Ansome
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Posts posted by Ansome
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@WellingtoncrabThe download link is no longer functional: "This content is no longer available". Think you can shoot me a new download link for the asset pack?
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A somewhat goofy content pack, but coincidentally I was just thinking that I could use some more varied pipe models for my WIP FM. Thanks for releasing this!
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Query: when playing a level, how sharp must a corner in the level geometry be for it to look bad to you? I'm sculpting my current FM from scratch as there aren't many prefab modules fitting my theme and the question has been nagging me for a bit. I've been using bevel patches to smooth out 90 degree corners made of brickwork for a slightly more realistic look to them, but I'm not sure where else I should be smoothing out the angles of my level geometry. Most notably I have a larger room where the main center piece is a large octagonal tower made of brick and I'm unsure if players will find its sharp angles unappealing to look at despite its ornamentation. Try as I might to smooth out those corners, an octagon is still an octagon.
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2 hours ago, High John said:
Was that mentioned in any of the readables, or is it something one is just expected to randomly stumble across?
SpoilerIt wasn't mentioned in any of the readables. I very likely should have (and will do so in any future FMs) mentioned it elsewhere, but it was difficult to include it organically in the narrative. This also slipped through beta testing as it appeared beta testers are naturally inclined to seek out anything that looks even vaguely interactable, but this obviously doesn't apply to the entire playerbase. I apologize if searching for the hidden treasure room took you out of the mood and ambience! Either way, thank you for playing my first FM!
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7 minutes ago, Dragofer said:
Maybe you've set it up like this to prevent the player from being able to frob the obstacle from outside? In a similar situation in The Painter's Wife we used a custom script and location scripts
SpoilerYou're correct in that it opens just enough for the player to see into the entry corridor but not enough to frob the box itself. You can actually see it blocking the door if you turn and lean to poke your head through the crack of the door, but unfortunately it wasn't obvious to every player. I'll probably go for the scripting route in my next FM if I need to do something similar and perhaps even add it to this FM if an update is needed for bugfixing. I find it somewhat funny that because the entryway was the first area mapped, you can see me get more comfortable and sophisticated with scripting as you branch out from that area.
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2 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:
I assume I must be missing something?
Sorry for the late response, I hope ya found your way in! Fortunately, Nbohr1more always comes in clutch.
SpoilerThe large square window to the left of the front door is your way in. The front door can be unblocked from inside.
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I’ll throw my hat in the ring! It’d be delightful to create a mission to celebrate TDM’s anniversary, especially after how kindly I was received here. I’m excited to see what creative missions will be produced for the contest with the freedom we’ve been allotted.
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18 hours ago, MirceaKitsune said:
They should have transparent clear glass casing and show the light bulb inside, making it obvious they're different and can be shot.
What Stgatilov mentioned about the psychological aspect of some lights being breakable and others not is going to be the toughest hurdle for you to overcome with this idea. Realism with the clear glass casing idea is nice, but you are still fighting against the rigid Thief programming that electric lights are always unbreakable. It needs to be very obvious, perhaps best identifiable at a glance, that it can be broken by the player.
Consider how all explosive barrels in video games are red: it immediately differentiates them from regular set dressing barrels. I don’t believe that I would be able to consistently identify or interpret a clear glass bulb as different from any electric light. Add a red stripe to them, give them a specific recognizable light texture, make them look inherently damaged, etc. You may need to sacrifice a degree of realism in order to communicate what is thus far a contradictory mechanic to the player effectively.
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I was confused by this as well when I first started learning DR, the user guide is now slightly out of date. Dark Radiant now uses a modular system that you can freely rearrange and add elements to as you see fit. In your screenshot you can see the buttons to add new cameras and orthoviews, which you can move or resize like a browser window. You can do the same with the UI that contains things like the media and entities tab and even drag them out into their own separate UI element if need be. With a little tweaking you should be able to approximate the Doom 3 editor layout by hand. Hope this helps!
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Breakable lights might be an interesting concept so long as they are not implemented retroactively. Add a loud sound or other punishment for breaking them as you see fit, but it would still change the difficulty and design intended by level authors if you applied it to all previously made levels. I would also suggest that if you instead intend to make breakable variants of existing light models that you add a clear visual indicator that the light is breakable, otherwise it would require explicit messaging to the player that electric lights are breakable in that particular FM. I’m hesitant to see something of this sort added as it is in stark contrast to Thief precedent, but I would be more supportive of it if it was added carefully and responsibly.
