Nort

This is a thread for members to post inofficial hotfix patches in. These hotfixes are for people who want to keep using stable official releases of The Dark Mod and Dark Radiant, but with somewhat less bugs. These patches will overrule parts of the official release, and are therefor only compatible with the specific version of TDM/DR that they were created to patch. It is therefor necessary that you keep track of which hotfixes you installed, and uninstall them all when you upgrade to a new TDM/DR version. If any bugs persist in a future version, it's best to wait for a new patch to be released for that version. At time of writing, the official released versions are The Dark Mod version 2.10, and Dark Radiant version 2.14.0. When posting a patch, please include which version it is for. (Patches for developer versions are allowed, but don't expect those versions to last long.) Developers, keep in mind that while these patches will point you in the direction of a problem, the patch solution will sometimes differ from an official release solution. (For example, we can't rename packaged files, and so we have to sometimes refer to badly named ones.) It's possible that I - Nort - will be the only one posting these patches, and I'm fine with that. Update After having worked out a lot of patches during these past weeks, I've attached version 1.0 of my hotfix pack to this post. This pack makes all my previous hotfixes obsolete. Details about what they contain, are in the included release notes, because the list is too long to post here. The main features is the fixed console warnings, as well as the fixed mages. (Do not miss these mages. They are eating apples and everything.) If you have any questions about any changes, just ask. Version: The Dark Mod 2.10, Dark Radiant 2.14.0 Small correction: The release notes should say: "This new file creates defines several placeholder shaders. Placeholder shaders are mesh defaults which skins can refer to without risking conflicts with other meshes sharing the same skin. They are not simply misnamed shaders, or deprecated legacy shaders." Update Dark Radiant version 3.0.0 released today, so my patch version 1.0, only stayed relevant for about 24 hours. ...and that's fine. A great changelog of Progress, is all I ever wanted. While devs should still download my patch to see if everything in my patch change log has been addressed (which I doubt), normal users should instead go download Dark Radiant 3.0.0, where every change is official. Once I've assembled enough mental strength to begin over from the beginning again, I will start working on the next patch. It will likely take a shorter time to make this time. Update Remember, before uninstalling any def files, to first remove any entities they have created, mainly the noble and mage ragdolls. If Dark Radiant can't find the definitions for entities, it won't display them in the map. I don't know if they still remain in the code, and you probably don't want invisible obsolete entities in your map, so it's cleanest to remove the entities from the map before removing the patch files. Update I've decided to post-pone any further development until Dark Radiant release 3.1.0. The 3.0.0 was a big update, and big updates will typically come with smaller unforeseen issues. One such issue is that whole numbers aren't being displayed properly. It's thankfully only a cosmetic issue, but since it's so in-your-face, I think that the devs are likely dealing with other issues as well, and that the next update will be coming as soon as possible. ...so I think 3.1.0 will be more stable, and will come soonish.

Maybe. Maybe I have an odd taste. I may have played so many games and missions, that I don't think an objective can impress me anymore. In Thief, it's basically always "Steal this.", and I just don't like to steal things, and so I can only come up with the objective "Reach this point." and "Have fun." and "Live long and prosper." and "I hope you're not neglecting your real world dishes because of my map. That's right: Press that 'Quit' button to win.". ...because ultimately I don't think that one should find meaning in games, when there is so much meaning to find in life. My maps are just expressing a state. I don't think I want people to do anything special with it. I think I want people to stop drinking and stop doing drugs, and I don't think I can accomplish that through a virtual mission. ...and so I see no point in setting some additional life-robbing objective for people.

I'm trying to fix the warnings on my end, but remodelling the models is out of my league, so you're going to have to fix the stairs model on your end: "WARNING:ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model 'models/darkmod/architecture/stairs/set01_stairs.lwo' has 17/8108 nontriangular polygons. Make sure you triplet it down" Edit Also there's this model, which is probably a modelling issue as well: "WARNING:ConvertLWOToModelSurfaces: model 'models/darkmod/misc/clipmodels/pickaxe_cm.lwo' has bad or missing uv data" I still have hopes for script-hotfixing the following warnings: "WARNING:Couldn't load image: tdm_tongue [map entity: atdm_ai_townsfolk_female_1] [decl: atdm:ai_head_female02_base_brunette in def/tdm_ai_heads_springheel.def] [decl: female_head02 in def/tdm_ai_heads_springheel.def] [model: models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/female_head02.md5mesh] [decl: tdm_tongue in <implicit file>] [image: tdm_tongue]” (Edit: I hotfixed this issue and attached the hotfix in the tech support forums. The "tdm_tongue" shader should simply be renamed to "tdm_character_tongue".) “WARNING:Couldn't load image: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01 [map entity: func_static_53] [decl: old_plaster in skins/tdm_models_architecture_modules.skin] [decl: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01 in <implicit file>] [image: models/darkmod/wood/boards/wood_brown_dull01]" (Edit: I hotfixed this issue as well - see the tech support forums - but I think you should still go over this file, because there are a lot of other suspect textures in there as well.)

