Wellingtoncrab
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Posts posted by Wellingtoncrab
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@nbohr1moreI did see your prior deleted post saying I did not belong in the contest and I admit it did sting a bit, as while perhaps not the intention it read like I had misrepresented what I had been doing. I would say from my perspective I have been quite consistent in that I do not care about the contest aspect at all, but that I wanted to use the deadline as motivation to finally finish my WIP mission, which as far as I knew at the time was kosher with the rules. What wasn’t is that I certainly missed the deadline.
I also spent the time incorporating the new 2.10 features, releasing assets for the contest participants and adding connection elements into the story as broadly these seemed good for the mod, just like encouraging participation and participating in the contest was.
That is it from my perspective. I certainly did not intend to conceal anything or wish to cause any issues, nor did I think my chances were particularly good I would make the contest deadline or even win such a thing.
Thus I am happy to participate in voting, to have the mission rolled up in promotional stuff related to the contest, etc if that is also helpful, but I would respectfully ask to not be considered for any placement as so far I find even discussing it has been quite deflating.
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Thanks everyone! (And again big thank you to all my testers)
@nbohr1more I figured at this point it would not be eligible for the contest as I missed the deadline by a heavy margin.
I have no problem with it being added to the mission database - I believe I have the darkmod.txt file setup correctly to prevent launch outside of 2.10
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-= IRIS =-
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WELLINGTONCRAB
TDM v 2.11 REQVer. 1.3
*For Maureen*
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"Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end."
-Valediction of the Devoted"What year is this? Am I dreaming?"
-Plea of the Thief
Dear Iris,I am old and broken.
When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse.
I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call...
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-Installation-Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11
**Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended**
-Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch-
Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory:
Iris Download==============
*Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!*
*Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag*
*Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/*
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WITH LASTING GRATITUDE:
OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos!
DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord.
ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use.
EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models.
AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing
TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS:
AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS
- What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies.
-=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=-
==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION==HONORABLE MENTION:
GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme.
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Boring Technical Information:
*Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.*
*Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.*-=-
This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know!
God Speed.
2.10 Features Used:
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Spoiler
- Revised entity limit
- Volumetric lighting
- Security Cameras
- X-rays
- Cabinet1 Extension pack
- Secrets System
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28 minutes ago, madtaffer said:
Did anyone get Error: file script/observer.script, line 84: Unknown value "getEntityFlag" when using b6?
The observer script is specific to Iris - do you want to post in the Iris Beta thread or message me the details of when you are seeing the error
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It seems like that particular organ is still available to be attached to ai - however the left hand must also be free to spawn/destroy it which is coincidentally also were the bottle for drunk ai is attached. This makes designing "pissing while pissed drunk" style immersive gameplay very difficult to design without lighting up the console like Christmas tree.
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Thanks for looking into it @Dragofer !
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Thanks! I have no issue with making the objectives visible later - only try to do so without the "new objective" gui message popping up!
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I want to have some customized messages appear for certain objectives and was curious if there was a way to prevent the hard coded gui messages for objective complete or new objective from appearing. I was able to suppress the objective complete message by inserting a frame delay between the objective being completed and making it visible, but of course this results in the "new objective" message popping up even if the objective had been visible before.
I didn't see anything, but anyone aware of a method to "silently" make an objective visible so custom gui messages and sound effects could appear?
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Turn off image sharpening as well as it makes the dithering more noticeable I would also try running at native resolution if you can
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This mission is incredibly awesome! Any further elaboration feels like a spoiler so I will simply say: fantastic work!
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What an incredible mission! The design of this thing is so clean and the package so complete I have no idea how it was pulled off, especially within the contest.
Incredible setting and atmosphere with some truly awe inspiring scenes. I should be finishing my mission right now, but how the hell can I with content as good as we are getting from this contest!
2.10 looks like it's going to have a hell of a head start.
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On my end I was not “in it to win it” so to speak - I just liked the idea of participating as it gave me a firm deadline to actually try and finish the thing and I liked the concept trying to incorporate some kind of continuity with the whole mod into the mission. I was also looking forward to getting the voters scoring results. On the first point the contest absolutely paid out for me in spades - as who knows where the thing would be without it.
