Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

DeTeEff

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1243

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    31

 Content Type 

Posts posted by DeTeEff

  1. Using assets from other missions

    in Art Assets

    Posted

    Lately I have started to play some of the more recent missions and some of these have lots of "own"/unique textures.

    Is it okay to use these assets (from released FMs) in one's own FMs? I'm referring to models/textures and sound etc, of course not chunks of the mission geometry or blatant plagiarism of readables etc.

    I guess some people have designed or bought assets for themselves but is it okay to use these textures/models as long as there is no explicit note in a readme etc, that opposes such "borrowing"?

  2. Importing/converting downloaded models into DarkRadiant

    in Art Assets

    Posted

    Ahh, thanks for the answers, boys!

    I now have managed to both import models in DarkRadiant and export models from Blender so I'm a bit on the road.

    I tried to add a copper vase and lo and behold, I succeeded, I even managed to add the correct material definition and changing it in the model file via a text editor. Yay! Now I have a small vase consisting of more polys and triangles and white lines than there are stomach acid in my belly...😇

    I thought this would be fairly easy but I guess I'll have to learn some basic Blender to be able to convert these models to lower polycounts so they are more ugly than their original quality but not so ugly they look bashed to pieces, in game...

    I have high hopes even an old and brittle man like me can follow Blender tutorials and be able to perform these easy tasks, and perhaps I'll get the hang of creating some basic loot and junk myself :)

    • Like 1

  3. Importing/converting downloaded models into DarkRadiant

    in Art Assets

    Posted

    I guess this is basic stuff for you talented model-boys but now I've trudged for several hours without results and from what I have read in several forums/threads, it's even not that trivial. Therefore I dare to start a thread... 🤓

    I've download some models from the web but these come in some new and fancy format; (FBX, USD etc) not exactly the old and brittle format that we use in TDM ;) So to import these into DarkRadiant I need to convert these to lwo or ASE, right? How do people go about this?

    I have tried to:

    - install Blender 5.0 and added an ASE-exporter plugin. Blender actually puts out an ASE-file but as I try to open it in DR, the model is only showed as that checkerboard error-box. Do I need to tinker with the model in a text editor first? I read something about changing something about a BITMAP-line...

    - use an ancient version (7.0) version of Lightwave but that program cannot even open the files (Not surprising)...

     

  4. Change texture scaling in the skin file

    in TDM Editors Guild

    Posted

    3 hours ago, datiswous said:

    Is the scale of the original material not also big?

    I think you're suposed to either scale the texture, or do the texture scaling in a material file (if possible).

    Yes, I guess I'll have to adjust the texture on the model. But even so, it would be nice to have a way to adjust the scale via the skin file... Maybe something that could be implemented?

  9. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    43 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:
      Hide contents

    That is true for the thief, but the same isn't implied for the other two characters, at least from what I found. If you play as one you find the other two as AI in the world, which is a fantastic idea at that. However only the thief is dead due to the spider incident... the assassin and saboteur are always wandering in the hallways, which implies they're both actively conducting their respective missions.

    Spoiler

    That was what I wanted to convey. The saboteur walks round like the maniac he is. The assassin can be found looking at doors and casually looking inside windows... The thief is just dead, bitten and wound up in a pile.

     

  10. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, Keruah said:

    I played only through the easy/thief mode. Tomorrow, I'll try other characters. I think, I too got some problems with npc detecting me from at least one room away. The guy in the central corridor was constantly repeating "oh, this is not good" or something like that. The other thing, I got a bit tired of reading every journal in every room. Have never seen so many journals in any of the missions as of yet (but tbh, at the moment, I've only played around 15 missions). Otherwise, a great mission. It felt so fun to break into the hall and knock out all the guests in one blackjacking spree. I'll come back to it as an assassin, I really wanna see the difference :) 

    Glad you seem to like it :)I wouldn't consider Thief to be the easiest though. As assassin and saboteur you'll be able to move among the guests without problems, as long as you don't do anything illegal. But the thief is always considered hostile to everyone.

