Dragofer
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Posts posted by Dragofer
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If you don't want to use a script, you can also use the following method:
Just wondering because I've seen people say this in a lot of places - why would you not want to use a script? Is it just to avoid having a clunky big text file, or maybe something to do with performance?
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As said ai ignore path nodes when alerted at Alert Level 5 (have seen the player). They either fight the player or flee.
Yeah that's right, I just put those lines there in case Bikerdude was looking for a more lowtech scenario where the AI starts patrolling after calming down from the alert.
Any ideas which FM did this?
Inn Business seems to have sleeping guests that if alerted start walking around the inn.
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There are very few things that would drive a man of the streets like myself to the high seas. Before I even thought there were none at all. Yet when one of the nobles whom I had paid a visit to decided to make it his personal objective to end me, promising a mound of gold to the first cutthroat who brings him my head, it became clear no one could be trusted anymore. It was time for change.
The most recent version (v2, June 2023) is available from the ingame downloader.
Special thanks to:
*Betatesters Oldjim, Bikerdude, Airship Ballet, Goldwell, Nbohr1more, JackFarmer, joebarnin, The Black Arrow, datiswous and Acolytesix - for their truly diligent efforts in getting this mission polished in all aspects
*The DarkRadiant wiki, which is excellent and covers as good as everything
*Bikerdude - for allowing me to repurpose his architecture models to improve the ending of the mission
*Grayman - for allowing me to repurpose a mission of his for my briefing
*Sotha - for his excellent briefing FormatUpdate v2.0 (18/June/2023)
SpoilerI've been playing with the thought of finally providing a much needed sequel for this mission and realised that this mission, being my first and released 7 years ago, can be rough around the edges. So I've now brought this mission into a more sequel-worthy state with these changes:
- enhancements to visuals to make the mission look better all around
- the option to set LOD Detail in the graphics settings if maximum performance is needed when outdoors
- new readables to build out the storytelling, both on the ship and the landing area
- some voiced lines have been contributed by Narrator and Goldwell to help set the mood
- collision has been overhauled throughout the ship, so that it's much less likely to get stuck
- more space in the captain's area for AIs and stealth, as well as a generally cleaner pathing implementation
- the main cutscene has been shortened and better lit, while all other fades to black have been cut
- a new loading screen by the painter Ivan Aivazovsky, to replace the slightly bland TDM-made arctic scene
- myriad other tweaks, such as smooth fading out for triggered ambient sounds and some gimmicks around clocks and compasses aboard the shipThe mission's length is still the same, since these changes already took longer than expected. My plan is to focus fully on my two WIP missions from here onwards, then return to One Step Too Far with a small sequel (as suggested by Amadeus it could be called Two Steps Too Far).
Update v1.5 (02/March/2015)Everything that looks like loot can be looted
Looting and lockpicking on the Captains deck are now more comfortable to do
Eased the loot requirements. Don't want people unable to advance because they haven't collected enough loot
Theres something in the crows nest
Reworded the Tome to make it clearer how to progress
Fixes, such as the Tome not advancing when it was flicked through too fast, keys opening unwanted locks, shadow bugs, assorted OCD-related changes
Cleaned up the team-control triggers on the Captains deck-
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If I understand the desired situation right, you could also make an objective "this AI gets alerted to level x" which could trigger something on completion (possibly the AI itself for a waitfortrigger node, or target changers for a RIT node)
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Adding on some practical lines to what is already said on the stim/response wiki, because it took me some testing before I properly understood how you actually set up a stim/response:
If you want the bot to react to water, you need to select the bot and go to the stim/response editor, then go to the responses tab - not the stim tab. Then under those tabs, on the left you add a new entry 'water' and on the right you can right-click choose what the effects should be.
The responses tab can do a lot of other things in this way. For example you can set up a 'frob' response on a candleholder, that will extinguish its light if frobbed - like in Sotha's missions.
