[Shadow maps behavior]

I'm no graphics nerd, but I can barely tell the difference between the two.  What I can tell from messing around a bit:

• soft shadows of low quality look like garbage with both maps and stencils (EDIT: wrong, I didn't realize I was looking at shadow maps for a volumetric light shadow.  Stencil definitely looks better).
• increasing soft shadow quality decreases performance in both implementations.  I think the CPU/GPU of the end user would influence which is gives better performance
• both maps and stencils can produce a pixelated shadow if you look close enough. (EDIT: wrong.  Again, was looking at a volumetric light shadow).

I tend to use maps, because for whatever reason I seem to get a few more FPS out of them.

As a mapper, I am certainly NOT interested in endlessly tweaking a scene to make the shadows look perfect.  I just don't care enough.  If they look shockingly bad I will put some effort into it though (which will probably mean just disabling them for the offending entity).  It's rare that I feel this is necessary though.

So I guess I don't really get the argument that stencils are amazing and maps are crap.  I just don't see it or am too dense to notice. (EDIT: indeed I was being dense.  I was comparing shadow maps with shadow maps because I was looking at a volumetric light shadow).

Also, in my last couple of missions I had graphical bugs that only showed up with stencil shadows enabled.  It would be nice to not have to deal with that all the time.

 

[Things that could be improved]

On 3/4/2024 at 5:59 PM, AluminumHaste said:

Not so much that they chose not to use it, but that's it's extra work on top of what's likely to be a monumental amount of work already.

Yep.  I'd gladly include an automap in my missions....  if someone else were to draw them all for me.

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

3 hours ago, cvlw said:

Greetings TDMers.

Question about brushes such as NODRAW, LADDER, and similar brushes.

When should those be converted to func_static or left as worldspawn?

Is there any harm in leaving small brushes like this as worldspawn?

I would only leave it as worldspawn if you need it to act like worldspawn.  For example, if you have a nodrawsolid_wood brush covering a wonky wooden model and you want AI to be able to walk over it smoothly or it is to perform some sealing function.  Other than that, just make a func_static so it gets filtered out in DR when you want to only look at sealing brushwork.

So no harm in leaving it as worldspawn, but on the other hand you might get some benefit to making it a func_static.

[[2.12] viewpos on player HUD and screenshots]

I've added tdm_show_viewpos and screenshot_viewpos to here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Console_Useful_Controls

I know they are already mentioned here, there isn't much of an explanation about the arguments and it's nice to have all these commands on one page.

[Beta testing 2.12]

10 hours ago, stgatilov said:

I believe it only happens on Linux, Windows side somehow reduces the double-slash to single directory separator.

I was actually using Windows - so maybe not?

[Beta testing 2.12]

Getting a bunch of warnings on map start, I think related to subtitles?  It happens when I put the AI entity 'atdm:ai_townsfolk_female' in my map.

 

WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file                                                 
'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_heard08.srt' for sound        
'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_heard08.ogg' according to   
decl 'tdm_ai_lady02'                                                           
WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file                                                 
'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_seen_evidence04.srt' for sound
 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_alertdown_to_idle_seen_evidence04.ogg'       
according to decl 'tdm_ai_lady02'                                              
WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_idle09.srt' for  
sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_idle09.ogg' according to decl           
'tdm_ai_lady02'                                                                
WARNING:Couldn't load SRT file 'subtitles/lady02//tdm_ai_lady_idle11.srt' for  
sound 'sound/voices/lady02/tdm_ai_lady_idle11.ogg' according to decl           
'tdm_ai_lady02'  

 

[Wishlist For Darkradiant]

21 hours ago, 7318 said:

could it be possible to set the visportals, trigger, nodraw, and shadow textures transparent in the 3D view like the sky?

What do you mean by 'transparent'?  You mean filter them out?  If so you can already do that from the 'Filter' menu item at the top of the screen.

[Fan Mission: The Lieutenant 2: High Expectations by Frost_Salamander (2023/04/24)]

15 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:

 Must say it got rather tedious at some point: Finished it after over half a month, didn't manage to get one optional objective done as I stopped trying to find it. 

Let me guess - was it the:

Spoiler

Burns/Atkinson objective?  The idea was that was for completionists, but that was a dumb idea because I think most people wanted to finish it but weren't necessarily up for exploring every nook and cranny in the map.  Lesson learned there

 

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

I made changes:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Material_Files

Suggestions?

