Geep

Greets - I'm trying to use the trigger_look script for the first time. When my player looks at the seen-object (a rope), the trigger works fine based on the default distance and "once"=1. What does not work is the view direction (just using default), which is ignored (e.g., as if "tolerance" was 2). I can back my player up to the seen-object, and still it triggers when within distance. I've also noticed a console warning about divide by zero in line 66 of the script. Presumably this is the call to the length function float length(vector v) { return sys.sqrt(v_x*v_x+v_y*v_y+v_z*v_z); } Perhaps sys.sqrt is broken? This is under TDM 2.07/Windows 10. Any help would be great, but no hurry... I'm going to be away from my dev machine for a few weeks, so can't diagnose further in the short term. By the way, attached are some ideas to improve your corresponding wiki page, that I wrote up as I was researching this. Ignore or use as you see fit. Thanks Forum post ideas.txt

Recently, I wanted to express the TDM Objective: “don’t pick up a particular loot item”. I guessed there’s a way to do it in the Objectives Editor using an “Acquire entity” component, but I couldn’t figure out how to make that work. I ultimately succeeded with a different, script-based approach. But for future reference, how should I have done it with “Acquire entity”? Details What I tried: I added a new objective, with “Ongoing” checked, then added a component of type “Acquire entity” aka “Player possesses item”. As part of that, I selected the Item field prompt “Name of single entity” and in the field put the entity instance name. But that name did not seem to “stick” across invocations of Edit Objective. I set the flags “Satisfied at start” and “Boolean NOT” (i.e., item not acquired). It wasn’t clear what to do what to set “Amount” to… zero? 1? What worked instead (abstracted here): A simple objective with default settings was used, with objective component type of “custom” / “Controlled by external script”. The loot item was given a frob_action_script spawnarg to call a script function, that in turn calls sys.trigger($atdm_target_setobjective_state_prohibited_loot_failed); // mission fail This atdm_target_setobjective_state explicitly set the minimal objective to state 3 (fail). (BTW, this overall approach made it easy to add bonus script-invoked sound-and-visual FXs as precursor to the “mission fail”. So all good.)

Or maybe "done & hide" from a script: sys.trigger($atdm_target_setobjective_visibility_hide_my_objectives); $atdm_target_setobjective_state_hidden_done.activate($player1); // mark my hidden objectives as done

I also would like this feature. It would avoid having to also hide all unselected items (outside the group) before ungrouping, so that you could then easily regroup.

It's great to learn about the DR method, VanishedOne. Even though it's limited to a particular list type at a time, and - as you note - the up/down approach to results can be tedious when hits are bountiful. I wonder why the search box is kept hidden until you start typing. There's ample space (say, in the header) to keep it visible, and doing so would then advertise the feature's existence.

Nice approach, even if the more detailed search is slower as you said; it has more to search without the speed benefit of pre-indexing.

Different topic. I was unable to find is a way within DR to search for a particular object (to add to a map) by key word, ideally across the {entity, model, prefab} universe. (If it exists, please tell me where? Or this might be a new feature request [see below]) Maybe those of you on Linux use the op sys for this. Along those lines, here's what I came up with quickly for Win10 (i.e., without writing a shell script or C# program). Win10 as native support to index .zip's, but not .pk4s. So I made a copy of the tdm_update_win directory (say, " tdm_update_win_search_copy") and renamed all the .pk4 to .zip (using the command console "rename *.pk4 *.zip"). You can then follow the procedure here to make sure .zip files are indexed and the search includes them: https://superuser.com/questions/1252895/how-do-i-do-a-search-in-file-explorer-that-includes-subfolders-of-zip-archives# Purging non-zip files and folders from tdm_update_win_search_copy will cut down on the false hits. Then you start your search within that folder. The resulting listing, while non-ideal, should be often good enough. A limitation is that the algorithm is just looking for a string within individual filenames (e.g., within each .zip container), so doesn't know about any descriptive text. (An ideal version within DR could offer that, and smart filters too. And maybe over time synonyms, support for topic tags, on and on...) Interesting to hear about other solutions too.