As far as I understand it the stims tab is only used if you want to create a custom type of stimulus, such as the audio sticks in William Steele 2 or the example in the wiki.
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I'm having troubles with the 'Enabling Objectives' line not working anymore. For example, I have 2 hidden objectives that make sure you first read a book to the end, then close it before calling a script:
Objective 1: Reach page 3 of readable Book1.
Objective 2: Close readable Book 1. Enabling Objective: 1. Calls a script.
I've made both of them visible and can see Objective 2 doesn't tick off. When I remove the enabling objective line both of them tick off.
The same also happens with any others that used enabling objectives - they don't work except when I remove the enabling objectives line.
It's strange because I've seen these work countless times before, but now no longer. It looks like Penny Dreadful 2 might have a similar issue with its 'exit the premises' objective (or it's a different problem with the loot objective), so... I don't know. Could it be from 2.02? It sounds unlikely.
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Great, that looks like there are enough betatesters - when I'm home soon I can send out the messages. My guess is that pm's will be fine for this one, rather than going to the testing forums.
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At last One Step Too Far is completed, and I'd welcome a handful of betatesters now. The mission is on the small side and I've squashed more bugs than I can count, so with some luck this won't take all that long at all.
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There was the problem with the stim/response lights, the response had to be on the candleholder and not the light or particle. Thanks for that tip!
Also, I found out that I had put my rats back then into monsterclip in order to stop them from moving, which I can see from here is the wrong approach. Moved them a handful units and now everything is working as intended.
Making the floor door nonsolid - hm, that results in me falling through it. It's an iron grate door in the weatherdeck that gives access to the hold. I'll just have a playerclip patch over it, non-mantle.
Shame about the clock fingers not showing up, but that's what readables are good for explaining.
You can reskin md5meshes the same way you do anything else. Look at the ai skin files for examples.
You can open the md5mesh in a text editor to look for the material shaders used (I know the flag has a number of them)
Ah, I didn't realise that those md5meshes are text files. Now I've got the red and white flag of the captain up there; and I feel like I can reskin anything now. For example I made a boat out of carpets when I was working this out. What's next, maybe a man made entirely of straw for a horror mission.
Now to give the readables another pass, remove the black boxes and fix some more bugs, then there we go. Thrilling
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One thing I forgot to mention was all those bugs and tweaks. I’ve gotten lots of things out of the way and now the only things still on my to do list are those I couldn’t solve by looking at the wiki, other people’s maps or doing my own testing. All help with getting these out of the way is appreciated
Once those are done the map can go into beta.High priority:
- Downscaling models via the rotation spawnarg causes some of them to have huge black boxes as shadows that always face you. Is this normal with rescaled models?
Low priority:
- I’d like to make a moving light with better performance by using a static light and a moving flame particle emitter, but I can’t work out how to set up the stim/response so they get extinguished by water arrows and would like some pointers on that
- Is there a function to set the alert state of an AI to 0?
- Horizontal doors in the floor push me up even though they have push_player 0, notPushable etc. Is there a more elegant solution than putting a patch of playerclip over the door?
- The fancy clock finger decal models don’t show up for me.
- I need to create AAS for rats and I have an AASFlood rat entity in my map but I can’t find documentation on how to use that entity or how other maps did it.
- Reskinning that pirate flag – would it work differently because it’s an animated model? It seems to use an md5mesh instead of an .ase
- Downscaling models via the rotation spawnarg causes some of them to have huge black boxes as shadows that always face you. Is this normal with rescaled models?
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Was just curious about a place for bouncing around ideas that didn't actually have DR files to accompany them. I'm not going to be prolific enough to make a thread devoted to just my own ideas, though, so I'll probably let it slide. I have about three ideas on my "wish list," but probably don't want to start talking them up too much until I can actually work on them.
