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Nightcrawler

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Posts posted by Nightcrawler

  1. Thanks for pointing me to the new beta. I completely forgot about it.

    I did some testing in the tutorial map and I'm really glad that I can use the system keys and also switch back to desktop now.

    However I already found a bunch of new bugs:

    • Some keys (i.e the arrow keys and mouse button 4 and 5) still cannot be assigned properly.
    • The dark Mod crashes as soon as you enter the game if "Maps" was chosen as shadow implementation. I created a bug for this on the tracker.
    • Lightning does not work for me at all on the new version. Everything seems to be displayed in the same brightness. I also created a bug for this and put some screenshots there.
  2. That bug has been around since ages for TDM on linux :mellow:

     

    It didn't bother me that much in the past as I quickly adapted to use the numblock keys.

     

    It's a bit annoying that I cannot acess system functions while I'm running TDM though - e.g. swich off sound, or minimize TDM and switch back to the desktop. That's what I miss most

  3. I think it worth for future cases to define what is "beeing a dick" to the context of using shared work.

     

    Whould I consider it a dick move if parts of my mission are blatantly copied by another author into his/her mssion even without asking me for permission?

    No, not necessarily! As long as the author credited me as the original author of the copied sections I would be fine.

    However if the way the author presents his mission suggestes that he created the copied mission parts in the first place I do consider it a dick move.

     

    Would I consider it a dick move to see my mission bug fixed and beeing worked on without my permission?

    Again it depends on how it's done. If anybody wants to re-release my missions everybody shall be fine to do so. But I then would expect them to use a slightly different name for the mission (e.g. "Fan Mansion Heist (Re-release)" or "Fan Mansion Heist (Bug-fixed version)") and do not put me as the author. People should make clear that it's a derivative work of their own based on my mission.

    However if somebody re-releases my mission on the very same name so that people looking for my mission would not be able to find my original work I do consider it a dick move.

  4. I followed this discussion carefully and I don't want to open wounds begining to heal, but as Judith encouraged all parts of the community to participate in this discussion I wanted to give my two cents.

     

    The mere thing I am concerned is what message should we as mappers, modelers and creative folk take from this discussion when it comes to building upon other people's work?

     

    As I understand some of you (mainly Spring and Judith) are not very happy to share their work if others can then re-adapt re-use and alter the work.

     

    To me, this is serious, quite dangerous precedent. It's not using abandoned work with sb else's blessing. It's also not an homage, as there's little creativity being shown here. This is copypasting and slightly tweaking sb else's work to speed up your mapping process. To me, it's self-degrading and admitting creative failure. Doing it with sections of your own map might just be poor taste and your personal matter, but doing it with someone else's work? That's whole another level. Do we have to start protecting .map files somehow, or have some kind of community guidelines in place on this?

    There are a lot of times where copying and pasting entire sections of someone else's mission might be acceptable:

     

    1. You want to re-use an existing game-world location (like the Braeden City Hall) and you get the original mapper's permission.

    2. You are a new mapper who doesn't know how to make things on their own, and you get the original mapper's permission.

    3. You are pressed for time, or looking for shortcuts for other reasons, and you get the original mapper's permission.

    4. You make so many changes to the original section that no one would recognize it.

     

    However, none of those apply in this case.

    However if I understand the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 license under which TDM (along with all its assets and maps i assume) is licensed correctly then tdm maps and assets can be re-used and adapted without the authors explicit permission. All of you tdm authors granted these rights to everybody by releasing your maps and assets under this license. Of course anyone building upon your work will get these rights only in the case that he or she accepts to

    • Give Attribution to the original authors
    • Don't use the work in a comercial context
    • Release his/her derived work under the very same license and conditions
    Correct me if I'm wrong but the only violation (if at all) I can see in this affair is that Biker did not attribute Spring in the first place. Please consider that we are not talking about an officially released mission that is sopposed to be shipped with readme file, where you attribute people whose work you've adapted. It's a mission in beta test not ready for release yet. So I still disbelief that Biker's behaviour violated the license terms.

     

    The problem I see is rather a moral issue. People in this thread have pointed it out: It's uncreative, it's discouraging for the original mapper who put a lot of time and blood into creating the map. And asking the author for permission surely wouldn't have hurt. Most of the times original author and adapting author will be able to find some sort of agreement on which parts can be re-used under which conditions.