That's true. And you can use the filters to hide the obscuring patches. It's OK, but - you only see one character at a time (i.e., can't have multiple "create entity" viewers open) - without heads - can't change default zoom level, as you bounce among characters. Always have to rezoom. On a different topic, I'm playing around with water inside a sunken ship for the next mission. Info about floating objects was slight, so after researching it and doing some experiments I created a wiki page, attached. Could you instantiate it for me (and review as time allows)? Please also link from the [[Water Tutorials]] index topic. Thanks. Objects Floating in Water.txt

I can understand that. The other aids to character selection also seem limited. The AI entity view in DR doesn't give much of a feel, given the rather distant view of separate bodies and heads with their obscuring patches and textures. In the forum, I did see that a skeleton AI "database" webpage exists, which could have character screenshots and entity paths, but doesn't currently.

Just looking a startpack 3 for the first time. It's useful, but the presented sample AI characters ARE 100% DUDES. And more broadly, whole classes of standard-distribution AI humans and creatures are omitted. I'm willing to look into expanding the size and number of the character rooms to be more comprehensive (rather than immediately plan a new game). But only if the community thinks that is worthwhile. Has any work already been done on a StartPack 4? 

Oh, sorry, this is in the wrong forum. I'll repost it in "I want to help"

Just looking a startpack 3 for the first time. It's useful, but the presented sample AI characters ARE 100% DUDES. And more broadly, whole classes of standard-distribution AI humans and creatures are omitted. I'm willing to look into expanding the size and number of the character rooms to be more comprehensive (rather than immediately plan a new game). But only if the community thinks that is worthwhile. Has any work already been done on a StartPack 4?

Or if time doesn't allow reviewing, please someone, just replace the original page content with the update (Model Scaler v2.txt), which I promise is better. Thanks.

So, this is a known issue. When looking into this oddity, I did try to consult the bugtracker, but found it down, as Springheel notes. When the tracker revives, it might be helpful to add a link back to this thread to an appropriate existing bug report. Otherwise, I've little more to add here.

OK, here's a revision. I promoted grayman's addition into it's own section, corrected the bullets and links, tweaked the headings, verbiage, & italics a bit. As I mentioned, the reformatting was done blind. Please review, fix any remaining bloopers, and update http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Model_Scaling Thanks Model Scaler v2.txt

Understood. Makes it hard to complete format tweaking, though, which is generally an iterative process for me. (Ideal system would be some forum sandbox to post and refine wiki page previews. Don't really expect that.) I guess I can further format the wiki source blind and attach the suggested revised version here. Is that the best approach?

Thanks, Springheel, grayman. Unfortunately, it appears that it's not true that one can edit the wiki without logging in... and forum credentials (as discovered earlier) don't cover logging in at the wiki. Could someone please create me a "Geep" wiki account with editing privileges? Thanks.

Further insight: perhaps the water layer in tdm_sky_starry2 suppresses this effect. This anomaly is also see with other skyboxes (e.g., "fog") that uses animated textures of twinkle_stars or clouds. Indeed, even non-skybox brush walls with twinkle_stars applied exhibit this effect (didn't try clouds). So it's the animation shader code for these textures that is the likely culprit. BTW, it turns out tdm_sky_starry2 wasn't a viable solution for me. Instead, putting in an unlit dark iron perimeter wall in front of the skybox did the trick, hid the anomaly.