I have a long list of polish bugs to squash, readables to proof read and some mechanics added in the late stage like the X-ray glasses could use some fleshing out so at the end of the day I am still happy if I don’t make the contest deadline and don’t qualify. I am very confident I won’t be far behind and I am looking forward to playing everyone else's missions!
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I would take any extension on the table - provided it felt fair to those who actually managed to finish on time!
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@Dragofershould be in there as the latest beta! I accidentally left the startmap.pk4 in there the first time
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I haven’t tried to load it 2.09 - I imagine quite a few features and performance optimizations would be missing so I would not recommend it!
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Yeah - if you want to keep you 2.09 install intact thebigh's recommendation makes sense to me. Pretty sure you can just run in an empty directory even and it redownload your selected version there.
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3 hours ago, jaxa said:
I'm willing, but I think I need to figure out how to update to the beta first.
Let me know if/when you make the plunge and I will send you a link!
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15 minutes ago, Acolytesix said:
Oh, reading along there. Do I need the 2.10 version for this one as well?
Yes it requires the 2.10 beta and is going to be a 2.10 release - let me know if you're still interested when you return and I will send you a link!
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"Dear Iris,
Do you remember, when we were young?
How we walked the buried track,
and named the nameless things?How our feet moved to the chthonic thrum
of the mandrosala drip,
pounding in our temples.
How the air beneath the trees was sweet and dark,
It felt like swimming.
We were so much closer then.-Yours"
After a period which I would describe as "many years" my first mission "Iris" is now ready for beta testing (hopefully). Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me along the way, and to those who are interested in helping me finally finish it! Iris is a standalone mission, but is intended as a submission in the connections contest so hopefully that is at least noticeable. It is a mission that strictly speaking can be beaten quite quickly, but typically won't be. I would say the time commitment is substantial. The mission was built predominantly with a gtx 1060 and 1650 mobile and I imagine the minimum spec is there abouts. 2.10 beta 4 is required
If you are interested in testing, you have my gratitude! Please state your interest here, or on the discord and I will send you a link to the beta.
I will be starting a thread in the beta testing channel here shortly.
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I wouldn't focus the lidless eye on our comrades over in the thief community for really no reason - Xorax should do this if he wants to derive and distribute textures from the site. If you like the images you see in the pack I would just get them straight from the source where they are available for free at twice the resolution. The owner of site took most of the images himself, so you may even want to consider paying for some. If you like the color grading and grunge filters that have been added it's not difficult to replicate - but the higher resolution image will in my experience at a minimum be a help when making the derived normal and specular maps.
I would still ask his permission directly when it comes to using them in a tdm mission given the core mod is open source and images are freely accessible from the .pk4 - this is also iffy with his license agreement. He remembers us and has been ok with his textures being used in people's missions, but he will often simultaneously reiterate things which are in his license agreement which gave me the overall impression it was not worth the risk going forward. He asked me to include this information in my readme "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."
At a minimum you could perhaps include that if you want to use Xorax's modified textures, but I can only speak personally it's very hard for me to know or even suspect someone does not want something done with their creative work and then consciously continue doing it or benefiting from it, so everyone has to make their own call there. You should look at the license agreements from the other sites that he mentions in the thread as most "free" sites have these clauses.
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Well I am no big city lawyer. If you’d argue after reading the clause “Competing products are for example textures, texture packs …” that literally distributing a given image as a texture within a texture pack is not a competing product you’d certainly be running circles around me.
Have actually corresponded with the gentleman it was kind of borderline enough to get him to expressly ok his images being bundled in a TDM mission in .pk4 - perhaps it’s my timid nature but it was iffy enough that I certainly stopped using his images for my materials from that point. I honestly don’t think he’d go for a pitch to download large portions of his library and redistribute them, but I am not the one doing that so I am not about to ask.
I do know when I pointed out some his assets were available on other free websites when I was asking him if he was the original license holder he DMCA’d them.
I am not here trying to tell anyone what they should do - I just know I made some of the same assumptions I see in the thread about “free” textures when I started out and making all those normal and specular maps ain’t easy, so better to know what you’re working with and decide to accept the risk than advertise it as risk free and then sweat it later in my opinion.
