teh_saccade
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Posts posted by teh_saccade
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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.-
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// 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.-
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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.-
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found a few hours this afternoon - it's fiddly, but it is satisfying when it works.
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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.
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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.-
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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:)
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Perhaps I need to make a tutorial on "Basic version control for mappers" or something, because this is such an easy problem to solve. It makes me sad to think people are losing work and burning out as a result of data loss that could so easily have been prevented.
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.
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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.
The number of events that have to accompany a wake-up in a game like TDM - without the wake-up becoming the main focus and causing a bunch of stuff to happen, it felt very unrealistic.
Thinking about how an NPC might respond to find themselves waking up with a splitting headache in a place that's a distance away from their last position - finding help, guards raising the alert and actively hunting the assailant, non-combatants responding accordingly to the situation, how to make the player aware that this had happened (as it's not a normal gameplay event), providing ways for the player to deal with the new situation, all the guard AI and routes that might never be used if the player has already KO'd some guards (waste of effort), what the NPC does next - are they just going to go and stand in a room that might be pitch black? What if the player had hidden a bunch of bodies in a previously "safe" area that is then crawling with guards or along the NPC's new route? How does the NPC or a guard respond to that? Perhaps the kidnap target decides to go and put on a helmet, after seeking some medical attention - so the kidnapping objective has to be cancelled, left with only the kill, which kinda sucks...
The chain of events and all considerations that had to occour after the AI woke up started to become a big thing and looked to require the whole mission to be started from scratch to accomodate it.
Really - what if the player did that last?
All that extra stuff put in, just for a possibility that might not be an event in several playthroughs.
Plus, it seemed unfair to the player, to have an unusual event take place without warning. There's no real way, without a cinematic, to seamlessly inform the player that something unusual is hapenning of which they need to be aware and respond and which totally changes the game (and likely destroys their score) for a large part.
In the end, it seemed a lot to do for a relatively minor thing that probably would prove to be an irritation for the player rather than a surprise obstacle to overcome. Maybe, maybe not.
Playing the map through in the state of no wake-up NPC, it made more sense to go and do the kidnapping last - even if the objective was placed up the list of things to do - as, what kind of kidnapper goes and leaves the victim unattended for half an hour while returning to the scene of the crime to go and get 2000 gold and a quest item? Easier to ghost past and satisfy the incidental objectives before doing the heavy lifting on the way to the exit...
One solution was to make a facsimilie of the map and teleport the player as they left the room with the quest item, placing them first in a no-control area that "played out" a cutscene of the NPC recovering and then leaving the area (which looked shit, because the NPC had to be put asleep on the floor and wake-up as if rising from a bed, stopping at a guard - who's path didn't really jibe with the one the player would have seen earlier. So screw that) and dump them in an "alerted" map and having to negotiate a bunch of alerted guards to go and shoot the kidnap victim in the face with an arrow. With no way to show the NPC putting on a helmet after visiting the master cleric.
In Hitman, events such as that were kinda intrustive to the gameplay in some places. At the thermal baths in the hotel, there were a few times a timed event would force a cutscene, just as the player was doing something else. It was also annoying to have to watch that cutscene over and over and over again. Some were fine, such as locking the guy in the sauna, but even they got repetitive after a few times.
TDM doesn't have the HUD to bleep and display info messages to say stuff like, "blah is going here" or "blah is ordering a drink" or "blah is arriving at the cafe" to give the player info about events that are outside normal play.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.-
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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)
After exporting a bunch of bruses as an .ase to put back in the game as one thing, rather than bind a bunch of things together - I've found a crash in DR when trying to stick a collision mesh over some things.
It's not such a big deal, as the material files for stock media provides the same thing.What I'm trying to achieve is a simple pendulum motion for an anchor-shaped thingy that swings across a pathway.
Have considered using the Indiana Jones style saw blade that whirs along just over crouch height, however this is used in the first chapter of T2X if I recall.
Thinking how it might be worked, I've tried using a corridor with large, thin recesses for the pendulum to move in a large circle and sweep across the corridor - however this isn't a swing, it's more like a series of single fan-blades (which isn't as nice).
Looking at other pendulum things - like The Swing map (which kinda isn't right) - the pendulums from clocks seem decent. They are using animated static models.
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Animated_static_objects
This seems like a lot of stuff in order to get a simple brush working.
I'm trying to avoid putting using anything that's not stock or can't be made using only DR (except audio assets, perhaps a typeface or decal or two).
So, looking at some script to get the motion - I've come across
scriptEvent void bob(speed, phase, vector); perhaps with a waitfor to stagger the series of swinging damage things, so that the player can time their run and jump and stuff, get to the end and mantle on a mover (or mis-time and get sliced, or fall off the edge if rushed).
but this doesn't really explain how to plot the vector along which the mover will travel back and forth.Also, I think this will only make it bob like a boat rather than increase the velocity as a mover reaches the apex of its swing and decrease as it loses inertia.
Plus there's the problem of fixing it to swing from its joint, rather than float along.
I'm unsure how to get a func_mover (whether a single brush or a baked ase reverted) to have the swinging motion as a clock's pendulum, back and forth, with the same kind of rhythm...
