UberMann

I would gladly offer to help. I don't have much to show for my abilities yet, though I could get some screenshots of an fm I have yet to get beta tested and released. I will just have to find a reasonable free image hoster first and haven't bothered to do so yet...

Who do I ask for access to the Beta Testing forum?

So I can simply make an account on Dussander's forum and then make a post there that I am looking for testers?

I'm considering the mission I am working on as done. This raises new questions. It's a small-scale mission and I've done plenty of testing on it myself, but I think it would be best someone else playtested it before I just go ahead and make a release thread. Who can I ask to do this for me?

Got more questions! 1. I have an area where I am using two fog lights, using the "fogs/basicfog" texture. The fog lights are placed adjacent to one another and the area where their radii intersect displays rendering errors. I am forced to use two lights because of how I constructed the map geometry. Changing the geometry now would be more work than its worth, so my question focuses on just the fog lights: Is there a way to have two adjacent fog lights without rendering errors where their radii meet? Is there perhaps a better solution than two adjacent fog lights? 2. I just added in-game map entities, which appear in the player's inventory. Those map entities are working fine, but for some reason there appears to be an additional map entity in the inventory, as well. I made sure not to have a superfluous or forgotten "atdm:map_of" entity, so what could be causing this problem? I also noticed that there is a line in the console stating "guis/map_of.gui" couldn't be loaded and I am unsure where that is coming from, since I have not explicitly created any entities demanding that gui definition. 3. Using Obsttorte's solution to the problem I had with the signs works fine. There is a problem with defining the line 'textalign "gui::gui_parm2"', however. I get an error message stating that an integer value is expected instead. I have resorted to hard-coding the value in the definition for now, but would like to know what I am missing to make the spawnarg solution work.

Ah thanks for clearing that up and sorry for perhaps overreacting on it.

@Obsttorte, thank you for your detailed answer. With that said, your previous answer was not useful to me. I am a newbie, explain it to me in detail. Your comment "Some of them get their text via a guiParm on the entity. Check the entity spawnargs." is perhaps helpful to someone who is more familiar with level design for The Dark Mod but as a newbie I couldn't use that information. What is a guiParm on the entity? How do I check the spawnargs for it? I know this now, but just for the future, assume that I don't know the answers to such questions. Especially considering this is the newbie questions megathread. The additional detail in your answers may also help others with similar problems in the future. I do read the answers, but keep in mind not everyone has the experience you have. I'm not sure it was your intention, but your comment there read as very condescending to me in a situation that did not call for it.

Well that is unfortunate, I was hoping an ideal solution existed already. Well, thanks for the clarification!

Alright, so the idea to use a prefab sign got me the solution. Those sign readables do in fact ignore the xdata spawnarg and use a combination of a "gui" and "gui_parm1" spawnargs. So as an example you can make the sign readable display text, if you give it the following spawnarg-value pairs. "gui" "guis/readables/sign_text_decals/sign_text_carolingia.gui" "gui_parm1" "put text here" One downside of actually using the sign readable seems to be that the text is not centered on it. Are there any other spawnargs that can accomplish this?

Could I get a run-down of what I have to do for the patch solution, in specific? It seems like a universally helpful technique, but I am struggling with this.

Having a bit of trouble getting signs to work. In specific, the signs of the class "atdm:readable_immobile_sign_small01" just report errors loading their gui, even though from what I understand I set up the xdata correctly. I have other readables which work just fine, so the problem is specific to these sign readables. Any idea what gui definition the sign readables accept? Or any other idea where I might be going wrong?

Quick response! Thanks guys! I like the skylights and jewelry room ideas. I thought about putting lots of storage junk there, of course, but it just felt too... unimaginative? But with a jewelry room that place will have a lot of purpose!

Currently working on a rich merchant's manor. But I'm stumped on the attic. Got any ideas what kinds of purposeful rooms it could contain? It's very spacious.

Alright, thanks!

For "ordinary worldspawn" brush steps. So if my steps are func_static, then I would need monsterclip? Or am I misinterpreting this?

I've got another question: How do I best setup stairs that the AI can navigate without problems? How tall can the steps be? Do I have to make a monsterclip ramp?

Thanks! Completely overlooked this super useful tool.

Quick question, sorry in advance if this happens to be mentioned on the wiki somewhere, couldn't find an answer yet: Is it possible to split the text of my readable onto the two pages of the readable? In specific, I am using a atdm:readable_immobile_book_open01 entity and am getting this effect: Ideally I would want everything I defined as Page1's body in the xdata file to be on the left page, then have the text defined as Page2's body on the right page of the book. How can I achieve this?

Alright! Thanks for all the help guys!

Alright, a FM it is! If I recall correctly, it is possible to write scripts that can be triggered in FMs, right? If so, are they written in C++ or another language? In other games it's usually Python, Lua or something similar for scripts in maps.

Hello everyone, new to the forums, but not new to the game. I've found much enjoyment in this game, now I'd like to be able to give something back and contribute. I can offer to help with programming and level design. My experiences lie mostly with C# and JavaScript programming (C# being my primary programming language). I have yet to work with C++ more extensively, but am very eager to learn and think helping out for the game would be a good motivator. On the other hand, if you can only accept experienced C++ programmers (understandably), then I would at least like to try my hand at creating an FM or two. I have years of experience working with the Source Engine and doing level design for the Source mod "PVKII", so knowing that there are some familiar concepts with the Dark Mod's Engine and Source, I am confident I can create something worthwhile. However I would need some assistance with getting familiar with the project for coding or level design. I'd love to help out whichever way I can and hope you can grant me some insight into how I might help.