teh_saccade

Yeah that thing with the mesh appearing invisible if it is "backwards" in the camera view can be disconcerting - especially if it is not added to a group to keep tabs on it... I wish that it would at least retain some appearance (eg, outline) from the "outside" other than having to scour the grid-view or fly around with the camera to make sure it's there and not accidentally control+z'd or backspaced or whatever... That would be a good feature request. I am only familiar with: http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Advanced+Vertex+Snapping , which is mostly visual, as you can see, and has an interface that is very similar to "companion software" such as bitmap2material, etc... Most assets (such as character and behaviour/script) are not my in my line - this is why DR is proving to be fun, it combines stuff known with stuff that idk jack and have to figure out like a puzzle when needing to find the right piece to fit. RAGE and Anvil[next] I think have no public documentation, although I have not been involved in anything other than QC for this stuff... Maya and other autodesk for Unity (although usually handed assets to place rather than construct - tailoring only) have visual interface that I prefer to use. Shame they kinda suck... Only dabbled with the now somewhat obsolete UE3 for RO2 levels: https://docs.unrealengine.com/udk/Three/GettingStartedLevels.html (really ought to get onto UE4 since that is the thing now...) Most of the 3D modelling work I have done has been using Zbrush, as I find this method far easier since it is like intuitive, tactile sculpture with clay and it's possible even to add bones and animate (which is nice), and can look better when the model is run through something like b2m to create maps and then messed with in photoshop and illustrator to be animated in after-effects for a cool looking video, exported in premiere. I like DR very much, it gets easier to use every time, but there's no way I'd remap the camera controls to WSAD's as S is used very often for crticical surface inspector:) Reckon perhaps stuff like 3DSmax, which sits there doing nothing except occasional import of something for v-ray post production render in PS or cut-out 3D / lenticular 3d image, would be useful to learn more about at some point, but... time... effort... not enough coffee in the world... Will leave that for people such as yourself (as for the drunk kitchen - save a lot of money on not getting bladdered by just walking from one room to the other - the building is from 17c... there is a beam in one of my neighbour's houses that is even older and another that was apparently replaced with some salvage from a ship from the Crimean war which was in mid 1800's (brought back with the Russian cannon that sits down the street). Across the square is a manor next to the castle that was built around the same time - it was completed around 1066-1085... which is probably the last time the public toilets were cleaned. Although the local archaeologist says that it's not the earliest example of that type of castle, as he thinks he's found ruins of one in a nearby place - but it does contain one of, if not the earliest templar chapels to be discovered in England... Only the places that have suffered from fire or other damage or have rich or commerical ownership have been "straightened out". I was helping a mate clear out his new basement as he wants to make it into his living room - was an old servant's washroom when the block/mews used to be a coaching inn and manor, years ago before being chopped up into the houses and flats and shops now - and the water pipe was leaking right over his electric meter... someone had put a piece of wood to divert the drips, which led to a blocked-up, disfunctional toilet that was made from cast iron and dated 1800something, made local, that must have been freezing in winter - typical of this place, bloody taffs and drovers. Can't make this shit up, but it's good inspiration for Thief levels ) // Anyway - here's how my levels end up looking at the end.

Apparently, making this post has fixed it... Perhaps the shader needed applying in a new map to investigate its properties in order for it to be reloaded in the old map? idk - that's all I did other than make this post, so I'm going with the fact I wrote about it fixed it because that makes more sense than any technical explanation. // also able to rotate a complex face without issue now - the crash appears to also have vanished now it has been mentioned...