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8 hours ago, The Black Arrow said:
I don't think you will be updating the FM anymore, that's fine, but I would recommend that in the next horror-oriented one, you should give it a Silent Hill type of treatment, which is...You leave music where it would be fit, like a scenery meant to inspire you, and then you have silence where you don't know what to do, like an actual creepy chase scene or so. I always found silence in those parts to be very evoking compared to either always having music or even a drone tune about.
I intend to update the FM if any bugs/errors are found or updates to TDM necessitate it, but you're correct that I'm not updating it for content going forwards. The ambient tracks I used in this FM were a little bit busier than I normally would use, mostly because I knew this was going to be a very short FM going in and I had to deliver an atmosphere somewhat quickly. Rest assured that my next FM is going to be a bit less busy and more varied in terms of ambience.
8 hours ago, The Black Arrow said:I understand this is a limitation, probably more personal than engine/game-related, but sadly the Old Man wasn't exactly too scary, but at least he did have glowing yellow eyes.
Don't worry, I don't view this as a major failing or anything. I don't really find Lovecraft's works "scary" in a traditional sense, if I wanted this to be overtly scary I likely would have gone way over the top and diverted too heavily from the source material. I've always enjoyed Lovecraft's works for their ominous tone, ambience, and mystery, which it seems from your feedback I more or less achieved. I'm glad you enjoyed my FM, Arrow, and thanks for the feedback!
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8 hours ago, hightide said:
I did find it a little strange that the moon was low on one side of the house, but there was such strong light coming in windows from both sides even on the lower floor. It added atmosphere, but I kept wondering where it was coming from (since the surround area has been built up, and probably overshadows the house).
The light coming from the windows was actually added in the very last update before release. Originally, only the windows facing the moon were lit up and projected moonbeams, but Dragofer remarked that following purely realistic lighting practices often results in an under-lit mission. Although I also find it a bit strange that such stark moonbeams are coming in from all the windows, I think the lighting of the pre-escape sequence is all the better for it. Thanks for playing my FM, Hightide, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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I can confirm that book_hand_jd_hand.gui is not represented correctly in the Readable Editor. There were a handful of fonts I tried that had very small discrepancies between the editor and in-game version, but jd_hand gave me the most trouble when adding readables to my FM.
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54 minutes ago, chakkman said:
Just wanted to point out that noting negative things shouldn't be taken as discouraging, but rather the opposite. I've seen some mission authors for Dark Mod going from average to absolutely fantastic missions, because they learned what it takes to make good missions. It's an art, and obviously takes time to perfect.
Rest assured, I haven't received nothing but praise thus far. Most of the constructive criticism about this FM's design arose during beta testing, and Dragofer in particular gave me a very useful write-up about what can be improved next time. Some examples being that he FM is a bit too spacious at times, its difficulty is rather low (a sentiment shared by thebigh), and the house design is a bit strange or tubular as a result of the FM's more linear nature. It's all been invaluable feedback as I continue to learn DR, and I intend to write up a post-first FM release retrospective near the end of this week going over what I've learned.
I'm quite overjoyed about all the positive feedback I've received thus far, but that's not because I'm afraid of criticism, rather I was afraid of how a less traditional mission would be received by the community. I wanted to make something a bit weird with my first mission, and I was wary of how a short, linear mission with a limited player toolset would be viewed. Fortunately, the community has been very welcoming and accepting of weird little ideas, and I intend to take what I've learned into my next project right after my eyes stop burning from all those late-night Dark Radiant sessions. I hope you enjoy the FM, Chakkman!
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2 hours ago, Bergante said:
I hope you´re ready and fine with/for some Criticism
I'd love some criticism, thank you! I'm very glad that you got super absorbed into this FM's atmosphere, I loved reading your theories about the story! Your criticism about the readables/story is entirely valid and highlights an element that is most often criticized about Lovecraft's work: you rarely get straight answers or a clear picture of the greater threat. I encourage you to read the original "The Terrible Old Man" (all of H.P. Lovecraft's works are in the public domain and readable online), as you'll get an idea of how short and vague the source material was as well as the careful moves I had to make to not show my hand too much when constructing the narrative.
