simplen00b
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Posts posted by simplen00b
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How big would that need to be (in pixels)?very complex textures (with top and botton, or a certain mark in the middle like a patch of missing mortar (with exposed bricks)) are welcomed (by me anyway) when they are vey big and can be used to cover an entire wall -
http://simplen00b.minus.com/ I've started uploading medium-res 1024 x 1024 jpegs which I can do tgas for if anyone wants them. Like I say, just started working on tiling again for the first time in years so not many up yet, but I'll keep on adding when I get the chance to make them.I dont see why you couldnt do the same (just keep releasing them and someone will surely pick it up and use it on a map, or maybe give it the bumpmaps and whatnot, etc).
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I would love a sub-easy/ultra-noob level setting where they do eventually put their swords away, as I'd be more willing to try running & hiding when I do a failed blackjack attempt. At the moment I usually just reload, as trying to run & hide usually results in unblackjackable AI stomping around for the rest of the game. Reloading is so quick it isn't a huge immersion breaker for me and I still enjoy playing the game. But man, I'd love to be able to run and hide and still have the chance to blackjack AI, even if I have to hole up for quite a while (10 minutes? 20?) And I personally haven't noticed the AI super-vision.but if they have been alerted by seeing you, then the sword stays out for the rest of the mission.
And just so's this isn't just a 'TDM is too hard' moan, I want to make the following point: -
Climbing/mantling
Rope-arrowing
Crate stacking
- not just easier in TDM, they're an ABSOLUTE JOY (never thought I'd say that about rope arrows). And the mod is great.
That is all.
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Thanks for the encouraging comments guys. A few more comments and questions: -
1. I know the 'grungey' textures lose their grungey quality when they repeat nicely and neatly over a large area
, but might they be useful for texturing smaller objects like bowls/trays/pots/whatever? If so, I can provide 1024 x 1024 tga files if anyone's interested. The guy who created the source textures states that if they get used and changed in the process (which they have been), he doesn't mind whether he gets any credit or not, so copyright shouldn't be an issue. Let me know.2. I've read a couple of posts from people saying they have photos they'd like to try to use as textures but they don't have the time to work on them. I'm happy to have a go at tiling them if it could help.
Finally (and maybe most importantly): -
3. I suspect there's more work involved in making textures that look good in 3D-modelling than there is in making textures that look cool on my desktop. I'm happy to keep posting up samples of what I'm doing - if someone can see that I'm missing/messing up something important, let me know. (If you pm me with a message like "Your saturizers need more pixelflexing in the z-quanta dobly range", that should hopefully be enough to help me find a relevant tutorial via Google.)
And this is even before the bump (normal?) mapping process, which I am completely clueless about.
Thanks again for the encouragement!
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I've started to quite enjoy messing around turning pics into tiles, and from browsing the forums I'm wondering if I could help with textures (the 'turning them into tiles' part, at least).
No idea whether what I do would be up to TDM standards, so I've attached some samples for you to check out. If you think they show enough promise for me to be useful, let me know. Just to be clear, I'm not submitting these as potential textures, just as examples of my ability (or otherwise
) to tile.
Source image for brick wall: http://ipadwallpaper...1-wallpaper.jpg
Sources for other textures are from http://shadowhousecr...ns.blogspot.com
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And some screenshots (warning: auto-levels and rather silly captions have been applied): -
I came so close to adding this caption to the reload pic (given how many times I saw it): -
Your mission, simplen00b, should you choose to accept it – fell these three undead horrors with one vial of holy water. Go! – oh bad luck. Try again….ah. That didn't work either, did it? Have another go. Oh, well done! – two down – ooooh no – the last one's gone back down the stairs. Now now – hitting the reload key like that isn't going to make it reload any faster is it? And that language certainly isn't going to help. See how you get on this time. Oh, good try. What's that? Your 10-pipeline Intel integrated graphics chip is only giving you 4-5fps? Oh boo hoo. Man up and grow some. Wow that was bad. Have you ever actually used a bow before? (etc etc, cont. for 20 mins)
Four Revenants and a Flamehead, and a zombie. Someday all Richard Curtis/Hugh Grant films will be like this.
Ner ner nerner ner. I've got the Sphere and yooou haven't. Ner ner nerner ner. And you tore off only one of my limbs while I escaaaaaped. Still gonna climb up chains and ropes and run up stairs and stuff to get away and destroy it. Ner ner nerner ner.
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Upfront confession time - I'm really not a fan of these kind of levels, and the only way I can play them is by actively avoiding getting too immersed in them. This usually means:
1) having the sound turned down quite low (creepy sounds freak me out way more than creepy visuals), and, if necessary, putting an Adam & Joe podcast on in the background;
2) mucho use of reload.
