[TDM v1.03 vs 1.02 screenshot comparison]

Another two nice shots from Beleaguered Fence. But I better put them into spoiler-code...

 

 

[TDM v1.03 vs 1.02 screenshot comparison]

The following four shots I made tonight in Beleaguered Fence. The new stunning look of bricks and the wood-floor in front of the fire in the second shot, is that 'Edge-detection'?

 

 

edit: On the last two shots: why does not every wall look like the left one?

[Things that could be improved]

Realistically speaking, a bow would be far more likely to block a sword than a leather bag. At least a bow is made out of wood.

Hmm, okay, here comes my last but most powerful argument: It was possible in Thief1/2 (I can´t tell for TDS).

It´s not really the block itself but the aspect that I can´t raise the blackjack for defence at all. Who cares if it´s not effective, let players find out themselves. Hey, even record guard-laughter so they can mock the player sth like "Hohohaha, what are you gonna do with that you silly wannabe?". Sound like a good idea?

 

And about my blackjack-hit-cancel-script: Does someone already looked at it and has some tips what can be done to make it better? At least that repeating-animation when block is hold I want to get away. And also isn´t it sth for the mod to cancel the attack? How often did you raised your blackjack and sth stupid happened that made you want to cancel but instead you hit the wall?

 

Some completely unrealistic crazy animation ideas too:

Group court dances!

 

Entwined with a few greeting animations (bows) this could lead to wicked party missions.

 

What the hell , are you serious about this?

[Bug with mission introductions]

So what makes this happen in some maps and not others?

 

Well, what FM does not have this behaviour? I thought it was in every mission because I rarely hit ESC during the briefing.

Maybe other mappers found out and fixed it for themselves like me and haven´t told anyone (like me).

[Bug with mission introductions]

Yeah, it´s definitely what I said: (and nobody listened, not good for my ego... )

 

Open beleaguered_fence.pk4 with zip-program and extract the gui-folder into the Doom3\beleaguered_fence-folder. Then open mainmenu_briefing.gui (located in gui-folder) in text-editor and search for the following: (it starts at line 57)

 

	// Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states.
windowDef BriefingStateEnd
{
	noTime 1

	onTime 0
	{
		set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'";

		set "Briefing::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1";

		set "notime" "1";
	}
}

 

Then add showCursor "1" ; somewhere inside the inner brackets, so it looks like this:

 

	// Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states.
windowDef BriefingStateEnd
{
	noTime 1

	onTime 0
	{
		set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'";

		set "Briefing::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1";
		showCursor "1" ;

		set "notime" "1";
	}
}

 

Save the file and that´s it. The cursor is back when you hit ESC.

[Bug with mission introductions]

Hey, did you even noticed my post?

[Things that could be improved]

Arg, I knew it... Of course it should be less effective than the sword, hell, even give the player (decreased) damage. But I don´t like it that I can´t raise the blackjack for defence at all. The blackjack wouldn´t fall apart like the bow would, would it?

 

But at least help me out with the 'cancel attack'-script, please? Please!!

[AI paths after being alerted look offset]

Hey, I saw this kind of behaviour too in Cathedral of St.Alban with the sitting/patroling guard by the cells. As I came down he sat in the wall by the staircase. No alerts before and it didn´t happen on my first playthrough(-attempt).

[Things that could be improved]

Again for the Blackjack-hit-cancel-with-block-key-feature:

 

I couldn´t help but looked again at my script-attempt from yesterday that I dismissed and now I got it working, well, it´s not perfect of course. Make sure that you hit the block-button very short, else the hit-start-animation repeats itself. Since you all know that I´m not very skilled you can imagine that it was mostly trail&error and I can´t think of what to do else, so hopefully someone skilled enough can perfect the script and even put in a real blocking-feature? Sth. like the Block from Thief1/2 would be cool. I loved to hit block just to look at my tools...

 

Anyway, here it is:zzz_bj-cancel.pk4.txt

 

Remove the '.txt' from the end of the filename and put it in the DarkMod-folder. The script is inside.

