teh_saccade

The information at this page is out of date (moddb link): http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Installer_and_Manual_Installation and appears to be supersceded by this page: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/Installation That links to the 1st, and also contains out of date links to TDM installers at moddb. First is 2.0 and the 2nd is the first version of the installer, saying to run the updater on the old standalones. Why isn't there a full standalone updated to use..? Running the 0.72 updater will update my game to 2.06 (same as before, not 2.07 as supposed to), but for some reason the display is wrecked: [io error when uploading anything to forum] https://imgur.com/a/Tv6XkGa It's the same whether running 32 or 64bit versions. So, after several failed attempts at updating to 2.07, I can't go back to my old 2.06, either. How can I go back to my previous version of TDM that works and isn't messed up on the display..?

// scratch this - np.

Just a quick note on the model - if you have some moving parts of the door, like the sliding bolt in and out of the plate, or the hinge knuckle around the pin (or handle) - these can be seperate parts to the model door, so they have other actions, then the whole lot can be saved as a prefab.

Looks like slightly misaligned or intersecting brushes, on a strange angle - I get it, most often in walls, when more than two or three brushes are slightly overlapping (sometimes less than one square, because they are not aligned to the grid but running at strange diagonals). If it's the same when you use either 'q/w' to move the origin, and you've made sure every single brush isn't overlapping and it's not a result of the clipper - you could export the brushes as a model to use. Idk if there are supposed to be notches cut in the hinge side, but when faces vanish like that - it's usually a sign that there's some intersection that needs correcting. It's better to not have brushes go inside each other. Might be another reason, but that's when I've seen this happen.

// I think duzenko is right about the beard thing, heh. That explains a lot:) Lately I used a laptop that was from early 00's, and I was a bit jealous at how quickly it booted up and ran the few programs the person had on there. Was windows 7. It was faster than my laptop, that I had to put in the fridge to upgrade to win10 due to the overheating at 67% installation problem. But, for running anything a little heavier - the thing ground to a halt. Tea break when launching open office. From my experiences working with linux over 10-15 years, fedora and red hat for stuff like database and point-of-sales and kali for network testing, is that the people who use it end up becoming very familiar with the environment they use. The people are often into computer science or engineers and use it for a specific purpose, rather than a general operating system, such as windows. General users often go with ubuntu and it's usually installed by someone else. I think mostly because its free. Nearly everyone I've met who has used ubuntu has not really been "a computer person". A few have had windows on another partition and been happy to have ubuntu removed, so they know wtf is going on, how to use stuff and be able to run the programs that they need for work, friends, games, etc... The other linux people i've met are the kinds to wear penguin tshirts and go to seminars on software. There they will splinter off into camps depending on the purpose for their using any partiular linux branch, database vs developers, and if they use java. If you say, "yes but linux doesn't run my games" they will say that you are not supposed to play games on linux, and bring out the sco unix beginner's guide to throw - but it's too heavy for their spindly geek arms to heft more than a few meters.

Ralph needs an empty tankard for collecting the coins he died without, to pay the ferryman. // oh - If I needed to stick a few AI and use the player character into certain positions in an area of void (or some key colour background), is the easiest way to set some ragdolls as for use in DR?

My wife once said, "forums ruin families", back when markus persson was still markus persson and trying to get attention for his dwarf fortress lego game. I don't think she meant family in the literal sense, but I think she had a very public falling out with her mum on a cake decorating forum over a recipe for earl grey cupcakes some time in 2007. This thread is unravelling in all directions - are people arguing for the sake of it now? Cos I want in on that. No - it isn't. Facebook is great and we should all bow before big brother and attempt alliteration at all adjuncts.

found a few hours this afternoon - it's fiddly, but it is satisfying when it works.

I found a playlist of short tutorials from the software makers: Haven't found anything written down, yet. There's some dll's around to extend the trial period for the free version, somewhere on the internet.

Also thanks Freyk for the video - some reason I got stuck in the Japanese ones or trailers.