Hi, Today I opened up an old map to copy/paste out some mechanism so I didn't have to rebuild it - I've also tried importing it. However, it turns out that when I try to select any brush or any mesh (patch, whatever) - it is no longer grouped - it tells me: Loading map from D:/maps/event003.map Open file D:/maps/eve.map from filesystem...success. PICO_ERROR: Could not find material/submaterial for id 1/0 Open file D:/maps/event003.darkradiant from filesystem...failure Failure opening file: D:/maps/event003.darkradiant map load timer: 1.73 second(s) elapsed --- LoadMapFile --- D:/maps/eve.map [shaders] Unable to load texture: textures/particles/smokepuffalpha ...and I cannot select some object. It appears that the properties, such as spawnargs and script calls are missing also. This appears to be happening for many of the older map files (2015-2016, not from this latest run in 2017) that contain a single building, object/device or area that I would usually import into the main map as part of a modular building and testing routine. (also to easily fix and tweak according to main.map). Everything was made using stock textures - is this a case of some texture has been retired or perhaps that my directory structure is not the same as it used to be (I gave DR and TDM its own partition on a drive - D for Dark Mod - when updating to the latest versions, for tidiness sake - a working habit). Am I being dense here and doing something wrong..? textures/particles/smokepuffalpha shader still exists in media. it is defined in materials/tdm_particles_legacy.mtr. There is no description, however the thumbnail is "shadernotfound" black/blue. textures/particles/smokepuffalpha { qer_editorimage textures/particles/smokepuffalpha.tga translucent noShadows { blend gl_one,gl_one map textures/particles/smokepuff.tga vertexColor } } It is a stock texture, I am sure... Any clue as to what is going on here..? I can't figure it out as I am unable to select anything to remove it from the map. Also, making something hollow and rotating a face is causing DR to crash every time... Perhaps it needs a reinstall..?

Yeah - Spook's attention to detail such as how the chair-leg has rumpled the carpet is really noteworthy. Waiting for some "worn" looking decals to start making an appearance down the middle of heavy traffic areas.

Awesome! As soon as those tools were in my mitts, I'd've been using them! You have a lot more patience than me, creeping and crouching and not climbing or running and jumping, distracting everyone out the room and then blocking the door from opening with crates so the AI get stuck going, "huh" while it's looted (perks of having a door open inwards to a room containing moveables, mind - it works when they try to open it and they themselves block the door when the box hits them too...) Some really useful tips - especially about breaking up massive areas of repeating texture with grime decals, etc... That will definitely come in useful in future. I think that It's difficult sometimes to think of playing the level from another's perspective... when you said, "I was gonna put something in the corner of the room so that players had a reason to go in further" - I wouldn't have known there was nothing there, so I would investigate... I'd be up on all ledges, looking under beds, looking on top of cupboards and wardrobes, inspecting everywhere. When testing - I used to get a kid to tell me what to do next and what to investigate, , so as to be able to see it through someone else's mind but also to retain the player skill to keep it fun and interesting Then let him have a go, which would often result in a lot of KO's and deaths and language that he must've learned at school (cos it definitely wasn't me saying fk this fkn piece of sht mthrfkr gdamit...). It was a fun way to test any game or double-check QC - get a 7 year old to do it too. Pretty sure my/our stealth score would not have been so low as 5, heh... Great series with many useful tips - thanks for taking the time to make all the videos:)

Judith, since I end up converting a lot of brushes to mesh/patches to give them a little bend or dent here and there, or patch in a replacement brick or plaster job on brickwork (I don't like everything to be entirely straight, since medieval architecture is not entirely straight, especially judging by my kitchen floor which has a 12 degree slant to it, which makes the window look very wonky and me very drunk when cooking - can't eat in there off table, gravy and soup are a nightmare...) - selecting edges doesn't really apply, but it's the same principle as having to select vertices to touch and align. Sometimes it is easier to select these things in camera view and then use the ortho grid as a reference in order to snap to the right place or know at least that you've sealed the gap. Guess DR needs to know which brush to reference in order to know which thing to select the V/E/F, which is logical... Maybe it is because tuning in the ortho-view is like using CAD from the 90s' and is a little fiddly at times that I prefer this way, spoiled by modern software... // Also - Destined - my levels usually end enclosed inside a massive caulk box, rather than several smaller sections dotted here and there. Achievement unlocked: Zero light-leaks

