MirceaKitsune
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Posts posted by MirceaKitsune
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I'd like to know about the draw count too. Most likely it's the building modules which this map was designed around exclusively, despite me even using their LOD models... for new projects I'd likely use patches at this point. I'm not aware of anything I did wrong in particular with this FM, other than the space being a bit cramped and me not monster-clipping literally everything: It seems that for some reason it's among the few to trigger some rather specific issues with collisions performance and crashes.
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Stuck doors almost always mean an object is in the way, make sure a moveable didn't fall in front of it. There aren't any objectives for delivering notes you find, they're primarily to get a view of the world and everyone in it. The doors with a voltage meter have an electronic lock, you need the decoded item from the shop which is a custom lockpick alternative to snake and triangle.
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Good FM with attention to detail. Very intensive platforming, solving some ways you must go is a puzzle of its own. A bit too difficult I'd say, almost impossible without some knockouts and being spotted several times, many spaces are very tight brightly lit with AI are always present so you don't have much room for error. Found a bit over half the loot, must be a lot of hidden stashes I missed. It will be interesting where this goes in the next episode after that little twist.
SpoilerPoor Alma: I felt sorry for her when reading the journal, but when I noticed she's so depressed she's non-hostile and doesn't even mind a thief breaking into her apartment that was sad
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There are a few ragdolls in there that are brought out later: They shouldn't be shaking unless something bumps into them, just like those spawned outside they should settle on the floor within seconds. Wonder if that may be related to the crashes? Lots of candidates though, without the engine saying what's upsetting it I couldn't really guess.
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The "closets" are spaces where I keep objects / ragdolls / AI meant to be teleported outside later, or oppositely teleport things from the world to them when they're meant to disappear. They're cramped as nothing there is meant to be seen or to interact. The screams are from AI that will be teleported outside later: Normally the audio should be culled but sometimes it escapes into the visleaf of the starting area. I was past the point of redesigning stuff so I just left that as is.
The electrician's office is the door next to the East gate, across the road from the watch station with a suspended bridge connecting it to the inn. I later put a fried transformed in front of it to make that more obvious: There's a sign but no symbol for electricity so I think I left it with the key symbol.
The army chief's home door can be lockpicked, I tested it and don't see how I could have broken that. You can alternatively get inside through the roof, remember that in this FM all transparent glass is breakable.
The rooms seen from the vents aren't meant to be reachable, just an environmental detail. One of them has a window you can open for a little loot though.
There are alternate ways into the shop too. If you don't want to break more windows and trigger alarms, jump onto the shop's balcony from the tavern terrace, the nobles at the table aren't scripted to mind a total stranger walking over their table and their food
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16 minutes ago, Woodsie69 said:
What about the cheese issue?
What you describe occurs when you try dropping an item too close to a surface. Walk backwards a bit and look in the air above the floor and wall: This should allow the item to be held and become dropable.
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Yeah this map seems to be triggering a lot of issues that are random for everyone: Crashes, corrupt quick saves, absurd FPS drops... all of which I've never encountered. I believe it should be used to debug them in the engine; I haven't done anything too different and this is a small map with relatively few entities, further more this FM doesn't use custom assets nor any map scripts only the default entities or variations of various defs and guis.
The flying bottle that's also a bug. I suspect it's from the commoners eating and drinking prefab: A drinking bottle must be getting attached back to the AI's hand with an offset at times.
In my case I run Manjaro, KDE Plasma, stock amdgpu driver.
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Look in the root directory for a Darkmod.log and the FM directory for a qconsole.log. Alternatively run the engine from a console and see if that prints anything after the crash.
AI can get stuck sometimes especially with the building modules, I mitigated it best I could. Shiny floors only a few are used in small indoor spaces to avoid performance impact, they aren't visible outside in areas with the usual FPS drops. I can walk on the wires fine, but if you step the wrong way there may be exceptions in a few places.
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I didn't think much of it since the module walls are so thin they shouldn't affect AI navigation, given there's always a brush wall behind to delimit rooms. This is true for human AI, but since rats are so small it's enough to be a problem.
