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fllood

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Everything posted by fllood

  1. ohah, missed to noticed that though having shouldered and examine the poor guy. even I wouldn't have used it fine idea indeed.
  2. Now THAT were Many doors! A wonderful big mission with lots T2 vibe.. Loved every second being there! In particular I loved: + The peaceful, idyllic start area (some water and moss arrows to be found would have been nice) + The chosen location and spot ambient sounds were great! Sth. that I do care and appreciate much. + All the nice rooftop walking possibilities. + The multiple and different ways to enter + All of the crypt visuals and feel ( simply gorgeous!!!) + Good use of geometry and room propotions. + Very good readable texts (I agree about the humor don't fit a mission which otherwise try to be creepy). + Liked the loading bar screen with percent progress given. + Very good performnce on my comparative old Athlon 4200, 3 GB RAM, 8600 GT with always above 30 fps and no stutters. Thanks for the optimisations. Very apprecited! You built all this in six weeks Bikerduke ?? - think I better quit mapping if looking at the crap I come up within in six weeks, oohp ... Had sth. been on the cemetery to be able to find that I missed? Just for the record when you the plan your update after the contest. Not that these had smallen the good time I had in this haunted Builder outpost: - You are very curtly in the briefing texts. For this the player may feel thrown into the place not being connected to the setting at first. The job instruction in the note is cool. Anyway it's essence should be part of the briefing text as well. Easy thing to change - I agree with someone saying it would feel more at an archivment and rewarding to a player if making lifting the curse mandatory and the main reason why the player was send to the place. Finding the scepter and book may be optional. - I also agree that the challange level had been a bit too easy. Anyway to my personally taste. After I did roam the area a while I didn't felt spooked or at least endangered which I always hope for being in a haunted, creepy location. For that I would have loved to see a few high tension areas (guarded, lighted). For example the last companion of Alberic do guard his remains to making his skull more challanging and rewarding. - I was hindered by the AI stuck at the overturned statue already mentioned by others. This should be adressed in an update as making it impossible to enter that room without alerting him. - Door closing is ok and a relief my low end rig. I only wish it would happen after a little more time. I think it's to quick and made me felt to much rushed to move when I wanted to have a look if the area behind would be without danger. - The upper places of the cathedral felt a bit too empty with so much corridors being there and nearly no rooms. - The leaves of the tree of the right small front tower cut through the roof (you would have to move the tree though, personally I don't care) - Z fighting in the fireplace in the dining hall (just noticed, don't care very much either) - shifting/rotation the textures a little on some places (like the pillars in the room where to throw the skull into the basin) would make some objects feel less cloned on a few spots. - The pool in the starting area felt like summer night. Then I've seen the leaves. The fog isn't much I connect to a season rather to being a haunted places generally. So I didn't felt much a distinctive season. Did I care in such a great map? Hell, no!! Seasonal Theme 2, Gameplay 4, Aesthetics (rounding up to) 5 Thanks for all the time and love that went into this Biker!
  3. uhh second half of 2011 starts with a Bang! Thanks completing building this aspiring work for us taffers Springheel! I'm very much looking forward diving into your FM after I'm completed all the Contest missions.
  4. Congrats Jesps. Been a fun two hours! In particular I liked... Thank you for this mission!
  5. NH was able to find better words that one goal for a keyring for some of you is about the time needed to open a door with "trying multiple keys until it unlocks" versus the time needed "selecting a single keyring and just using it on the lock". (we don't speak about lockpicking) And if it needs less time to access a room behind a door with a keyring compared to trying many keys it is a difference from gameplay perspective in tense situations where time matters. If mappers give their keys distinctive intuitiv names you won't need to do so. You find a locked door where I thought the kitchen to be? just pick the key with the name "Kitchen Door Key". Some could argue, how should be player know about?! true... and using a script to name the key in the inventory after finding out to which door a key belong to probably not worth the efforts for keeping realism. hm don't know, just thinking loud... There are hotkeys for cycle that categories as well for people not afraid of using them I just mention this ... not trying to shift your preferences or to prevent any enthusiasm if you guys feel to add an optional keyring would add to TDM.
  6. That's much true! ... Dev's could concentrate on design and gameplay in those pre-Millenium games and not having to spend most of their time instead to impress the audiance with Uber Graphics like in most game since.
