Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

MirceaKitsune

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1930

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    22

 Content Type 

Everything posted by MirceaKitsune

  1. MirceaKitsune
    Seeing your mission making style I think you'd be a good candidate for using the campaign system. Almost every FM you find for TDM is a single-mission, few campaigns have ever been made thus far. I'd generally love to see long complex stories with +10 maps... which don't all need to be unique levels per say, as I'm a fan of missions that take you back to a certain area later on, which is also a fun way to reuse an existing map with only minor variations. Something more open-world oriented would be amazing to have, though that's opening its own can of worms as TDM isn't designed to have that many RPG elements.
  2. MirceaKitsune
    Very good FM, simple and with clean mapping. I liked that it made use of NPC on NPC battles, it's not often that a FM lets you pin different factions against one another as a tactic for the player.
  3. MirceaKitsune
    Must be some sort of bug yes. Thanks.
  4. MirceaKitsune
    This is quite peculiar. I loaded a FM back up then set both s_minVolume2 and s_minVolume6 to higher values. Neither made any difference, even after I used s_restart to reset the sound system. It seems that whatever I set either of them to, directional sounds will never be heard in the ear opposite of their source.
  5. MirceaKitsune
    This FM was quite the experience. Definitely had its fair share of pros and cons for me: The biggest pro is by far the attention to detail put into this mission! It scratched an itch I have with most open-source games: Developers thinking that if a world plays well, they don't need to add all those little things that the player will likely not notice anyway. This FM added a lot of effects and interactions, and it felt like I played an AAA game that was designed by top developers. Great job The second biggest pro in my book was your mixture between TDM's medieval setup and modern elements. Apart from a certain item required to advance the mission, you've done some impressive work with the music. I'd love to see more FM's that take place in an alternate reality where some cultures were discovered before their time, including music or art slightly from the future. The biggest con was that in my opinion, too much was crammed into a single FM, and it went on for longer than it should have. I believe the FM should have ended right after the sewer area: Everything beyond that felt like a different FM entirely, and IMO would have been best left for part 3. The map is also quite big for this reason which makes loading times unusually high. Overall I cannot wait to see the next FM you make, whether it's the continuation to this or any other that has this level of effort put into it. You're truly doing a fantastic job.
  6. MirceaKitsune
    The "Surround Sound" option is set to "Stereo".
  7. MirceaKitsune
    So a minimum is implemented and enabled by default... something else must be wrong then. I'm using a pair of wireless stereo headphones with which I'm clearly experiencing this issue. I do have a 5.1 audio system integrated into my motherboard with speakers plugged into them, however they're a secondary device and always turned off (if they were used I wouldn't get sound in my headphones). Could TDM be detecting my headphones as a 5.1 system instead of merely stereo? If so that might be a bug or something in ALSA / PulseAudio which the engine doesn't like. I shall investigate more tomorrow, thanks.
  8. MirceaKitsune
    I do believe there should be a setting for it at least so everyone can customize it. 0 disables the min volume cap (current behavior), 1 disables directional sound entirely (volume only drops with distance not orientation, not sure who'd want that) but between them you can set the option to whatever best suits you. This should most likely be done as an engine change, it can probably be implemented with a tweak to the audio system.
  9. MirceaKitsune
    I'm coming across a little annoyance periodically, which I'm sure nearly every player can confirm and at least partly agree on. When playing TDM on headphones, directional audio does not set a minimum volume for the ear opposite of the source. This means that when a sound source is to your left, you hear it entirely in the left ear... and if it's to the right only in the right ear. The first problem with this is that it's very irking for the player... to the point where I often have to look in a certain direction just to avoid noise in one ear and complete silence in the other. It's the same as trying to listen to music on one headphone only: It has an uncomfortable and unnatural effect on the brain and you feel tempted to press the stop button immediately. An additional issue is realism: If someone is standing to your left and talking toward you, you will of course hear them a bit more clearly with your left ear, but you'll also hear them with the right ear somewhat. My suggestion is a new menu setting in the Audio panel, which allows us to configure a minimum volume that a sound can be reduced to by its direction alone. This would allow everyone to set it based on what feels most comfortable to each person, as well as what type of headphones they are using. It should only need to be a small value for comfort... something like 0.05 or 0.1 volume when the sound is coming directly away from that ear. I know that directional sound is very important from a gameplay perspective; Players often use it to listen to a guard's footsteps or idle ramblings and know where they're coming from. This is why I'm suggesting a small minimum cap enough so it doesn't irk the ear, or at least having an option players can enable themselves even if it's off by default. Till then, is there already a cvar for this in the settings by chance?
  10. MirceaKitsune
    Just played this FM today. I didn't realize it was that old... had to look a bit lower in the forum to find the thread. I guess I can still post a few thoughts on it? Overall very good mission. Pretty small and simple, but high quality still... would have been nice if there were more readables and some extra character interaction. I like that it wasn't overly complicated though, considering that some FM's cause you to get stuck for a long time looking for a way to progress. I did have one curiosity while playing this: From a realistic standpoint, is it explained why the guards are attacking you in an inn? Inns are kind of public places unlike breaking into a mansion, so at first I kind of expected that I could walk around in plain sight and the guards would treat me like one of the guests. Obviously it makes sense gameplay wise.