There is a start to a thread like that from January with a couple of ideas - I think that's a great idea that would be nice to see being added to (although maybe the best ideas are still your own? In terms of how far you'd end up going with putting them into action).
http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15833-plot-and-subplot-ideas/
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This scripting stuff is great - the description on the wiki was just enough to get things rolling and the first thing I did was to make that self-repeating sea on a spline (thanks Stumpy, although I used 'thread' at the end to make it loop because it wasn't clear to me how to use while(1) )
Then straight after that I went on to make an ending cutscene (I try to be dramatic - and it has only one rather... unusual actor) with what I see as not so short a script to play it from. However, the func_cameraview and the func_teleport don't seem to like each other a lot and have a habit of dealing 5,000,000 damage to me. I've managed to solve most of these by putting in a short delay between them, or putting them in different threads. But when I was about to call the cutscene fully finished, I made a patch that you get teleported on to larger and then the problem came back there. I made sure the teleporter isn't inside the patch. Strange. I was wondering, are there some rules with using teleporters/cameras together, such as that they need to be in the same leaf?
Other than that, there are only small things left. I need to put some loot around the place and in the chests. I'd like to reskin that animated pirate flag (I don't want this to be a pirate ship after all). Make sure the objectives work properly. That sort of stuff.
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Great, I've got them sitting in just the right positions now every time. It took some trial and error with the tolerance spawnarg and corner position, and sit_down_slide_dist helped too. Thanks for that.
About the stims - I don't see why the stim stops working when I put a max fire count or activation timer on top of the radius. Does anyone know of someplace that describes how all those settings work? I'm only seeing the example in Fidcal's tutorial and a rather advanced and more general page on the wiki.
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So I've moved on from all the decoration, geometry and the story+readables (the mission even has a name now, 'The Madman's Tome', aboard the Erkenbrandt!) and began with the AI pathing and stim/responses as 2 of the last steps with the end in sight but hit several roadblocks...
Pathing - I just can't get anyone to sit down squarely on a chair. I've imported Grayman's sit path from the 1st guard in the North and it seems what's needed is 3 entities: a path corner next to the chair, a path turn angle 90° away from the sit direction, and a path sit with sit_direction_angle set. On a blank test map the prefab works fine but when I manually copy it the AI sits half to the side or the back, or on thin air behind it. Is more needed?
With S/R the only stim that works for me is radius. When I change it to or add an activation timer, or add max fire count, it stops working. I think I'm misunderstanding this system entirely.
One thing I'm trying to do with S/R is have the sea entity translate past, then get teleported back and start again - another issue there, the sea is bound to a sliding door. I've tried adding a translate spawnarg to a func_mover and a func_static but they won't move. A func_riser that moves horizontally would be great.
My map has been great fun, but now I just have all these technicalities that I don't understand why they don't work... Some explanation would be really nice.
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Back again, this time mostly after trying out different things for the interiors. It's not so easy, so I've gone back and replayed some of those castle/city type missions, which was nice
I'd really appreciate listening in on other people's views on this.Weatherdeck - with a view to the moon
Captain's - The captain lives here, furnished with my homemade desk, bookshelf and wardrobe (not shown). He will get more things to showcase once I know what kind of places he's been to - maybe some small pots of spices, or chinaware, or strange instruments. Probably the whole lot. The lighting doesn't really seem to work very well though, especially the right one
Hold - I wonder how much cargo is going to fit in here
Gundeck/Hold - the cannons take so much space away... and there's only 4 of them
Magazine - it's completely encased in copper to keep the humidity away
Galley - This one I'm really happy with, the decals made a huge difference. It seems the way to go from now on is to bombard everything everywhere with these decals
Navigator's room - everything seems to float in space here... making the lantern light bigger didn't really solve it. He also really needs some handmade furniture too, if only for the colour
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I've set to work on my own project recently, which starts with a ship. I tried something like this a number of years ago, where I've made plenty of experiences with everything, including bending patches into all sorts of shapes. Back then I didn't get much further than a basic hull and putting some bunks in the one cabin because I didn't really have control over a lot of things, but this time around it was much easier.
