The Wheezing Geyser

Perhaps a rating system modeled after that of the Roman Catholic Church's Legion of Decency? That's the coolest system because not even a Roman Catholic abides by it. It isn't in human nature. I think the "language and blood" in TDM is mostly humorous. Can't erase it without erasing the game. Try to imagine TDM without taverns and drunken blither. I like that TDM missions tend to have depth and there's a zillion ways to play them.

There are games like "Hitman" that I will not play, and videos like "American Sniper" that I will not watch. I will not go down that rabbit hole. I recoil from the insanity. But TDM isnt like this, so I don't see the problem.

Hey, Outlooker, you're just a wall of nonsense words, having nothing whatever to do to with TDM. You have to take care of your shit, man.

I'd put that down to a failure in imagination. Not to say that the idea isn't breathtaking. "Humanity" seeking new outposts in the Andromeda Galaxy, having somehow already used up the Milky Way, and now building "settlements" to infinity, fighting alien bad guys. A person doesn't even have to think, it's so banal.

Sotha: "Interestingly, it will work only if the player_clip brush has "hide 0" on it. Now the player_clip func_static is solid. When it is targeted, it becomes non-solid. When it is targeted, it becomes solid again. If I put "hide 1" on it, then it never works, as it never existed. Targeting it has no effect. So make sure the "hide 0" is on first, then target it so that it is in the state you want it to be initially, and then use it as desired." A general idea that could be used in many situations is where there's a textured face over an area where the texture is switched on/off, a visportal is switched on/off, and a clip brush is switched on/off. The applications are limitless. In my experiments the on/off toggling of texture visibility and func_visportal opening/closing is straightforward and the start on/off behavior is decidable in DR. But Sotha explains that the blocking action of the clip entity has to be "hide 0" at start, which means that the clipping is "on" at start, always, and this might not be in sync with how one wants the multi-entity thing to first operate. So one can override this start-on behavior by putting a trigger-once targeted at it, perhaps at player start or wherever.

Neonstyle, perhaps using one or two cinematics could work, since you want to stop the player from actively interfering, sneaking thru' a door when the AI is entering and mucking everything up. Something like: the door is locked to the player throughout the game until the AI opens it, but before the AI opens it there's a cutscene where the AI walks up to it and enters, closes it and there's the start of a loud intriguing audio, after which control is given back to the player who can open the door and sneak in and see what the commotion is about. Otherwise the player can come up close and badger the AI in infinite ways, trying to sneak in and if you put blocking entities up to frustrate those attempts it might be less immersive.

I wasn't complaining, people. I wasn't demanding anything.I praised a scene in King of Diamonds and explained why the scene worked so well, from an immersed player's perspective. I said what I had naively thought at the time, when playing through the scene, that it was normal, so hadn't realized that it required special intervention beyond the inbuilt capabilities of DR. I said that there was multi layered complexity in TDM editing, and that the work is daunting.

Dragofer, yes, I regularly use google and there's a ton of info collected in various forum posts going back years. There's very little info I'm in a rush for and I imagine if I ever do succeed in finishing a FM it'll take at least a year. If I can't figure something out for myself, with the aid of google and the wikis, I think I'll just drop it.

Obsttorte, I wasn't complaining and demanding. I was making an observation, is all.

In my recent playthrough of TDM I KO'ed two guards in a crossing-streets scene in King of Diamonds, then after dragging their bodies into the dark I found myself crouched behind them while watching a city-guard type saunter down the street. I was happily amused by the breathing of my victims, showing that they were alive. It breathed life into the scene - after which I forgot all about it as I went about KO'ing everyone that got in the way of my gathering loot. In retrospect, that went down as one of the most memorable scenes. Somehow I thought that was default behavior, as in a flag to be toggled and given a value in entity inspector. So a person could hit the '?' button and be given a brief explanation. IMO the biggest hurdle in FM editing is finding information on how to do the things that are regularly discussed in the forums. It isn't all that easy to learn by deconstructing existing FM's, because so much is idiosyncratic and the maps being deconstructed have a multi-layered complexity. It's daunting.

dragofer, I've been studying your "river" and have learned much, about how to make an area, use "seed", and I stole your foliage.ase because it's perfect size for... well, just about for general anything. I found out about how to use func_relays, etc., and I've hardly started learning. I hardly have a clue how you do it but you sure do keep things fun. (jeez, you even had a perfect carriage, with horses trotting along,...) I find it difficult to work with premade model "modules". Inevitably I almost instantly find that I have to make a copy of the model in DR made out of brushes and patches, and sometimes with interchangeable brushes and patches (e.g. part of a wall that's a patch, and that has a brush equivalent to replace it in certain circumstances), and which can be retextured, resized, split and decomposed, at will, so I have a fluid working space. Then I can make my own "corners" since it's part of the underlying geometry. What I learn from the premade models is about dimensions and style, and it seems to me that there's now a certain "DM Classic" style that I want my maps to belong to. Sotha's tutorial on "roads" was a demonstration of how to make a certain modular "road" out of patches and shaders, with these "edge" textures featured as transition shaders. But that isn't exactly the application I have in mind and I was trying to use the shaders inappropriately.