  11. MirceaKitsune
    This was an interesting mission. Sadly I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I do the average FM... I will explain my reasoning for that below. First of all I must congratulate the amazing architecture you have achieved here. You've experimented with multiple themes and environments, all packed together into a single large mansion. Some of the decorations were outstanding, and I also love how you played with the lights and shadows in some places. Unfortunately the FM's strongest point was also its weakest point for me. It barely felt like a mission at all, but more like an architectural showreel. The problem was that the player is given this enormous mansion to explore, with nearly all of the rooms unlocked at once, but only a few places relevant to the mission in total; About 95% of the time is spent wandering around rooms trying to find where you need to go to next (for a first time player). I spent nearly 3 hours in total trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go, and half of that was after reading the hints in this thread... I was almost going to give up because it got so boring, but eventually I stumbled into the correct room and found the next objective. As such I really can't give this a good score in terms of gameplay, nor was the story special at all. But I still salute what you managed to do with the models and interior designs! I'd like to see you make another FM with this type of styling, only smaller and more progressively unlocked and perhaps with more objectives.
  12. MirceaKitsune
    There are a few things I need to say about this one. I need to start with pointing out some important technical issues with the map, which I noticed while playing it in TDM 2.06 (64bit, Linux). Very bad performance in the outdoor area. This has already been pointed out so I'm only confirming it. The sky is broken. If you look up while moving the mouse, objects leave trails that get brighter each frame as they pass in front of it. On one of the walls containing the stairway that leads from the basement to the first floor, there is a huge BSP cut. Two large triangles extend across through which you can see the void. The music starts and stops erratically. Sometimes I enter an area and there's no music, at other times there is music but it plays at a low volume. The act of saving seems to make the music start / stop too. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, this might have to do with area portals not being compiled properly, as the ambience is dependent on those (that would also explain issue #3).Screenshots of the broken sky: Screenshots of the BSP cut: With that out of the way, here's my opinion on the FM itself. Overall I very much loved it! I read also that this is your first map, so congrats further more for getting it so right Pro: Great story with a sad twist. Once you find the secret area it gets the ball rolling. I loved the dynamics, and especially the dialogue with the one character that turns non-hostile. The intro video was also great. Con: The layout of the house is much too linear! The house looks so much like a maze where you unlock one hallway after the other, that it even feels unrealistic like it's not a normal house at all. If you can and wish to develop this further, I'd redo the layout somewhat (the walls and doors) to make it more fluid.
  13. MirceaKitsune
    Now that I have some time and a working video card to get back into TDM, I've went through the last fan missions created over the past two years. This one ended up first on my list, since I wanted something simple to get back into the gist of The Dark Mod with. My thoughts on it: Pro: Good and high quality FM; Clean mapping and a nice interior layout, and you also know where to go next at every point in the level. The one secret relevant to progressing isn't too obscurely hidden as to cause you to get stuck for an hour looking around, which is a problem many other FM's have. The addition of in-world dialogue gave it a nice touch as well. Con: I can't really call this a flaw as it's likely what the mission was intended to be; The FM is pretty small, simple, and not very exciting overall. Nothing really special happens, even if at first you get the impression that something more than meets the eye might be going on. I was half expecting that something weird would happen when I read the book in cause (hopefully I don't need to spoiler this as the book is mentioned in the briefing), like opening some magic portal to attacking zombies and skeletons. There is a small creepy surprise when you get to your final objective still.
  14. MirceaKitsune
    That worked, thank you! I suggest better documenting this effect so all developers know: Never use the - symbol in a shader or texture name, dmap detects it as non-solid for some reason... use _ instead.
  15. MirceaKitsune
    Okay... this is weird. I textured the offending brush with a TDM stone material, and indeed the red line moved to the nearby one. So it must be my texture... but how? I looked at its material definition and don't see anything that should be making it non-solid. textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2 { qer_editorimage textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2 description "trak4, wall, wall_plaster3b-2" stone diffusemap textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2 bumpmap textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2_norm // Frob highlighting { if ( parm11 > 0 ) blend gl_dst_color, gl_one map _white.tga rgb 0.40 * parm11 } { if ( parm11 > 0 ) blend add map textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2 rgb 0.15 * parm11 } // TDM Ambient Method { if ( global5 == 1 ) blend add map textures/darkmodule/trak4/wall/wall_plaster3b-2 scale 1, 1 red global2 green global3 blue global4 } } I also looked at the textures themselves and they don't have an alpha channel. Except for the normal map, but I assume that's normal and shouldn't be messing with anything.
  16. MirceaKitsune