 

And before someone says it: No, I don´t think it´s unrealistic to block an attack with the blackjack. One simple block should make it less effective as the sword.

[Guard animation bug]

Ah, is that the guard who also likes to sit on thin air? By coincidence I planned to play exactly this FM, Beleaguered Fence, right now, I´ll report in my experiences. (most likely in a couple of hours...)

[AI paths after being alerted look offset]

More description please, that shot definitely tells not more than 1000 words.

 

But I think I saw once what you could mean, but only on AI´s that were not patroling? Or it´s 1.03-related and I haven´t really played a FM in 1.03, but I plan to do so in a few minutes...

 

edit: Aaaah, after screenshoting, brightening and resizing the shot I finally see that the AI is sitting on thin air. What mission is that? I´m sure I haven´t played that. Anyway, I´m also sure that it can be fixed...

[Bug with mission introductions]

That´s a bug in the briefing-GUI. There is somewhere 'set mousecursor=1' missing, wait, I fixed that in my german translation for Crown of Penitence, I haven´t loaded it up now, but I´m sure it´s this:

 

 

	// Called when the MainMenuModeSelect script switches states.
windowDef BriefingStateEnd
{
	noTime 1

	onTime 0
	{
		set "cmd" "log 'BriefingStateEnd called.'";

		set "Briefing::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::visible" "0";
		set "BriefingAnimation::notime" "1";
		showCursor "1" ; // UNhide cursor

		set "notime" "1";
	}
}

 

I added 'showCursor "1" ; // UNhide cursor'.

But now, as we have Sotha´s GUI it´s not that important anymore I guess. I´m sure Sotha´s code can be improved to experience Briefings almost like the old ones and everyone will use it for his/her future FM. I´m very happy with what I did for my german version for crown to reconstruct the original briefing, well, you´ll see when I/we (me & 7upMan) finally release it along with another FM-translation...

[New Visual Options in TDM: 1.03]

I just want to report that I love the new visuals and the performance cost is barely noticeable!! Also the Bloom-setting seems more 'accurate' as far as I can judge. Also the lighting feels more atmospheric with enhanced settings. I bond a key with "toggle r_postprocess 0 1" and the difference is stunning. So, GREAT THANKS @ JC and everyone who helped to achieve it!!! I´m sure you will come up with more terrific stuff in the future with a low Performance-cost. That fog-banding f.e. is sth I hope you take a look at...

However, I haven´t tried to be underwater yet...

[Doom 3 and Micro-Lags]

Have you already tried to overclock the gfx card?

 

Oh no, after I tried that with my old GeForce 9800 GT I got OpenGL-errors while working on my Doom3-mod-merge. Meaning I started Doom3 several times for short periods about 2-5 minutes for testing changes and after, say, 5 startups the OpenGL-error came and I couldn´t start any 3D-app anymore and had to reboot OS. Also sometimes I noticed that Doom3 started, but didn´t loaded everything out of my pk4´s. So, I´m really afraid of overclocking. And:

 

I didn't back in the day, my own card would have melted, I guess, but I hear the HD4870 had quite some headroom. Also, how are your idle temps? Were they better than my 70°C?

Oh yeah, much better, about 3 degrees!! After system start its 67° and after a long DarkMod-test-session with max AA-settings and such it was at 68°. The Fan really is dynamic. F.e. in Cathedral of St.Alban I hear the fan kicking in when I look at detailed spots or at the top in the belltower. Really loud, so that strongens my need for FM´s with lot of ambiance...

 

I´ll send you a PM with more details, sorry, should´ve done that days ago, but this damn Xmas-thing, you know...

[I can help]

Hmm, I would love to hear the ambient tracks, but it´s forbidden. What did I do to deserve that?

 

Oh, I know:

 

I love the stuff you posted and I could hear. I have no complaint´s about the voice-samples. I´m eager to hear them in-game some time soon.

And I´m even more eager to hear ambient-tracks...

[Doom 3 and Micro-Lags]

Can you describe that 'Micro-lags' more please? Mission? Mission-spots?