Did you load a prefab skybox or make your own? Is it an "enclosed" skybox with the projector encapsulated inside of a sphere (eg, so that projector slowly rotates as time progresses, so it appears as if the moon and stars are moving as the earth turns, like real life - which, by the way, is a real bitch to tie into changing ambient light and outside lighting positions - much movement needed to create illusion of moon passing in sky and shadows changing for this game...) Or, is it a hemi-sphere that might, from certain angles, see the level or outside of the intended portal sky. IIRC when I was messing with making viewports that might be used to see other sections (eg, monitor for camera) - it ended up with some portal sky being drawn as what the player was seeing at the time, even indoors. I have no idea if all views are player views as I've never inspected Obsttorte's camera and have no familiarity with it as you appear to assume. He says, "...is treated similar to player view..." which may mean that it is not the player view. Idk. I'm not clever enough to understand this stuff. A work-around I found was to use a no-draw glitch and restrict the player's field of view so that the surface showed only the area that I wanted them to see - but it had to be in-line with the things (it's also the basis for my method of an AI camera, where a room is bound to the rotating camera, containing an AI that is fixed staring into a small "hole" such as this, who presses an alarm button if he spots the player in the camera's FOV as the whole thing rotates side to side.). It was possible to set up multiple instances so that the view could be extended beyond / include more than one "camera screen" for the same AI to look at, as he could see several no draws at once, if they were positioned correctly in the world (which requires a lot of planning or several AI and timing all cameras and the room to move the same). I didn't get around to testing it around corners or through a teleport, as it satisfied requirements. It worked better for an AI to see through than the player to get a peek beyond - that must require a lot of coding to create keyhole peeks and scouting orbs, etc... All I wanted was a magic mirror that could see through a wall and a way for an AI to see through the lens of a camera, as I am very stupid and don't know the buttons to push to make cool stuff like the other people here. Perhaps it would help to know exactly what you are trying to achieve..? Anyway - I noticed that the effect in your video would occour if I used a skybox that wasn't completely sealed and the viewpoint was outside - if I invisibled and noclipped into the camera monitor room - it would render that kind of glitching effect. That's why I asked. That was me trying to be helpful. //anyway, for the player - it was a bust so it was scrapped (except in one instance for a map that was scrapped due to not being able to figure out other things), but found better application as a solution for a different problem I was trying to solve.

Nuts... I'd just started doing this on a new map in hopes that it would "reduce entity count" - thanks for saving me a lot of wasted time, Spooks - I owe you a cookie. Would exporting the grouped object (eg, a building with much facade and exterior detail) as a prefab make it count as one entity? Not sure how to proceed. Don't really want to get into modelling a whole building as single brush and then apply texture to individual faces, but perhaps this is the best way to skin the outside of a building despite the extra hassle - would I be correct in thinking that a building that is a single mesh might count as one entity..? // eg, if I made these buildings into a single piece, by either remodelling each using mesh and textured each face, or combining and reskinning - rather than adding brushes / meshes and deleting unseen faces as has been my practise up til now - would it help reduce the entity count by a large amount..? // metal would inherit things such as footstep noise and other properties from the texture, is this right..? I wouldn't have to mess with anything technical? Thanks. This is the wrong thread for this, but the subject came up, so...

Have you tried to draw anything that contains more TDM theme'd subject (eg, not "christian" but "hammerite" and not tri-colour banner but city watch)? Small alteration to detail allows such things to mesh more with the universe. Another guy I know, Sam Manley (I can't remember his blog address) - he is an illustrator and character designer for game-books, mostly Cthulu based - he goes so far as to research things such as... if a picture is to be set in to 1940's, what did the street signs look like in the USA in the 1940's and will change it from the modern one to the ones he discovered - he is very good at incorporating such detailed research into his pictures, which is why he always has work It makes a big difference, something small as, "this guy's jeans... are they the style of the era? No... I drew modern so I must change them to look 1950's cut and also change his facial hair to fit with contemporary fashion". He works from concept to finish. Likely many thumbnails, although I have not seen so much of his works in progress other - he is entirely digital and works in PS CS6, using layers and adheres very much to rule of thirds. I think PS contains the ability to include perspective lines to infinity without having to draft them and remove. Believe this is the reason he can complete an assignment that would take me several days in several hours. So - context for concept art is a big thing. Familiarisation with era and canon is a good thing - homework and research shows in the sketches, as these may then more easily become final. My experience, only. Please realise I am trying to provide constructive feedback and encourage. (didn't even use comic sans, to show I am serious)