For the sheer marvel of it, of course. Why do people vacation in Rome, if there's no loot to find there? ...but ultimately the question is: Why should people want to play my maps at all? I'm certainly not going to force them to, but there will probably always be some Buffalo Bill character somewhere in the world, who will kidnap young women and force them to play horrible maps. ...and I guess that's where I come in. The main point is that I enjoyed making it. The player experience is secondary to me. For a realistic atmosphere. In case the player wants to stop and read something in the world at his leisure, then he has something to read. I'm not saying that wasting a player's time is good game design. I'm saying that my maps are not game maps.

Update: I've learned that pk4 files are just zipped, and that gui files are just plain text scripts, and so I'm now confident that I'll resolve the matter myself.

I'm posting a reminder in case you forgot, because it's been over 24 hours now, and I haven't heard back from you. Have you been able to reproduce the bug? Where do I upload the files, and exactly which files?

So about the newspaper GUIs: How do I fix them? (I'm talking about these four warnings for each newspaper in the map: WARNING:Window BackgroundFadeIn in gui guis/readables/sheets/newspaper_bridgeport01.gui: a transition does not have a valid destination var leftPageCurl::matcolor WARNING:Window BackgroundFadeIn in gui guis/readables/sheets/newspaper_bridgeport01.gui: a transition does not have a valid destination var rightPageCurl::matcolor WARNING:Window BackgroundFadeOut in gui guis/readables/sheets/newspaper_bridgeport01.gui: a transition does not have a valid destination var leftPageCurl::matcolor WARNING:Window BackgroundFadeOut in gui guis/readables/sheets/newspaper_bridgeport01.gui: a transition does not have a valid destination var rightPageCurl::matcolor ) I figure they're packed in some .pk4 file, which I don't know how to unpack, but I figure that instead of doing that, smart languages will usually let you replace a piece of scripting by writing a script outside the packed file, which will replace just that part. ...but since I can't look at the newspaper GUI scripts, I don't know what to write. ...and I don't know why this "bug" has been around for at least four years either. Come on, devs, just add the vars...

As large as a size of 4, even? Wouldn't it be better if you devs just increased the floating point precision instead? Moving a decimal point shouldn't be that hard, to achieve a much higher brushwork quality. I'd rather have "sparklies" than adhere to a grid size of 4, honestly. We're not mapping in Dromed anymore.

Yes, I do have a setting in my map, and with settings come planning, and purpose, and readables, but these can all exist independently of any objective. When I play a game, my mind isn't actually on fulfilling any objectives, but to navigate and explore areas. Often I completely forget what the objective even was. I recently began playing King of Diamonds, and pretty much the last thing I did, was to go and meet the quest giver, even if I couldn't loot anything until then. To me, all that objectives are, is a few lines of text that you can pull up. The long and elaborate exposition dumps at the intros, I just roll my eyes over. I feel like they're just holding me up, and that the real setting should exist in the map design itself. ...so the readables I create, I aim to make them disjointed nonsense with no helpful bearing on the player objectives. Maybe in the kitchen there will be a grocery list, or cook book with numerous real recipés. Maybe some guy wrote a poem about a memory of a past that you're not clued into at all. The sooner the player stops looking for any meaning or clues in my readables, the better. ...but my point is that they will still take time to create. I have lots of notes over readables as well, but none of them is about any objective.

Oh, don't underestimate how long it takes to build a good environment. I've seen vast cityscapes made in The Dark Mod, which took a collaboration to create. At my pace, to create one area of my map, took a whole year (since I grew bored and abandoned the project for most of the year). It's quick to just put room filler prefabs in a room and move on, but why do that? That's no way to treat a player who's looking for a new experience. No, I carefully position all my furniture, and angle them just right. I do use prefabs, but more often than not I change and improve them with new details. I put needles in the machine gauges, and I'll make them move when power is supplied to them. Maybe the power flow will be constant and having them hooked up to a virtual electrical grid, won't be needed, but the visual difference isn't the point. The point is that they do, behind the scenes, for my own personal appreciation. ...and that's why I'm taking a lifetime to create my maps: Because creating meaning, through love, takes time.

...and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with nobody ever playing my mission, or even releasing my missions at all. A lot of developers already develop maps for other people, and so you probably get your christmases several times a year. My maps will be something different, that maybe you'll play if you get really bored and want to see how weird things can get.

