bambini

Going off at a slight tangent, over on the Thief 4 forums there have been a few discussions about a book that people might find interesting. the book is Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov. It's a fantasy story about a thief who unwillingly becomes embroiled in saving the world. By all accounts the protagonist is actually based on Garrett, after the author played the Thief games, although the setting is a bit more "Elves and Wizards" kind of stuff. It's a Russian book, and the English translation comes out in February. Some people have read the book already, and there are some mixed reviews on the forums. Nevertheless, thought I'd mention it.

I can't remember the exact figures, but I'd turned down the brightness (or value) quite a ways already. I've also pulled the light radius quite a way in. The problem is that it candles are moveable objects, and so it's about finding a balance. If I pick up one of the candles, I'd still need it to emit a sensible amount of light.

I've turned off bloom and it does make a difference. Not a massive one, but a difference nonetheless. It turns it down from "brighter than the sun" to just "too damn bright"

Problem solved! Thanks guys, you're always there for me

Dickens? Chaucer? Pepys? Without trying to get too literary on you, William Blake's poem London puts it eloquently: I wander through each chartered street, Near where the chartered Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear: How the chimney-sweeper's cry Every blackening church appals, And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood down palace-walls. But most, through midnight streets I hear How the youthful harlot's curse Blasts the new-born infant's tear, And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

I'm still working through the tutorial, and I've run into another problem. I'm creating a stim and response, and the way I understand it, I have to create a small brush and change its classname to func_static. The problem is that its classname is worldspawn and it refuses to change! On further inspection, I've realised that all of my brushes are worldspawn, and they all have the arg shop_skip 1. I also wanted to create a location trigger as well, and that brush only has the args classname: worldspawn and shop_skip: 1. They just refuse to be anything else! What's going on?

I'm having trouble coming up with names for the NPCs in a level I'm planning. Thinking back to the Thief games, I'm probably looking for Latin (e.g. Artemus) or maybe Germanic names, but can't seem to come up with anything that sounds like it fits with the themes of TDM. Does anyone have any tips or advice on coming up with names? Maybe a name generator that they know of? How does everyone else think up names?

Wow, you've really done your homework OK, I hadn't realised that your arrow velocities were based on real-world physics. I'd assumed that the speeds had just been tinkered with until they looked about right (but given how thorough you've all been in making TDM, I should have expected so much more!) Forget I complained about the arrow speed then. It's probably more a case of my expectations of how an arrow should fly being wrong.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. You might be onto something, as in the camera view of DR the light looks fine, but when you go into TDM it's overly bright. I'll give it a go. I hate bloom. I don't know why I ever bother switching it on.

I had an indirectly related issue that I thought I'd raise here, rather than starting a new post. In a map I was working on, I thought I'd set up a rather nice little display of three candles of different sizes on a plate. It looked great, and was good fun to throw things at (think candle explosion ), but the light emitted was all wrong. Even with the light radius pulled right back and the value (brightness) turned down, the corner of the room that had these three candles was brighter than the sun. I don't know too much about how light accumulates, but if it's anything like sound (and I suspect it is) then it's a logarithmic progression instead of a linear one. This means that three candles would not be three times brighter than one - it would be less than that. Is there any way that this can be put into TDM? I figure it would only really need to be done with candles, as it's not often that anyone bundles together half a dozen torches.

If you need a hint, I'd suggest you...

I'd like to add my recommendation to this FM as a beta tester. It's a great little mission, tricky in places, with some nice attention to detail. A guard with a torch adds some great lighting effects, which IMO adds a lot of tension to the level when that shadow you were comfortably hiding in becomes brightly lit .

OK, I have another quick question (you must be getting sick of me ) I have an electric lamp that's attached to a switch. I've attached the switch to the light and this works just fine. However, the lamp iteslf still glows orange, even though it's not emitting light. How can I set it so the lamp itself goes dull at when i flip the switch?

OK, ignore the above question. I've answered it by testing my level

Do I need to arm my AIs by adding weapons to their inventory, or are they automatically armed?