    It's a custom texture from my modern asset pack; The one textured face is solid... the other faces are all caulk, I looked from all sides and can confirm. I also selected the brush and hit "make structural" to make sure I didn't accidentally make it a detail brush, but this didn't help either.
  17. MirceaKitsune
    Thanks. My red line is pretty weird: It starts from a light entity on the map, then goes straight through a solid wall brush into the void. That wall seems to be textured properly and part of worldspawn, so I'm confused how that is.
  18. MirceaKitsune
    I have an issue I need help with. dmap keeps telling me I have a map leak, although this should totally not be the case. Is there any way to get DarkRadiant to tell me which entity it sees doing the leak, and perhaps even draw a path indicating where the leak is happening?
  19. MirceaKitsune
    I tried keeping the lightgem at the bottom, didn't like how it looked... thought it would be fun to actually change something and move it at the top, such that it feels a bit like looking in a car's rear-view mirror. The weapon icons are from the Luma / Luminos HUD designs in Xonotic, same as the backgrounds... I figured using those symbols would look nice too and I was right. Even if I'm very much porting existing assets, it's a lot of work. I've been at this for at least 5 days non-stop. I'm pushing hard now to finish what I had planned for the near future, as I do have other projects to get back to working on. My goal was to be prepare the mod for porting one of my maps from Xonotic and eventually turning it into its showcase mission... more on that at the right time I do believe a few other Doom 3 mods were suggested. I haven't looked at those yet but might later. For now I'm porting stuff from Xonotic or OpenGameArt which I find easier overall.
  20. MirceaKitsune
    New HUD design based on the Luma / Luminos panels and icons from Xonotic. It's far from perfect but it will do for a while. The icon at the top is my replacement of choice for the lightgem, which uses a more accurate material compared to vanilla (indicates all light-levels)... above it are the health and oxygen indicator bars, they're hidden when unneeded (0% / 100%) and only shown here as a test.
  21. MirceaKitsune
    I might attempt some of those ideas using special items, but that's for much later in any case. I also plan to have terminals where you can upgrade the rifles as well as the character, since TDMU will be aimed slightly more at longer campaigns than single missions. One thing I'll definitely want are robots who can spot you in the dark, so your lightgem doesn't reduce your visibility to them... they would of course be a tougher enemy who's placement shouldn't be abused.
  22. MirceaKitsune
    http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4893 I found a very problematic issue in the engine. I'm running TDM 2.06, 64bit executable, Linux version (openSUSE Tumbleweed x64). The issue is as follows: Previously, if a bad script or definition or missing asset error occurred, TDM would crash back to the main menu and the error would appear in the console. It seems this is no longer the case and something worse happens instead: Errors will now cause the process to freeze, shortly followed by a permanent black screen. The reason why this is annoying is because alt-tab switching still doesn't work. To recover the operating system, I need to hit Control + Alt + F1 to go to a different runlevel then use 'top' to find the TDM process followed by a 'kill -9 PID'. Can anyone else confirm this and fix the engine locking up on internal errors?
  23. MirceaKitsune
    Thank you very much and I'm glad you like it so far! The model is of course taken from Xonotic, but I did the porting plus animations and all design variations. It perfectly encompasses the design I want: One base weapon which can be configured to shoot different types of projectiles... which aren't all aimed at dealing damage, but can have various effects on the world. I probably wouldn't have went for this model if vanilla TDM didn't already have all those different arrow types, to which I am simply adapting new assets (for now). The direction you're describing is exactly what I plan to do. The first DeusEx game wasn't a highly futuristic world either: There is advanced technology like robots and hologram screens, but the place is rather desolate with mixes between new and old technology. I wish to capture this environment too: A world where technology has moved on, but at the same time has this 1970's feel to it. The implied backstory aims to emphasize on one aspect found in both DeusEx and sadly real life today: The risks and effects of rising government oppression, in a world torn by conflict from which powerful groups aim to profit. Obviously it won't be based on the same idea as DX where the government released a virus only they had the cure for, since there are far more realistic and palpable ways in which the same outcome is being reached. I want mine to be more at home, based on things like fear of extremism or the whole "I'm offended, something must be done" trend in society. The player is put in the position of a hero hunted down by authority (or soon to be). They're based on the Umbra class, which in the default character set are a present or former government organization (depending on which point in time the FM is based). The base plot is that the Umbra betray the government upon discovering its corruption and join the people.
  24. MirceaKitsune
    More information and screenshots over here.
  25. MirceaKitsune
    The weapon design I chose to go with is an universal plasma rifle, which can be customize with modification packs (the ammo boxes) to have various properties. When no modifications are used, a simple plasma stalagmite gets fired by the weapon... once you attach the blades and plug in the proper ammo type, the plasma will have different properties on impact. Both the shape and color of each rifle customization reflects what mode it's configured in. The colors and pallet configurations are: 1. Simple Rifle: White - N/A 2. Water Rifle: Cerulean - Left, Right 3. Fire Rifle: Red - Left, Right, Bottom 4. Moss Rifle: Green - Left, Right, Top 5. Gas Rifle: Purple - Left, Right, Top, Bottom 6. Shock Rifle: Blue - Top, Bottom 7. Noise Rifle: Cyan - Top 8. Rope Rifle: Gold - Bottom Here are screenshots of each rifle with its intended final appearance. I'm really happy with how this came out, and can't wait to see them firing the actual projectiles
×
×
  • Create New...