Hey Yokal - that is very good. You may like to look at a friend's, Doug Paszkieweicz' work - he is a comic artist and is the most OCD perspective person I have ever known: https://www.instagram.com/arsenic_lullaby_official/ Sometimes he will put up little tutorials on his sites on facebook or whatever (was thinking of making some youtube tutorial videos, but I think gave up on this). Also obsessive about using brush only for inking - very traditional. Plus, the only guy I know who has had to extend out perspective lines, tacked string, across the room for a panel... If I were him, I would say bluntly of the cathedral, "the wind needs adjusting. There's no way an updraft would be possibe to blow the flags like this". (he can also be a grumpy dick, like me - he told me one time that a document I sent to him regarding page layout, eg, panel placement on page, interior panel/cell design and "attitude" through object-of-interest placement, looked like a stereo instruction manual and was the ravings of a madman. It was useful because I changed the typeface. It then went on to win a competition for innovative application of constructivist theory for some art society, so - take as constructive criticism, please.) If I were me, I would say, gently, "take a look at the flags - maybe it is worth thinking about how the wind would flow around such a structure to ensure that your work is the highest standard you can achieve - even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day I like how the detail fades away, leaving only the impression. However the tiling marks appear to be haphazard which is in disparity to your cleaner hand in all other lines". Very nice. The detail for the (East?) entranceway is very dense and impressive.

I stand corrected - I always get them mixed up despite the big differences (CT is the best! then BL)... :/ However, point of note: It is possible to complete Conviction with only... I can't remember the number of "takedowns/kills" you HAD to do... something like 50ish out of the thousand odd enemies there are? Even the Iraq mission, armed only with hand grenades and a scoped AK and pistol required only a couple of kills to pass (at the end). Nearly every level could be completed (after mansion which "doesn't count" for certain PEC and requires several takedowns to reach Kobin) without a takedown, lethal or not, no alerts, etc... There were the interrogations at the fairground, the whitebox room defence and a few other places where "KO/kill" was unavoidable. Damn, man - you made me want to replay Conviction now to re-count how many it was unless I can find the speed-run video from all those years ago. The co-op was very difficult to complete in a similar manner, but some sections were extremely quick and easy if there was no contact. Splinter Cell: Arcade Edition But yeah - it is a hard thing to do, to break your own character and bend it into a different shape in order to fit - but there is always the meta-game, ulterior objective kinda restrictions that such players will place upon themselves. ie, I will complete No Mercy, Solo, with only pistols, never stop moving, use all the glitches I can and beat my best time today. Same game, same "easy" game rules, different "more difficult" player rules inside those. Badminton is easy - it's not restricted to anything other than a net and a few lines. Put it in a box and remove the feathers from the ball and you get squash, which is a lot harder. You just gotta build your own box around the badminton court. A ball cannot bounce without walls, so I agree restriction is a good thing (unless you want a ball that appears static or may as well be, moving ever onwards...) - however, I am convicted (chaos theory'd) to the notion that hardcore players will always develop their own walls to climb and aim for 100%, even if unobtainable. Simply, designing for a game such as TDM appears to allow for less binary consequence than others due, so long as the logic and implementation can be figured out inside the confines of DR... Working on it... But - likely as soon as it's almost ready, another update will come and... oh, ok then

Appears Springheel is also handy with oil-based technique of computer drawing. Nice link - would be nice to see pagan models.

Installed any new players, codecs or device drivers / win-updates lately, ERH+..? Otherwise smells of internal [logic] error / corrupt stop-leak, perhaps fixed by "have you tried turning it off and on again", deinstall-reinstall or re-making any custom .ogg files that perhaps might not be within parameters for sequence. Is there a limit for allocation of memory on the playing of sounds? Are they cached entirely at mission start..? If so, perhaps there lies an issue with size (or bitrate) of certain files being played..? This would require a test in order to determine which is a problem - tediously removing one-by-one until it is found... I would start by ensuring that heartbeat_echo is not still playing when it is called to start once again, next check adjective_dark, since this is usual cut-off before moving onto the >e. Loop suggests 36 would be mark, but 32 suggests mem? Add all .ogg to player and see if they all play - simpler to reinstall/recreate all pertinent files. Hopefully it is as simple as recheck (CRC) or overwrite of [standard].ogg and related shaders rather than have to check individuals. Could be many things. Clean slate might fix.