I've installed a free version to play around with in the week. https://www.live2d.com/en/download <-- there's a trial of the pro version for a few weeks. Seems much easier than doing the parallax stuff in aftereffects, although its a sequence, rather than faking an explorable environment. Guess they're both useful for different things. The assets it (and visual novel maker) come with are all manga things, but I don't see why it has to be like that... Visual Novel Maker and Live2D together are around 3gb. There's a google drive link to a zip with a bunch of rars with an iso of a repack with a copy dll folder. Downloads pretty fast. If it proves to be useful, the subscription model for Live2D is a bit of a turn off. At least there's a free version. TDM is non-commercial, so I guess it'd be fine for animated comic style briefings. Might try to make a short animated comic of Thief's Den to learn it. // oh cool it has lip synch

Has anyone tried using this kit, called Live2D? https://www.live2d.com/en/products/cubism3 Seems like it does 2.5D from morphing stuff in parallax slices - seen the effect used in games like Banner Saga. Think it's exported to unity, but probably can render a few scenes with it to make a movie that might add a bit of flair to a video briefing made from animated stills. Like the animated comics. But... the videos and docs are in Japanese... Looks as if the license is a subscription, also, although there's a free license for indie/non-commercial. Might be nice to take some screenshots of a scene, place a few models from the game over it and have a 2.5D briefing video to go with a voiceover or text. Not sure if it's cheaper to get it packaged with this other software called Visual Novel Maker, that is on Steam, in mid-range price bracket.

That's something I didn't think of, widening the arc of the swing - that might work and make for some interesting staggered rhythms. Thanks very much! I reckon that would work and also gives a bunch of stuff to play with in future when experimenting with weird things without scripts. I wonder if it's worth tabulating the spawnargs to make another massive list of stuff for quick reference and search, like the script list, file structure and entity stuff. Might do that as going through stuff, as it'd be useful in future to be able to search for keywords. I've never found that list of args before. Useful:)

I don't think the hard edge info in the vertex normals is exported by wings in lwo format, which might be why there's no 'export normals/smoothing groups' option. If the lines aren't set to hard then it ought to export the smoothing as it's seen in the shift-tab preview, so can work from that. Can't remember exactly, it's been around a decade since using wings... Judith probably knows more about that stuff. It might be more fiddly, but if you'd like a copy of something like zbrush (which is my favourite atm, even though the interface is a bit awkward), then I've a dropbox link for a version from a year or so ago. Might have maya stored there, but certain zbrush is. // def gotta get it more smooth or use more polys, if it's to blend in with the other objects - it sticks out a bit being low-poly against the rest. Not sure if textures could hide that, unless maybe they were very ornate and implied that it was by design it was so angular... Maybe some carved relief like a roman pillar. If the mapping had enough depth and contrast so as to make the edges appear smoother, it might work:)

At least, in Windows, there's the option to sync certain folders to online storage and/or some local drive. I've included the maps, dependent folders and 'wip/subfolder' of the DR/TDM partition to be sync'd to the external usb storage drive, as well as the archive drive, along with other game projects and those massive adobe files and assets. This way, there's no need to manually copy stuff every time - the sync'd folders don't have their content deleted as with dropbox or onedrive sync or whatever. Rather than mirror, it can be set to contribute so that the files aren't removed from the sync'd folder if they're removed from the source, or altered/removed at the source if they are in the sync. I'm not sure if it will save duplicates as (copies). Not something I've ever tried due to my convention. Even with Illustrator's crash recovery update last year, using that stuff (especially on windows), I think it's made me a little OCD when it comes to saving stuff regularly and in a numbered sequence. The tool from MS is called SyncToy: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=15155 To make backups to more than one location using the sync, it's possible to daisy-chain the first sync'd folder to another. Once it's set, it's just a case of taking the start-up performance hit and the time for the copy operation. Pretty sure there are going to be many freeware sync things for all platforms. This one's nice because it's simple.