Solved (sort of)! There is evidently a minor bug in the way skybox tdm_sky_starry1 works with portal sky. The somewhat different tdm_sky_starry2 doesn't suffer it. The bug is not typically visible due to ground structures and clutter. To reproduce the problem: 1) Start a new project, with a hollow box as a room (e.g., 512 units per side) 2) Texture the sides with portal sky, except give the floor a typical (not too dark) texture. 3) Outside the room, create prefab nature/skybox/tdm_sky_starry1.pfb 4) In the room centroid, create entity Lights/sources/atdm_ambient_world. As usual, extend its scope to all the room. 5) For easy bug detection, change its colour spawnarg to be something too bright, e.g., RGB(255,255,255). 6) Set the player start, then save, dmap, run. 7) Run the player around the floor perimeter, with the black sky to the player's left, and the player viewing the floor. As you move the player around, look for a small square in the lower-left corner of the screen, when that corner is over the portal sky texture. It's as if it's the view of a high-contrast security camera (attached to the player's chin?)

Not intentionally. Looked over the available console commands, and those bound to my keys... nothing too obvious as a cause. Another finding, though: The rectangle is not really an overlay, but appears behind game objects on top of the surrounding night-time Portal Sky texture (which is much more encompassing in my FM than the average FM). The Portal Sky stars are visible through this square, which perhaps is more like a square lightening filter... but the degree of lightening flickers as motion occurs.

I'm building my first FM in DR, and for some reason, when I'm testing my unpackaged build, on world spawn there's a fixed square overlay in the lower left screen corner, a few cm on a side, with vague contents that morph as the player moves. It could I guess be a secondary camera (perhaps downward facing). This square doesn't appear when running other FMs in Win10, so it must be a problem with my build. No odd spawnargs on the info_player, and nothing I could find in the wiki or forum. Any help as to what this is and how to find it/turn it off would be much appreciated.

Springheel or other wiki admin - Attached is the proposed page content (but not yet wiki-formatted). If the contents look OK, please create the page for me to complete. Proposed page title is Rescaling Models with Dark Radiant's “Model Scaler” Probably I can complete the page formatting as a guest, save the access grant to the future. thanks Model Scaler.txt

I can write a stub description in the wiki. I tried to log in to the wiki with my forum credentials (so I could create a new page), but they weren't honored. Are wiki login creds separate from forum creds. Or is wiki login not working?

Does that imply the scaled vertices will snap-align with current grid when a scaling handle is released, with shape distortion commensurate with grid spacing?

Background: I'm building my first TDM game under Win10 with DR, and used Springheel's vids to learn basics (since Great Site Crash of June 2019 made other info inaccessible until recently). I've worked with other IDE's in past *cough Unity*. In DR, I was having difficulties scaling up standard models, e.g., grammaphone. DR's Modify->Transform and Scale menu always had the scaling menu grayed out. I made some headway using the rotation matrix's XYZ values (a deprecated method), but with the game-time anomalies others had reported (to lighting and presumably collision model) or didn't report (rendering stops prematurely on scaled-up objects at periphery of player's vision). Finally, I discovered a forum post that mentioned the Model Scaler, which solved the anomalies. Yeah! But further thoughts as a DR newbie: 1) How come wiki.thedarkmod has NO mention of Model Scaler at all? Nor the major forum posts about scaling? There's really a need for guidance in wiki about when to use Modify/'Rotation and Scale' versus Rescale versus Model Scaler. (I'm willing to write a page if you help me know best scaling practices.) 2) If that info is in some video (appreciate pointer to it), here's a more general task suggestion: consider getting video transcription software, apply to each important vid and post to wiki web pages, so full-text search can find info. 3) The use of Model Scaler doesn't evidently changed the rotation matrix values (seen in Entity viewer). So it's changing some undocumented spawnarg? I need to be able to scale models by a fixed amount but can't control or even see that value... nor revert to unscaled (other than undo). Maybe I don't know where to look. Or the scaling factor's not retained because model edges are just resized and the original sizes forgotten? 4) Could (3) be is a feature request? Show a tooltip saying, e.g "2.763 x" as Model Scaler handles are moved. Otherwise, DR is working well for me, game builds fine. Exploring behavioral aspects now. Thanks. Geep