There's a few more simple ways, such as doing the Skyrim-style, fan-blades from the side that chop across, but that doesn't swing - it rotates into the corridor from slits at the side in one direction or back and forward in a steady motion.
There's the idea of having a series of opening and closing walls or bear-trap kinda things, but that's might not be as cool as the mechanical clanks and grinding of metal slicing across the path. Or maybe, it is... idk.
There's also a series of circular saws that descend from the ceiling and/or travel at strange angles, which gives lateral slice (which is easy with rotation) and some horizontal or diagonal times as well, which might be a more interesting obstacle than the basic "crouch and walk under stuff" traps of T2X and a billion other things...
Hmm... maybe it's easier to combine a bunch of those things into the corridor... plus it would make it more challenging and interesting to get through, also.
Plus it could still have all the mechanical workings and noises and stuff. Perhaps that's a good option that is actually possible without messing with changing velocities.
But it'd still be nice to have a pointer in the right direction of how a pendulum swing might be achieved for a brush in TDM, if anyone reads this and knows off their head an example or which function is the right one to look at.
Cheers.
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Wall of text seems high enough, right.
Hey Biker - who's around to tell me to spoiler my lengthy posts now, eh?
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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 ┻━┻-
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I'm selling these fine Lucasarts parodies:
http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/02/back-to-future-part-iii-timeline-of.html-
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The prefs>readables - I don't have a custom path set, because it is mod\xdata and I create my own xd's and don't want DR putting them in other places - they go where I know they are and I can move them wherever they are required in my organisational system for DR (incl. snapshots for maps, when hopping between missions).
You're using DR 2.6 and TDM 2.06.
Looking at why you might be having issues with particles also.
Seems pathing issue, but without knowing your win10 setup and permissions - might be because the files are "locked" to the user location on desktop, no cross priv's, as Orbweaver has said.
I've gone back to DR 2.2.1 from Feb 2017, because I do not like the new ones and they sometimes crash for no apparent reason or not function as it did (eg, can't save a collision model, because the file is in use by DR, when using .ase export and import of model that is in use by DR... simple logic error, file's locked so crash - have to workaround by simply adding triggerhurt with 0 damage so it causes bounceback to model and disregard collision model for baked brushwork).
Unity can suffer similar issue in some saved prefs, as some methods to store prefs use win registry and this can have permission issues that prevent users from, e g, changing resolution, because SYSTEM has full rights, while "owner" of the key doesn't - so system overrides and "owner/user" is left not being able to save their preferences between instances.
Letting DR chuck everything where it wants to and then going in and organising it - it seems to fix a lot of problems I've encountered like this.
It also helps me keep on top of my things by knowing where I put things and not messing with paths all the time - simply shuffling files and keeping an organised file-cabinet and clear workspace. -
The only thing I might say is that the readables editor is something I avoid.
In order to facilitate localisation, it's necessary to edit the .xd files to include text as strings anyhow - it might be a pain to have to adjust for whatever font you're using on the page, but DR handles it quite well and there are only a few typographic issues (which aren't due to DR, but the font files themselves). Unless that has been implemented and I haven't been keeping up with changes.
Sometimes it's good practise to write the readables / .xd files yourself - I've never had a successful experience using the readables editor in DR and I know there are a few recreatable bugs that cause issues with readables made using it (which may be down to how I use it) that can cause frob to fail or the grabber to glitch out, etc...
Also, as Orbweaver says - it's good to keep to the convention and install everything as per the "standard" set-up.
I have a dedicated partition on an SSD for TDM and DR, plus another win user account that has access to TDM on an HDD so that it can be tested "on a fresh copy" and also transfer it to another machine to see how any map is shaping up.
At the very beginning, I had some problems and it was also because I chose to not follow convention and install TDM and DR in my own way - once I RTFI and followed the instructions - everything worked.
(except readables editor, that still drives me nuts and causes problems).
Sometimes it helps to have all the readables out in notepad++ or a word processor, so that it's possible to simply copy-paste any alterations to your narrative into the .xd direct - but in order to do that, it helps to know how an .xd is made and how it works to produce something.
Once this understanding is reached, it's possible to then expand upon this and enter the realm of custom fonts and doing more with your readables - is a message in blood on a wall a readable, or is it a decal?
Depends on the method used to create it.
Perhaps I'd like that message in blood to be localised, therefore I have to figure a way to get a custom font and place a readable on a wall, so it appears as a decal.
It's not so difficult to achieve, but might require to learn about the readbles GUI's and how they work also.
A good starting place is here;
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=XData_File_Creation -
There was a bunch of sites crop up last year or so that are like Netflix / Flixify for gaming - where you don't buy the games, you simply pay a subscription each month and can play any of the games in their catalogue.
Some of them had decent download methods, too - you could play the game before it was fully downloaded, as it would first download only the parts you needed to launch the game and get playing, while the rest downloaded as you were playing the game.
However, the catalogues were pretty sparse and not many newer games were available.
If they had newer titles and a bigger catalogue - I'd pay 30 a month to subscribe and download and play as many different, new or old games that I wanted. Cancel it when busy or away for a few months, come back and do it again.
