snowy
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Posts posted by snowy
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I want to attempt 100% loot runs of some of my favorite Dark Mod missions. I usually discover how much loot I've found after ending a mission on the stats screen.
Is there a way that I can see how much loot is left during a mission?
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This is a crazy mission. I mean that in a good way. I don't normally experience motion sickness. But here I can feel the motion just from my monitor. Fun, challenging and "physically immersive", I like it!
I imagine this mission would be even more fun in VR while standing. No cheating like holding onto anything. If VR TDM ever becomes a thing, I'll play this mission with it first. It'll be an experience like no other I'm sure.
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Moving to another engine killed a number of commercial game projects. Most recently it put System Shock 3 in a lot of trouble. And that project is coming from some of the people that gave us Ultima Underworld, Thief and Deus Ex.
I think that instead of requesting more features and better tech, a better move forward would be simplification. Simplification of code, coding workflow and more accessible tools to create new content, especially for new content creators.
A lot of companies use git for code. At least all the companies I've worked for and teamed up with, including companies that provide services for game studios. A git workflow allows anyone to submit code patches without any special privileges. A total stranger can contribute code. Then the core team can evaluate the code patches, provide feedback, accept or reject them.
The DarkRadiant tool is excellent in the hands of a dedicated and talented content author. For new content authors, the tool requires a large time investment. Maybe there's also room for an easier and much more limited tool. A tool for new content creators that are less interested in visuals and more interested in story telling. Or simply creating and playing their own first missions quickly. And getting them excited for creating more advanced missions. For example, this tool could be a strict 2d editor instead of 3d. The author can draw his world on a 2d grid with a selection of prefabs that snap seamlessly on this grid. Then they can tell their story with it. If the author decides he or she wants more control over its game world, then they can move on to DarkRadiant.
I wouldn't worry about TDM being based on an old engine at all. Look at a much much older community. The Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA) community. Their mods and missions use a game engine from 1987! They still have new missions coming out. The latest mission was added in november 2019. Their mission editor is also really easy to use and allows any story genre, so that might be part of their on-going activity. If their community can survive for 32+ years, then TDM will be good till at least 2032 ^^
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I agree! I usually don't finish missions with undead, but for this mission I toughed it out because the experience was great!
I don't know if Spoonman is still around, but you are, I want you to know I think both your Thief 2 and TDM missions are amazing. Your work is original and goes beyond what I'd expect to see in a Thief / TDM mission. You are a source of inspiration for me and one of the reasons I want to experiment with mapping for TDM. Thank you!
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This is a great mission! It looks great, sounds great and was really fun to explore. Thank you, Dragofer!
SpoilerI like how there are many places to explore and each place feels unique. It felt like multiple smaller distinct mission types woven into one mission.
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For the correct texture scale, is it alright to use "Modify Texture: Natural" in the surface inspector? Or is that unreliable for a realistic texture scale?
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4 hours ago, VanishedOne said:
How does this help us adding the missing and broken mission links on the wiki?
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You can look up missions and sort them on the wiki. Then find that mission name in the in-game DarkMod mission downloader and install them. It's inconvenient, but it does work.
I think your points are valid:
- I can't see any missions on the official mission page and it's been like that for a while. I think this page should redirect to the wiki missions page until it's fixed.
- I can't sort missions in the in-game DarkMod download page. This is a work-in-progress project discussed here.
- On the wiki I can't click on the mission titles, those redirects to the broken official mission page instead of the relevant forum mission thread that I'd expect to see. These links should be updated and link to the correct mission thread.
- On the wiki I can download missions up to 2013 through the B-icon, but other download links are broken or missing. For clarity, I think the B-icon should be changed to the word "download". Maybe someone can update these download links on the wiki if they have or know about a working mission mirror?
4 hours ago, ^^artin said:Am I blind or dumb ?
Why has it to be that difficult and uncomfortable ? Does Darkmod has a deathwish somehow ?
Let's not overreact though. There are working alternatives for everything. The best possible solution is that every player can just fire up the TDM game and start downloading and playing missions without having to take the effort to go to a website mission page, a forum or wiki. This is what the project from point 2 is about. I do think that the official mission page is important to promote recent TDM content and show the variety of missions TDM offers for new players.
From working on commercial online services since 2008, I know most customers don't take the effort to provide any feedback. If the service doesn't work, they just go away. It doesn't help to point the few customers that do complain the way around service problems, because you're still missing out on the silent majority. If I can compare The Dark Mod to such an online service, then I do think in its current state The Dark Mod is missing out on a lot of potential players.
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1 hour ago, peter_spy said:
Yes, use blend add stage for this.
25 minutes ago, Dragofer said:Could look at the _selflit variants of window textures for examples of how to use that blend add stage.
