fllood
-
Posts
417 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
7
Posts posted by fllood
-
-
That's when the author uses lockpicks.
The author can time out (successful) lockpicks pretty accurately. The author can never time out what random assortment of keys and how the player will fumble inventory.
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.
So when I got to the door I wouldn't pull every key I found out of every pocket to try and open that door...
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...
Go to find a potion or note, cycle through 20 keys to find it, etc...
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.
-
Quake1. Man, for a 15 year old game released right near the beginning of the 3D era, there's some great level design in there.
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.
-
you still have to select the key ring from within the inventory, and hit the 'use' key. Sure, you don't have to cycle through all the keys, but you still have the inventory to deal with.
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 ....
-
The 'hotkey' would need to become a toggle while the keyring is activated for this to work though. Kind of like a key ring mode...so that you don't cycle back into the inventory while cycling.
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.
-
Brushes, and even the void, do not block line-of-sight to VP's.
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?
-
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.
-
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
-
What am I missing?
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 ...
-
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.
-
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.
-
I was completely confused by the mitering concept, until I realized (duh!) that you were referring to exterior walls only!
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?
-
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.
-
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:
-
Just an update on my mission - was able to put in a little work in over the weekend, things seem to be progressing nicely. The general flow of the mission will be kind of alternating between outside areas on the surface and inside areas that are down a level or two, and I will have one submerged, underwater area as well. I probably have half of my mission laid out in a very rough manner (no detail at all, just walls/ceilings/floors), and am kind of envisioning how the rest will be filled in. I'm planning on having a maze area the player will need to navigate, as well as a climbing/rope arrow/jumping area (dare I say somewhat platformish?).
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.
-
cool, thanks greebo & Springs, appreciated!
-
You can turn that off if you don't like it.
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.
-
One random thought that kind of passed me by - it might be cool to take a finished lost city type mission and "sink it." In other words, make it an Atlantis type scenario. Could be cool, and doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do.
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.
-
1) thats some f'd up stuff right there. no idea what thats about. As far as dmap/map commands go, i just type them in the first time, then if i need to use them again, use the up arrow key to cycle through previous commands.
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.
-
I spare about my attempt to create and release mission.If i could turn time back,I didn't join this contest
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!
-
Hopefully plenty so people get to play and enjoy the missions in their own pace.
I do second that!
-
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)
-
One quick addendum on the seasons thing - if our protagonist travels to a remote location, it's possible the season could change. For example, Garrett goes up into the mountains to retrieve an artifact, and it's all snow and ice. Or, a portal takes him to some distant area, where the weather is completely different. Just sayin'.
good point!
-
I'd say let's go the simpler route and not have any season elements to any of our misisons (I guess that would make them spring/summer by default).
Most people go for indoor missions so there is no problem anyway I guess. But for outdoor areas it's intersting having weather sound/effects if anyone feels doing so. It just should fit with other outdoor missions for the campain.
Canetoad's pagan map seams the only map totally outdoor so far. probably best hecome up with what fits best for his FM. And other maps with outdoor parts make sure it don't violate to that season-like.
-
I'm thinking no snow (more complexity in getting it to look right, such as snow piles, footsteps, and making sure snow doesn't go through ceilings, as far as I can tell from betatesting Rake Off)
agree.
Also I think we see a lot snow FM from the season contest.
What about Autumn?! It leaves everything open to the mapper to use rain, fog or no weather effects at all (visuals and sound) ... in outdoor areas. Things to avoid in autumn would probably be too saturated green for nature textures and snow.
FM: Rake Off (19 06 2011)
in Fan Missions
Posted
Congrats Jesps. Been a fun two hours!
In particular I liked...
... the riddle, the guard cook, the cave and tunnel look, the crackled floor tiles and the way to enter the secret chamber.
Room and corridors of the castle had been too wide and high for my taste. It gave them too much feel of emptyness. While this fit the backstory I often felt too safe taffing around. And the eggs had been tooo unconnected for me to the setting to be sold on them. But generally I like seaching for extras beside loot.
Thank you for this mission!