Dragofer

This isn't something I'd be so concerned about, it really is something that you get much better at with time. Here's a motivational story: This is how I started mapping in 2010, a small mansion out in the tundra. The brushwork was as basic as it gets and it would never have occurred to me to put in wainscoting (trim) on the walls, decal patches, particles and such things. Also, my technical work wasn't very good because I liked to use tiny grid sizes to add detail to brushes, which led to that graphical glitch you see. Then I took a break from mapping because it felt like I was getting nowhere and returned in 2014, spent 1.5 months to create my first map One Step Too Far and basically learn the editor, did another few months of mapping afterwards on the sequel, Of Brambles and Thorns, and made this screenshot at the time, which looks more like a real mission: So if your mapping looks basic at the moment and has things in common with my first screenshot, best just keep at it and let your growing experience do its work for you. And something I should add is that, in my experience, people across the Thief and TDM community have always put more value on the story and gameplay than the visuals - that's why Thief 1 & 2 are still as popular as ever with us. So a first map with interesting sneaking puzzles and an imaginative story, which I think is what you have in mind, will be sure to be appreciated.

crowbars did a fine job in testing, in fact I was reminded of Oldjim What I'd add to that list would also be subjective aspects such as difficulty, how well the story flows and such. Betatesters are the first people to see the map besides the mapper, so opinions from their fresh perspectives would also do well for the development of the mission.

The last version's going up later today, then it needs the blessing of the beta testers. (I suspect there's a handful bugs left)

Faces can be quadrilaterals, triangles or any other kind of surface between vertices. Doom3's engine needs them all to be triangles, so you need to split up any 4-or-more sided faces into triangular faces for the model to function (triangulate). This is normally done by the exporter script. In TDM when people say a model has 3k polys they usually mean triangles.

This is an .md5mesh. In Blender when you create a shape you have the option in the bottom left of the screen to adjust how high-poly it should be, until your next action. Also, while Blender grid increments aren't 1:1 to DR units, the actual number units inside Blender are 1:1. So a length of 70 in Blender is 70 in DR.

This had me stumped. I haven't got a working setup for .md5meshes and didn't try working with joints yet. Maybe someone could 'rig' bikerdude's sphere?

And now the lamps are fixed: had an AI relight a whole row of them in one go. The problem was that the stim/response ID #'s weren't sequential and in the correct order after I deleted some of them which meant they didn't work. ID 2 and 5 became ID 1 and 2. I've updated the link in Dragofer's Stuff. Thanks grayman.

I expect to be buried in an avalanche of bugs by the time this weekend is over. Then again, I might have upped my game since the last couple times, and I did do some intensive bugfixing already. I'm glad to see you're awaiting it

Great, I've sent you a pm.

Thanks for the suggestion - in the case of the light entities it looks like it's the default for tdm's light entities to have that visual stim. The lamp models, however, don't have this stim. My defs mirror this. I've commented out the stim from my light entities to see what happens but unfortunately things didn't change. How do you mean that it's handled by the scriptobject - does it apply and toggle the visual stim automatically, or does it use a different system? I've done a quick test of deactivating the visual stim on the default candleflame and the Builder relighted it as normal.

This mission started its life as a standalone mission for a contest, so it takes place in a different setting and begins with its own story. There is, however, a strong link that'll become apparent during the mission. From a mapping perspective it contains several areas and ideas that I had originally intended for Of Brambles and Thorns, which is the bonafide sequel, but realised that they wouldn't have space there anymore. So this could be described as being neither sequel nor prequel, but around One Step Too Far, if you will.

Great, I can appreciate the extra testing power. The mission is a little larger than I thought. Edit: looks like we're set with this group, thanks all who signed up.