     

    But in some cases the problem might persist and that's why all of you (current and future) author must ask yourself if you want to build an tdm fan mission knowing that people may re-use your work without asking you explicitely for permission. It might sound harsh, but if you are not happy with seeing your missions and assets re-used, releasing your work under a Creative Commons license might not be the right thing for you.

     

    I've not released a fan mission yet and cannot understand how much work has to be put into it. So veteran mappers might have a different view. But I personally think I would be happy if other people used my mission to build upon provided they do not apprpriate my mission but leave a thank you note for me in their release notes and share their missions alike.

     

    The ability to re-use other people's work is what makes Creative Commons and Open Source so great. Don't give up on this easily.

    • Like 2
  5. Legal entity will probably be in Canada, and the process to create it is relatively simple. So that's not really much of a worry now.

     

    The really big task is giving Valve a report on the licensing rights for our assets.

     

    You should make a well-founded decision about where to place the legal entity. Why is that?

     

    Well, in the last few days I got interested in how Creative Common licenses work and I did some research on the Internet. I would not call me an expert on CC licenses but there is one thing I found that might cause trouble to tdm: Namely the fact that The Dark Mod uses the CC-BY-NC-SA for the main part of their assets. Things you have to bear in mind are:

     

    1) This license does not allow commercial use. The main problem is the lack of clarity what commercial use actually is. Now no matter what you personally define as commercial use, some countries' jurisdictions seem to have a weird definition of commercial use and might come to - hmmm let's say- interesting findings. Take this German Court's decision for example. I don't know how the Canadian Jurisdiction would define "commercial use"...

     

    2) The imho more fateful consequence of choosing to include the NC module into TDM's art assets license however is this: You must not mash up content that is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license with the core TDM. That is because works licensed under CC-BY-SA can only be combined with works that bear the same license type or the freer license types CC-BY or CC-0.

     

    Imho if all the content tdm is using had been placed under CC-BY-SA that would spare a lot of trouble. But I guess it's too late to switch...so you have to carefully monitor if you have content that was actually licensed under CC-BY-SA and if so either contact the copyright holder to get permission to place it under your CC-BY-NC-SA license or if that should not be possible remove it from TDM.

     

    For planning purposes, any fans out there reading this now, would you volunteer to help us with this kind of work?

     

    Think of going through dozens or up to 100 or 100s of assets, confirming the license status with its source as far as you can track it down.

    I might be too busy for this the next two weeks but if you afterwards still need help, I'll happily volunteer.

    • Like 1
  6. 3) The MD5 animation viewer doesn't work as I hoped. Here is what I mean:

     

    1. I open the MD5 animation viewer and choose e.g. "tdm_ai_builderguard" from the list. Nothing appears in the 3D view window.

     

    2. Only when I click on the "Pause render time" or "Stop render time" button, the model appears.

     

    3. When I then choose an animation - let's say "bottle_idle01" again nothing happens, the model won't move/animate.

     

    4. However when I then press the "Pause render time" button, the model changes its state (as if it just carried out the animation).

     

    Well that is complicated to explain. I hope I expressed myself in an understandable manner...

  7. 2) The readable editor seems broken. At least I can't choose a GUI definition for two-sided books. This is what I did:

     

    1. Create Entity -> readables -> atdm:readable_mobile_book01

     

    2. Open the readable editor. Give the book an inventory name and an XData name.

     

    3 .Click on the button right of the GUI Definitiion field.

     

    4. Choose let's say readables -> books -> book_calig_summertime

     

    The Layout switches to One-sided and the GUI Definition switches to guis/readables/sheets/sheet_paper_hand_nancy.gui, no matter what I select.

  8. I'm happy to confirm that the crash when importing prefabs is finally gone :)

     

    Unfortunately there are a few more things in DR that I'm not happy with:

     

    1) Selected models and entities become invisible in the 2D grid. To illustrate this:

     

    Here nothing is selected:

    AI_unselected.jpg?raw=1

     

     

    Here only a entity is selected (and it is invisible in the 2D grid!):

    AI_selected.jpg?raw=1

     

     

    When entities/models are selected together with a worldspawn brush however they stay visible in the 2D grid

    AI_and_worldspawn_selected.jpg?raw=1

     

     

    That's a quite old bug (also had this in 2.2. and 2.1) but I was too lazy to find out how to upload images of DR and report it until now (sorry).