Thank you! You both pushed me in the right direction. In media I found textures/darkmod/window/lamp_glass_lit_opaque_colorme that offers both a custom _color property and fake ambient light. I will use this definition.
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I want to give a brush texture the illusion that it radiates light, but I prefer not to use a light source so I can cut down on the number of light sources in a scene. The texture just needs to be lit. It doesn't actually have to radiate light. Is it possible to have a brush face texture always fully lit, regardless whether a light source hits it?
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Okay, before imaginations run wild, it's a kid-friendly show. But it does have snot and slime in close-up in several scenes, like Tarantino often has feet in close-up.
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So this is technically easy to implement, but all the textures need to be reworked?
Also, is the PBR shader mostly for metal surfaces and won't have much effect on stone and wood?
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7 hours ago, peter_spy said:
^And? That doesn't justify the thread title being unnecessarily clickbaity.
Agreed, save the clickbait titles for TDM missions. Like: Corbin the... [insert shock factor here]
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1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:
Disgusting, you mean "really" disgusting?
You'll know it when you see it
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If you liked the Dark Crystal movie, this is more of that. I think it looks great with a very good voice cast.
For me, the show takes itself too serious, no comedy and I think some scenes are overly disgusting. I'm not going to continue watching.
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It's easy to transition from working behind a computer to playing a game on the same computer. Likewise it's easy to transition from consuming media on a phone to playing a game on that phone. Although I think Quest is the right step forward, mobile VR is the best way forward. And even then, I think there are a few more problems.
Something like Google Cardboard, Daydream or Gear VR are still separate devices just like Quest. A mobile phone would need easily hidden unfoldable VR flaps so anyone with just a phone could easily transition to VR content without having to take such content into account in advance and bring something along for that occasion. Finally, VR is both isolating and any VR goggles don't look styling in public. So no one will do VR in public even if were possible and easily accessible, while mobile gaming in public is not a problem.
AR has much more potential as long as the goggles look stylish, like sunglasses. Nobody minds wearing those in public. And if they provide a friendly overlay showing highly rated places and a route to them, I can see that becoming very popular. It's not styling, reliable and cheap enough yet, but this is a step forward for AR:
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Someone requested two other GUI features, as I understand it these are:
- Sortable table columns (by clicking on the column titles?), maybe for both the mission download screen and mission manager.
- Real-time text filter for mission titles (could also be used for both the mission download screen and mission manager)
Is the number of downloads of each mission tracked online? If so, maybe it would also be interesting to see the number of times each mission has been downloaded in the mission download screen. For mission authors to see their download number going up after release, and for new player looking for popular missions by sorting on number of downloads. Similar to how on youtube you can see and sort videos on number of views.
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3 hours ago, wesp5 said:
Okay, I'm back from holiday now and could finally test it. I disagree about the "Refresh List" part, "Refresh Mission List" fits perfect and explains better what is meant, so I fixed that. But the main problem is that "Set finished" does nothing yet! This button would need to set the mission to finished in the missions.tdminfo file. Also for now it isn't correctly implemented for localisation, you need to assign a string instead of using direct text...
Welcome back and thanks for the feedback. I know about the localisation string, but I didn't want to add new words to several lang files without settling on the words first.
Did you add the code changes from my game/ModMenu.cpp code to darkmod_src, recompile and use the new binary from the 2.07hotfix branch? If you see the "Set finished" button and it does nothing, then this code is missing in the darkmod binary.
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Is it possible to use custom CSS to correct this? Like this:
pre.ipsCode { background-color: #333; }
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As a newbie I'm still working out a best strategy for creating a mission. I took a lot of notes on the TDM / TTLG / Quake fan missions, either because they have an interesting unique event, setting, low poly architecture or models I can study and reproduce in DR with brushes. I completed the Springheel and Sotha tutorials. Then I immediately tried to make my mission, spending 12 hours on it before losing interest on this map idea. That didn't work out well.
Now I've switched strategy, doing TDM speedmaps inspired by the Quake speedmapping community. Trying to create a really short 2-minute finished TDM mission within 100 minutes (excluding planning time) and doing something original and new every time. Builder church, rooftop parkour, city section etc. They're toy missions, but so far this is the most fun way for me to get better at DR and keeping at it.
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On 8/18/2019 at 5:57 PM, Springheel said:
All of this discussion is a bit moot, however, without confirming the following:
1. Is there someone with the necessary skills volunteering to take on a redesign of the download menu? I can help with the graphic design and image files, but my gui editing skills are fairly basic.
I can spend at least a few hours a week helping out with coding. Writing code is both my hobby and profession.