I don't know if it's mentioned anywhere else on the Wiki, but it's worth mentioning that the first global keywords are for sound:

    // Use on of the predefined surface types like:
    // none, metal, stone, flesh, glass, wood
    stone

And this:

    //surftype15
    //description "carpet This is a carpet texture."

I think this is sound as well, but I also think 'description' does other stuff, for example for using with vine arrows:

    stone
    description	"vine_friendly"

If someone has a list (or link to code) where all this is defined for TDM so mappers are aware, that would be useful.

I would also move the 'special keywords' section up so it's before the obsolete stuff - that old stuff needs to be relegated to the very bottom.  I would also change the title of that section from 'No ambient and frob -stages needed' to something like 'Deprecated stages' and say it's just there for historical reference.

[Newbie DarkRadiant Questions]

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

Looking at the material file wiki page:

Frob Highlight Stage isn't needed anymore since 2.11 right? I thought I understood that there might still be a reason to use it sometime. If not, I'll update that wiki page.

Edit: The info is actually already there, but in a confusing way.

It is confusing.

The first example shouldn't have the frob highlight section in it, and a note should be added to the text saying the example is for version 2.11 and greater.

The subsequent stages should be under a different heading clearly labelled as being deprecated/obsolete and they are only there for reference.

[[2.12] Increased Mantle Speed]

1 hour ago, wesp5 said:

I don't know what you mean by that, but I got the impression that several of the latest changes were made to get the old Thief community more interested in TDM. In that sense this isn't really about "new players" 

yeah this is what I meant, sorry for any confusion.  Daft has mentioned this several times as motivation.

[[2.12] Increased Mantle Speed]

1 hour ago, chakkman said:

May I ask where you got that "feedback from players" from, and who the "several mission authors" supporting making mantling faster are exactly?

I was asked to help test the mantling changes and I was neutral about them, but I am supportive of any changes that might encourage new players while at the same time not ruining my own experience.

Since upgrading to the 2.12 beta branch I've got used to the faster mantling and quite like it now.  Same with the frobbing changes, leaning and all the other stuff that's gone in.

[Prey 2017 why wobbly legs? [and general comments]]

6 hours ago, chakkman said:

I have Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 in my Steam library, but, never really gotten into them, because of that party stuff. Might give it another go one day. My taste and preferences change a bit from time to time.  

I'm a huge fan of those games, but I'm putting off getting BG3 because I'm a bit too worried they'll be too much like the Divinity games (from Larian).  Those were good, but a bit too cartoony for me and I never came close to finishing them.  I just didn't feel compelled to invest the time into them.

If you don't want to manage a party in Baldurs Gate games, just go solo.  Your one character gets all the XP instead of it being spread out among the party members .  If you feel you are missing out on companion quests, you can just take them in your party while you do their quest and then ditch them.

[Particle Collisions and Cutoff Feature]

1 hour ago, stgatilov said:

I'm not sure you are right. It seems that it is limited by area scissor.
Basically, take axis-aligned 2D bounding box of the door visportal: that would be the scissor of the outer area. The particles should be limited to this rectangle only.

If you move around, this rectangle will change of course.

Well, if you say so.  If I remove the 'areaLock' spawnarg from the rain patches, it falls through the roof and it looks the same whether the door is open or closed.  I'm just saying that opening the door doesn't seem to make the rain appear inside as you suggested above.

Regardless, I'm not advocating the areaLock method, just reporting observations.

[Particle Collisions and Cutoff Feature]

Just now, peter_spy said:

IMO there should be a warning of some sorts on this page. This tutorial was written by Fidcal ages ago, and there are possibly tons of things that might be severely outdated, and practices that would better be discouraged.

yeah totally.  One of the outputs of this discussion will be to update that page.

[Particle Collisions and Cutoff Feature]

1 hour ago, stgatilov said:

It was possible in theory to run it automatically during dmap (just like e.g. you never have to run aas tool directly, because dmap calls it automatically), but I'm afraid it would annoy everyone because it may take quite a lot of time depending on settings.

Now that some people have some practice with this, should we change it?

I haven't personally run it so not sure how long it actually takes.  @Amadeus how long did it take for WIS?