Sorry, it's taken me a few days to get round to testing this out. Worked like a charm! Thanks a lot for your help

I'm still going through the A-Z tutorial, and I'm getting myself a little confused with adding ammo. What I want to do is to add in some broadheads and some water arrows, so my guy starts with 12 broadheads and 5 water arrows. The problem is that I keep getting just one of each. I'm getting a bit confused with my "inv_stackable"s, "inv_count"s and my "inv_ammo_amount"s. What properties exactly do I need to enter in to do the above? Or is it just a question of putting a dozen invidual broadheads and 5 water arrows into my 'blue room'?

Brilliant. Problem solved. Ta muchly

I'm having trouble with running pointfile. I've got a leak, and it's alerted me when I've dmap-ed my map, and yet when I try to run pointfile to locate it, it comes up with this warning: Could not open pointfile: C:/Program Files/Doom 3/darkmod/maps/tut/tut.lin I can't seem to find "tut.lin" anywhere on my computer. What's going on?

I would say that arrow wobble isn't so much of an issue. Sure it would be a nice touch, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere in terms of how far you take realism into a game. I'd imagine it would take a fair bit of work to get arrow wobble in place, but what gains would you really get from it in terms of gameplay? I'd be happy to play with the code to change the arc, while leaving the horizontal speed as it is. I'm no programmer though, so unless someone can hold my hand and walk me through it, or it's just a question of changing a couple of numbers, I'd be as useful as a chocolate teapot

I guess it's more that arc that's the issue for me in that I feel they arc way too much. The speed becomes an issue becasue of physics: if an arrow has a faster horizontal velocity then it will arc less over a fixed distance. Of course, the laws of phsyics are all very well in the real world, but they don't necessarily apply in a game! A way to reduce the arc of an arrow without reducing its horizontal speed is to reduce the vertical velocity (i.e. the pull of gravity on the arrow). This would mean that the arrow flies at the same speed horizontally, but would arc less in the air. Is it possible to adjust the effect of gravity on the arrows? Even if it is, what do people think?

You may be right, but it certainly feels that the arrows arc a lot more than in T1/2, even if they have the same speed. As I said, it's a continual grumble for me that arrows don't go faster in games, but I guess it's just a realism/gameplay balance. Really? I'll have to look for those. Methinks they will be very handy

First of all, I must say I'm extremely grateful for all the hard work put in to producing TDM. It really is awesome. However, I thought I'd post to tell people about a couple of thoughts I've had on improvements for TDM/Dark Radiant. It's nothing too major, just a couple of largely aesthetic changes that I thought might make things a bit easier. It's absolutely not intended as criticism. - In TDM, I felt that the arrow speed was a bit too slow and the arc a bit too steep. I've loosed a few arrows in the real world in my time and they're pretty damn fast. In the Training mission, when I was firing arrows at the targets it felt that I had to aim far too high in order to hit the more distant targets. I’d prefer it if the arrows were much faster. To be honest, I think that this is a problem with most games that involve archery. I’m probably being overly fussy. - In Dark Radiant, I’ve found that when you zoom in really close it’s hard to differentiate between the edge of a brush (a black line) and the gridlines (which are grey). It’s not so much of a problem when you’re zoomed out, but it can be tricky when you’re zoomed in to make sure two brushes are aligned. I wondered if it might be useful for the lines to become thicker than the gridlines when you zoom in so that they stand out more. Alternatively, maybe if the inside of a brush was tinted light grey or something to make it stand out. - Finally, I thought about something that might be quite handy that was in The Elder Scrolls editor. It’s a function in which you can select an object and at the push of a button it will “drop” to nearest horizontal surface below. So if you want a spoon on a table, you can get the spoon somewhere over the table, press the button and it will drop onto the table. Or if you want to place a person in the room, you press the button and their feet will touch the floor. I don’t know how do-able these are, but anyway, those are my thoughts. What do people think?

Thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it. Out of interest, should I worry about the other .pk4 files in the darkmod folder? There seem to be quite a few. Also, once I've converted it to a .zip file to unpack it, is it important to rename it back to a .pk4 file? I probably will for neatness, but I'd be interested in knowing whether TDM relies on the prefabs.pk4 file.

Yeah I'm working through the A-Z. Maybe I overlooked that part. Thanks anyway