MirceaKitsune

Might remove the blinding effect and just let the arrow illuminate the spot where it hits for a while. But especially then I'd want it to temporarily disable or dim electric lights. Which is problematic as I don't know how to make them flicker or do this without breaking switches, it would likely require engine changes which I'm not familiar with doing.

That's interesting. I made a flash arrow a while ago, been trying to get it in a state where it fits the desires of most players and mappers to maybe get included. It had two functions as of last time: Blinding enemies like a flashbomb in arrow format, while acting as a flare that illuminates an given area for a limited amount of time... a third idea was to make it temporarily turn off electric lights but that has too many complications and never got anywhere. Although it's not something for this mod pack as it's a new item: Whoever wants to use it should include it with their FM. My only complaint was you need to copy the player definition to change the weapon slots because of the hardcoded weapon sockets, still wish we could do something about those.

Thanks. Glad you like it. Had fun setting up the thunder and lightning, amazing what a simple entity setup can do.

Had a little question myself, nothing immediate but figured it would be useful to simplify some concepts; When you got multiple AI on a common chain of path nodes, is it possible to filter targets so only some AI go down certain routes? Example: A path_corner targets two other path_corner entities... is there a spawnarg I can put to on the left path_corner so only a guard goes there, but when a thug reaches that junction they'll pick the right path_corner instead? Obviously I can just duplicate the common part of the circuit for each AI, but having some path_corner chains common with different AI picking different routes at particular junctions would makes some things cleaner and easier to maintain.

I'm replaying the original DeusEx (vRSD) and accidentally discovered an useful feature in its input system, which I realized I should suggest for TDM as it can be helpful. DX has a modifier called Strafe: While this key is pressed and held, the mouse no longer turns the view but instead moves the player like the WASD or arrow keys based on the mouse speed. If others find this useful I'll post the idea to the bug tracker. If you go to Settings - Controls - General there is a setting called Free Look; If disabled the camera pitch is forced to 0 and up / down mouse movement is used for walking. I see two issues with this: First it's partial and for one axis, you still use the X axis of the mouse to turn and only the Y axis to walk back and forth, if you want to use the mouse for movement its X axis should be left / right to strafe while the Y axis should be forward / backward walking. The second issue is there's no keybind to toggle this mode on the go, one should exist with a toggle option based on whether you want to hold the key or press it to turn this on and off. As a bonus, while the key is held or toggled, movement keys should control the camera instead so the modifier fully reverses the purpose of the mouse and WASD / arrow keys. I think offering better control over the mouse movement system could be useful for sneaking and peaking behind cover. More than 90% of TDM players likely use keyboard & mouse instead of a controller with thumb sticks: With WASD movement you rely on the Sneak key to move slowly and avoid making noise. When hiding behind an obstacle, you could aim the camera in a desired direction then hold a key to move with the mouse, which would allow a more controlled movement speed based on how much noise you're willing to risk making.

Thank you and I'm glad you liked it!

That looks quite promising! Love the atmosphere... not as something I'd like to live in of course, but definitely something I'd love seeing in a FM