@stgatilov To make runParticle part of dmap,  is there a way to check if runParticle needs to be run or not first?  For example, if there are no particles present with 'collisionStatic' keyword than just skip it.  I wouldn't say this is big deal, but it's a manual step that the mapper could easily forget to run on release day...

 

1 hour ago, stgatilov said:

What do you mean by "default" behavior?
Default behavior of what? particles?

I meant the default weather materials - but Amadeus covered that in his question - thanks.

1 hour ago, stgatilov said:

As for areaLock, it does not restrict particles to single area. It only disables the whole system if renderer proves player does not see the specified area. As long as the door is open, you should still see rain falling indoors, no?

Actually this doesn't seem to be the case.  The rain seems to stay outside the visleaf if the door is open. In the example screenshot from inside the Inn in In Plain Sight, the rain patch actually extends over the roof of this building.  With the door open, the rain 'stays outside'.  However, you're right and still with this method you need to use individual patches and place them carefully (although I didn't have to worry about the height).  It's not perfect because rain will still poke through awnings and stuff outside.

 

[Particle Collisions and Cutoff Feature]

I just recently became aware of this feature: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Particle_collisions_and_cutoff

Unfortunately I completely missed it, as when I went to create weather effects in my FMs I just followed this (which doesn't mention it): https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Page_3#Rain_and_Snow

The point of this thread is to a) make people aware of it and b) gather feedback from any mappers that have used it so we can get some mapper-focused documentation in the Wiki.  The page above is great for background information about how it works, but as a mapper I really just want to know:

• What are the limitations of this (i.e. when should it be used and when shouldn't it be used)?
• Why isn't it the default behaviour?  Why all this work to get it into the map?
• What built-in support for it exists (particle definitions, materials, etc). Do I need to create all this stuff myself?
• Texture layout vs. Linear layout: what's the difference in the end, pros/cons, why would I use one over the other...
• Why does it need a separate command (runParticle)? Can this just not be bundled in with dmap?
• A clear, step-by-step instruction on how to implement it in a map from beginning to end using a simple use case.

Tagging some users who have relevant experience with this: @stgatilov @Goldwell @Amadeus

[Use of areaLock spawnarg]

Creating a new thread for this as it was being discussed in an old beta-testing thread starting here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21822-beta-testing-high-expectations/&do=findComment&comment=490751

I suppose the main questions are:

• when should this spawnarg be used, if at all?
• why was it introduced in the first place?
• Can we get it documented properly on the Wiki so misuse isn't propagated?

@stgatilov @Dragofer

 

[Beta testing 2.12]

5 hours ago, stgatilov said:

Some ways to fix the issue:

1. Use _black texture. It is (0, 0, 0), and I am rather sure it will be compressed to (0, 0, 0) by all implementations.
2. Modify textures/darkmod/sfx/black_matt to be full black (0, 0, 0).
3. Add forceHighQuality to the stage which blends textures/darkmod/sfx/black_matt.
4. Add DDS version of textures/darkmod/sfx/black_matt to core assets.

Note that points 1, 2, 4 produce equivalent output, i.e. force texture to (0, 0, 0) color.
Point 3 leaves the texture as (1, 1, 1), but there is no way to do this for all materials: the keyword has to be added to each material.

Points 1 and 3 look bad because they fix the problem now, but don't stop the problem from happening again in the future.

Using _black in the water material instead of textures/darkmod/sfx/black_matt fixes it in my WIP, so that will put the problem out of sight for me in the short term, but obviously doesn't address High Expectations. I could release an update for it, but it sounds like you're saying it's not a good long-term fix? 

[Beta testing 2.12]

In High Expectations, I used a custom water material because I wanted a water surface that was dark and not entirely transparent.  It looked pretty decent and I am using it in my next FM as well.  However in 2.12 the water material has a greenish tinge to it (see attached screenshots).  Here is the material - it's basically 'water_stream' with a blend stage using matt black: https://github.com/FrostSalamander/fsx/blob/main/materials/fs_water_stream_dark.mtr

These screenshots have the brightness and gamma cranked up to maximum, because the difference is subtle (but noticeable) on normal levels and the screenshots were way too dark without it.

High Expectations:

WIP FM:

[External art assets licensing]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

It would probably be the best to ask someone from textures.com on that.

I've reached out to them - hopefully they can give us a straight answer.