Idk why no other platform offers that "play while it downloads" streaming, like with video - it worked well for those titles that were able to support it.
I'd sign up because they say they're going to give away a free game every 2 weeks. Then I'll add them as non-steam games. Their prices are a bit steep and none of their catalogue interests me - right before the holiday sale on Steam too.
The site's only thing is they have Hades as early access and put a price on Genesis Alpha pre-purchase, however both will be released in the Steam store when it's out of early access/pre-purchase.
Most of the "coming soon" games are heading for the bargain bin price section on Steam.
Perhaps I'll sign up for the free games every 2 weeks, but - I'll have to add those games as non-steam games and have yet another launcher installed that I don't want to fill up my spam-box and take up space on my HDD:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/462770/discussions/0/1745605598715512430/
Gonna be hard to dethrone Steam. Other than Blizzard for D2 (no launcher except game) they were the 1st people to make me install a games manager - which was awesome because no more icons all over the place and tidy desktop - for Dark Messiah and L4D maybe... 10-14 years ago?
Perhaps Epic are taking a lesser cut and have an early access exclusive - but they're giving away a game every 2 weeks and making me disorganise my computer - existing outside the games manager with which I am familiar and has many safeguards and a good refund and returns policy and allows a good overlay and connection to my friends and other players and blahblahblah and install (I have had many bad experiences with) software made in Hong Kong.
I'm never going to buy anything from them, because it exists outside my game manager software that I prefer and will be a minor irritation that I can do without - especially since none of the titles appeal (to me).
But, I will make an account in order to be offered a free game every 2 weeks, until they stop doing that because they can't afford to any longer and then I will delete my account and say "so long and thanks for all the fish".
I'm putting my money on the dog with 4 legs that isn't going to go in the deep frier and be served as chicken fried rice if it doesn't win the race.
But I'll take the free prawn crackers and sample sushi, if I fancy a snack.
That business model is flawed from the get-go. -
I found a bit of a weird work-around for this, that's a bit of a pain to set up but appears to do something.
Run TDM from one machine through Steam, stream it to the machine you want to play it on that has a weird aspect - Steam resizes everything to fit the screen of the machine to which TDM is being streamed.
I've plugged in an old 4:3 monitor to an old machine and then Steam-streamed it to another machine that is running a monitor at 16:9 and there's no letterboxing as, eg, watching an old TV show from the 80's on a widescreen.
There's a little clipping where it's stretched, compared to how the game looks on the other screen (sides cut off a little) but that can probably be fixed through FOV (which will tax the other machine further).
GUI's look dodgy and stretched - but the game itself fits the monitor and doesn't look so bad, even if it is struggling because the other machine isn't really powerful enough to run the game.
Quality is ok, takes ages to load. Don't notice any input lag but the game is almost unplayable due to the machine not being up to the task - it's basically playing it on a Gateway that is usually used for DOS 6.2 and Win 3.1, that can just about run XP, instead of on the powerhouse or streamed from one of my craptops (that have other aspects also, but I know I can stream 1920x1080 to them and use this machine for its power and play Total War Atilla on a computer that can't run it - Steam handles the resizing to fit).
Not a very good work-around but it's a work-around.
// doing it the other way - from the big machine at 16:9 to the gateway at 4:3 - it fits the screen and runs like a dream. -
The co-ords are as near perfect as they can be for the loops (it's the same as a bezier curve describing a circle, really).
Yeah, tried that also - one way to keep the direction of, eg, a light/camera/thing, constant is to bind to two nurbs so one is used as ante-rotation so the thing follows the outward face, changing angle as it moves around the curve instead of facing straight, as a moving platform might (which doesn't really require nurbs, if using args and script to simply move something like an elevator or "crumbling platform puzzle jump bit" or whatever).
Idk either... idk it was a "hacky" thing - that might explain a lot of the issues when using them when args don't achieve what's required.
Might have to simply redesign the system - perhaps a 2nd loop can fill in a few milliseconds behind so that tiny stutter is masked by another, and the 2nd loop' stutter is masked by the first.
Appreciate the bounce - I'll try using the masking technique to hide the stutter, seems the most simple solution... dunno why didn't think of it earlier - that's a very obvious way to hide it.
The hidden mechanics, it doesn't matter so much - the player never sees this.
Ducttape and builder's foam fixes everything...
// nice one - copy pasting the thing in DR and then renaming and copy pasting the same script but offset time by a little appears to hide the stutter.; (good luck trying to select it again though... map>findbrush seems to work, move it and then re-insert position if tweak needed)
Thanks. -
If MS owned steam, I'd never pay for a game again.
I'd sell my steam account to someone else for a few thousand and upgrade my mainboard and CPU to new-gen and just do work and use those hours to indulge my other past-times.
The only reason I buy games on Steam is because I know the publishers and developers get around 70% of the sales price, plus a cut of trading, etc...
Otherwise I wouldn't support gaming with my wallet in any way.
I dislike very much the direction the industry has been heading in the past decade.
Newbie DarkRadiant Questions
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted
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.