Alright, here's a tougher question: What would I be missing for the AIs to relight my custom oil lamps? Going by the Relighting Lights Wiki I'd need these spawnargs: AIUse AIUSE_LIGHTSOURCE lightType AIUSE_LIGHTTYPE_TORCH (for flames) lightType AIUSE_LIGHTTYPE_ELECTRIC (for electrics) -----> this type is the one I'd choose because I'd want them to frob on/off. Some of these look like they're already in the light entity from which my lamps inherit, but I've copied them all over again into my entity defs and again in DR, in both cases for both the lamp model and the attached light entity (set x on flame) to be sure. And shouldBeOn 1, with that capitalisation, to both lamp and light in DR. But when I present a Builder with an extinguished custom oil lamp he doesn't comment or act on it. This is in a well lit room where he's managed to relight a stock lamp, and all possible notice/relight chance spawnargs are 1 on him. These are the entity defs involved: The lamp model I'm testing this on: The base from which the lamp model inherits: The oil light entity: The light_base entity from which my light entity inherits:

Does someone recall a way to make store-bought inventory items persistent between maps? Edit: solution was on the shops wiki page, not the campaign one: "shopItem_N_D_persistent" "1"

Ah, you're quite qualified to test this mission then.

Calling all betatesters to take a look at my next offering, Down by the Riverside, a mansion and ship mission. One of the main design targets was ambience with some eeriness. This fully includes the smaller mission that I had already sent to betatesting earlier - under the same name - as an entry for the Halloween speedbuild contest, fundamentally reworked and with an entirely different story. The original version of that contest entry did show signs of being a speedbuild, and I thought that the material therein could be used more effectively within a larger mission that's part of an overarching plot - which is what this mission is.

Well done for taking the plunge Destined, animations with their long lists of bones and restraints can look rather intimidating for those who haven't worked with them.

It could be that your horse's origin is slightly within a brush, or the horse is somewhere from where it can't path, although those suggestions would be far-fetched. What happens if you put your horse out in the middle of the courtyard? Otherwise something that could be tried is to delete the horse, save, delete all dmap files, dmap, put the horse back in, save, dmap.

That would be an Intel HD Graphics 3000 here. Interestingly enough, since making perf tweaks as per the wiki (mainly texture downscaling) it pulls off 20 fps most of the time and sometimes goes into the 40's. Quite a breeze compared to the way it was pre-tweaks with all those L-sized textures.

Very nice, I like how there's so much going in every screenshot, not least because of the lighting. I'd suggest to use metal for the railings, it's what used in real harbours. You'd be hard pressed to find a metal texture in TDM that isn't dark, rusty or rough. Just say so if you're looking for some ships for your harbour, I have a couple smaller ones which have accessible 2-4 room interiors with caulk, visportals and so on, one of which isn't being used in a mission at the moment (sloop, schooner).

Gas arrow explosions look normal to me. Yes, there's a whiff of strobe if you pay very close attention. However if the gas particle is emitted by a func_emitter it's incredibly broken, but that was already happening before I activated tdm_lg_split.

Finding the right script for the right Blender version can be tricky indeed. JediaAcademy's .ase importers exporters will work with modern Blender.

This causes no flicker for me even in scenes with a large amount of various types of particles.

Is the mainmenu_briefing.gui the only one that's sensitive to: if ("gui::CurrentMission" == 1) { } elseif ("gui::CurrentMission" == 2) { } I've defined a new mission complete sound (#define MM_MISSION_SUCCESS_ALT_SOUND_CMD "music mission_complete_alt;"), setup a new soundshader with the specified name, and made a new string which should get used at the end of part 1, but if I put in these conditionals then there's no music at all and no mission complete text in both missions. (Without the conditionals my new 'assets' work.) I've split my mission in two parts and would like to avoid that players who weren't following the story all too closely or whose English is less polished see a generic mission complete screen and believe the whole thing's over and done after part 1.

That shouldn't be a problem, these gui files are like a cross between definitions and scripts. You could maybe assign a number to each text and roll a random number, though no doubt one of the coders has a more elegant solution.