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Lots of good stuff in here - but I would caution there are clearly quite a few images in here which are licensed from "www.textures.com" - I recognize them as I have used them to make my own TDM materials.
This is acknowledged in the forum thread - where it stated that since it was from a free site there must not be a license associated with it - not quite!
While he has given written permission for his textures to be used in TDM missions in the past (including to me when I asked him) and there is free licensing available, the license strictly prohibits distributing his work, modified or not, as a texture pack which I think this probably qualifies.
https://www.textures.com/support/faq-license
While you could rationalize that using derivative images that are almost half the resolution of the free ones in a small community is pretty low risk, and the nature of licensing agreements change over time so the terms of use could have been different at the time the images were sourced, I would probably not assume what the creator is comfortable with outside of their own licensing agreement or at least attempt to correctly attribute the creators work.
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14 minutes ago, stgatilov said:
I don't like to discuss frob-highlight in generic beta testing thread, since I know it can generate a lot of text
Sorry!
15 minutes ago, stgatilov said:Players did the right thing and when they voted that outline does not belong to this game, don't blame them.
I hope that’s not what came across in my post. I don’t blame anyone for having a subjective opinion on the appearance of the frob highlight.
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57 minutes ago, nbohr1more said:Players have been offering negative feedback on the new change so it is likely that you will still need to include the frob stages.
That said, I urge people to test the new "black outline" options ( r_frobOutlinePreset 5 and 6 ) which are much more subtle and enhance visibility in both bright and dark scenes.
That is I think a shame. I would reiterate my emphatic support for the feature. I see criticism largely of how it looks but little in the way of understanding of the problems the new system addressed.
As both a player and mapper getting very near their first release I would say first as a player the outline never bothered me - it was an interaction prompt in a video game. I acclimated to it very quickly, as it was inherently an abstraction, just like the original highlight is. I do not expect them to make assets look better and in the history of immersive sims they never have. Players who don’t the like the outline will likely never agree with me there, but I hope they would agree that there isn’t much of a game without content.
This was in my opinion a very creator friendly feature and maybe if players can’t come around to the new highlight maybe they can come around to the fact people need to make content for the game, and the easier this is to do the more content they will have to play.
There is content in my mission which will be removed or altered now - that is not a complaint or a threat - after years I have the fortitude and skills meager enough to contend with it, but that was not always the case. I will give a concrete example:
A new mapper wants to setup a simple puzzle where the player enters a grave yard. There are some grave stones which the player will frob and information to solve the puzzle and some SPOOKY and SAD flavor text will pop up on screen. On paper this is super easy, there are lots of great grave stone assets and a prebuilt gui for popup messages. So the player builds their scene, setups up the grave stones loads into the game and it just doesn’t work. At this point they do not understand materials, much less material stages, they do not understand that all of the grave stones have transparent decals on the surface to create all the variations of engravings which do not react to the frob highlight. At this point they may not even have the confidence to post on this forum or the discord (I know I didn’t), they just know it doesn’t work and they assume they have done it wrong. So they go over and over everything again trying to get something to work that just won’t. At that point bruised they either give up or they go on. I don’t like to think how many give up, because learning to make a mission for TDM is a process of contending with those types of obstacles over and over again. ANY friction which can be removed is a win for players.
As spoiler alert - that mapper was me! That church yard with the grave stones is still in my mission all these years later, though I scrapped the puzzle and the context is quite different now as a result of that very frustration. I stuck with it, but at the time it killed me, as it was originally the end of the mission and reading the headstone was key to understanding the story. So if I seem REALLY on board with the frob outline maybe that is a contributing factor and I should acknowledge my own bias there.
Anyhow - that’s my last plea for hearts and minds on the matter. I am going to try some of these new presets!
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Christmas "Connections" Contest 2021 - [ Winner "Iris" ]
in Fan Missions
Posted
I am fine deferring to the other authors if they have no concerns, but if there is any concern at all about fairness in Iris being submitted, which is the impression I got from that original post, allowing it to participate in the contest mechanically, but not be eligible to win seems like a good middle ground to me as far helping out the community vs keeping the contest fair.
Again I am not invested in the outcome of the contest, but am invested in the Dark Mod and am just happy we are getting so many great missions to play and that I could finally get mine out!