Random crashes and corrupt saves are a strange occurrence: I play-tested the first Beta before posting it and encountered neither, going through a full game where I quick save / load many times. It sounds like I must have tripped an engine issue that only occurs in specific circumstances and may be Windows specific; It would be nice if someone experiencing these could debug what's happening, hopefully it doesn't require a GDB backtrace since those were always annoying to capture.
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Never had any crashes myself, Linux on AMD card. It's weird if the logs don't say anything: Without some error messages it will likely be difficult to know the cause and solve this in the engine.
I noticed performance isn't ideal though I found it bearable. I don't believe I used excessive geometry nor an excessive light count. It may be due to using the building modules exclusively for structures, albeit I've set LOD models and noshadows after a distance which should alleviate the GPU stress.
I believe I added wind mostly in tunnels and tight alleys for realism, but come to think of it I could have lowered the volume some more. I'll keep that in mind if I ever update this FM again.
The small rats can get stuck into the modules like that, saw it a few times but hoped it's a rare accident. I didn't monsterclip those too as it seemed excessive and too much work. The modules can be a bit tricky to work with, I'd likely be tempted to recreate them using patches in the future given there's far more control with those.
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I'm very glad to hear you're enjoying it! Yes: It was cramped from the start as I thought this would allow me to add more detail and get better performance for less work, which it did but at the cost of problems with player and AI navigation. Hence why the skybox can be seen in a few places since making the fences even taller would have ruined the atmosphere, I left it like that since this skybox feels right even when you can see the bottom.
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I'm happy to announce the release of my third FM: Year of the Rat. This is my first city hub map, focused primarily on story characters and environment. It's my most complex project to date, taking its fair share of effort to make which was a good learning experience. As an experiment I opted to use no scripts and rely solely on the default entities, as well as no custom assets apart from the map and splash screen hence the small pk4. It features a few special elements, such as factions that are hostile only when the player commits crime or a decoder lockpick used to open electronic doors. The beta testing thread can be found here, thank you everyone who helped find the most obvious problems.
You play as a famous thief nicknamed Black Jack: A man who's pulled many crazy jobs in his life, only to be hired for an absurd and insulting task by an anonymous employer. The objective is pretty straightforward: Be kind to the mice and feed them some cheese! Your silly quest takes you to the Lantern Light district during the Lunar New Year celebration, a place where gangs and corrupt nobles do their dirty deeds together. What ulterior motives and unexpected twists could your adventure entail?
While the most obvious problems were patched during beta testing, some issues can't be easily resolved due to the complexity of the entity setup and objectives, meaning you may encounter a few inconsistencies. Most notably surrounding AI, which may float above chairs and not react to alerts or oppositely send the whole map into a panic: This is mostly due to how the engine handles AI and alarms. The map is small since I wanted to add more detail without having to work on large areas, as such some places can feel cramped while the skybox may be visible up close. I'll be busy so further updates are unlikely unless I decide to add new content later... you're welcome to report any issues you encounter, but keep in mind that if something wasn't fixed it's likely known but difficult to address or due to engine functionality. Spoilers for objectives and secrets as follows:
SpoilerSpoilerObjective 1, placing the cheese: Explore the city and find the circles marked with white glowing paint, drop one cheese item in each circle until you get them all. Order is irrelevant and placement doesn't have to be precise, just make sure the cheese is touching the paint. There are too many spots to list all locations, I can offer more details if anyone's unable to find any. The number of spots and cheese items you must place differs with difficulty, 8 on easy 12 on medium 16 on hard, some higher difficulty spots will be more challenging to find.
SpoilerObjective 2, returning to your room: Return to your room at the inn when ready. The player is renting room 3, which is the room upstairs to the East for which the owner leaves you a keycard on her front desk. When you enter you'll find a note on the bed: Reading it will trigger the next objective.
SpoilerObjective 3, escaping to the South gate: Someone sold you out, you must leave the room immediately and head back to the South gate where you started. Once this objective is activated the guards permanently become hostile and will try to capture you. You have a few seconds to escape before they barge inside and sound the alarm, triggering a massive search for the player in and around the inn. You can either run into the back alley through the door leading outside, or escape through the small bathroom into the little balcony... do not attempt go back to the hallway and leave through the main door, you'll run into the guards running to you upstairs.