The ship itself is done, beams, rigging and all, now it's just to furnish the cabins and the 2 decks of cargo hold, which is going slower than expected. In my mind making a mess on the table with a dozen cups, bowls and bottles isn't much less painstaking than bending patches. So there isn't any finished interior to show yet, but making the framework was great fun.
In terms of story, you aren't a stowaway this time (though there's still sneaking) on a voyage to... somewhere, far away. Caracks were real ocean-going vessels at the time.
Floating high above the sea in one of the two pictures is an early version of the crude brush hull that I've held on to
The framerate in that picture was 25 by the way on my integrated graphics - the skybox took it down from 45 fps, but it's worth it.http://imgur.com/4pzCjVJ - exterior
http://imgur.com/EgHfedH - crew accomodation & mess
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I believe there's a medieval ambient music mod for Oblivion called Medieval Instrumental Collection, which is 250Mb large, on Tesnexus (http://tesnexus.com/...le.php?id=22085).
The description reads: "This pack of music contains only intrumental pieces with no electronic/sintetizer sounds, all this music is pure instrumental, wich makes the walkthrough and explore moments full of delightful!"
Furthermore: "NOTE: This music is just a compilation of songs I made,the authors are underground since a long time ago (Medieval Era) after 70 years the songs are Public Domain, so since I am not selling them, making a profit and just sharing this, its all legal. Besides most of this songs are from Anonymous composers. Not under copyright laws. In any case you can ask by sending a PM."
If you do want to look into it, the "public" category would be likeliest to be what you're looking for.
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Thus my pondering above whether the loading/briefing can be done in parallel. The player chews up time anyway reading the briefing or watching a movie; might as well use that time to load the mission. It would be nice if when they were finished with the shop, the map started up almost immediately.
That would be a great improvement, on many levels.
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So with fresh vigour I finished off what was already much closer to finishing than I thought, meaning I was able to tweak what was already there. I've added a few samples of what I've come up with, and I would also appreciate some feedback. Some of them have shaman tags, which was probably a result of me enjoying this.
Idles
Idle_1 "Where could that old crone of a washerwoman be lurking now…"
Idle_2 "I should have taken it with me. No reason not to."
Idle_3 "By his own hand. Ha. An embarrassment, to him and to his clan."
Idle_4 "The air is rarely this thick. I wonder what it means to tell us."
Idle_5 "When we next cross paths I'll put an end to it. For good."
Idle_6 "Tomorrow will be a long day. I hope the others are prepared as well."
Idle_7 "I did not see her in a long time. I can't complain."
Idle_8 "The raven disturbed me. It seemed anxious about something, but what?"
Idle_9 "The earth must have trembled when he said that."
Idle_10 "They won't be so smug when their land freezes over again."
Idle_shaman_1 "Fire is a mysterious being; it warms our bodies and it burns our dwellings."
Idle_shaman_2 "Will the dark lady heed my pleas? Even she seems to avoid this troubled corner."
Idle_shaman_3 "He who only relies on cold metal and dead rock to make his home will freeze to his death in winter."
Idle_shaman_4 "How often do I have a calm moment to myself these days? They all need something (sigh)."
Idle_shaman_5 "Another star has faded from the sky this night. Soon we will all be groping in the dark."
Idle_shaman_6 "The possum takes the hawk's chick and the hawk, mad with rage, takes the possum. That is the way"
Lost Player after Pursuit: You were chasing the intruder when suddenly he disappeared. He can't be far.
lost_player_1 "Only shade spawn can disappear like that!"
lost_player_2 "He can't be far."
lost_player_3 "Witchcraft!"
Refuse to relight Torch: You notice that a flame is out. Refuse to relight it.
light_refuse_1 "Relighting this is women's work."
light_refuse_2 "It will go out by itself again if I relight it."
light_refuse_3 "I can't relight every light the moment it goes out."
light_refuse_4 "It's not my turn to relight that."
light_refuse_5 "Why should *I* relight this?"
