MirceaKitsune

I left the script darkmod/def/zzz.def as well, but still nothing. I'll try giving it the same file name as the spider definition file, and see if that overwrites it. Hoping to do this without having to hack the missions or game data.

I tested the idea rich_is_bored posted, but it doesn't seem to work. I created a zzz.def file, put it in a def folder, archived the folder as a zip type archive with the name zzz.pk4, and put this in the file: // Remove giant spiders for players with arachnophobia entity atdm:ai_spider{ inherit "target_null" } entity atdm:ai_spider_child{ inherit "target_null" } entity atdm:ai_spider_huge{ inherit "target_null" } entity atdm:ai_spider_huge02{ inherit "target_null" } entity atdm:ai_spider_thin{ inherit "target_null" }

Very useful tips, PranQster Sotha and rich_is_bored! Next time I'll try 'r_showtris 1' and see if I feel differently about them in wireframe mode. If not, I'll go with changing atdm:spider_large into target_null, and create a pk4 to do this automatically if such is indeed possible. The later sucks because it means cheating, but it's better than not playing the mission at all or going through heavy discomfort to do so.

It's weird for me as well really. I can only describe it as some spiders causing me a strong uncomfortable feeling when I see them, even if it's on a screen or drawing. I know they're just a 3D animation and don't really have a problem knowing they're next to me in-game (which I terribly would IRL), as long as I don't see them. And yeah, they're obviously part of the mission and making them go away would ruin things. I guess my only choices are either not playing, or using cheat codes. Since I don't do it to cheat the map on purpose, I assume using noclip to get past such areas is excusable. Let's just hope none of them contain hidden items needed to complete the mission

Never mind... I managed to walk the rest of the way without using noclip, and got past the cave. Just finished the first mission and it was nice! Will do the other two missions tomorrow, and will probably post a complete opinion afterward.

I use noclip to find hidden areas often, but don't usually save with it, since it gives me the impression that I cheated and broke the game. In this case however, I'll have to do either that, or edit the map to remove just the spiders. Phobias and the mind can be interesting things at times

Finally, a multi-mission campaign for TDM! Unfortunately I can't play this myself, which makes me rather jealous. I have a phobia for spiders, and no trick I can use will get me past the caves with giant spiders in them... believe me, I tried I have however seen the beginning of the first mission. I love the voice acted movie, and the scripted camera showing the main objectives. The detailed descriptions make you understand the mission and feel that purpose

Yeah, I'm wondering about alarms with these two components: The AI becomes alerted when hearing the alarm and runs to the noise source, and the AI can itself press the button to sound an alarm when becoming alert through other means. I understand that the first works, but there are issues with making the second thing possible?

Nice. I played nearly 30 missions so far, but never saw alarms anywhere so I thought they don't exist. And I remember seeing Thomas Porter in the mission list, but since it's a long series I decided to leave it for a bit later... will do!

Fixing fear of spiders is harder and likely not something I'll do in the next years, since it's a hard-coded phobia I was for some reason born with. As for knowing when a mission contains them, that's not really a problem, since I just quit the mission once I notice them. Problem is that some good missions have them, and I hate being unable to play them and having to skip. So I was wondering if there is any (legit) way or a trick to stop seeing them in missions, like temporarily disabling NPC rendering.

This is a fun element which exists in most stealth games, yet I haven't seen any TDM missions with it. Surprising given how simple it would be to script... but in any case I'm very intrigued by the idea. The way I imagine alarms working is by having a button trigger a speaker and potentially a red light which blinks. The speaker can be located in a different place from the button, although my favorite alarm type are those where the button and the speaker are both part of a device on the wall. They could definitely work well with TDM's theme: On medieval missions, the alarm can be a bell you can ring directly, or a mechanism that shakes a bell when a button is pressed (music boxes exist after all). On missions containing electricity, there can be a megaphone playing a loud noise when the button is pressed. As for how they would work, my idea is pretty simple: An alerted NPC (my suggestion would be alert levels 4 and 5) can interrupt their search or postpone attacking you, and instead run to the nearest alarm and activate it. Additionally, the player might himself want to activate alarms, in order to trick guards into running to a given area and freeing his path. When an alarm sounds, any NPC close enough to hear it will become alerted and run to the source of the sound. I would suggest a gradual alert system here... so an NPC very close to the alarm gets an alert level of 4, one further away gets 3, one who is too far to care gets 2, and one who can barely hear it just 1. An ongoing alarm should probably last for about 30 or so seconds, but keep the alert levels of NPC's in its radius to a constant minimum. Are there any missions that use alarms, or any scripts to implement them? Personally I think this can and should be part of TDM by default, and an alarm entity should be there for mappers to easily add to their missions. They're at the heard of many stealth games, and I think add a lot of depth of them as well.