SpoilerObjective 4, escaping to the North gate: You find a pile of bodies and realize the city is under siege by an unknown enemy, your only escape now is through the North gate. Head back to the alley behind the inn, by now the guards should have calmed down or are busy fighting the new threat you've unleashed. Return to the home of the army chief, he keeps the key to the North gate in his helmet. Head back downstairs where you placed the cheese under the window with two statues. You'll find the army chief having a bad time which caused his helmet to fall off, it's now on the ground along with the key near the chair in the center. Take the key and use it to unlock the North gate, located in the small park with the big statue behind the tavern.
SpoilerOptional Objective, pet rat: There's one side quest excluding ongoing objectives, which can only be completed before finishing the 3rd main objective. You trigger it by climbing on the suspended bridge connecting the inn to the building at the East, opening its window and entering the room above the electrical station. Inside you'll find a pink rat that looks dead on a table, with a note from a lady describing how sad she is that her friend won't make it. Pick up the rat and carry it to the church, placing it inside the stoup with the glowing blue water to the North. This causes the rat to come back to life and wander around the church. When the 3rd main objective is completed, this rat will appear near the building where you picked it up... as a reward for your good deed, all rats are friendly and will not attack the player!
SpoilerSpoilerSecret 1, dagger: A golden dagger is wedged into the roof of the inn. Jump on the balcony of the building West of the shop, go through the tiny room with the grate where you place one of the cheese slices, emerge on the opposite balcony. From there walk on the wire to the rooftop of the tavern where you can grab the dagger.
SpoilerSecret 2, goblet: At the SouthEast above the pool of the city hall, there's a space with a tall metal fence the player can scale, reached by jumping on the stone supports from the roof of the building with the interior tunnel. Climb on the sign that says Bear & Belcher. Look through the grate toward the generator on the higher roof. There's a rusty metal goblet you can grab through the bars.
SpoilerSecret 3, hairbrush: You'll find it in the army chief's house to the North behind the inn. The man has two secret rooms, one of them opened by a book located inside a bookshelf downstairs in a corner. This opens another shelf where you find a disturbing secret and a golden hair brush.
SpoilerSecret 4, gem: There's a gem in the structure of the church below the second floor windows. Climb up to the wooden balcony with the parable book, from there jump across the pillars to the other side. You'll find it at the left behind the top of the center pillar to the North.
SpoilerSecret 5, amulet: This secret can only be obtained after completing the 3rd main objective. The building West of the shop contains two metal doors which normally can't be opened, when the rats transform the giant mouse blows them apart allowing the player to enter. The amulet is located inside the shelf to the North.
SpoilerSecret 6, secret room: The true secret, only use this info if you really can't find it on your own! This secret can only be obtained after completing the 3rd main objective, as described by the note nailed to the door in case you get there early. Its proximity is hinted by an odd note you find on the ground between the South gate and the city hall front gate, inspect the stones near the path leading to the garden. High above you'll see a round balcony belonging to the apartment building. You'll normally need vine arrows to climb all the way up, if you try hard enough you may be able to get there using the arch. Enter the apartment from this balcony and enjoy the mandess, just make sure not to harm your boss or his family. Pay attention when you pass the North gate before finishing the mission, this will trigger a special gift waiting for you there
Download 1.2: Google Drive, Mega. Screenshots with minor spoilers for the various areas:
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As a general rule I'm in favor of modifying the originals as long as they look identical enough and it's only to upscale the resolution: I think new versions should only be created if the texture is too different. Nothing will really change otherwise, old FM's won't be upgraded and we'll keep adding more assets that ultimately replicate each other.
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Yesterday when packaging an old FM in which I used this, I noticed the script was crashing the latest TDM version. This was caused by a variable name conflict, likely a default script later using the same name. I fixed that and updated the pk4 in the first post, since nothing else changed it's still version 1.1.
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Quite a newbie question: Does anyone have a link to the wiki page for setting up a map item? Its internal search isn't helping, or I don't know what to search for! Strangely enough, despite making so much progress with several FM projects, this is the first time I actually add a drawn map to my FM.
