Spooks
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Posts posted by Spooks
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That's the thing, I do know of the baseline level of fresnel but I never remembered it being this strong. Memory's a poor judge, so if all the numbers are the same, it must be fine. As for splitting the specular into separate glprogs, I can't give an opinion on that, but duzenko's right in that we should be transferring to GLSL in general. I remember him saying he finally added support for it in #4431.
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Can we attach a poll to this topic on whether forum members consider themselves a genetically superior/inferior class?
Four options:
1) I am G-superiour
2) I am G-inferior
3) Don't know/haven't decided
4) There is no such thing.
5) Ain't nothin' but a G thang, baby
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As I said, I tested it on the testmap I uploaded in the aforementioned bugtracker. If you focus on the walls of the testroom and not the floating cubes, you can see that the light that's supposed to have nospecular still provides quite a strong shine.
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Slaved on this scene the whole day. I am figuring out the style I want to go for in my exterior, so this art test will be a good stepping stone to the actual map.
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Not a big deal. Elitist gnartsch, Sad! But adding another 1 or 2 text channels like #mapping should help.
Not only that, but Discord allows assigning roles to members, so only permitted chat members can access a mapping channel if discretion is wanted.
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1. There aren't any technical problems with patches intersecting, but you should watch out for 1) their ends sticking out of the other sides of walls 2) them having too many subdivisions (it's usually better to manually subdivide them in the patch inspector window, but not always!), 3) patches z-fighting with other surfaces (it happens more than you think) and 4) shadowcasting and the performance impact (if they're on the ground it might be prudent to turn them to func_statics and put noshadows on them).
If you have patches that aren't the same length/width but are next to each other, be careful for the subdivisions/vertices to align in a way that doesn't create a seam between them.
2. I'd like to say yes, there's more leeway, but theoretically if the AI gives chase to the player, any area accessible to them is fair game. I'll say if the area is completely inaccessible, e.g. up a ladder that the AI can't climb, then don't worry about putting brushwork below the patches. The clearance limit is about 16 units IIRC. You can use vertice selection to align the brush edges to more closely match the patch above, but it's a bit more finicky.
3. I think the engine does its best to clear degenerate triangles, I'm least knowledgeable on this and it's perhaps why I don't worry about it that much!
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I've noticed that even if I have nospecular on a big light, there's still an awful much of fresnel reflections going on. I was going to reopen http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4292 but after double checking the test map I uploaded back in '16 I see that no, the nospecular argument actually does work. It's the default specular you get with Enhanced Interaction Shader. Disabling that fixes the issue.
I definitely remember the fresnel not being as strong as it is now, can somebody (thinking either nbohr or duzenko) check if the default values in the shader have been altered or otherwise messed up?
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Hey! I have a Pinterest board too. It's pretty good for collecting inspiration. Yours is private to me, so I can't access it. Ironically, mine is set to public but I won't be showing it here since I've gotta have a nice stockpile to keep the thread alive
Here's a couple of my latest additions:
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Hmm... I'm not sure if I understand it correctly, but it seems you can't use these in mods in any way, encrypted packs or not?
A lot of texture (and general resource distribution) sites have this type of disclaimer. It is protecting their own market, not prohibiting transformative work like mods. You're not allowed to do anything they're already doing by offering the textures. Section 2.2.f, which I assume you're worried about, refers to bundling textures as default assets from a seller to a consumer. 2.1.b differentiates bundling from incorporation.
I enjoy that Second Life disclaimer very much though, thank you for the chuckle.
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After some fun experimenting, for toggling run, try this in the console:
bind "shift" "toggle in_alwaysrun 0 1"
If you want to return to how it is now, type:
bind "shift" "_speed"
I haven't tried putting the first one in the autoexec.cfg file, but I imagine it would be something like "seta bind..." and so on.
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I await to see the SEED implementation used practically in a map. If you use seed_watch_brethren and turn g_showEntityInfo on, you'll see that SEED combines entities as it pleases, meaning entities that aren't practically next to each other will have wild bounding boxes that will, no doubt, show up through VPs and overdraw.
Another thing is the wiki mentions using hide_distance, but when all your entities are combined into one all of them hide at once. I tried to SEED combine the fencing in Parkins' house in KOD when devving it only to find that as a fun surprise.
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Sorry to interject:
Is there an easily searchable directory structure for all entities, textures, etc... in DR?
Complete with thumbnails and descriptions?
In the wiki..?
// similar to the fonts page
Would such a thing be useful..?
(it would be for me)
I keep losing things and taking forever to find them if the texture isn't already in the media browser for easy access - I feel my life dripping away every time I open those windows...
