simplen00b

Loving all the little (and not-so-little) insights into people's choices here. Heh. Not to me it ain't. (See my reply to STiFU above.) Fortunately there's always Tineye to fall back on. Ooh, believe me, not knowing SS is one of the least of my gaming heresies... @Sotha: Yeah, I like those would-be reassuring but actually sinister (in a funny kind of way) 'all powerful' AI's too. My current fave is the one in Portal. Utterly deranged, in a 'please like me and you'll get some cake even though I intend to destroy you' kind of way.

Well, in a way, it is me - I had messed about with a couple of other avatars, but wasn't really happy with them. Melan's (previous B&W) avatar inspired me to look for some old film pix, and as soon as I saw that Vampyr photo, I thought "That's me! Playing TDM!" But no - in RL, I'm older...jowlier...more grizzled.... :blush: :blush: :blush: I don't know what your avatar is.Sorry STiFU - I'm not a hardened gamer so a lot of the avatars here are completely foreign to me. I genuinely only discovered what Sotha's avatar is last week while watching one of FenPhoenix's System Shock 2 videos . Some really great little stories so far (but "I just liked it" is a perfectly valid answer too). And RPG's avatar always gives me a little smile.

This may be a non-starter but I'm quite nosey interested in what quite a few of the avatars on display actually are​, and why you've chosen them for this forum. I'll start: My avatar is: a still from the film Vampyr (1932 German vampire film, IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023649/. I may get round to adding it to Melan's 'Thiefy movies' thread at some point, cos parts of it are quite, er, thiefy). I chose it because: it totally captures the wide-eyed, peering-over-my-shoulder, "What the heck was that?" feeling I can get from playing TDM. Anyone else?

I managed to work out the basics of creating the various image files from the basic textures tutorial and parts of Renzatic's tutorials (the bits that I understood anyway). The hardest part I found was getting the material file to work - I've got a breakdown of what worked for me in a PDF on my minus account if it's any help. Tempted to say that if I can work it out, anyone can, but if that was true, everyone on this forum would be able to do EVERYTHING.

I think I'd have found the video much more helpful than reading the gameplay wiki when I was starting. Seeing what "Don't get too close" means (rather than just reading it) would have saved me huge amounts of blackjacking frustration in my early TDM days . Aren't all videos just 'action/movement/action'? Sorry if I'm being dense, but I don't think watching any game video will 'translate the feel' of what it's like to actually play it.

OK, you got me. Limbo, Dear Esther and Company of Heroes for just over a fiver.

Many thanks - v. encouraging. If anyone does find a use for them in an FM, I'm not particularly bothered about a credit but I'd be dead chuffed to see some WIP screenshots. Again, many thanks; it's just that when I look at something like Renzatic's tutorials on tiling, I know I've still got a lot to learn. (Plus, you haven't seen me trying to build something in DR. ) But thanks (again) - really appreciate the encouragement!

A few more textures: Medieval wall Cave rock Quartz rock All uploaded at http://simplen00b.mi...m/mKQmdKEUQ/13g with all the materials files (normal maps etc, but no spec maps) to put into DR. My normal maps rarely go beyond the "Looks alright to me/**shrug**" stage, so feel free to improve on my efforts if anyone wants to .

I do (fairly) regular backups of my partitions with Macrium Reflect. Just have to make sure I tick the check box saying 'Allow access to restricted folders' when I mount an image otherwise I can get barred from opening certain folders. Overall v. happy with it, and it's been a life-saver on a couple of occasions when the laptop's got infected.

Does African blues count? http://youtu.be/dMWSjD9rYq8

I can enjoy the blues occasionally in small doses, but my main problem with it is the standard blues chord progression - after 2-3 songs I start getting Attention Deficit Disorder (or, to put it another way, bored) and just sit there thinking "Put some different chords in". Seasick Steve's had a bit of coverage in the UK, the noise he can get from a guitar with 2 or 3 strings is pretty amazing - I really liked 'Chiggers', wasn't so keen on the second song, but I'll definitely check out more of his stuff - he's got quite a punky attitude which I like.

One of the great things about this FM is that key items aren't necessarily in the same place the next time you play it.

I'd say all gestures of thanks/appreciation are welcome .

Or a third possibility is that we'll get a large masterpiece (even better IMHO) . (No pressure, JB. Jus keep goin.)