I make my modules to fit my map, I don't make my map to fit modules. There's no way I want to work with shaders that require I turn the underlying brushes and patches into func_statics just to see them in the game, where I can't even preview what is expected in the DR editor. No way. Not just to make a path through a woods, or a cavern.

Thanks dragofer. Sotha's tutorials are excellent. I think I will be making my own materials to do this kind of thing. The textures/darkmod/nature/grass/grass_edge/path/dirt/dirt_001_path isn't really an "edge". It's a whole path made of a center and two sides that fade out into alpha. I hope I don't come across as whiny. eta: oops, I see it's only got one "grass" side, and about 90% of it is "center". With no way of seeing this in DR, there's no way of controlling the placement by eye, except to dmap and play it in TDM and remember how out of whack my placement is. But there's really no way to edit it, to know wtf my changes to surface properties are doing, except by ... dmaping and playing again (I have to dmap again because I have to change it back and forth from func_static). Sure, I know it's "grass" and "dirt", somehow placed in the b&w alphamap that I see in the editor, but that doesn't amount to anything.

For example, textures/darkmod/nature/grass/grass_edge/path/dirt/dirt_001_path defined in materials/tdm_nature_grass_edge.mtr. First problem, all of these 'path' textures display as the identical black and white alpha image in DR, so it's 100% guesswork as to what they might look like in game. Next, when I make a patch and apply the above shader it doesn't even display in game. There's no indication whatsoever that I placed a patch with shader in the location. At one point I copy/pasted a path from I think Bikerdude's Alberic (might be another FM) and it was actually a concatenation of two patches, a dirt_solid_nodraw texture on a patch cloned over a patch that'd been turned into a func_static (which seems to be necessary) with a shaderparm3 with value 0.9, and having a textures/darkmod/nature/grass/grass_edge/path/dirt/dirt_002_dark_path shader. Is there any wiki or whatever that explains what's happening here? eta: definitely shaderparm3 is essential to having the shader show at all. The wiki on shaderparm variables doesn't explain very well - why is it necessary on these paths and not on the decals I've applied, and transparent materials I've made? What should I keep in mind when giving it a value between 0 and 1? The dirt_001_path is totally wrong for the area. Rats. And with no easy previews, the rats triumphant. Maybe I should make my own shaders for this kind of stuff.

Thank you. That worked first time, and now I have an idea of how and why it worked.

I found (trial and error) that having the info_location call a script that triggers a func_relay, the func_relay then targeting the static emitters and a target_callscriptfunction which calls the spline mover entities, is a sequence that works and doesn't break anything. The static emitters (with cycleTrigger 0, default, not 1 as I originally said) toggle on/off as I enter/exit the locations, and the moving emitters are triggered to start their endless loops when I first enter their locations. The spline movers never stop moving even after I exit their locations, but the info_location system isn't broken and TDM continues to switch locations as I move around. So I guess I'll leave it like that.

That only works if you want to locate your mission in these specific TDM locations with these specific TDM landmarks, which implies that the mission is located in a system of prefabbed TDM streets with outer-buildings too, and perhaps the connections between these locations, for the sake of consistency and believability. How can you have a TDM landmark next to a bar in one mission, next to a graveyard in another, with no consistent street design and interconnection with other TDM landmarks? I could never build a mission for such a setting because I'd need to go to school for half a year, first, just to get an idea of what I can't do vs what I have to do - nevermind what I could do. Even if I wanted to refer to a mythology of such landmarks in some readables, I'd have to bow to the preconceptions of the module and grand-map makers who made the overarching game world of these particular landmarks, these locations, as being *important*.

I finally have a firefly looping, set off by a script attached to an info_location entity by a "call_on_entry" flag. However, this breaks my entire info_location system as once the thing is looping, the "call_on_exit" flag doesn't work and in fact TDM thinks the player is always in that location, wherever the player goes. The "call_on_entry/exit" system works properly for a simple sys.trigger ($entity_name) argument that calls e.g. a func_emitter activating a particle effect. So the problem is particular to the looping firefly. My .map has several different locations. A mansion, mansion grounds, canal, tunnels, grotto, pond, etc., all of which are visportaled and partitioned as best I could according as the tutorials outline. Of course every area of the .map is still very rough and has to be tightened considerably. But sounds play accordingly as I enter/exit locations and all of that works and every area is properly sealed. To activate/deactivate entities, whether static and/or moving on splines etc., I cloned the same ultra-simple setup into two locations. A static func_emitter (with spawnflags 'start_off 1' and 'cycleTrigger 1') to be triggered on enter/exit , and a func_emitter/func_mover/func_splinemover combo to carry some moving effect. Following the wiki on location_settings I put flags call_on_entry fly_start1 (or 2) call_on_exit fly_start1 (or 2) on the appropriate info_locations This is my script (loop copied from dragofer/invernesse): void fly_start1(entity old_zone) { sys.println("script fly_start1 running.."); sys.trigger( $func_emitter_3); while (1) { $mover1.time(20); $mover1.startSpline($spline1); sys.waitFor($mover1); } } void fly_start2(entity old_zone) { sys.println("script fly_start2 running.."); sys.trigger( $func_emitter_5); while (1) { $mover2.time(20); $mover2.startSpline($spline2); sys.waitFor($mover2); } } The script works as advertised as the player enters either location, but that's the end of the show because it will not turn off when the location is exited and the entire location system breaks down. On the other hand, if I delete while (1) { $mover2.time(20); $mover2.startSpline($spline2); sys.waitFor($mover2); } from fly_start2, the trigger for func_emitter_5 triggers on/off as I enter/exit the grotto and the location settings work fine, until I enter the pond and trigger fly_start1 with its fly loop, and now TDM won't recognize any exit from pond.