Thanks, VanishedOne. When I looked at the func descriptions, it explains how to rotate the model, but it doesn't explain how the swing speed / frequency might be tampered with (I've tried a "frequency", plus a few synonyms, arg, but no go - idk if there's a list somewhere of these kinds of things, or where to look for them in the game files).. It'd be nice to be able to stagger the pendulums or adjust the timings for velocity at different swing states, without having to resize the model - so it's more like a clockwork or motorised swing, a contraption, rather than a realistic swing based upon the constraints of physics..: "Pendulums always swing north / south on unrotated models. Add an angles field to the model to allow rotation in other directions. Pendulum frequency is a physical constant based on the length of the beam and gravity." [ from http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Entity_Database - func section]

I tried to have a named AI as an object for a kidnapping, as an alternative to killing them, where - if the player decided to KO the NPC and move them to the area to leave before returning to complete another objective on the list, the KO'd AI would be deleted and a new one placed with a slightly different route and (didn't get this far) "drunk" and with new behaviours. While it was a nice idea, to have the AI wake up after some time had passed [the timing was set by how long it took the player to satisfy another objective and if/then do the body-swap, rather than run a wait timer, which ensured the player didn't see it happen], the consequences of a woken up AI started to be more of a problem than a neat event. So, ultimately, it was kinda crap and to make it work was too much work, and it didn't seem as an enjoyable feature, once the consequences were considered to keep the gameplay in-line with the player's expectations and experience in TDM. Also - if AI woke up... How could I booby trap sleepers with mines as a safety net against discovery (ok, the explosion often means it doesn't matter, but it's cool), and use KO'd bodies unceremoniously dropped out a window as lures to distract guards from their posts..? It'd take out all the fun with ragdolls - everyone loves to line up the KO'd AI and push them off a cliff or send them to the bottom of the lake and grind the game to 5FPS as the physics go mental.

Regarding models and baking stuff... (This is me rubber ducking something again - I think it might be better to change the idea... But in case anyone has a clue, it's about making a pendulum swing for a brush. I can't find the right function to script a mover to do that)

Wall of text seems high enough, right. Hey Biker - who's around to tell me to spoiler my lengthy posts now, eh?