I decided to share my in-depth thoughts on this. On one side I don't want to be discouraging or throw lessons like I know better... on the other side I want to encourage other creators to make awesome content. I think you have the basics in order, but would advice practicing more for the next FM. I'll address everything of importance that I noticed... some of these are important for creating a working FM, others are based on my experience and how I do things. Visual: Most areas appear pretty simple and rough, the rooms look too much like cubes textured with flat materials that lack detail. While not everything needs to look AAA all the time, I'd encourage adding more detail to the world and using fitting textures with more complexity where appropriate. I'd also check out the building modules. Skybox: A big problem is you can see and touch the skybox. Being able to see the world edge and walk into an invisible wall isn't recommended. You usually want some kind of wall or structure between the player and any portal_sky surface. Portals: You aren't using visportals. This is a small mission with few entities so performance happens to be good, but every FM requires portals. You add them by filling spaces in and between walls with a brush that has a nodraw texture on all sides and a visportal texture on one face, every interactive door and window should have one, the brush must perfectly fit in those spaces without leaving gaps or you'll get a dmap error. You can press N in-game to see them, I'd use that to look at how other missions portal their maps. Just think of them as virtual windows that only show entities and other portals that can be seen through them, your goal is to design the architecture in such a way that they cover each other as much as possible from any position and angle. Clips: Since you likely haven't used those either, clip brushes are another aspect worth mentioning. Apart from the standard clip texture that used to keep the player from reaching certain areas, encase all large static models (eg: furniture) in a brush textured with monsterclip or AI won't detect collisions and attempt to walk into them. Lighting: Light placement was okay. I'd be careful about putting too many candles next to each other, lights are performance intensive so you want to have as few as possible covering an area. Only issue was ambient light which is too strong, both visually and in making the player visible, I suspect I alerted everyone because it's so bright I scared the whole map when jumping through the window. When the player is crouched without moving in a completely dark area, the light gem should be at its minimum value, adjust ambient light based on that. Ambiance: The map has no music, this isn't a big deal but for a good FM you'll need to learn about locations and using the location_info / location_separator entities to separate portal rooms and give each one an unique song and ambient color. Objectives: Having just two objectives is fine for a tiny FM, usually you'll also want a loot objective based on difficulty level. Only issue with the main objective was that it's difficult to grab the leg; It's lit by a lamp that can't be turned off, lots of AI walking around at once so it's also hard to catch a break when no one is looking... always be on the lookout for those things and what options the player is given. The final objective telling the player to leave once all is ready should use a location check rather than interacting with an item. Tools: The FM doesn't provide any of the starting items that are normally available... blackjack and sword, lockpicks, spyglass, lantern, compass. This isn't always a bad thing, in mine I like having the player pick them up from the world, but generally you'll want them to be available. Navigation: The layout was good and navigates well. There was only a problem at the end, where the map requires you to take a fall that deals damage; If this is intended I don't think it's a problem, there's one FM I played recently that requires you to take some damage as you proceed, but most aim to let the player have a no-damage run without having to confront any AI if you can help it (excluding knockout or assassination objectives). I hope this helped, let me know if I can help with more info. Here's a screenshot of the world edge I was referring to, you can also tell the excess ambient brightness which is reflected in the lightgem.

It was an experience. Definitely felt like an unfinished experimental project, which makes sense for a first go in learning DarkRadiant and TDM's setup. For some reason the entire map was alerted when I started: Is there an alarm entity on the map, or did something else happen? At least I had a good laugh at the ending...

I also support adding default names to all objects, by giving each movable entity a default "inv_name". I don't see how this should break anything, if an existing FM sets its own name on an inherited entity that has priority and will work the same way. As far as using more memory goes, an extra string should only be a few bytes... on an engine that loads GB's worth of assets and a time when nearly every computer with TDM on it is expected to have at least 16 GB of RAM

That makes sense. Means I'd have to think carefully before submitting any of my maps; I'm not motivated to work on a few old initiatives, in which case I don't want my work to be lost... at the same time I could become motivated again someday, and if someone picks it up I might feel bad that I can't work on my version again. I know... being undecided about everything is one of my biggest flaws, plus worrying and overthinking far more than I should One more thing I couldn't help wondering: Should this perhaps be turned into a forum section rather than a single thread? There's a section for posting finished FM's, another for Beta testing them, so a new category for posting abandoned projects would make sense. I think this would be cleaner as each FM or map group could have its own thread where the discussion is contained and you don't have to dig through one mega-thread, making it easier to find individual projects and look at replies to see if it was taken. The wiki page helps with having an unified list, but you can't have focused discussion on each abandoned project nor edit the page to post or update your FM unless you're a wiki mod. If others agree we can maybe ask Taaaki about it.

I did not know this was a thing. As someone with nearly 20 unfinished FM's sitting on my drive, many of which I haven't felt like working on in years but do have quite a bit of content, I'm very tempted to submit a few things here thread! I have just one concern: What if at one point I do decide to get back to a map and finish its FM but someone else also uses my submission? Personally I don't mind at all, I consider all my missions licensed CC-BY-SA and am open to anyone forking them as long as my original is untouched. But it would lead to the bizarre scenario where me and someone else may use parts of the same level to make different FM's, which could seem repetitive and cause players to think someone may have stolen someone else's work. Any feelings or opinions on this possibility?

