponents were different here until I placed my own AI in a map and wondered why they didn't slaughter the player like others' AIs. (Partly to blame from the training mission, you can't see the more advanced fighters if you never are able to defeat the initial fighter.)
I'm not suggesting combat be softened (one hit and I should be dead frankly). But to get ignorant new people up to speed, knowledge of techniques would gain them control (depending on game playing ability obviously). Seeing the video demonstrated a fighting technique totally the opposite of what the training mission trains.
To have it be more challenging for experienced people, if moving away saves people 100% of the time such that it's too easy for them, change that so a portion of the time the AI moves while attacking. At the very least that would mean players would have to finish off AIs before their luck ran out, IE, require skill. It wouldn't even need to adjust per AI ability, as the less experience AIs would not do as much damage getting a hit in, while they most advanced would win. However were this change made, the ability to switch between parry and strike would need to be refined or players will always be taken out flatfooted.
I will suggest changing the first training mission fighter to a dagger wielding foe, so the player doesn't just die right away, and has time to figure out when/how to parry. It would be OK if the initial opponent doesn't move, as it all resets if you get driven out of the "ring", but a subsequent AI should chase you out, the environment is the core opponent of TDM after all.
For reference, it's easy to shoot someone in the head with absolutely no risk, it's relatively easy to knock someone out with the blackjack with minimal risk, depending on environment it's easy to flashbomb flee with limited risk, it should make sense that there's a lot of risk taking on a trained warrior with no armor.
Note, these observations come from someone who has avoided combat in this game previously. It does seem players fall into the "combat is impossible" and "combat is too easy" extremes without it being balanced for many.
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I just tried the "entrance" guard of "Tears of St. Lucia" and found him rather challenging, as he keeps moving forward and has such a longer reach. I don't know what circumstances were different for the patrolling guard inside, but he didn't charge forward as much, although his blow one-shots you if it does touch you.
The other issue is with AIs continually pushing you backward, once you run out of room to maneuver . . . , so map layout really affects it. Of course, the entire theme of the game is that the environment is the opponent, not AIs directly, so that rather fits IMO.
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Well THAT helped. Forget the style suggested in the training mission, don't parry, just move back out of the way. That also explains how to actually get a hit in on them without them invariably parrying your strikes. If you parry them, it takes so long to then strike a blow they are ready for it, if you don't parry them, you can actually get a shots in just after their swings. Thanks! (I just ran through all the guys in the training mission without parrying at all.)
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Since you type dmap whatever and map a lot, I do it a little differently, I just make the folder "t", so I "dmap t/mapname". Less typing, and when it's all done can rename "t" to be the mission name or whatever.
Also you can up arrow in the console to get the previous command back. So dmap, then up arrow, home and delete the d for map ...
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*nods, I went from, "uh oh, someone spotted me; hit reload before they even swing" to "uh oh, spotted; hit the flashbomb key and close my eyes" to "uh oh, about to be spotted, move away".
I've also taken to doing missions without killing/conking anyone out, so even if I could hurt an AI, would be counterproductive to my fun!
PS: Strategic positioning also helps, corners are okay to not get snuck up on, but if they find you, you can't run away with them blocking you! Now just like driving, you keep aware of your escape option to steer to in case something bad happens, I try to position to keep more boltholes available.
Modular Building Techniques
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted
This was the first pain point I learned, the usual design method of copy/modify can't be done here. The first prefab I loaded into DR essentially exploded in all different directions when I turned it.
As crippling as it sounds, until such time as DR gains the ability to rotate around a common axis, it seems faster to build everything uniquely, then to spend time trying to build an element, then have to rebuild the element (and hopefully not miss a piece that got misplaced) every time you try to use it.