Spotted the Player, noncombatant: You're not prepared for a fight. You see the player and are preparing to flee.
spotted_civilian_1 "He is here, and armed!"
spotted_civilian_2 "The raiders are here!"
spotted_civilian_3 "By Tarlin, he's armed!" ----> Tarlin being a deity of some kind. The lore has to come from somewhere
spotted_civilian_4 "Your feud is not with me!"
spotted_civilian_5 "Leave me be!"
Notice Blood on Floor: There is blood on the floor. Obviously something serious is going on.
notice_blood_1 "Blood?"
notice_blood_2 "What vile ritual took place here?"
notice_blood_3 "This won't be the last blood to be spilled."
Greeting, Superior: You spot someone who is high on the social ladder and greet them.
greeting_xnobleman_1 "May your sons be many and strong."
greeting_xnoblewoman_1 "The stars shine in your eyes."
greeting_xpriest_1 "Do the stars bode well?"
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Sorry, I had an involuntary break from TDM since then. In any case, I've managed to get roughly 70% of the lines done back then so completing them within a matter of days should be simple enough.
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I don't even have to look at the screenshots to know that I will worship this mission, just like the one before
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For 2: you can find a publically available list of barks on the thread that asks for someone to act the Wench Vocals. Still, I took the liberty to remove all except for the most generic lines (cough, drown) from it and post it here. As you can see, even that is 9 pages long in size 12 Times New Roman.
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This topic mentions another problem I'm having. The sky isn't being mapped correctly. But Catalyst AI enabled or disabled, it makes no difference. (In fact, I don't notice a difference in loading times either.)
I have the exact same on my ATI pc, and also strange rendering of see-through glass and emitted fog depending on viewing angle; CatAI or not. I remember reading somewhere 1-2 months ago that an ATI fix for TDM is being made and I'm looking forward to that.
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Have you tried loading your map in a texteditor and looking at the offending line?
Thanks, that directly solved the problem.
The problem was that primitive 49 (on line 613) had 4 lines full of ÿ's. So I just took out the whole primitive.
Which then led me to another problem: the map file I just claimed was identical to the autosaved file.
That problem I was able to solve by remembering that I have an almost up-to-date backup on my old laptop
New mission: Lockner Manor
in Fan Missions
Posted
What I found good:
- The starting area with the guard in his gatehouse, and in particular the inn was very homely and it felt like legitimate thievery to steal things there even though none of them were hostile. I especially liked pinching the purse from the men at the counter as I casually walked by.
- The AI routes were properly done and had all those moments like slinking past citywatch on the streets, or pressing against the wall crouched to get past a brightly lit guarded window.
- The large size of the whole mission and the variety of settings, such as an inventor's home, a rat-beggar's attic, a hotel, and still visibly giving every room attention and a consistent level of gameplay throughout. In my case I could even get lost in the city.
On the other hand
- Unnecessary use of doors with very little cracks in them that result in the room behind being rendered even when the door is closed; that's probably what pulled down the performance in my case
- Visually there's room for improvement even for a first mission, although I found places like the inn and the manor's fireplace quite good. A handful parts were below the standard of the rest of the mission, such as the bare secret room which stretches out into the distance with a chest at the end (I think that counts as odd architecture). I would have hoped for more to see there as it was so anticipated, even if it's just some chains or hooks, or even better some evidence of the lord's unfashionable hobbies. On the streets there was one or the other boxy roof. Also, the floral-design desklamps painted jarringly sharp pictures on the ceilings.
- The mansion was quite airy and would probably have had a more impressive effect on me if it had all the same contents but in a smaller space (although that might be the result of accommodating for the large staircase model).
In the end I had a good time exploring here and I even loaded it twice in a short time simply to have another look at the city part.