Brillant - many thanks guys. Had a suspicion I was reinventing the wheel. @grayman: I had clicked around (in my typical baboon-like fashion) around on 'dense cylinders' and 'append' but like I say, absolutely no background in this sort of stuff so had no idea what was happening. It do make a difference when someone explains it! @RP - think I understand the tangency info (bit like bezier curves - ????); I think I'll leave trying to get my noob brain around patch tessellation for a later time. Thanks. (Just don't hold your breath.) Thanks again! - yes, one of a few I've knocked together. Will try to upload them to my minus account At Some Point. On a completely different topic - I'm sure a few months ago I came across some Wiki instructions on how to call up the console in TDM with one key-stroke instead of three. (Something to do with changing the properties of the TDM shortcut - ????) Did I imagine it? Can't find it anywhere now.

I'd better reply to this over at the Newbie thread now I've put it there .

(Copied this over from the 'What are you working on now?' thread as this is more where it belongs. Looks like I've joined the patch mesh debate at just the right time.) I'm (slowly and painfully) working on the first part of a possible FM, which I'd like to start with a fairly long tunnel approach as a secret entrance to an underground mission (so the tunnel would be the first, fairly small part of a larger map). I'm going for mostly tight & claustrophobic with some jumping & climbing challenges, with maybe one or two wider areas with the space for some AI interaction before reaching the main mission area. I'd appreciate any comments on whether my approach to constructing tunnels is (1) fine; (2) OK but there's a much easier way; (3) seriously flawed and just going to cause problems down the line. I have no background in this type of thing at all - I'm just using DR in a point/click/make-something-pretty way, and I seriously don't understand any of the technicalities of what I'm doing. Construction method: (1) created an 11x11 Simple Patch Mesh (2) vertice-wrapped it into a rough asymmetrical tube (3) duplicated it four times and placed them end-to-end. (I did put them altogether as a Selection Set, but this doesn't seem to get saved once DR closes. Is there a way of grouping/welding them together to make one object?) (4) pulled and bent them around, again moving vertices. A couple of screenshots if they're of any use - this is in its very early stages, so everything's still pretty smoothed out and slapped on ATM. Just wanted to get some feedback on whether this approach is OK before I really went to town on it! (NB: The endless brick wall in the background of the first shot won't be part of the eventual map .) AluminiumHaste replied to my original post suggesting I use a patch cylinder. I did try that but can't work out how to get the texture on the inside. EDIT: AH has pointed me toward the wonder of 'Invert' (ctrl-I) . So next newbie question - the cylinder patch doesn't seem to have many vertices (vertex points?) on it to play around with. Is there a way of either (1) adding more vertices to it, or (2) stitching together several short cylinders to make a long cylinder with more vertices I can bend and stretch?

I did try that - couldn't work out how to get the texture on the inside. Just occurred to me I should be posting this in the Newbie DarkRadiant Questions thread. I'll copy it over there now.

EDIT: Realised I should have put this in the Newbie DR Questions thread, so I've deleted this post and copied it over there now. Hope that's OK.

I spent literally about five minutes looking at Melan's posted pic, imagining how great it'd be to clamber over it in TDM. (Five minutes sounds like a pathetically short amount of time, but I can't remember when I just sat looking at one picture for that long on a computer screen.) Living in it would probably be a nightmare though.

And also the title of a rather excellent album/song from early '80's gloom-rock merchants, The Comsat Angels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX-PCmjroY0 But yeah, Shakespeare got there first, methinks...

I knew it wasn't finished when I went into it so I didn't have any major frustrations, and actually quite enjoyed the feeling of having an insight into a 'work-in-progress'. Really looking forward to v2.0 .

My comments (in no particular order): Overall assessment: this FM has huge potential that IMHO is about 20-30% realised in its current form.

Low-angle point-of-view is apparently fairly common in horror films as it forces the viewer into a child-like (and therefore helpless) frame of mind. (That's the theory according to something I remember Robert McKee saying about Alien anyway - there's loads of low-angle stuff, especially in the opening sequence apparently, but I haven't seen it recently so can't say for sure.) If it's true, we're sort of half-way there with 'crouch' mode . Re the video: anyone else have a Cradle flashback about 0.35?

Wow...I stand condemned; that 'common sense' option didn't even occur to my cold, thieving heart (sob)... ***admiration for Sotha's story-telling/game-planning/general-TDM-geniusness rises even further***