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There's an interesting question with this, which if I'm not mistaken I approached in another thread long ago. I've considered making a big special project in TDM, which if I did I'd have wanted the option to distribute it as standalone: The idea was that the mission would be in the FM list like any other, but also packaged with a copy of TDM containing only the base pk4's the map uses. If this secondary distribution system were considered, I'm curious if there's be any issues with putting it in places like Itch or GoG or similar. Free of charge to respect the non-commercial licensing and wishes of the team in that regard, but I wonder if there's anything in the licensing that goes against posting your mission embedded in a copy of TDM.
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Fantastic changes once again. At this point it looks pretty finished: Anything else that wasn't done yet? Especially now that a menu option was added, I'd really like to hear the developers take on this.
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Thank you for the rapid fix! Updated recompiled and can confirm everything's working well once more. I haven't updated DarkRadiant in 6 months so unfortunately I couldn't narrow the problem to a more specific date.
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Given the slow updates I switched my DarkRadiant Git clone from Codereader to the Orbweaver origin. Everything seems to be working well except for an immediate breaking issue: In the 3D viewport entities without models no longer display the little box you click on to select them, just the arrows showing their angle. Meanwhile in the 2D viewport, I'm seeing lines that seem to stretch infinitely to the right. Here's a shot of the issue on a FM I'm trying to finish, letting @OrbWeaver know hoping the issue is easy to replicate and fix (Linux / KDE / Wayland).
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Custom lockpicks can be defined and I believe a few FM's already use them, including a prototype I have in the works where I made an electronic lock breaker. I understand the animations and item attachments can be customized however, which is a good thing: I presume a custom lockpick can use a custom one-handed animation if necessary.
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2 hours ago, datiswous said:
Never heard of the N key. Do you mean console command r_showportals N ?
Isn't it bound to N by default, or did I change it? But yes, I think that's the cvar: For me it's always been N for the longest time, I use it to toggle the green / yellow / red squares and check how portals close off each other.
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Based on other comments mentioning this, as well as being busy with other things for now, I decided I'll skip on replaying this until visportals and location areas are patched. I partly want to encourage learning how to do those essentials: I think your FM's have good potential, but some of those aspects are basics without which they usually aren't ready.
I don't mean to say what to do or give homework, but if you decide to fix those last aspects: Add a visportal inside every door, also around the corners of corridors to cover their entrances. See about adding at least one or two locations with different music and ambient lighting, to get a hang of how location separators work and isolating rooms. You can use the N key in-game to toggle viewing portals, they should be red when a door is closed and green when it's open or no door.
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Hmmm: Could those textures not be a power of two, or use a special type of compression or encoding? I always use the highest setting and find even that low-res these days so I wouldn't notice it then, but it's the only thing I can immediately think of.
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More insight on what I meant earlier with definitions being hard to attribute: Suppose you have a definition of the form...
atdm:something { "a" "1" "b" "2" "c" "3" }I decide to reimplement it. I open a text editor to do so. Given its simplicity, I end up writing the exact same thing by hand since that's what makes the entity work. I can't prove or disprove that I didn't copy it since no one knows what I did on my machine. Even if I did, the result is the same anyway... would it even make a difference if I retyped it from memory?
What I could do is change a few of the parameters so it's more original; Say a = 3, b = 2, c = 1. Or I remove c. Or I add d = 4. Or write them in reverse as c, b, a. What counts as good enough? There's no clear line that I can think of! Not unless it's a long definition with a lot of parameters, so it has a clear structure attributed to someone writing it... in which case one could just shuffle them, change a few values, add or remove some parameters, use original code comments and it can't be traced back via any specific elements.
Other assets can be attributed as they have much more complexity and chances at being different. Like if I draw over an existing texture to change a few pixels, you can tell it's the same texture and I used large parts of it without making them myself. Of course if my texture was just a single color (1x1) I could post a copy and believably claim I made it myself and just happened to get the same one color, as it would be silly for anyone to copyright any value within the range 255x255x255 that's already been used by someone somewhere countless times.
Fan Mission: Year of the Rat
in Fan Missions
Posted
Truly this FM exposed every problem with AI and physics TDM has when I wasn't even trying to do that