So I need help with a slightly more unusual problem I often encounter in TDM. Feel free to laugh if you can't help it... in either case, I do need a solution so I can play certain missions. The problem is that in real life, I have a phobia for most insects and especially spiders. Many TDM missions have giant spiders in them. Apparently, even if it's just 3D graphics on a darn screen, I cannot deal with seeing them from up close... neither dead nor alive. In the mission Alberic's Curse, I managed to progress through the catacombs by disabling sound, minimizing the window to 800 x 600, and using my wireless keyboard and mouse 2 meters away from the screen... yeah, it would have been a fun sight to see But even so I was still uncomfortable, and this is not a sustainable solution since I could barely see the screen enough to navigate the map (probably missed lots of loot). I was wondering what options I have... apart from not playing such missions altogether, since some of them are nice and I hate missing out I could suggest variables to disable certain NPC's, such as spiders or rats (for those who are scared of such)... but that would be cheating since spiders can attack and block movement, plus it would break missions if any objectives depend on them. If there's indeed no way to disable them, maybe there's a way to render them differently instead? Perhaps as just a waypoint (dot or square) that indicates they're there, but no 3D model and no sounds. Or a cvar to render all entities as bounding boxes instead of their 3D models, which I could temporarily use in such areas to get past the spiders. Any thoughts at all?

Just played both parts... nice mission! My opinion on both is generally the same, which is: Good story and ideas (especially in P1) but I can't say I liked the map design as much. Even if nice open cities and the home designs themselves look good, I think the town layout lacks detail and is too simple and repetitive. The indoor areas are nice, and the museum was quite large and nicely detailed

I went through this mission today (the v2 version). It's a mission I really liked, and I hope I'm not improperly necroposting by wanting to say that Since this 5 years old I assume spoilers don't matter as much: I liked the gameplay and nicely integrated story the most. Namely the fact that on a relatively small map, there are several houses, which the player gets a chance to enter through doors as well as windows on rooftops (lots of climbing). In each there is a different person or family with a different story and relationship to their neighbors, as you can tell from the notes and logs you find in various rooms. There are also unexpected elements, and the mission felt more entertaining at the end than I thought it would be when I first started it. Only critique would be that some areas (especially outdoor) felt like they could use a bit more detail, and that the texturing or brushwork was too simple or fake looking in some places. But especially since this was made in 2009, I can't seriously complain about such a thing.

I like the projected texture approach most. I wonder how to make the window light move with the window when it opens however... since this would likely be wanted for interactive windows as well.

Awesome. Will scons generate it automatically, or will I need a special compilation flag? In either case I shall try it ASAP after the release!

Ahhh, nice! Will love seeing a part 2 for sure Hope there will still be a modern fancy hotel to explore.

Thank you! I should read up on how to get all of those features working... like how a mission can blacklist the stock weapons, how to best script weapon amount limitation, how to handle the keybind problem, etc. The hardest part is having to edit and re-export the 1st person view hands, if the sword / blackjack can't be replaced via scripting only... but that's a good occasion to use more specific animations as well, so I guess it's not so bad. I only use Blender 3D however, and don't even know how to import / export the formats used by idTech4. But if all goes well, I might sometime create an unique weapon set and post it as a pk4! I shall check out the threads you mentioned as well. I'm especially interested in the possibility of the weapon menu you're describing, and how much it can do in regard to sorting weapons.

I know a map that might be using multiple skyboxes: Business as Usual. In the tower where you have to knock out a guard, you can't see anything under you, only the lights coming from city windows in the dark.

I already have the SVN repository and can compile the engine from there. I was wondering if it will be in a different repository or branch. If not I'll just 'svn update' and check it out once the commit is in!

Very nice FM, really loved this one!

I played this mission today (only one difficulty / character), and nice! I like the design of this city, specifically the soft bulgy roads ramps... as well as the designing on the interior of the hotel, which has a nice and modern design. It is a very large and complex building... which made things a bit boring and repetitive at some point, but is certainly not a bad thing either. The idea to have each difficulty represent a different character with different objectives is a good one as well! I wonder if (even as a discrete easter egg) it would be possible to encounter the two other characters you don't play as somewhere in the world... like finding the assassin in one of the hotel rooms and the saboteur in the basement if you're playing as the thief.

Did so today for this and other bugs: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4019I run DarkRadiant from GIT, so this likely means a problem that would be present in the latest release too.

If you post instructions on how to get it, please send me the link as well! I'll gladly test it out... looking forward for the 64bit engine for Linux.

I'm wondering about this too. From what I heard not in 2.03, but there might be chances to see the 64bit engine in 2.04.