Without knowing what God Hand nor Mike Kob doing it, I can only say that striving for perfection is a devotion of delusion. A snowflake melting as its structure is realised. Prussian blue was discovered by accidentally spilling blood into a pigment mix. Nervous electrical impulse was also an accidental touch of electricity to frog's legs. There are thousands of examples of accidental discovery - vulcanised rubber, penicillin, radiation and microwaves... The accidental destruction of a silicon microchip resulted in a dust that still retained instruction and it found use to target cancer cells - smart dusts. This is also part of scientific method. To make mistakes and fail. Clinical incision and scientific enquiry are not quite the same thing. A mistake in one might result in irrecoverable disaster (slim chance of discovery), whereas the other might result in discovery (although may appear a disaster, at first). Yamamoto Tsunetomo said, "Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life". This was a radical ideaology for those rooted in bushido's sense that one must never give up the strife for self-perfection. And that's why I throw flashbombs and keys and swords and boards and boxes and chairs and shoot broadheads into doorways and sprint one way before creeping back the other and glitch and exploit and break the mission. I want to win and achieve all objectives with expediency and in good time - not relive the same moment until it is perfect once, constrained to a singular instance that is now past. Again, the conversation has digressed very much from the initial context.

Replaying Splinter Cell: Conviction in a lethal manner results in many conversations between Fisher and Grim that I had no idea existed. eg, first mission, - using the automatic weapon to destroy radio and kill operator results in, "wow...", "hey radio and radio-man, no way they'll know we're coming", "yeah but... messy...", "maria narcissa?", "are you trying to set me up on another date, Grim..?". I had never heard this before in several years of playing this game, because I had never performed this action. It was rewarding to discover new content for my actions and to receive the reaction from the handler. It is "punished by"/results in a lower success rate at the end of the mission than for non-lethal/ghost-like approaches. The objectives are still achieved, which is the ultimate aim. The play comes in how this happens. In Dishonored, I played high-chaos run for steam achievements. The violence I found distasteful, as I would look for it and act as a predator or psychopath (kill 5 enemies with razor? ok I use at a party on the civilians) - eventually so over-powered that there was little challenge and more opportunity for violence and destruction - the world became a "darker" place (rats) and it did not feel in-line with the character that was developing during the story, nor the backstory as protectorate and caring individual for the girl. Often it was a case of coming up with elaborate ways to kill people as fast as possible (tempus, possession, move bullet, place mine) and a diversion only. There was no tension nor as much action as there was in the discovery and trickery required in order to retain the low-chaos approach. It is also the reason why I like less the 2nd game, as well as the 2nd "new" DX game - the characters are more super-hero and over-powered with a focus on corridor confrontation / take this route we have provided instead without soul. No middle ground. Black and White. Binary. However, Dishonored based the consequences only on lethal/non-lethal - a binary consequence for overt and violent player action, similar the DX:HR (which ended the same regardless, it was only achievements that were rewards for foxiest of hounds, etc...). This is not quite the same as the relay of an alert to be prepared as the enemy (ie, the thief) is on their way, where there is the potential for a spectrum of grey in the development of the player's experience and how they impose their personal ethos onto their character (or empathise / disregard).

No - I simply use GOG as a figurehead / scapegoat, and disagree with vultures picking at the flesh of the living to fill their bellies. Unfortunately, not the scene in which I was operating at the time - we even started a magazine - I ran a competition wit Markus Perrson (creator of Minecraft) back when it was in the very early stages for some free keys and we had a real community that engaged with the scene and appreciated the work spent in order for people to find help with eg, DosBox and VM and getting their old favourites (for which they had probably paid twice already, if like me) to work on their new machines... The community now is an old-guard that refuse to leave their positions. I am banned for my views (as if it stopped me accessing the place) and all games that are sold on GOG, instead of "download" have "buy on GOG" instead. It was frustrating at the effort spent, voluntarily, for another's profit. I guess I come from an era where people were keen to learn and put forth effort, had to understand the machine worked to use it, in order to attain the things they desired. Invest more for more, not invest less for more as appears. It is my opinion only. Anyway, as I said - the DRM-free policy means that I can play any game I want for free with a simple, trustworthy download from a reliable source or opening a 2tb collection drive. So... This is a gross diversion from the topic of the thread - Perhaps it is best to return to the TDM on Greenlight thing..?