Goldwell had made a thread enumerating the pk4 structure, if you search his thread history you might find something useful in there.
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This is the code that toggles candle flames when you frob them while held:
// Helper function for toggling light holder flames: void lholder_toggle_bound_flames( entity ent, float state ) { // tels: If the light holder has a script object and these two // functions, simply call them and stop: if (state > 0 && ent.hasFunction("LightsOn") ) { //sys.println("DEBUG: calling LightsOn on holder\n"); ent.callFunction( "LightsOn" ); return; } else if (state <= 0 && ent.hasFunction("LightsOff") ) { //sys.println("DEBUG: calling LightsOff on holder\n"); ent.callFunction( "LightsOff" ); return; } //sys.println("DEBUG: manual looping through attached entities on holder\n"); // otherwise manually loop through all attached entities: entity child; float ind; for( ind = 0; ind < ent.numBindChildren( ); ind++ ) { child = ent.getBindChild( ind ); // sys.println("DEBUG: checking child\n"); if( (child != $null_entity ) && (state > 0) && child.hasFunction("response_ignite") ) { // tels: call this in a sep. thread, otherwise it doesn't return until the // exti. animation+particle have finished, which can be several seconds. // This would pose problems when you ignite/extinguish more than one bound flame: thread callFunctionOn( "frob_ignite", child ); } else if( (child != $null_entity ) && (state <= 0) && child.hasFunction("response_extinguish") ) { // sys.println("DEBUG: child had frob extinguish called on it"); // tels: call this in a sep. thread, otherwise it doesn't return until the // exti. animation+particle have finished, which can be several seconds. // This would pose problems when you ignite/extinguish more than one bound flame: thread callFunctionOn( "frob_extinguish", child ); } } }As you can see Tels had specifically set this up so it extinguishes def_attached flames which by their nature cannot show their light radii in DR. I think it's too much of an uphill battle to attempt to change this.
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At this point in my FM, probably not, but I was hoping to push out a set of candles with adjustable lights for general use to the community. If the colors, radii and texture were kept the same, they could even replace the ones in tdm_candles made by one Mr. Springheel. 'Could' being a key word here, as I don't know if they'll keep backwards compatibility if changing the candles to the "adjustable light" type would require changing the scriptobject or any of the action scripts the current ones have.
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Hey all. If I can generalize here, we have two types of lights in TDM, models that have lights attached to them and lights that have models attached to them. The former (e.g. candles) can't have their light radii and color changed. The latter (e.g. some of the new lanterns) can. I want to make some candle entityDefs that are the second type - adjustable light radius, the works. I've been digging in the definitions for our candles and it's quite a mess, however. Before I sink more time in, if anybody else has experimented can you tell me if it's even feasible? I worry that it may not be since candles are uniquely moveable and every light-first entity I've seen isn't.
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If I'm not wrong that one shipped with A New Job, so it might be Springheel? Then again, it's an .ase and not an .lwo, so it may not be the case. I see there's actually a chain extension in the model, so hopefully a short chain version won't be hard.
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Hey,
I have some smoke coming out of chimneys, and wind blow, with clouds moving. I'd like the smoke to look like it's effected by the wind.
is it possible to have the smoke column inclined at some angle from vertical and angle to the horizontal? ie to incline same direction the clouds are moving?
The easiest way is just faking it
Browse to the particle you're using in the Particle Editor, duplicate it (or you can overwrite it if you're lazy, the overwrite will only be effective while your FM is installed anyway so no biggie), then edit the gravity so that the smoke is falling at the pace you want. Don't check "use world gravity". I assume you'd have to rotate your func_emitters sideways so it actually looks like wind, but that should be it, I think.
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By my guesses the pop in happens only when you enter a zone for the first time or when you travel between three zones fast. The latter case is fixable by setting your 2foip spawnargs to a longer fadein/out. The former I could only guess happens because even though the sound shaders are supposed to be "precached" they still load for the first time, making them skip fadeins. Perhaps making the sound shaders consist of two files makes the system load both, skipping the fade on the silence (which doesn't cause a pop, obviously) but it still works for the song proper. Again, all conjecture.
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Most zoned ambients, when used in place of regular ambient sounds, sound considerably worse. It does not matter whether they are coming off a speaker or from the location system. I encountered this way back when working on King of Diamonds and even pointed it out on the forums, but nobody seemed to take notice. I used non-zoned ambients in KoD for this precise reason, which led to complaints about the loud popping you hear when you don't use _z ambients. Now I've come to a head when implementing location settings in my new FM and I cannot deal with the pop-in anymore. I've debugged this issue myself, leading to this discovery.