  9. Greebo, I need some help obtaining the newest code from your git repository. I try to follow the instructions here: http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4490#c8999

    But when I enter git pull, the following error message appears:

     

    remote: Counting objects: 5, done.
    remote: Total 5 (delta 4), reused 5 (delta 4), pack-reused 0
    Unpacking Objects: 100% (5/5), ready.
    From git://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant
       510c6da00..cc51a0158  2.3        -> origin/2.3
    Actualizing 929f4307c..2f8a5732e
    error: Your local changes in the following files would be overwritten when merging:
        ltmain.sh
    Please commit or stash your changes before merging
    Canceled
    
    How can I tell git to ignore the changes I made and just merge? Or would it be better to create a new directory and clone again?
  10.  

    There's a bug in the Linux version of 2.2.1, some menu items are missing, and things like the most-recently-used map file list gets borked after use.

    I've fixed this in most recent Git though.

     

    It's possible to assign a key combination to the command changing the Window Layout, look for "ActivateLayoutEmbedded" in the Edit > Keyboard shortcuts dialog.

     

    Thanks for the tip greebo! I didn't know there were keyboard shortcuts to change the window layout.

    I also assigned a hotkey to the readable editor, whose menu entry is also missing.

  11. I'm still struggling with defining the levels main goal. Should it be

    - To steal an object?

    - To assassinate someone?

    - To hijack somebody?

    - .....

    So many options to choose from. The main thing that ceeps me occupied is how to later develop a neat and interesting story around it.

     

    About the basic shape: I think I'll stick with the majority and aim for a mason mission. Nothing too fancy or extraordinary. I plan roughly 4 regions:

     

     

    - A larger interior region.

    - A smaller cellar.

    - A small garden.

    - A tiny fronyard/city street section.

     

     

  12. In my opinion that video series is one of the best currently available resources - if not THE BEST - for new mappers to start. It's such a pity that it now got buried on site 2 of the Editors Guild Forum.

    I think it should be pinned on the top of this forum instead, so that people inclined to start mapping can easily find it. Shouldn't it?

  13. Hey Mircea,

    I'm running DR 2.2.1 on Ubuntu MATE 16.10. I've built it from source about a month ago. From the issues you mention I can only confirm that Panel sizes are not persisted between startups.

    About the issue that Various windows won't open: I'm quite sure this is not a bug, but the way DR is supposed to behave. You already realized that only some menu entries will open as windows (surface Inspector, Patch Inspector,...). However the media browser and texture browser don't open in separate windows, but are displayed in the lower right corner in different tabs by default. Selecting them in the view menu should open the respective tab.

    I have stumbled upon a few other bugs however:

    • DR crashes when re-opening the import prefab menu.
    • Selected entities disappear from the 2D-View.
    • Theṙe is no entry for the readable editor in the entity menu. Moreover when I open it via shortkey and try to select a GUI definition, the GUI Definition always switches to guis/readables/sheets/sheet_paper_hand_nancy.gui, no matter what I have select.
    • The MD5 animation viewer doesn't work for me. When I have selected a model and an animation and then click on play, DR freezes.

    Can you confirm any of these issues?

  14. I don't feel bothered a lot by such minor bugs like floating brushes, bad texturing, etc... as long as the overall design and the story is good. So when I play FMs I not only look for texturing, visuals,...but also try to focus on whether the story is feasible and captivating and whether I can detect some overused cliché "concepts". For example you often stumble upon somebody writing "I've lost my ring while swimming in the pool." or "I have put something valuable in my secret compartment. I better write it down in my diary for the player to know."

     

    But one really can't complain about this when looking on how many clichés some AAA games use :laugh:

     

     

  15. I really enjoyed watching Sotha's and Spring's video tutorial series. For me they were way more entertaining and comfortable to watch than working through the A-Z-guide. And I learned a lot of amazing stuff watching them!

     

    The thing is with two tutorial series about how to build a tiny mission from scratch I'd say the basics are completely covered and I don't see much sense of repeating the whole procedure another time. For me as a newbie it would be more beneficial to watch you using some more "advanced" techniques that have not been covered in Sotha's nor Spring's Speedbuilt tutorial so far. I'm thinking of stuff like:

     

    - Water

    - Weather effects: Rain, Snow, Fog

    - Climbable Surfaces, ladders, ropes, elevators

    - Stims and responses, scripting

    - Any fancy stuff that hasn't been seen very often in missions so far and you'd like to see more

    And of course I'd love to see day light missions. I imagine it to be pretty hard to make a daylight fm both well textured and lit, and make it appealing gameplay-wise.

     

    EDIT: Localizing FMs might also be worth a video or two

    • Like 2
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