Just to place my flower onto the Biker memorial thread. Despite all that stuff last year and even though he was a grumpy sod - I liked Bikerdude and he was helpful in that way of blasting stuff so you'd either defend it or roll with the punches. What I don't see is people defending their creative vision so much, nor rolling with the punches. It sounds more like people have simply rolled over. You gotta stand up and defend your own work - that's one reason I liked Biker. The fact he provokes that kind of attitude in me, if indirectly. Maybe not everyone feels like that. This isn't all on Biker, this whole situation, and I think that to put all the crap on his doorstep is a little unfair and shirking responsibility - which is understandable, as Biker would take it on. I'd like to state that I don't believe that any mapper has ever been under any obligation to accept the changes that Bikerdude would make. Creative control has never left the hands of the FM creator - even if someone is difficult and pushing for a bunch of different stuff - there's no law that says, "thou must abide by the Bikerdude". So, this really ain't all about what Biker went and did. Whoever sanctioned the alterations to the FM and made it available in that state to download is equally - if not more - responsible. (but these things are difficult to attribute in an anarchic system, such as online collaboration as with TDM, so it's better to avoid blame and look at positions of responsibility - which there are, even if people are loathe to acknowledge the positions and roles they've assumed in the TDM universe structure of getting shit done) Whether this be the FM authour themselves or anyone else along the pipeline from whoever's hard-disc to the download repository. This is something that appears to have been completely ignored in this discussion so far. It's a cop-out to say, "Biker did it". Because it's your bloody FM. I know my maps inside out and back to front. If someone changed a brush 0.01 units I'd probably notice on the first look-thru. If I had asked Bikerdude to help me with something and he sent the map back with a bunch of changes that made me think, hang on a moment, what's all this about? I'd likely have asked wtf this was about and why is it changed, what's with messing with my map? It's my map and my mission and my vision and all that stuff, so justify that or forget it. I've put in a tonne of effort and if anyone wants to make changes to my stuff without me saying, that's a good improvement and is in-line with my idea for this FM, then they would receive a polite fuck off letter to say get back on point (thanks for the help), or if the changes were not negotiable, I'd have to figure it myself (thanks for the offer), or if it was decent enough and someone else saw a bunch of fixes - perhaps they'd step up and lend a hand down the line. I very much dislike it when someone puts even a dot on a painting or anything like that, so I can understand how people feel. However, there's kind of a void now in the "want me to help with your visportals and optimisation" area. Hopefully this might encourage people to figure more stuff out for themselves. Perhaps update the wiki so others can read how to do it and understand all the how's and whys for all the stuff Bikerdude would investigate and do the elven work. Working in collaborations, I know that I can be overbearing at times and try to force my own ideas into a project, to the point where people have complained, thrown a hissy-fit or simply glazed over and wandered off. Making the decision to step away from the driver's seat can be pretty difficult, but I found it to be helpful as it not only allowed me to realise my limitations and see the habits I had developed - but it also showed me a bunch of new stuff outside of the scope of my own abilities and gather new knowledge and ways to apply it. It was also less stressful, not taking on all the responsibility that wasn't mine in the first place. But to learn that lesson took being taken off a job for several months to do some soul searching. That wasn't really my decision, and it pissed me off at the time - but after the period of reflection and a chat with then-colleagues, it turned out to be a good thing and ... i guess being penitent about it and returning with a different attitude, people were welcoming and it was nice to actually be part of a team in a way I didn't realise I wasn't before. I'm saying this just in case there's a sockpuppet-dude having a butcher's at the thread, which I would imagine there is. I get why someone might impose exile upon themselves or commit seppuku in such a situation, but I'd hope that the ban is reversible and that there is at least a window open in case Biker ever decides to step back into the game as part of the community and adjust his working practise to follow the Three Simple Rules of Springheel. People here can be a little gruff sometimes. I know that i've had my own mini-drama and that's all been sorted out, without any real issue. Lesson learned - don't piss around and cause drama cos it's not productive. Even if it does let off steam. I'm hopeful that more FM's will have more diversity in the future, if they are not to be all wrapped up in the same way, with the same stuff in the box, but a different flavour. When someone is stamping their seal over many different things, it can become a little stale - which is one reason I've not really downloaded any new missions for ... probably 9-12 months (I like breaking ppl's old missions, though). But, at the same time, I'm hopeful that Bikerdude not being around to do his thing [minus the copy-pasta stuff] isn't going to result in a lot of headaches for people who might otherwise have relied on his knowledge to get the FM release-ready, or delay stuff by aeons. I just reckon that people, from what I've read over the past few, appear to think these things have to be accepted for what they are - and placing all their responsibility in the lap of someone who's taking on a lot of other people's responsibility is going to lead to situations that are not confronted and result in someone deciding to withdraw. Just as Bikerdude did. So... Creators: Defend your own work. It's yours, not Bikerdude's, so just say, no thanks, and deal with it - no-one's forcing you to do stuff. There's something called Version Control and it's not hard to revert your FM back to the .pk4 you sent to someone else. FM distribution ppl and beta testers: Just point it out and the mapper can make the call based upon that feedback and the FM ppl can make a call on copy-pasta that's noted - that's part of the testing process, isn't it..? Biker: By effectively "resigning", you're saying that you can't follow three simple rules. I'm pretty sure you're capable of doing that, without breaking a sweat. You've gotta be aware of what the issue is by now, in order to have made the decision to ask for a ban to be imposed on you. It's pretty evident that your efforts and contributions are very much appreciated, else there wouldn't be a 5 page thread on the latest in the dude saga. I don't reckon anyone would have a problem if someone was to eat some humble pie and step back into doing what they seem to love to do, saying that they can stick to a practice that doesn't piss off the people who can't say no to your unique charm, when it comes to cooking in their kitchen. It's clearly written. 1.2.3. That's all. Idk why that might be so difficult to figure or why it's such a big barrier to carrying on doing stuff that might be fun. Maybe it's not my place, but I'd reckon that it's not much more than giving up a notion in order to feel a weight lifted. It's not nice to withdraw from a community in which you might've been hyper-active and very committed. I've a lot of experience with isolating myself when things get stressful, and - in my case - it's usually me not wanting to confront something, even if it's me slowly realising that I don't really want to continue it. But if I do, I can at least bend myself to fit the shape required, because it's that or not be involved. Sometimes it takes a while to figure that out. I've chucked my toys out the pram before and, sure it felt a little awkward to start getting involved again, but I like messing with DR and TDM, so why exclude myself 'cos I was a bit of a nob and had some friction with some people back then? I really didn't expect all this stuff to escalate/devolve to this level. (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻

I'm selling these fine Lucasarts parodies: http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/02/back-to-future-part-iii-timeline-of.html