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Skaruts

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Posts posted by Skaruts

  1. 17 hours ago, datiswous said:

    There are currently no actual voices in this fm, so subtitles are impossible. Maybe in v3?

    Someone else wrote that in the OP, I just edited the source link into it.

    There's not going to be any voices.

    • Like 1
  2. On 3/1/2024 at 9:51 AM, datiswous said:

    So you are willing to invest time into figuring out some obscure way to get it working instead of invest time in a proper solution for the future.

    Switching systems is a longer term time and effort investment than a way to compile a program. Especially because I am willing to invest some time learning linux.

    On 2/29/2024 at 6:31 PM, JackFarmer said:

    Which distro are you likely to switch to?

    Mint, probably. I don't have any strong preferences, I just want something reliable and low maintenance, where I can focus on work.

  3. None of this is relevant, though. I will be switching OS and experimenting at some point, but I have other priorities to worry about in my life and no willingness to be adding that on top right now.

    Meanwhile, this is what I have to work with, and I'm trying to find out if there's a way I could still compile DR with it.

    @OrbWeaver I could use virtual box to run a linux distro, but could I compile to a windows executable from it? (I presume I can't.)

  4. I'd still be on XP if they hadn't dropped support.

    5 hours ago, AluminumHaste said:

    Why do you feel it's fair to expect Microsoft to continue to support an OS that's 4 versions out of date?

    I didn't say anything to that effect. I just grew to hate having to keep switching OS due to their business model that keeps imposing that. Been doing that for nearly 30 years now.

    I don't expect Linux to be paradise. I just hope it's less infuriating than MS products. 

    Either way, that's besides the point here. 

  5. I'd like to be able to compile it, but I can't run VS to save my life at this point. Credentials gone stale (as always), and still being on Windows 7 is making it impossible to fix them (though it would be a nightmare anyway).  

    So I need some other way, but I don't know enough about compiling C++ to know what to do. 

    I tried with cmake, but it didn't compile. I got a whole bunch of errors just like this one:

    CMake Error at C:/CMake/share/cmake-3.29/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:681 (message):
      pkg-config tool not found
    Call Stack (most recent call first):
      C:/CMake/share/cmake-3.29/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:847 (_pkg_check_modules_internal)
      CMakeLists.txt:54 (pkg_check_modules)

     

  6. On 1/19/2024 at 10:00 AM, greebo said:

    Works with fs_game_base as well.

    I was just giving this another go, and it seems neither fs_game nor fs_game_base set the actual engine's path. This is the problem I was having before.

    Looking at other game types in the drop down menu (in the Game Setup window), some of them show that fs_game sets the "Mod" (Mission ) and fs_game_base sets the "Mod Base", and not the "Engine Path".

    (fs_game is actually useful for Dark Mod mapping, though, for working on multiple projects. Thanks a lot for that. 👍)

     

    What I really need is to launch DR with an engine path (and no Mod or Mod Base at all)

    Is there a parameter to do that? 

  7. I use hotkeys for filters, yes. If I had to access the menus every time I wanted to hide/unhide things I'd go insane. I wouldn't toggle them on/off nearly as much as I do, and my workflow would be slower and more limited.

    As an example, I very often toggle visportals on/off for adjustments, or func_statics for inspecting world geometry. 

    And sometimes I have to turn off all filters so that I'm 100% sure I'm copying or moving geometry properly, without leaving behind hidden clips, triggers, visportals, nodraws, etc. 

    And then I have to re-hide all the things I like to keep hidden. I don't know about your workflow, but 99% of the time, I keep collisions, shadows, sky, visportals, triggers, nodraws, and also caulks, all hidden and out of my way. With hotkeys I just press alt and a bunch of keys in succession, and it takes me seconds. With menus it would take a while.

    There's no way I could ever not use hotkeys. I'd go completely nuts. :) 

     

    4 hours ago, datiswous said:

    I think that's just your specific assumption. You can use filters for very map specific things. It's not difficult or a lot of work to make them.

    No, I'm saying they require more work than just simply creating a layer and putting stuff in it. And if you don't put a hotkey on it, it's also more work to use.