    Spoiler

    Most diaries are just fluff ;)

     

  11. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, grodenglaive said:

    Cool original fm. I just did the thief level for now and will return to do the other two once I've completed the other contest missions. It was very difficult to finish without knocking anyone out, but I persevered. I enjoyed locking everyone in their rooms. Looking forward to playing as the assassin and offing some guards in the process.  

    Glad you like it. Haha, yes a lot of players seem to like the ability to lock in people :)

    Hopefully you won't need to KO too many people when playing as assassin/saboteur as you may walk among people as an infiltrator.

  14. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, Knüppelaufdierübe said:

     

    If you don't mind the guards running around with their swords out, you can use that ship-wide alert to
     

      Hide contents
    • get the bridge empty for long enough to take a parachute (and possibly other stuff) without any danger of getting spotted,
    • make most of the guards drop their lanterns (in case you took out the fuses)*, which usually helps a lot.

    *) The number of guards with lanterns seemed to differ between missions, not sure.

     

    The lantern carrying guards should be the same for all difficulties/contracts but the path changing system is a bit wonky so sometimes they don't fetch lanterns.

  15. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

    This FM is quite the experience. I'd say I haven't finished it yet as this is one of the fewer cases where I'm going to do all the difficulty levels. From what I can say so far so that I don't lose my thoughts till then, starting with my runs so far:

      Reveal hidden contents

    My first run was a more frustrating one. I decided to first play as the thief, thinking that's the easiest difficulty while in reality I think it's the hardest. There was no way to navigate the ship without getting caught: This is the only time I played with notarget on and just pretended to hide as it's the only way I could do it. Indeed I removed the fuses and shut off power to the ship, at least the first floor as the second floor still had the lights on; While that makes it somewhat bearable for a while, the guards with the lanterns appear so suddenly and frequently that getting around them was impossible... even if it wasn't for that it's often hard not to be surrounded and bump into someone, more on that below.

    Then I decided to do the assassin. I noticed it gives you a tension meter instead of having everyone be hostile all the time including in the hallways: HUGE improvement! Still hard when entering restricted areas, but I at least managed a normal run this way. I did the first assignment and will likely play the other two as well just to mess around, after that I'll do the "TDM version of environmental activist" run last :)

    Bugs I found and thoughts on the difficulty:

      Reveal hidden contents

    The main issue is the halls are sometimes extremely crowded: So much so that at times 3 to 5 AI get stuck in front of a single door, you need to wait a few minutes before one manages to find its way around or clip through someone else after which the congestion slowly eases. On a side note I've also seen AI get stuck inside walls or doors, they will clip halfway through and be stuck walking in place.

    The other issue is the lighting: If you remove the fuses you can leave the lower floor in darkness, but there's nothing you can do when a guard with a lantern comes around too fast and there's nowhere to hide in time. There's also the issue of the upper floor still being lit, the schematic suggests there should be a way to turn it off there as well so I might need to look more carefully.

    If you're considering further changes: Maybe check if the number of guards wielding lights can be reduced slightly, otherwise path AI's so they don't all run into the same place at once. It might help if some of the special arrows (water, moss, noisemaker, etc) can be offered in appropriate locations: For example I can imagine water arrows provided in the form of a fire extinguisher with the note "guards use this in case of fire on board", those can at least put out the fireplaces though I don't think they disable handheld lamps.

    That being said, I absolutely love the concept and the way it was implemented! This has an oddly relaxing and pleasant atmosphere, and the way characters and objectives are designed around it further make this a great experience.