 

Actually I tested my ATI-settings in Biker´s Cathedral of St.Alban in the spot near the tavern, in that little garden with the gate there you can climb up on leaves. There FPS drops either to 30 or between 45-5x depending on my settings, wait, that´s wrong. I put AA, Supersample, AF and Adaptive AA to maximum (but also Vsync with TB), no difference at that spot! Well, not more than 5 FPS. What makes big difference is the resolution of course. I would like to play in 1080p(1920x1080), but on some spots it´s down to 30 FPS, even when I disable all other stuff like AA and even Vsync. Still 30 FPS.

But in 720p(1280x720) it´s constantly over 50FPS, even with AA and such at maximum!! How do you call that gates before the room-fires Biker used in the houses? They look horrible in 720p, even with my new fov-setting (70) I have to step half to the room until they look right. In 1080p they´re fine, but also it´s slower. It sounds odd (for me), but under 50 FPS it´s too slow to look around smoothly.

I use ATI 4870 HD btw (Thanks to 7upMan ).

 

And I can´t play without Vsync! That tearing tears me apart, I can´t stand it, never could. Ok, I play on TV, that maybe makes that tearing more visible, but in the old monitor-days I never turned it off too.

 

In case you already forgot: more details on that 'Micro-lags' please , I wonder if I encounter them too...

[Stone footstep sound set]

I could probably make some of those with the recordings I made. I got up at 3:30 in the morning several times so i could record footsteps just outside my door on real cement with as little ambient noise as possible, so i recorded as much as i could stand with a ton of different steps with 5 different types of footwear. I should probably be able to mash something together from everything i've got.

 

Hehe, I adore your effort!

 

But with 1.03 there came definitely new player-footsteps, at least for 'stone', but my impression tells me that 'dirt' sounds better too. To be honest, after testing I like 1.03´s stone-steps more than yours. Yours sound too 'soft' for my taste.

I guess you got used to them via SVN? (the 1.03-ones I mean)

Or was there a bug that the guard-stone-sounds were played for the player before in 1.02??? Or was my install corrupt? Anyway, right now the player-footsteps sound damn good. I´m not sure for 'slade', that bothered me before, I´ll have to test again later.

The guards are the ones that would need more attention for the loud sounding steps. That´s really hard because it really seems that the ogg´s are sounding better in OS than in the game. Maybe it´s my sound-setup...

 

Again, thank you very much for your effort for the footsteps!!! Those are very important (´cause you gonna hear them for the whole mission...) !

[Should I make a screenshot thread?]

Very cool indeed, ocn!

[Things that could be improved]

It definitely works for the sword (abort a held swing by hitting "block"). To get it to work for the blackjack, I believe someone just has to copy those elements from the sword script over to the blackjack script.

 

Well, but there is no WEAPON_BLOCK-feature for the blackjack and also no animation...

[Stone footstep sound set]

Hey thanks!! But 1.03 came also with newer and nicer footstep-sounds for some ground-types. For the stone I can´t decide now which ones are better.

 

I guess I´ll give some the guards because I can´t stand them, however, listening to the stone-sounds out of 'sound\sfx\movement\ footsteps\human\', they sound way much better as in game. Though, annoying are only that loud ones like on the steps in the town-part in Cathedral of St. Alban.

 

Also in Fidcal´s Sound/Blackjack-trainer guards do stone-sounds on wood, but I saw now that there are already wood-sounds for the guards and the soundshader-def is correct too, so it must be a bug in the trainer...

 

Anyway, why do I have to delete files from the original pk4? (don´t need to rename to zip, just open with zip-program like 7-zip) Ah I see, I remember that from my Doom3-modding, the engine loads both sound-shaders and the old ogg-defs don´t get overridden by the new wav´s, so both are conflicting, took me a whole week to find that issue back then...

Well, now, when you run the updater you would have to delete the ogg´s again because of the stupid soundshader-handling...

 

From whom came then the new stone-footsteps that were shipped with v1.03?

[Compressing savegame file]

The results are the following:

 

Uncompressed save: 87Mb size, 7 seconds time.

 

Compressed save: 4.4 Mb size, 2.5 seconds time.