The leadin "silence.ogg" is needed for zoned ambients to properly fade in and out when used in the location system. Currently, this sound file is in mono format. ALL ambient sounds that we have in stereo format are currently suffering great audio quality loss when used in combination with a mono leadin.
The easy solution to this problem is this: convert "silence.ogg" from a mono to a stereo file. Most our (good) music is in stereo, so this will fix the issue - I tested it personally. However, just as a mono leadin will ruin a stereo sound, testing revealed that a stereo leadin also ruins a mono sound. If we're to be rigorous, there must be two silence leadin files: "silence.ogg" and "silence_stereo.ogg". In the ambience_zoned.sndshd file, the appropriate leadin must be declared depending on the type of file. I've no idea how to batch check for numbers of channels on lots of audio files, so this may prove to be arduous gruntwork.
Nevertheless, I highly suggest that at least the easy fix get applied for the next update. The quality gain from fixing a bunch of stereo sound is much greater than ruining a handful of mono sound.
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See the bugtracker report I've filed here.
If you want to test this yourself, I've provided a stereo "silence.ogg" for your convenience. Place it in "sound/ambient/ambience/" to override the default one. An example stereo ambient to test the change is "forest_children_z". An example mono one would be "hum_intense03_loop_z". You can immediately test the difference in sound in-game by renaming this custom "silence.ogg" to e.g. "silence_diffname.ogg" after you've placed it and typing "realoadSounds" in the console while near a speaker emitting either of those two sound shaders.
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Spooks - are you sure you're not secretly an interior designer? The choice of your ambient light, colours, pattern, and interior decor is always so in compliment with everything else in view - it is consistently very well done, always improving.
Well I have background in art so I like to think that helps.
Mapping can be solitary work, so I think it's time I shared the first screenshot of the FM I'm working on the forums. I just finished this staircase section, but it's still very much work in progress. Still, I think it represents a close approximation of the quality I'm aiming for in the rest of the FM.
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Hey! Today's the one year anniversary of the release of King of Diamonds! To commemorate the occasion, I'll do what I said I would in another thread and publish the beta version of the map from before it entered public testing.
I've always loved looking at video game levels in various stages of completion and seeing how the process of iteration shaped the final product. There isn't nearly enough historical preservation like this in video game circles, so I'm being the change I want to see in the world.
I hope you'll have fun figuring what things were changed, moved, or cut and replaced wholesale (Do you remember this screenshot? Yeah.) I even did a run of this version last night and it's technically beatable, so if you wanted to you could do that too! If you want my personal opinion - I've said it before but I still prefer the final version over this for its considerably extended narrative and gameplay content. Maybe you can come back to me with your own opinion, I'd love to hear it.
A couple of things:
The "Fancy Key" is the master key used in debugging to open any lock. Use it only if you want to.
I had to assemble this .pk4 from several versions of the map. Therefore, you'll be getting the near-final versions of the readables and voice lines. This is why the "Directions to Tavern" map still has a bell tower drawn on it, for instance. It would've been a more authentic experience if you could hear all the placeholder lines done by me and all the first draft readables, but oh well!
The readme and loading screen aren't joking. Boy is there some bad framerate in certain spots.
Here's to FMs past and future! *clank* Cheers.
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I had to load a high specularity texture just to make sure it worked.
Sure enough, the specular's still fuzzy. I made sure I replaced the vpf correctly by disabling it and running the scene again. Without it, the wall on the left and the one on the right are corrupted, so it's definitely an improvement, but still not there. It's not that one side of the cubemap light is buggy and the other isn't, if I put the high spec texture on the left wall the specular will get fuzzy too. In addition I've noticed the left (in picture, down by default) image in cubegrate6 is inverted, I checked the textures of it to be sure and it shouldn't be the case. Same with or without the new .vpf.
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I think it would be great to have a comprehensive material reference page in the wiki, with code and pictures, since these questions repeat quite often. It's a huge task, but it would be great to have something like this: https://docs.unrealengine.com/udk/Three/MaterialExamples.html
https://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/materials.php fills the gap well enough, I think. idtech4's materials aren't as complex as UE3's. At the very least a mirror of iddevnet's resource over at our wiki would be better than the nothing we have now, though, as you never know when a site might go down.
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Thanks! I went here first since I was erring on the side of caution with it not being possible
So, what are you working on right now?
in TDM Editors Guild
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It isn't properly VP'd yet, so I'd be unfair to throw preliminary numbers around, but it does hover in the 55-60 FPS range.