    I'm not saying you can't use them for that. I'm saying they're not the right tool for it.

     

    EDIT: Keep in mind that the example above is just one example. There's all sorts of things you might want to use that functionality I suggested for. And again, layers are map-specific. If you setup filters for layers (is that even really possible?), then your filters menu will grow, and become polluted with junk that only works on certain maps. And the more you do it, the worse it gets. 

    Back when I could used that in Hammer, I always had quite a few layers per map that controlled visibility of specific groups of objects. When you can just go wild with it, you go wild with it.

    • Like 1
  8. 1 minute ago, datiswous said:

    Instead maybe add a filtertype for layers, so you can filter everything that is part of that layer.

    It's arguably quite a bit more work than just creating a layer and adding stuff to it. And then you'd have to also add it to a hotkey, to make it practical. Filters are good for things you want to keep as groups forever, not really for temporary or map-specific groups.

    One other problem with filters is that you can only have so many hotkeys. Any filters that aren't attached to hotkeys aren't practical to turn on/off, because you need to access the menu. 

     

    (Ideally, filters and layers would be unified under the same system, because they are actually the very same thing. I went into this in more detail here. I'm not expecting that to be done in DR, though. It might be a lot of work. But I could be wrong.)

  9. I've been meaning to suggest this for months, but the previous improvements have already made Layers so nice to work with that I just got lazy about this. :D 

    But there's a few things I think could still be improved. And personally, I would prioritize the first one below, if I had to pick one.

    I haven't been following DR's development, so I don't know if any of this is already done and ready for the next release. But in case it's not, here goes.

     

    1- it would be nice to be able to right-click a layer in the Layers panel, and have all the options to add to layer and move to layer and remove from layer, right there. This would make it much easier and quicker to manage layers. And, I personally keep adding prefixes to layer names, so that they're sorted in the list below, so I can find them easier, because the list gets big and confusing. This improvement would remove the need to do that. It would even remove the need for using this list, I think.

    image.png.1695479d0197b4072222b30bc5f8fe7b.png

     

    2- It would also be nice to add a new layer directly as child of another layer, just by right-clicking the intended parent layer. Currently, you have to click the New button at the bottom, and then manually drag the layer to its intended parent.

    Or when clicking New, the new layer could be created as child of the selected one.

     

    3- I've suggested this one before, but I don't know if it's doable or not. It's harder to explain and I think the benefits aren't very obvious. It would be nice to override the visibility of objects that are contained in multiple layers, by toggling one of those layers on/off. So the layer you toggle, overrides their visibility. So regardless of whether its objects are visible or not, hiding this layer, would hide all of its objects, and vice versa.

    This can be useful when you have certain objects in their respective layers, but then you'd like to have also have a way to toggle all of them on/off at a single click. And with this improvement you could add them to a separate layer, and then just use that layer to override their visibility whenever you needed. For example, to get the ceilings of a whole bunch of rooms out of the way all at once, so you could have a clear view of the rooms while you put in furniture or path nodes or something.

    Currently, objects are always visible if any of the layers that contain them is visible, so this kind of thing can't be done. (And to be honest, because of that, currently it seems to me that there's no point having objects in multiple layers.)

    This is also useful for grouping things for easy group-selections. Arguably, you can also use selection sets for that, but the way you create and delete them makes them more suitable for quick and dirty one-time grouping, rather than something a little more indefinite. The two approaches have different levels of control, which makes them appropriate for different use cases.

    • Like 1
  10. On 2/16/2024 at 5:39 AM, hightide said:

    there is one location I'm having trouble with: Bert mentions two places to keep loot but I can't find a way to access the one 

     

    Spoiler

    Inspect the poop chute in the ceiling. You'll find a button there. 

    Thank you. :) 

  11. This mission strikes a special cord in me, as I've always been a huge fan of horror. But either I'm too dissensitized to monsters and demons, or not many games actually do a good job at it.

    Either way, I'm happy to say that this mission actually made me feel spooked or uneasy, hesitant to pick things up without looking behind me. At least for the first playthrough, this mission is nicely unpredictable.