      Reveal hidden contents

    I love how each difficulty is an unique character with different objectives and mechanics, that's a fantastic use of the difficulty system and something I'd love seeing more often. The way you can interact with the ship's systems and every action has a consequence further adds to it: I loved how if you don't play the thief, his character is killed by the spider and you even find a different outcome if you go to his spawn location. The custom character skins are also quite beautiful and very well done, not to mention the megaphone announcers though it would be nice if there were more songs for variation.

     

    Thank you so much for the kind words. It's funny that you are among the first to mention the music/ambience. :)

    Yes, in hindsight maybe I should have reduced the amount of AI on this ship. But to be totally honest, the mission got scewed in the favour of the infiltrator difficulties and the thief got the short end of the stick. Most time was spent on the poisoning mechanic and different paths. The lantern guards may have been involved in a bit of unkilled darlings (because of the amount of time I spent on their individual path nodes and overall patrol adjustments).

    If the mission gets an update I may very well remove the lantern behaviour on 2-3 guards, when playing as thief. The lantern fetching only happens after the lights have been killed (there are no fuses for the third floor btw).

    • Thanks 1

  16. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, The Black Arrow said:

    Here we have another amazing mission by...Weren't you called Fieldmedic before? You've made a great horror-ish fan mission once, I remember something like that...Huh, well anyway.

    As per usual from you, Mr. Moose, it's so complex and that's what makes it great.

    - Amazing graphics, I really enjoy when the thunder hits to light the place up, the volumetric light is to die for. Literally, even, since these people can see you from that flash, hah!
    - Very well done layout, it is very tight and there's no corners but for a huge flying ship you must make expenses anyway.

    - I LOVE the idea of all passengers having keys, it means I can lock them in their own rooms, thereby not interrupting my thieving!
    - However, the gameplay is still EXCRUCIATINGLY FRUSTRATING at times. There's always more than 3 AI ready to corner you, making you have to load another save. Pray that you make saves constantly and not just quicksaves.
    Also, if that isn't enough...
     

      Hide contents

    Some guard, the Moorish one, noticed the painting missing then told everyone "There's a thief about". I GOT FUCKED! You're lucky I save often.

    So, anyway, after all the intense mental pain, I just "surrendered" and got myself caught up, all I wanted to do is get out of there with the parachute, which I did.

     

    This really is a great mission, I love it, the fact there's two more playstyles adds to the replayability and that's great.
    In short; this is another Fieldmedic--I mean, DeTeEff, mission that's complex, amazing and totally worth playing. Just be patient, I tried and I reaped great rewards.

    Haha. Yes, I'm the old Fieldmedic with only strange missions where I try to push the boundaries beyond playability...

    Glad you liked it! Yes, the painting will be missed and therefore trigger the guards to start searching for a thief. I thought about making more loot noticeable but as you experienced, there is a lot of ruckus. It wasn't what I wanted but I thought it would be strange/silly if nobody had realised that the painting was missing...

    Yes, I went for replayability so the story may be a bit lacking. I hope at least there are some fun and quirky things to find in the readables.

    /Mr Moose

  20. Fan Mission: You Only Fly Thrice by DeTeEff (2024/10/16) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Melchior said:

    Onwards, with the deranged Mr.Peabody... part â…”:

    Once you are 'familiar' with the layout of the airship, mission execution is just a matter of planning...Or once you know the tricks - its easy to cause mayhem. Too easy, infact - the real trick isn't to go berzerk and make a bigger mess than even a ruthless pagan warrior can handle.

      Reveal hidden contents

    Once the arms are acquired - you can either visit the engineering bay to pull fuses, or just start clubbing bridge officers wandering around aimlessly...(no need for ME to bloody my hands - gravity does the dirty 'work' 💀). Seems the lantern search patrol isn't quite able to deal with an actual sabotuer. Surprised there isn't an engineer's mate - or other 'greasehand' to do "joe" jobs like replacing a fuse. Having ONLY 1 ENGINEER IS FATAL TO A SHIPS OPERATIONAL SAFETY! that airship co. is SO going out of buisness!!
    Guards don't "check in" - either so after you've tossed a few overboard - life is easy, but short for some. I did find it odd the 'Helmsman' left his post on-duty...oh well.