You can spot the skybox set-up in the video someplace, I think, Cookie. At least some projector.

It did look very nice, had good puzzles, story was ok and some nice level design (although a little linear in places). But, yeah - the boat thing - usually it's just a vehicle for the intro, I guess, in scenarios I've tested that and "trains" or mine-cart rides and stuff. You could get the bobbing effect using the spline, if you also added some small rotation. Far more subtle. However, It's nice to simply start with the boat docked or on the bank and be able to shift off straight away rather than have to wait 10-20s for it to get to a point and jumping off and swimming becomes appealing because patience is thinner than having to listen to the same conversations over and over and over down the few avenues open to exploration of games like Dishonored and Hitman: Absolute-Shiteion autosaving before a cutscene. // it's pub o'clock L8r - ty for the conversation.

Oh... In that case... nothing - talking about different things - i'm out of the loop when it comes to official campaign and stuff - only found out about it yesterday. I was talking about a single mission and problem-solving that, not a campaign. Cross-wires:)

Yeah - see - even I'm guilty of "copying" Dishonored with wanting to have high and low alert paths. It's the same as the high and low chaos and resultant impact this had on the city and stuff. Can't help it if those guys did it first and better - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (and then plant a nuke before the xmas party). // Implementing such a thing into a mission would give it more replay value and - I think - more interesting to play with as well as play through. Doing this in TDM is proving to be challenging. In light of gaming trends, it would be a good thing, I reckon. Plus, I enjoy designs that cause players to have to live with consequences - especially from moral decisions. It allows both for an increase in engagement with "the character" as the player imposes and also a detachment from "self" if you decide to be wtf you want.

Well... today I have read several times in different threads, the word "Dishonored", often accompanied with "trying to achieve something similar to" or "looks very", etc... An observation only. I enjoyed the first dishonored, never really used the magic or powers and stuff. Not saying it's a bad thing - stealing body parts is exactly how frankenstein's monster was created and he's pretty awesome - but I'm T2 and DX kinda fan, not into superheroes (except batman).

I think I'm only down the road from BikerDude.

Have you seen the number of jobs that have appeared at GOG lately, Anderson..? It's exploded big time of late. If it didn't mean having to live in Poland and work with a company I dislike almost as much the pain of a nUbisoft project, I might've applied for a few of them - looks like they are full-time, too, not contracts.

I've noticed an increase in copying from Dishonored lately here - i've read it several times today already... So long as TDM doesn't get possession and teleport spells or lose its roots... How would it work to know that a player turned a wheel in a previous campaign mission, to flood an area, so that the second (presumably another install) mission knows it was flooded..? Unless, it was a required action and therefore part of the scripted narrative..? For a boat - I found it best to build one out of brushes, func_mover, run it along a catmulrom spline with a script that is called by a triggeronce. However - any water that should be "outside" appears to clip through. This can be countered by adding a small deck or putting a bucket (as a prop for "bailing") and simply saying, "leaky old tub". Splash decal is a bit OTT for the front. Basically, a platform on the water. $anchor.time(30); $anchor.accelTime(.1); $anchor.decelTime(.1); // accel and decel need playing with depending on size - player can slide around and any objects on the boat (eg, bucket and sack of loot or whatever) need to be bound to the mover else can drop when it jolts to move. $anchor.startSpline($boatspline1);Oars, I've not done - it was too much hassle to bind them and include the motion and splash decals I wanted to work on the rest of the stuff, rather than the first 10 seconds where you arrive in a boat under the bridge infil/exfil. Was gonna use the oars as buttons to start the platform moving, as here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Platform_That_Moves_When_Button_Is_Pressed Didn't use .move because it's easier to map the spline and simply move along that with a short script, rather than deal with measuring stuff. Can't read the other reply - it's a red bar.

Kpyto