    As far as I'm concerned, you're doing something fundamentally right. :) 

    The atmosphere is also really good. It really ads to the tension, and to the sense of hostility of the whole place.

    Spoiler

    To be honest, I don't know how I feel about spiders with lights, and those strange lights on the zombies. But I'm not complaining either. It somehow works, and I'm happy to roll with it. 

    Brilliant mission. Loved it a lot. Thanks. :) 

     

    Spoiler

    The only issue I had was with the baby-room window thing at the start: it went completely over my head. I thought it was bugged, reloaded and tried again. Maybe it lacks some more obvious feedback. I never noticed the blood on the cradle until I watched a gameplay video.

    I think I also wasn't expecting a horror story at that point, so perhaps I wasn't receptive to that kind of thing. I wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial to have some other spooky event happen before that, when the player first traverses the front yard or something, as a way to introduce to the player that he's playing a horror story. 

    When the front door blows out, it's also not visible from up there, so that kind of didn't help with my confusion.

    Or maybe it was just me being a complete dummy, I don't know. Take it with a grain of salt. It took me forever to find the mushrooms, only to see they were all in plain sight all along. :D 

     

     

    • Like 1
  12. @grodenglaive 

    I think random head turning might be plausible for specific characters, if they're supposed to be paranoid for some reason. But you should let the player know in advance that they're always looking over their shoulders. I don't know if Elsevier has any reasons to be paranoid, but it could be plausible in his case. It could even be one of the reasons why Astrid had a hard time seeing him insert the safe code.

     

    The doors thing, at least some interior doors were auto-closing too. I was specifically thinking of the dinning room doors when I wrote that. I think there were more auto-closing interior doors, though.

    Personally, my potato doesn't have any real issues with performance in this mission. Only on the outside the frame rates drop below 60 sometimes, but never enough to make any noticeable difference to the gameplay.

    That said, I wonder if you could use double visportals on the outside doors. That might help, as the inner portal should close more often, without needing to close the doors. I use double portals sometimes because of that. But it needs testing to know for sure whether it helps or not. (It also requires adjusting info_locationSeparators, as they can only touch one portal).

     

    Also, the big visportal in the water that separates the front yard from the spider area seems to be always open. I wonder if having two visportals in a V shape (from the top view) instead of that one, would help closing it. Or some similar configuration that doesn't interfere with the view from the watchtower.

     

     

     

     

    • Thanks 1
  13. @The Black Arrow

    Spoiler

    Bert only mentions he might have to do something about her, not that he was ever capable of killing her. For all we know, he could just throw a temper tantrum until he had it his way, or end the marriage through legal means. His wife has a certain degree of authority in the house, which got him to accept having a beggar in the attic, so he's not entirely in control.

    I guess it's unknown what he would do, but as far as my own vision goes, I never imagined him the type to murder anyone or to even do anything risky or brave. He wouldn't even be using some "ancient wisdom" in his cooking, if he thought the risk was too high. In fact the only reason this mission exists is because he became greedy. He couldn't just be content with moderately improving his cooking enough to not attract attention and raise suspicions.

    His connections to lowlifes only come from running the Inn, rather than any involvement on any crimes (which isn't mentioned in the readables). He has zero interest in them beyond their patronage at the inn or as discardable lackeys. I think it's safe to assume from his delusions of grandeur that he views them with contempt, as he does beggars.

     

    And by the way, what "ancient wisdom" actually means is a mystery, and it's the reason why I couldn't come up with anything for a recipe. It could mean some magical incantation, but it could also mean some ancient way of cooking that he learned. 

    I'm afraid that in demystifying that I might ruin it. I might come up with something that ended up feeling underwhelming and uninteresting. :)  

     

  14. Just finished playing this mission on Expert. Took me a little while, but I actually managed to ghost it (with a few suspicions). The spider can be dealt with without incurring any penalties for ghosting. 

    I love the aesthetics. The house looks gorgeous, and the whole outdoor areas are gorgeous as well. 