Whether or not I kept in line with Lovecraft's principles is for others to judge, but I'm glad your imagination went wild with this FM! Your curiosity regarding what the bottles are, what the purpose of the little statuettes is, and immersion into the story from what little breadcrumbs I planted gave me a smile from ear to ear. Thanks, Bergante!
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On 3/11/2024 at 1:32 AM, nbohr1more said:
Hopefully the first of many!
On 3/11/2024 at 6:36 PM, nbohr1more said:I think this stands on it's own merits as a very high quality mission and easily rivals great missions by veteran authors.
You're too kind! I don't think I've created something on par with what some of the veteran creators have put out just yet, but I'm very happy about how well it's been received. It's been especially nice reading messages sent to me about the lighting and sound design inside the house, as I spent a long time tweaking it and was afraid others wouldn't appreciate those tiny details. I'll certainly be back again to release another mission in the future as you've all been very welcoming, especially the dev team!
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For proposal #1, I imagine making a mission fitting seamlessly between the two stock missions in TDM would be a tricky endeavor, truth be told. The first mission is a small tavern robbery and the second is a modestly sized church break-in with a very reasonable jump in difficulty—fitting a mission snugly in between these two in terms of difficulty and scale is a high bar to reach. A contest to make a sequel to "Tears of St. Lucia" sounds more reasonable and would probably flow better for someone playing all three for the first time.
I'd probably avoid doing something TDS related when a similar contest that allows Dark Mod entries is already ongoing, but proposal #3 sounds fun if we're given enough freedom to wildly reinterpret a Thief 1 mission. I'm somewhat mixed on the slot system as it really comes down to whether or not you want a full campaign with no repeats out of this contest. I personally wouldn't mind playing 2-3 different interpretations of something like the Bonehoard, it's bound to be interesting seeing what elements of a mission FM authors focus on.
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- Popular Post
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"...to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure about a very old and feeble man who pays for his few necessities with Spanish gold."
Good day, TDM community! I'm proud to release my first FM: "The Terrible Old Man", an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name. This is a short, 30-45 minute mission in which you are the getaway driver in a team of three small-time thieves. You and your associates were fortunate enough to overhear rumors of a famously wealthy and frail old man, but things change when your cohorts do not return from what is supposed to be their easiest and most lucrative job. Now it's up to you to brave the old man's house and find your associates.
Download:
The in-game mission downloader
Special Thanks:
The kind beta testers: Cambridge Spy, stgatilov, xlm, wesp5, nbohr1more, and Dragofer.
peter_spy and Dragofer for answering my endless barrage of editor questions while learning DR.
The TDM Discord for their warm welcome.
Ending stinger courtesy of Zapsplat.
Content Warnings:
SpoilerThis FM features cobwebs, but no spiders living or dead.
Ghosts.
Zombie models are used for corpses, but there are no active zombies in this FM.
Enjoy!
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The beta testing thread is up a bit early, lest I forget to make one:
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@Cambridge Spy Goodness, I hadn't played that one! I'm still slowly making my way through the FM catalogue, but how funny that what I thought was a "deep pull" in terms of Lovecraft stories had already shown up here in one form or another. Well, at the very least this is a fully-fledged adaptation of the story, so it should still be fresh content.
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-Do forgive the screenshots being a bit dark or vague in this post, I can only show so much without spoiling the second half of this FM that is best experienced firsthand.
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- Popular Post
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"...to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure about a very old and feeble man who pays for his few necessities with Spanish gold."
Good day, TDM community! I'm Ansome, a long-time forums lurker, and I'm here to recruit beta testers for my first FM: "The Terrible Old Man", based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name. This is a short (30-45 minute), story-driven FM with plenty of readables and a gloomy atmosphere. Do keep in mind that this is a more linear FM than you may be used to as it was deemed necessary for the purposes of the story's pacing. Regardless, the player does still have a degree of freedom in tackling challenges in the latter half of the FM. If this sounds interesting to you, please head over to the beta testing thread I will be posting shortly. Thank you!
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Finding Dark Ambient Music.
in TDM Editors Guild
Posted
For free ambience tracks it's as Freky said: you look around on the internet for tracks with the appropriate license to be included in your FM. Fortunately, you likely don't even need to bother doing this as a beginner as there's an entire "Music & SFX" section of the forums full of good ambient tracks for you to use if the stock tracks do not meet your fancy. You might also be interested in Orbweaver's "Dark Ambients", which come with a sndshd file already written for you.