  7. hm so you rather like to circle through all the inventory items to find a keyring instead of right jumping to the key-only-circle (with the hotkey) and finding the prober ring?? ... well, for the key-only-circle you have to press one button, true. And reading the key names to find the right one. But the normal inventory usually have much more items to cricle through than the numbers of keys so far in any FM. Finding a keyring within all that inventory clutter would bug me much more as pressing one hotkey to get into the key-circle mode and picking the right key. A keyring would only be a real time saver for the mentioned audiance (if thats what you aim for) if you attach a keyring to a hotkey for drawing it without having to dig through the inventory. But then you also would have to press a "button in the dark" like with the current key-circle hotkey. And just one-button click away from the TDS' phrob-opening that Briareos H suggested ....
  8. That's like it is today. And the reason why it is so convenient One thing if considering implementing an optional keyring solution: It takes the player less time using a keyring ( = immediately auto-open) than finding the key from the key pool. So when time pressure is a matter in gameplay - say for example some guard is on his way on his patrol to the door the player want to enter quickly - using the keyring is a gamplay advantage (some would say cheat) over the current situation with keys.
  9. that's an interesting info ungoliant! thinking about it confuses me. What does block Line of Sight to VPs if not Worldspawn and Void? And what is the black block in the middle to block the Line of Sight in the parallel picture in the middle but not in the perpendicular example?
  10. Found Serpentine did recommend the diagonal VP method in the newbie questions thread and did a small test map to prove. I'll take a look at it the upcoming days. Mr. Mike said one interesting thing to be also considered: Sound propagation. To him sound seam not working well in Serpentine's testmap using the diagonal VP's.
  11. hhmmm everyone say different in that one, hrhrr ... The rooms drawn there aren't the one I meant and did for mitering though. Look at the VP example from Springs or me. The edges I did miter in my map so far are corners like where the blue diagonal VP hits the edge (or the two purple VP's meet). For all other room brushes I use Fig 1 and 3 so far. If it's worth doing ... well, as you say, most probably as esoteric as with caulk and yeah maybe not worth it below huge maps
  12. You are missing moving the green dot getting loser to the VP At some distance he will see area three round the corner when viewing (see green diagonal line). That shouldn't happen with using a diagonal VP. About using one or two diagonal VP's? I think I read some theory that brush touching a brush with different texture do split it (correct me if that's wrong!). The Quake 4 tutorial I got the VP recommendation only uses one diagonal VP brush. Can't make a small test right now. However when I'm able I think it will be easy to see if we need one or two diagonal VP's at corners ...
  13. Yeah that's ture: The gain won't be much for sure as mentioned. But for my noob map learning experience I like to give things a try doing like the idTech4 seniors recommand. And afterwards hopefully will know if it was worth the effort and advice. Or simply a waste . So far I found efforts be minimal. Might change, I'll see ... ungoliant has a point about when things must be changed. hm. I try to keep my wall brushes most all the same size as recommended by Baddcog. So I think I will be quiet safe I hope. hm would have to see you map to possibly understand what you mean Brethren.
  14. I'm absolutly happy as it is now. Having to select the right key is part of the taffer experience for me. And having an hotkey to the keys in TDM is perfect for having a quick access to circle through keys. While I would be pro to be able to drop keys I understand the reason why this had been decided to be not allowed.
  15. not really... only if you have a map with only square rooms and nothing else I do also refer to corridors and room edges within areas. The more complex your geometry become in the map the more you will create brush touching corners for possible mitering. For example even in my (yet very basic) geometry I have already inner wall corners and edges at the ceiling in my map (see screen below with just one view angle from one single room). I don't want t to over-emphasize the impact of mitering. In fact I think it's much less plus for performance for example than using diagonal VP or always the same scale setting for a certain texture. Anyway wanted to make you aware of it case you didn't know about... and yeah look forward to any similar advices, techniques and tips of you guys as we go along learning stuff. That's the project is about, right?