I like advanced setups like that as well, but ultimately I'm as limited in time as every game developer is, and so I will primarily cater to ghosting, and simply describe my map as "a ghost map", if that makes sense. Then, if I have time, I might upload a more complex version later. I like uploading several versions of missions as it develops and evolves, but I haven't looked into if the archives would allow replacement of former uploads, or if that would just result in horrible spam.

Oh, I see: "Console" is one of the tabs in the Entity Inspector. I am assuming that these (19 or so) red entries of "PICO_WARNING: LWO loader discarded a polygon because it has != 3 verts (2)" is related to the wedge I made. ...so at least there's some error handling in place, if you know where to look for it. I am a perfectionist, though, so if you give me a smallest grid size, I'm going to use it constantly. Instead of mere ghost stories to scare children with, can you tell me some examples of what to watch out for, as I continue to test the limitations of this editor? ...because first of all, the prefab "/mechanical/switches/call_button.pfb" uses wedges that are only 0.25 units big. Granted, they are out of alignment (set to actually be "0.250192" units big), but this prefab is officially approved. ...and second of all, other than this one issue, I've actually had no problems using the smallest grid size. (I tried to search the bug tracker for "grid size", but apparently its search engine can only take issue numbers.)

Speaking of player noises, it's weird how picking locks and opening doors, doesn't seem audible to AI.

Well, no, I mean a proper "Mission Failed" screen when you get spotted, if that isn't too much to ask from the engine's scripting. ...and it doesn't have to be hard either. You just design the map around the playstyle, as usual. ...but since I like sadistic challenges, and near unbeatable maps, it might be. I grew up with games that weren't beatable at all - that just promised a light at the end of a tunnel that just endlessly led the player deeper and deeper underground, just to test the outer limits of your human condition - so that's not unthinkable for me. Maybe i could just make a map where you go into a spider's ant-like nest and get torn asunder by thousands of spiders just for the horror experience alone. ...but that wasn't what I had in mind. I see Let's Players do flawless runs all the time, so I know that people like the ghost playing style.

I don't recognize that version format. I'm using Dark Radiant version 2.14.0. I didn't know Dark Radiant even had a console, so maybe the red line I got was something else entirely. Like I said, I didn't mess around with it, just hit undo, and created the needle from a larger brush, which I then scaled down and reshaped without any further problems. Learning how to use a modeling program can take weeks, so I'd rather you just give users clear boundaries instead, like an error saying "Prism too small to be created.", or better yet, simply allow them to create the prism, since it's not theoretically impossible.

So binding two "atdm:mover_door_sliding" entities didn't make the map crash on your end? Look, I'm heading for bed shortly, but if you can't get it to work in the next 12 hours, I'll try to recreate it on my end. Just tell me which of the six files it is that you need, and where you want me to upload them. (I doubt they're small enough to attach here.) You will not get my entire map. You will get a 6 brush room containing a start entity and a bug, once I isolate it.

DR just made a prism that is the entire map. (That is 131 074 units long.) I made it from a brush block that was 1x1x0.375 units big, and was using the smallest grid size. The prism was going to have three sides, because I was going to make it a small gauge needle. ...and then I just pressed the button to create the prism, and suddenly I get a huge line going through the entire map. I don't know what more information I can provide, and I don't want to mess around with it, so I'm just going to undo now and try to make the prism from a bigger brush. Hopefully that will help.

Back in the 90s, there was this awesome band that had a pretty cool image: They pretended to be cryogenically frozen citizens of the communist Soviet Union, who got dethawed and told to play various songs. The songs turned out horribly butchered in their reinterpretations. I particularly remember a version of Hotel California, that featured a flute solo, that is by far the weirdest cover ever made by a band, sounding similar to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZBgaBIrgzs Of course nobody here knows what I'm talking about. They were played on the charts back then, but now they have been erased from the history books. I've spent several days searching for them, and now I just give up. Do you remember them? What other bands can't you find on the internet anymore?

Oh, I mistyped. It's The Dark Mod engine that crashes when the map tries to load - not the Dark Radiant editor. Edit: ...and if it's specific to the entity type, the two entities bound together (via setting each of their "bind" properties to target eachother, as usual) were "atdm:mover_door_sliding" entities.