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

That can be a can of worms of all sorts. Does it mean the mission can't be hosted on TDM's servers, or textures and materials can't be used in other TDM FMs? That license is rather specific to 3d models, not video game mods / levels. Maybe that's the most common use case they deal with.

It does say 'VIDEO GAME LEVEL' in that section title, although you're right models are probably the main use case.

[External art assets licensing]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

IMO points like that assume that content is put in an encrypted / binarized package that can't be easily opened with common software (see Unreal or Unity asset packages, etc.). PK4 is a plain zip archive and everyone knows how to open it.

Edit: I had similar problem in the past, with a piano music composer who allowed some of his works to be used in video games, free of charge, but on the condition it was part of a larger file where you couldn't access his audio files.

OK but that sounds a bit like a special case where that requirement was explicitly made known up front?  There is nothing in that textures.com FAQ that specifies a requirement like that.  There is no way I would have assumed that myself.

I think unless someone pipes up and says it's a hard no for whatever reason, I will assume it's OK.

I suppose the other thing is a license for the FM itself.  Is it an option to include a different one than that used for TDM?

[External art assets licensing]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but what is the conclusion here?  I'm particularly asking about textures.com, because in my latest FM (WIP) I've used tons of textures from there.  When I first looked at it, I had concluded that it was OK to use them, but now I'm second guessing that because of this (also mentioned above):

Please note that it is not allowed to release our images under Open Source licenses (even when the materials are modified). If you are working on an game that is released under an Open Source license, you need to release content that has been created using our materials under a closed source license.

 

However, this here make me think it might be OK?  From https://www.textures.com/support/faq-license#3d-model

CAN I USE THE MATERIALS ON A 3D MODEL OR SCENE OR VIDEO GAME LEVEL WHICH I WILL OFFER OR SELL ON A DIGITAL MARKETPLACE?
Regular textures may be bundled with 3D models, scenes or video game levels under the following conditions:

you have customized the materials for the 3D model, scene or game level,
all materials are actually used on the 3D model, in the scene or game level
you are selling the model and materials in one package.
In other words: do not use bundling as a loophole to sell a texture or material pack.

Please add the following text in the documentation accompanying the model:
"One or more textures bundled with this project have been created with images from Textures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit www.textures.com for more information."

IMPORTANT: the exception to this is any content in the Special Content categories: 3D Scans, 3D Scans Atlas, 3D Objects, 3D Foliage, Substance, PBR Materials, Decals, HDR Spheres, HDR Skies, Graphic Designs and 3D Ornaments. The materials in these categories may NOT be bundled with 3D models or scenes. This even applies when you modify the materials: modification does not mean you are allowed to bundle these types of materials.

Again I'm specifically talking about using these are part of a fan mission, not the core game.  To satisfy the conditions above, I will:

• customisation: all textures have been converted to different formats (.dds and .tga) or resized
• I won't include any textures in the .pk4 that aren't included in the mission
• the FM will be bundled into a single .pk4 package (and I'm obviously not selling it).
• I'm only using the 'regular textures', not PBR or 3D materials.
• I will include the text 'One ore more textures...' in the FM readme.

 

 

[saving system cost loot]

11 minutes ago, CrisiusXIII said:

 

yes indeed, i am in need off it apperently. Is there such a big difference between the quick and menu saves?

Even if the quick is in fact a snapshot the variables have to be equal and i guess 99% is equal anyway, its a big bunch off data and variables and maybe a screenshot to start with???

I program some z80 myself, thats all small environment and i never could coop with any joystick, for me thats slower.

well "save your last dance change for me" please.

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they are the same thing, just different physical save files and are also managed a bit differently.

Quick saves overwrite older quick saves, but two are kept instead of just one and the game manages these for you so you don't have to think about it.  Menu saves as you've noticed you need manually manage, and provide a name, etc.

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but most players will use the menu to create 'hard saves' throughout the game to mark progress and as a failsafe in case they screw up their quick save (e.g. quick save right before you are about to die).  Then they use the quick save to fill in the gaps because it's convenient.  So they have different uses, which is why they are managed differently.

[saving system cost loot]

Maybe what you're looking for is a new feature?  Something like a hotkey that loads the most recent 'menu' save? This would be separate from the quick load/quick save functionality.

Is that what you are thinking of?