  16. And while I speak of getting in habit of good performance mapping practices: Do try diagonally Visportaling a corridor corner. With one VP touching the inner corner edge instead of two straight 90 degree touching VP's! Reason: You want to create thre portal areas. With the diagonal VP you always have maximum 2 rendered areas when in one of the both outer ones touching the corner area. If using two touching 90 degree VP's most of the time you see all three areas rendered while being near the corner. And thus the VP being not as much effective as they could be! To do in DR: Create a nodraw bush to fill the corridor edge. Use the Clipper Tool and set clipper point 1 at the inner corner of the corridor. Set point 2 a few units next to it to have a symetrical triangle. Then cut delete. Add the VP texture to the portal side (the long brush side touching the corridor edge). Example: (again with mitered wall edges) Finally add the VP texture. Please Note: only the face with VP will be rendered in the compiled map. The nodraw parts don't matter while overlapping brushes.
  17. If you don't intend to bevel corner edges on two wall brushes touching making up a corner do miter them to reduce the displayed faces per edge from three to two. This save Tris, thus rendered Polygons and might increase performance a little. As mentioned in Brethrens thread it might be not very much for a small map like ours, but it's good getting into the habit doing that little performance reliefers right from the start while learning things. Mitering is a common brush technique stangely enough not mentioned in the A-Z or Wiki, at least not that I noticed. It means to let the walls diagonally touch each other at the corners so that no unnecessary frush faces touch. That is important as every touching edge increase tris rendered. To do so in DR do activate "Show Edges" in the menu bar. Then for both wall brushes click and drag the blue edge dot until you have a diagonal line from inner to outer wall corner. Do that for both wall brushes so that they both touch diagonally within the wall. Note: All faces that the player can't see don't matter and won't need to be considered for optimizing. Example: Unmitered with 3 wall faces to the player: Mitered with only 2 wall faces the player can see:
  18. Good to hear Brethren! Thanks for the update. While you're still on rough geometry - if not done anyway - remember that mitering corners of two bush walls touching can bring some bit of performance. With that little effort you can reduce the displayed faces per corner from three to two faces and thus reducing tris. (Presuming you want to keep basic and don't consider carried away with beveling all the corner edges ) It might be not very much for a small map, but it's good getting into the habit thinking about that little performance savers right from the start while learning the basics of DR ... Edit: see here for how to do.
  19. cool, thanks greebo & Springs, appreciated!
  20. Can you please tell us where or with what args in the doomConfig.cfg? I think it's a good feature playing missions but gets annoying for map testings while building.
  21. idea sounds cool to me. Bridgeport is at the water line and has a whole part of the town partly under water. Indeed the fllooded section is the part of town I was about to start my first map of what I hoped could evolve in a series before the campaign did pop up. An totally sunken city Atlantis type like you said is also very cool, probably with long diving and good need of breath portions... try it! not there yet... but slowly I see why you did drop the mansion setting for a first map.
  22. thanks ungoliant! does that mean you have the same console behaviour in window mode? or is that just in my system? I'll do it the same with using previous commands. but thought there may be sth. wrong I do or in my setup. Another question I like to add: 4) I remember there should be a way to disable the "the Dark mod" splash screen that comes when starting a FM. Anyone remember how? That gets tiresome if you start test using the game menu install and start, for example testing the shop or briefing texts.
  23. come on' man, no need for regrets, it really isn't that bad... you just should have taken the six or so weeks for beta testings to squeeze the bugs and a come up with a better briefing text. that's all. It has great ambient lighting, nice ideas and amazing sophisticated scripting. indeed great stuff for a first mission!
  24. Some questions one of you guys may have an answer for me: 1) Doom console: Is there a way to have typing cvar's in the console directly work? When I open the console which mapped it to one hotkey in the windowed mode I have to backspace two times until the things I type in are colored white and work as they should. If I type in sth. in the console directly it is colored black (black letter on black background - uh!). After using backspace one time the characters typed in become blue (and the cvar don't work there as well) until it gets white and the cvar do work. Kind of annoying for dmap and other stuff in the console. Worth of notion that doesn't happen in non window mode (which I don't use while in DR) 2) Is there any solution the barrier between fog brush lights can't be seen? 3) How can I make a any non loot object into a loot item adding to the loot count, loot picture and loot category? I tried with the args: classname - atdm:static_custom_item inherit - atdm:loot_base frob_action_script - frob_item inv_category - Loot inv_icon - guis/assets/hud/inventory_icons/default/spyglass_fancy_icon.dds inv_name - Loot loot_type - 3 model - models/darkmod/loot/exotic/spyglass_fancy.ase used_action_script - frob_trigger (yep, I know there is a loot spyglass entity as well. I just used the same model to try how it works to make any model to loot)
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