Obsttorte, I'm totally interested in any of your tutorials. I think that when looked at reasonably and from any perspective, a TDM mission is very complicated and "scripting" is only one aspect. The same person who's looking to learn something about scripting for TDM will be learning how to set up visportals, how to differentiate between sealing and detail geometry, how to set up an area where the sound is coordinated in a way that motivates the scene, and the lighting, and on and on. This is a huge load to take in at once. Personally, I don't want to learn "computer programming" generally. Not at all. I want to know something about the "id-C" that's used to make TDM missions work, so the more nitty gritty and basic the example is, with all work shown so it's idiot proof, the better.

RPGista, it's so ironic that you should post a link to a good tutorial, where the links are defunct. So often I've come across a terrific tutorial illustrated, essentially, with pictures, which are now defunct. So the tutorial is useless. Well, there's nobody to complain to. Nobody owes me anything, in this particular endeavor. The most dismaying news I heard above, is that I have to learn either "C" or "C+" or "OOPS" or something, before finding out that "id-C" as pertains to TDM editing is different from all of them. And that I banged my head on that wall for nothing and that I still haven't learned the trick.

Thanks for the quick responses. Exactly what I needed, I've a clear path to go forward now. demagogue I followed your link to the cprogramming tutorial and installed codeblocks, so I'll follow your advice about learning those basics. Dragofer I unpacked your missions and looked at the scripts. Quite complicated and covering a lot of ground! Unfortunately I then got diverted and now I'm looting the invernesse. hehe. Hard to find all that loot tho'. Open a chest and there's one lousy gold! Or an old boot!

I understand boolean logic but have no (aka "zero") background in computer programming languages, and I don't have time left on this planet to learn the whole of c+++ or whatever so that I can introduce basic commands into scripts, most all of which are to do very elementary things. Fidcal's beginner's guide ends at page 2. I can learn some things by example. e.g. grayman's cinematics tutorial taught me how to make a spline curve for a mover and I used it to create a firefly that only works because I copy/pasted void fly_start() { $mover1.time(20); $mover1.startSpline($spline1); } From Arcturus' grass demo. Arcturus solved the problem of how to keep the flys buzzing by placing a trigger multiple over the entire space, with a wait time == to the mover time. I didn't want to do it that way, because I hate cluttering my map with huge brushes that I have to hide, then forget I hid them, then mess up some maybe copy/paste operation that required them to be visible. But I can't find any info on how to create an argument that loops the function, perhaps until the player is a certain distance and then switches the scene off. I've scrolled thru' an eternity of function descriptions, all of which require a certain knowledge about how to use them and so are useless to me. I figured wtf and appended an order at the end of the above script, to activate the scriptfunction that calls fly_start. TDM hated that sent me a gamestopping "error: event overflow. Possible infinite loop in script" and I think, well yeah, so TDM understands that I'm calling for a looped action. TDM just doesn't like the way I'm doing it. So where do I start learning this language? Not just for this instance, but there has to be an easier way for person to start learning how to script in TDM, for these extremely basic things, than just banging their head against the wall. (eta: notice the circuitous way I went to learning how to make a firefly buzz. At all. First thru' a tutorial on cinematics, then a demo of animated grass. Believe me when I say that I spent a long time searching for those sources. Yet, the term "firefly" is often used in an offhand way, with dead end links.)

I'm enjoying this mission. I'm still looking for the way forward after reading the clues - but that's par for the course so I'll give it some time and a bit of searching. My PC is an i5, with a 1060 GPU and 3840 x 2160 resolution, and at stock settings, normal LOD, I get lowest 33fps in the front yard. When I max absolutely everything out the lowest is 29fps. This is not only acceptable to me but I wouldn't know that there was something to complain about if I didn't have the fps showing in the upper right corner. Anyway, thanks for the new mission!

Excellent HMart! Thank you.

Thanks for the info on the format. As for what I'm going to do with the information, I won't know until and unless I try it, and knowing the format helps. I didn't have in mind tiling such a thing over large surfaces in some attempt to bust the engine.