    The lobby area -- or whatever it's called -- is quite tough for ghosting, I would say. :) 

    I had never played an assassination mission, so to me it was interesting to have improvise. I presumed the guard outside would hear me stabbing the guy to death, and I also presumed he wouldn't die with a single blow (I later confirmed that). So I decided to...

    Spoiler

    ... blackjack him, drop him in the balcony, and stab him there. Problem solved, clean and quiet. :) 

     

    My only issues with the mission, were:

    Spoiler
    1. doors that automatically close. I'm not fond of that. They can get in your way too. If you change your mind because someone showed up, and then... you bump your nose on the door and you may get caught.
    2. keys aren't dropable, so I can't get rid of the ones I don't need anymore. Same for a few other items, like the treasure map.
    3. drawers are a bit slow to open and they stop when blocked, which makes them a bit tricky to work with. I would put stop_when_blocked  0 on them, to make it easier. If you're in their way, you just step aside and they'll keep opening. By the way, personally, I think I would also do that with the attic ladder door, and the trapdoor as well.
    4. the doors seem to have a short frob distance. I kept struggling with it.
    5. Elsevier's random head turning got me caught twice in the spot in the screenshot below, which I thought was rather... very unlikely and weird, because it's pretty right behind him. It also happened to me with a guard in a hallway, when I was totally behind him, and probably will happen again. Random head turning is one of my biggest peeves in TDM. I find it unfair, and unfortunate that it is the default behavior of AIs (my personal takes on randomness, if you're interested). image.thumb.jpeg.da8f6b2e2dea9ced1875325bba144ce9.jpeg
    6. there's a bit of a problem when Elsevier notices Finch's door open, because of the guard that's stationed there. Elsevier will go in and investigate, and when he goes out he will be blocked by the guard and be unable to close the door. He'll just circle around the guard, go back in and back out, repeat. Eventually he gives up, and goes to his room, leaving the door open, but it takes quite a little while.

    That's about it. Lovely mission. :) 

     

     

    • Like 1
  15. @lowenz @chakkmanit's not a bug, it's a helmet that protects against blackjacking.

    From the wiki: blackjacking:

    Quote

    v1.01: Certain heavy-duty helmets make their wearer immune to the blackjack. These can be identified by a face grill and a low back, which protects the base of the neck.

    That's why the bj doesn't rise. Though if it still doesn't hit the guard, then that's a bug, I suppose.

    I think the game lacks a proper way to inform players about these helmets. The Training Mission doesn't include any guards with protective helmets, so currently the wiki is the only place one could learn about them... 

    In my opinion, the "low back" can be deceiving. The guard in the screenshot doesn't have it, and some guards have it but can still be blackjacked.

    • Like 1
  16. I was curious about this mission for being just 1Mb. Had a bit of free time to play something today, so I went with this one.

    Completed in Ghost, not full loot (though I ended up cheating to find JD's key, because I'm a blind dummy). 

     

    On 9/12/2020 at 10:10 AM, thebigh said:

    Content warning: No spiders, no undead, no rats, just one skeleton hand

    That's a bit of a spoiler. :) I wish I hadn't read it before I got down there.

    The only two things that bothered me a bit were that the guards all have the same voice, and that there's too many loot coins. I'm lousy at noticing loot coins in random places.

    The underground house is pretty damn cool. Very nicely crafted.

    I nearly got caught at the beginning. I lockpicked JDs door and got in right as the guard turned the corner and commented on the open door. I somehow improvised in a room I had never seen before. I turned off the lamp and hurried behind the desk. Turns out it worked, his lantern didn't reach me there. :) He never saw or heard me, so he just left and said "must've been rats".

    • Like 1
  17. I think the issue was that I was using a zoned approach with non-zoned sounds. I switched to the *_z variations of them and the problem seems to be gone. Although, for some reason it seems I still need to have fidelay 0.1, which is probably a sign that there's still something wrong.

    @demagogueIt took me a while to notice the _z sounds are in a separate folder, though... I had no idea what you were talking about when you mentioned them. Now I do. :) 

    @peter_spy it's hopefully fixed in the latest, which I just released a couple hours ago. 

    • Like 1
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