I have a background in AI and 11 years of professional coding experience (mainly Java, PHP and some C). These last 6 years I've also worked on interactive, responsive and animated web GUIs in JavaScript, HTML and CSS and single-page web apps. I've worked on GUIs both without and with styling systems such grid systems and re-usable styling building blocks that boost productivity.
C++ and ID Tech GUI scripting doesn't look too far off from what I'm used to. Maybe the GUI script can borrow ideas from CSS systems to make design changes easier.
This doesn't have to be a one-man job.
On 8/18/2019 at 5:57 PM, Springheel said:2. Is there someone with the necessary skills volunteering to redesign the mission archive input page to store additional information? Greebo and taaaki are the only two people who know how that works, I think.
Is the web part also under version control? If not, Greebo or taaaki might want to do this task themselves.
On 8/18/2019 at 5:57 PM, Springheel said:3. Is there someone willing to input all the new fields for our 100+ existing missions? It's unclear how much work this would be without knowing how much extra data is being added.
I'm also okay with doing the data entry work to add new information to the 100 existing missions to help improve the TDM GUI. If it's mostly wiki data being added, this isn't that much work.
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On 8/17/2019 at 3:15 AM, Springheel said:
I actually don't think any of those are especially relevant. Most would be the same for nearly every mission (98% of missions have briefings and difficulty settings and 98% don't have equipment stores or automaps), or have other issues (a mission may have a "custom asset" that became a core asset after its release).
I think our own wiki is the most reasonable place to look for potential extra info.
Then I think SeriousToni's mock-up is spot-on. Having a "selected for download" check, mission title, author, series, mission type and release date in the "Downloadable Missions" list. The fields about EFX and Monsters can be added to the "Read more..." section because of space, spoilers and not being primary information for selecting a mission.
I'd still separate "Story" and "Mission Notes" fields, which are now one field in TDM. Renaming "Mission details" at the bottom of the mock-up to "Story" which is primary information and a good teaser, and placing "Mission Notes" in the "Read more..." section which could contain useful information for the player and be more spoiler-ish. I'd also like to see a tiny square screenshot either left or right of the bottom "Story" field to aid the story teaser when browsing for missions. A screenshot like an image thumbnail could be very effective for mission authors to get players to download their mission.
Here's a case for separating "Story" and "Mission Notes":
VanishedOne made a mission called "In the Black". In the spoiler-ish "Read more..." section it would show that this mission features monsters: undead. The mission notes then mention that the undead can be completely avoided. Thanks to this note, I did play, enjoy and finish this mission that I otherwise would've avoided.-
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23 minutes ago, grayman said:
I hope someone’s going to provide all this new data. As a mission author, I’m not inclined to put in the extra time to provide it for my missions. Is a player honestly going to decide whether to play a mission or not based on whether there’s a shop? Call me grumpy, but time is short, and there it is.
4 minutes ago, SeriousToni said:I think these informations belong only to the wiki and also only for each author who decides if he / she wants to share that kind of data. For the ingame downloader, under "more details" there still could be a category row which displays 3 attributes at max. (the author decides if and which there are max 3 entries to set). We would have to decide if we want this no-spoiler version or the "I don't have to click each mission and then go to the details to find a mission that has a bank featuring".
Springheel said we should first have a consensus on what information to include. So first we need to know what information there could possibly be. The best source for that is the oldest source, from the TTLG mission authors. This is the information they include. We can exclude all of that, if none of the TDM mission authors want any of those fields. But then at least we can say we've excluded all those fields intentionally, not because we didn't know about them.
I think separating story and mission notes could be useful if there's anything the player should know about the mission not story related.
Maybe TTLG has this many fields and potential filters, simply because they have an insane amount of missions from authors since 1998 and it's really easy to get overwhelmed when browsing through them especially for newcomers. Also notice what's missing: there's no field for a mission rating. That's been brought up a few times here. I guess they don't need that, so we don't need one either.
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22 minutes ago, Springheel said:
Yes, we may want to keep some information in the "more details" section, as that would be the place you would expect more spoiler-ish information.
The wiki mission table has the most interesting information, I think. Title, author, release date, size, EFX support, series, mission type and monster info.
Beyond that, there would be the extra info usually included in TG / T2 FM missions which might not be relevant for TDM missions, such as:
- difficulty settings (yes / no), if yes, difficulty level names and any extra information about the difficulty levels
- equipment store (yes / no)
- map (yes / no)
- auto map (yes / no)
- custom assets (yes / no)
- multi-language support (yes / no), if yes, which languages?
- briefing (yes / no)
- build time
- story
- mission notes
- known bugs (if they aren't fixed)
Which information do we want to include in TDM? Which of those information fields would be considered spoilers and should be moved to the "more details" section?
Found loot progress during a mission
in The Dark Mod
Posted
That'll do the trick, thank you! ^^