    Thoughts on the Airship ("defects") itself:

      Reveal hidden contents
    1. Lack of Intercom Voice (speaking) Tube system: MAJOR DESIGN FLAW.
    2. Lack of Fire-Alarm System: CRITICAL DESIGN FLAW.
    3. No Indicator system on Flight-critical systems: Fault Alarms on Hydrogen-generator, Steam-Turbine(s), and Electrical buss. [Would be visible on engineers post in bridge] MODERATE FLAW.
    4. Engine bay has no access controls (numeric padlock, or guard-station) MINOR FLAW.
      In general most ships have a dedicated "Engine Control" room - usually with monitor equipment and a Engineering-officer plus technicians on standby.

    General thoughts one TDM (engine) features that are now needed / apparent:

    • Guard patrol end/start loop "check-ins": accomplished however - verbal ack. from a guard captain, or the 'Punch-Clock' system (yeah actual time-sheets, I bet they have metrics to meet in 1760 still)
    • Remote 'alert' system; possibly Intercom - to alert non-local NPC's that somethings amiss elsewhere...
    • The information Aggregator entity (NPC?); to whom all these bits of status/events go - and who reacts upon them...somehow. [Sending patrols? altering map-state, making other envrionmental changes? ]
    • Also; proper support for NO-BOW player starts. Meaning: until you get a bow - any arrows CANNOT BE USED. And - I guess any "Taffer" with a bow visible - even with a fine silk smoking jacket on, would be considered a hostile villian. [Could be implimented as a 'Anti-Bow' object in inventory that is 'removed' when a "bow" is obtained.]

     

    I will interpret this critique on the ship on a more fluffy level, more than actual critisism on the level design, am I right? :)

    Yes, when you get the layout strait, it's not that hard to navigate the mission.

    The AI in TDM is quite advanced but it is difficult (if even impossible) to steer the AI anyway you want via scripts etc.

    I'm aware that the player magically get a bow if picking up arrows. Therefore I added a bow at the place where you obtain the arrows.

  23. Fan Mission: Pinnacle - a Test of Talents (HBD TDM!) [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    This is definitely a fine map, epsecially for a/pair of begginner(s)! One should not compare with one's own work, but if I should compare this to my first mission in TDM, wow, this little mission is really good!

    Game play 3

    I know the station was shut down, but there should at least be one or two AI present, for gameplay reasons. There is a new layer of work with adding AI (monster clipping for one) so I guess their abscence was because of time restraints. Other than that, there was not much to critizise. I loved the sneaking up on the ropes and good use of verticality.

    Story 3

    Nothing special. The clues made sense. Short, descriptive briefing.

    Visual 4

    Apart from some misaligned textures I found nothing distracting. I did find the areas after the pipecrawling a bit strange. It felt like outside, but there was some kind of roof? Was that whole area meant to be the interior of the station?

    • Like 1

  25. Fan Mission: The Wizard's Treasure [15th Anniversary Contest]

    in Fan Missions

    Posted

    This was a nice mission. As you said, not too big, just a 20 minutes romp in the winterland. 

    Gameplay 4

    There were lots of places to go, to feel thiefy. Like up on the roof. Sadly I got frustrated that I couldn't enter the room with the key on the wall. A room with beds. The windows felt large enough for a thief of my size to enter but I couldn't get in. I already had enough loot so I gave up. Other than that the gameplay was balanced; not many guards/no restricting objectives and good places to hide.

    Story 3

    These kinds of missions do not need that much story, but enough info was given.

    Visuals 3

    The wintery skybox was nice and the spacey magic jumping section in the end was fun. Other than that it was fairly standard, but a bit rushed in some places with missaligned doors, but not bad considering I guess it was built on a time restraint.

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...