Springheel

You seem to be approaching this as if TDM is a single production team working on a unified, limited series of missions, which it clearly is not. Without rewriting history, how exactly would you suggest "being consistent" with more than one hundred missions created over 15 years by dozens of different authors using assets created by dozens of different artists, some of which are custom to those particular missions? Even if you could remake all the core loot models in a way that is both significantly different enough that they can be distinguished from other objects, but also similar enough that they don't interfere with existing missions that use those models (something I highly doubt can be achieved), that STILL doesn't solve the problem, since custom loot objects are used in dozens of missions, along with objects that look like loot but aren't.

And what would your solution be to fix this bad design, given that neither redoing all the loot models or redesigning all the existing maps is practical?

It would be, but that's not the situation we have. Our models come from a dozen different sources with different styles, and people have added loot entities to the core mod throughout history without any concern for consistency--loot paintings (that are worth as much as 10 other pieces of loot) that look exactly the same as non-loot paintings are an obvious example.

It's definitely doable...I did a speedbuild in 4-5 hours (although spread out over several days). Good luck, and use lots of prefabs!

There are already plenty of low-poly hedges mappers can use in areas where that is needed. There are also multiple transparent foliage textures mappers could use to create their own "shells" if they want to do so. You could create a couple Russian-doll-like shells of semi-transparent foliage and drop a few low-poly foliage models in the center to create leaves or branches that stick out. And there are high-poly hedge models for use where that is appropriate. No one is opposed to new models if someone wants to make some, but there's no point in reshaping a wrench so it becomes better at hammering nails.

I just wanted to share the sad news that grayman, long time developer and the author of the William Steele series, passed away recently after a battle with cancer. He was a pleasure to work with and did more for this mod than most people will ever realize. I am glad that his missions will live on.

The small planes overlap enough that the edge of the shadow would look sufficiently leafy. I can't remember whether or not those shadows are turned on by default though. It's possible they aren't.

Double-sided textures do not cast shadows, IIRC, so changing the model in that way will mean only the square in the center would cast an--obviously incorrect--shadow. While that would be fine for a medium LOD stage, it shouldn't replace the original. You might also make a decent medium LOD version by just turning shadows off on the leaf planes at a certain distance. Poly count by itself is rarely the issue when it comes to performance--it's shadows and the number of lights hitting any one model.

You can use quite complex patches if you want, although multiple, small patches are better than one giant one. Performance hits come more from lighting and shadowcasting than number of polys. This might be helpful:

It depends how alert he is. If he has accumulated enough evidence to know there is an intruder, then he will. If he didn't see the player and hasn't seen other evidence (bodies, missing loot, etc) then he won't.

We've run those tests before, and there was no performance benefit to using caulk.

This might help, specifically the part about hide_distance.

Setting aside the snark, when a guard is relaxed, it is assumed that the player has time to plan out a careful, aimed strike to the base of the neck. When the guard is alert, it is assumed the guard is tensed up and reacting too quickly for the player to aim that carefully. The other option would be to treat guards with metal helmets the same as guards with no helmets, but that would be equally "magical", wouldn't it?

That's not accurate. Guards that have metal helmets cannot be KO'd when they are alert. All other guards can be KO'd when alert as long as you hit them from behind. Civilians can be KO'd from any direction, any time. Yes, we've essentially agreed that we want to do something like this, but it will require someone with the right skill set who is prepared to take it on.

That's something I always wanted to see.

It definitely doesn't have to be 3 boxes wide. 2 at most, and I suspect even 1 would be enough. The player is taller than he is wide, even when crouched.

Put a third box on top of the others and see if it still happens. If the player height when crouched is taller than the boxes, he could be spotting the top of your head. It's also possible something specific was done in that mission that is causing the problem. It is a very old mission, one of the first few ever created for TDM. Have you noticed this behaviour anywhere else?

Guards can't see through objects, but it's impossible to tell what is going on here from this kind of video. AI only need to see a single piece of the player, so if there is a gap between the pillar and the boxes, it's possible a trace went through that gap. Does that AI have special settings on it to increase its visual acuity? Is there another AI down the hall that is spotting the player from another angle? There are multiple things that could be going on. You could get more information using the following console commands: tdm_ai_showalert 1 Shows the AI's current alert total and alert state. tdm_ai_showfov Shows the AI vision cone so you know where they are currently looking

I wouldn't use any site that gives you the above sentence. You can't just find/replace "you" with "thee". And remember, in the TDM setting, steam-beasts would have no connection to Builders, and wouldn't use religious speech anyway.

It doesn't really hurt to leave them, but if you make all non-sealing brushes into func_statics, you can remove them from your DR view quite easily, which can make tracking down leaks easier.

I don't know if they break from throwing at a wall, but movable ones break if you hit them with a sword or arrow.

You can break most movable bottles. When it comes to windows, it depends on how the mapper set it up.

It used to be. If we changed it, I've forgotten, which is certainly possible.

None of the guards in that mission have swords, so it's hard to figure out who you're referring to. If I had to guess, it sounds like you were out of melee range, so one AI tried to throw a projectile, and hit another guard with it. When AI are hit by projectiles, they consider the person who hit them to be an enemy. If you want good statistics, you need to avoid getting chased in the first place.

Are the dials highlighted when you're trying to move them?