Yay new FM! Downloaded and installed: May finish another one first then give this a go. 1 MB so I can tell it will be a very tiny one.

This is incredible! How did you get the other hand with the water arrow to show for the holy water... what does it do if the bow weapon is itself selected, is it customizable for custom potions applied to other arrows? The animation is a little stiff in places which can be fixed later, once again the results are mindblowing and beyond what I imagined.

I'd need to test again to be sure, but from what I remember yes: The holy water can be used at any time including with the weapon holstered. This makes sense as it starts a timer that lasts for a fixed duration, during this time you can still freely switch between weapons, so it's not tied to having the water arrow selected at the moment of activation.

That's an interesting question. Does the item hand still show when you have the bow selected if you aren't firing it? In either case, I'd say tip and lower the bottle toward the bow so it looks like you're dousing the off-screen arrow: You apply holy water before firing so this makes the most sense in my opinion.

This FM was a little masterpiece. Definitely my favorite in the series so far, just the last part left for me to play since I'm only now getting around to it. The town was very detailed and had its unique personality, fun to see and navigate all the areas above and below... it felt so desolate, this was creepier than FM's that actively try to be scary. Very well done Grayman, thank you for it

Agreed. That was my own point a while ago: I don't see a reason why this can't be an option for those that want it, granted all issues are fixed and the dev team decides so. We're far from that point in any case, we'll see when the time comes... as a reminder though this was my suggestion for the menu.

Quick idea I forgot to ask a while back, since new assets are still being added to the beta I figured it should work: Can we add the pray animation? Several FM's include pray.md5anim to have stuff like builders praying in churches: Figured FM creators would be grateful to have it available with everything else. I'd also consider Kingstal's animated grass, same situation. I improved it a bit in my FM, Gem of Souls: Let me know if you want my pk4 with the materials and entity configurations I tweaked.

Scroll of Remembrance was my first FM years ago: I made some bad design choices, it is very slow because of large areas with bad portals. Not sure if I'll ever be updating this again, working on other missions too at the moment. Gem of Souls shouldn't be that slow, especially being such a small FM. Does this only happen outside? Likely the grass and / or rain if so. I also use cubemap lighting there, apparently Gem is one of the first FM's to do so, but I didn't notice a performance impact from that.

Just my opinion, definitely not an official statement. I meant that I see this being a memorable change that could be the biggest thing for the next release. Obviously if the dev team agrees with the final implementation, which is still a bit away from what I understand.

I think it would be a big loss if this one wasn't integrated for everyone to enjoy. Especially as it requires a modded engine, unlike other mods you can't just drop a pk4 and it works, it would need to be maintained and recompiled per release including development snapshots. Obviously it should be an option in the main menu, with existing behavior remaining default if desired.

For the past weeks I've wanted to ask how the mod is doing: Was worried you stopped working on it or left when seeing no more updates. Thank you for being here and releasing the new version! Fully in support of putting this on Github: Not only it should secure the changes done so far, but this way others might have an easier time seeing what causes the bug you mentioned and any other issues. TDM is currently in 2.13 Beta, making it unlikely such a massive change has time to make it in. But it seems very possible for this to be a flagship feature for 2.14!

I'm finally getting around to playing the William Steele series. Reached the 3rd part which is this FM. It appears one of its scripts makes it incompatible with the latest TDM Beta (2.13). Fix: Create the directory fms/ws3_cleighmoor/maps and in it extract ws3_cleighmoor.script from ws3_cleighmoor.pk4. Open it in a text editor; At lines 129 and 178, change the word "endTime" to something else, I edited it to "endTimes" and that works. Chances are a builtin script started using that name at some point: When the FM defines the variable it finds it already declared. Adding my change to the mission database package should solve it.

That looks amazing! New AI models are something I've been hoping we could see for some time: We can definitely use more steampunk robots, fantasy creatures, and why not some bigger and scarier undead like Doom?! I hope those models can be perfected and included in a future release.