I think that the existence of a dedicated bug tracker for this engine proves that I should somehow make it known when it crashes. I just figured that the tracker was an internal thing between developers, and that it was okay to instead report the bugs here, especially since I desperately needed help with it, and since you have two sub-forums mentioning that they're intended for reporting bugs. ...so why, when I report a bug, am I getting shamed for it? Why was the guy in the thread you linked getting shamed for not backing up his project, instead of the main dev acknowledging that there is a very deceptive button in the engine, that can remove fan mission folders when you press it? Blaming the reporter for not backing up his work, is certainly not how I would personally handle reports of entire projects disappearing, but I guess now I'm warned about how he sees these things, to the point where I'm wondering if it's a good idea to report any bugs I find in the future, at all, if I'm just going to be considered a bad person for it. "Hm, to my experience, crashes in free software is a regular thing. Try "Natron" and you will understand what I mean." I don't understand your point. If crashes happen frequently enough, should we treat them like Covid and just "try to live with it"? I'm pretty sure that the bind bug is easy to fix, but it's like you're saying that bugs have a right to exist too. "Lots of longtime DR mappers ask questions in the Newbie thread (myself included). Nothing to be ashamed of and by DR/DM standards you are a newbie (and you have not to be ashamed of that as well! )" So if I've programmed for 30 years, mapped for Dromed for countless years (since roughly the turn of the millenia), mapped for the Dark Mod for 1 year, but joined these forums just a few weeks ago, I'm a newbie. I think that by that definition, the word "newbie" has lost all meaning. Besides, reporting crashes are not the same as just asking questions. Anyone can reply to a question. It takes a developer to fix a crash issue. ...and it's like you don't expect the developers to even fix crashes, and I really hope that you're wrong about that. For example, since I updated to this year's version, Dark Radiant itself, hasn't even crashed once, and it used to crash all the time, and so I take that as evidence that development involves fixing crashes. "If you want to report a bug, then please use the Bug Tracker." Will do. I was just fooled by the subforum descriptions actually telling me to report bugs in them. "You wouldn't believe how many mappers lost WIPs because of defective hardware" Again: I don't see your point here, where you argue for not fixing defective hardware. When I'm told about a bug in my program, I just go "Thank you. I'll fix that.". I don't go "Well, weren't you a sucker for using my program.". That's not how I was brought up at all. "for somebody who expects Armageddon in the near future (and there are really good reasons for that), you have a pronounced need for communication. I think that does not fit, because: Why go on with communication when all hell will break lose the day after tomorrow?" Well, why not? Yes, I am so interested in mapping, that it's actually cutting into my apocalypse survival routines a bit, but that's just human nature, and a month's vacation from prepping, won't make that much of a difference. "I hope that you - despite of your own assessment - will finish your WIP and we all can enjoy a cool new mission in the future with your name in the credits." Well, for me, mapping is about pleasing myself - not others. Play The Beginner's Guide, and you'll see what I mean.

To clarify, here's recent news: "Andy 'Fletch' Fletcher, the co-founder and keyboardist of beloved synth-pop and New Wave stalwarts Depeche Mode, died at the age of 60." R.I.P.. You truly helped revolutionize chord progression.

If you're this passionate about politics, and really think that you can improve the world, then consider joining a real political party (far away from the vast plethora of YouTube pundits). Far too many people just sit at home and grow upset over abstract "should":s and "could":s. Personally I don't think any politics will matter in a few years, but I'm not you, so good luck.

"No offence, but why don't you simply post all your questions in the Newbie thread ?" Because first of all, I can't quite figure out this forum's categorization system, and so I actually went looking for that very thread yesterday, without success, because I couldn't even figure out in what sub-forum to even look for it. Second of all, if doesn't matter if the cause of a crash is easy or hard. Editors shouldn't crash, especially after recognizing a problem, trying to handle it, and failing. Third of all, I've actually been mapping for quite a while prior to moving to this editor, and joining this forum. Don't just go "Oh, he can't figure out a simple bind. What a noob!", just because you saw the word "bind". "I dare saying that you won't make friends here if you repeatedly point out the shortcomings of the mod" So I'm being mean? Is that what you're saying? Reporting bugs is very different from heckling a project. Every bug I report is done out of love, and with wanting to see the project fixed and improved. So far I haven't seen any signs of developers' feelings somehow being hurt, or them suffering anxiety attacks over bugs. Bugs are a common part of sizable projects in development, and pointing them out is actually part of the development process. "when - according to your own account - you do not even plan to finish a mission." I actually think that my bug reports are far more helpful than my fan missions would ever be. Few of you would even play my missions if I released them, but you're all using the editor, and likely enjoy when it runs flawlessly. "This is then extremely bad project management and anyone who is seriously interested in creating DM missions must think about appropriate backups and versions." So what you're saying, is that users should simply expect the editor to ruin maps every once in a while. Well, first of all, I actually think that the editor can improve beyond that, and second of all, if the projects of newbies are ruined, they will grow discouraged and will abandon using the editor, and that's future experienced mappers lost. That a program doesn't crash, is the minimum that I expect out of it. Reporting these sort of bugs are as important to the developers, as me reporting falling through map geometry. ...but maybe you're also saying that I'm posting too much overall, and that may be true. I'll try to post less, and find other things to do.

You think the government is your enemy? You'll miss it when it's gone. It is right now the only thing that stands between you and the oncoming tidalwave of darkness.