 

So writing compressed savefile is MUCH faster than uncompressed. Even if we compress the whole save file at once.

 

That sounds great, gimme that!!!

[Bugs circa 1.03]

Do you mean -60 is what was set in the info_location's "volume" spawnarg and you changed it to -8 in DR (also try "0")? (And you have the slider up to full; it's active when the default isn't 0.) A mapper set spawnarg will always override the default. Note the console debug text doesn't give the final volume; it's always the first number * the second number (another thing that needed changing.)

I'll have to look at that FM to see what's going on, I guess.

 

Yes, in DR I changed that, I tried with the first two tracks and the one from the citywatch. I also tried 0 but nothing changes. (Every time I adjust the slider which is full from the start) I also made RunAAS just in case, no luck. I don´t know what it is and give it up for now.

 

What missions are there else with lots of several custom ambients besides NHAT?

 

Can also someone please confirm the barely hearable music in Cathedral of St.Alban?

 

BTW: the new visuals are stunning and I can feel no performance impact at all!!

[TDM 1.03: HDR turns map upside down]

CatalystAI is really a fun-option. While playing Doom3 with it I saw funny colors and missing shadows, that upside-down sounds even more funny, I hope I can reproduce this, sadly I´m not on my PC now, but I´ll try. That´s the true reason I bought an ATI recently...

[Bugs circa 1.03]

Yes, this is my fault.

The short answer is I caught it and fixed it just as 1.03 was getting released, but it wasn't really in time to make the release, so the fix is up on the SVN trunk now but has to wait for the next public release. Sorry.

 

The longer answer if you're curious: Zero is the right default volume; it means "full volume" (they go negative from there, so -60 is silence; actually this applies to *all* speakers, not just this. Mappers need to know this.). In the past I changed it to be 0..1 because I thought it was stupid that "0" should be the max volume, but that ended up being worse because it's a decibel function so a linear scale is terrible, so I changed it back to -60..0. But then I stupidly missed a part where the multiplication gets screwed up (half of 0 is still 0), and that's what screwed up the slider for 1.03. I had to do a work around so e.g., ".5 x 0 = -30", the proper half volume.* Works now.

 

 

* Actually, the real proper half-volume would be closer to -15 because it's on a decibel (log) scale, not linear. That means half-volume is 3/4 up the slider and it shoots to zero pretty fast. But a linear-to-log conversion is complicated (beyond me, anyways), so it's an okay compromise.

 

Ok, I can live with that, but what is with Biker´s Cathedral-mission? The first ambient 'info-city' is set to '-60'. I changed that to '-8', but still, the track is played at lowest volume, barely hearable. It worked before in 1.02. NHAT1/3 uses custom ambients too but there is everything allright, a volume with '-8.....' is used there iirc.

Is there sth I can do? I really would like to play this mission finally, but not without Music, I´m too much an Ambiance Addict...

[Bugs circa 1.03]

The Ambient Sliders are still buggy, or even more:

 

In Biker´s Cathedral-mission the ambient-tracks play at lowest volume and don´t react on the sliders. I tested Bikers Cadecues-mission and there the music was fine and I also loaded up NHAT1/3 and there the music was fine too, I tested several locations from which I knew they had different tracks, but the sliders are not responding. Ok, for an instant the volume is like the sliders indicated, but in the next moment it´s back at max volume.

 

Again for Biker´s Cathedral-mission, I loaded a savegame, the music is restarted yes, but still at volume 0, here comes a condump:

 

Restarting ambient sound snd_house5 with volume 0
]tdm_music_volume
"tdm_music_volume" is:"0" default:"1.0"
Volume in dB for speakers with s_music set. Goes from -40 to 0.
]tdm_music_volume 1
tdm_music_volume changed from 1 to 1.025000 for current ambient volume 0

 

So, the current ambient volume is set to 0, can I change that? And what´s 'tdm_music_volume' for? As you see it was set to 0, and you can see what happened after I set it to 1.

 

Update: The problems are only there with custom ambients. The sliders are working with the track from the training mission f.e.