So, apologies to all you scary-FM makers (NB: not scary FM-makers. Although some of you may be
), and apologies to Sotha especially for point no. 2 after seeing his views on saving & reloading, but, I yam still a TDM newbie and that's the way it is (at the moment anyway).Given that, if anyone's still interested, this is my gameplay experience (warning: very long): -
Nice creepy atmosphere at the start. Explored the grounds a bit and found the secret lever in the cellar – it didn't seem to do anything but I didn't worry about it; just trusted there'd be another way of achieving whatever it was meant to do (I wuz right too). Enjoyed mantling up the tower, especially with the stuff giving way underfoot (or over-rope arrow).
Then into the tower – staircase giving way was a bit of a scare but not huge (sound turned down), and the sight of the dismembered body on the other side of the room gave exactly the right sense of 'Oh, cr*p'. Something told me to close the staircase door that was open, so the first zombie arrival didn't catch me completely off-guard. Noted and was creeped out by the defaced paintings - shades of the observatory(?) in Shalebridge Cradle?
I took the tactic of downing all the zombies with holy water as I went along. (I had forgotten fire arrows also worked, and didn't know mines would do the job too.) "It'll be fine," I told myself when supplies started running low. "There'll be more holy water and water arrows provided as the game progresses. No FM-maker would be so cold-heartedly brutal as to plunge a poor newbie playing in easy mode deeper into a plague pit of zombie hellishness without arming him or her to the teeth with weapons. It'll be fine."
Hah. The hall of three zombies took me about twenty minutes to get through as I was determined to get them all down with one vial of holy water; not easy - especially when my Intel integrated graphics chip was giving me between 2-5fps – but I did it. Nearly wore out the quickload button, but I DID IT. BTW, this area highlighted the seriously good AI route-planning – the zombies never seemed to do the same thing twice even though I was doing pretty much the same thing every time.
And on down, down and down – and into the pool! Finally! This is where I stock back up on water arrows! Gotta be some in here somewhere, right? And there's some more holy water somewhere too? Right? Right???
Oh. Cr*p.
I'll be honest – when I finally entered the lowest level with one water arrow and no holy water and saw what looked like an army of undead wading around, I very nearly gave up. I've got no chance, I thought. But hey, give it a go. And waddya know, got the book and the courage to get the crown behind Ol' Flamehead's throne. I even went through the doorway there, but after falling to my death a few times I gave up (too panic-stricken to think of rope arrows, even though I had found the one near the book).
I certainly wasn't going to bother with the optional objective, and scampered halfway-back up the tower when my conscience started pricking me. You can't leave without at least trying to destroy that thing, I thought. You got out with the book, which you thought would be impossible. Give it a go. So, heart thudding in my throat, I turned around and went back down. Greater courage ne'er was displayed (blah blah blah).
Hopefully, Sotha, you''ll take it as a huge compliment to your game-creating skills that a whimpering panic-stricken noob like me was able to go into that hell-pit with only one water arrow and actually fulfil that optional objective. I used the last water arrow to douse the light above the sphere, then just grabbed it and ran back up to the window entrance by the pool chased by half-a-dozen enraged undead. (Nearly gave up again when I realised I had to 'hold' it in front of me, but I persevered. Not as bad as trying to
drag that wretched skeleton around
in Heart of Lone Salvation, at least.
) Got some damage – mainly from a zombie coming down the stairs while I was racing up 'em – but managed to get through and then up the chain & rope to the upper floors. Which is where my 'kill-all-zombies' strategy paid off, as it was then a doddle getting the sphere up to the acid bath. (I nearly had a heart attack the first time it lit up though; I thought it was going to reactivate all the zombies I had felled. I think I genuinely would have finally given up if that had happened.)
Destroyed the sphere, and then hit the one point where I did, finally, give up – namely, meeting the final objective of trying to 'exit the way you came'. Y'see, I didn't look at the collapsed attic and think "It's blocked". No, I thought, "Sotha has turned the final objective into a fiendish climbing puzzle, because that is the evil kind of thing he does, and so I must find a way through this rubble because the objective says I must exit the way I came, and this is the way I came, and I MUST OBEY WHAT THE OBJECTIVE SAYS."
Anyway, after about ten minutes of mounting frustration (culminating in fire-arrowing the intact parts of the ceiling to see if any more would come down and give an escape route), I did finally give up and check this thread (comment in next spoiler). Then went back and finished, much more easily than I thought. Fire arrows rock!
Sotha, to save you wading through the above, this is the only thing that comes close to a criticism: -
Sotha, you comment in one of your spoilers that 'For some reason people do not spot the attic collapse'. I say this as a respectful newbie - I think the wording of that final objective may be part of the problem. I'd suggest that a fair number of players would understandably interpret 'exit the way you came' as 'take the same route out of the tower that you took coming in' and then get frustrated when they can't. Personally, I may have found something like 'Get back to the tower entrance gate where you started' may have helped me be a bit more, er, flexible in my thinking.
Hope this doesn't sound too complaining (and I guess most people seem to have managed fine) – heck, you've emptied a pit-load of undead horror over the soul of an undead-hating newbie, and the only thing I can suggest changing is the wording of one of the objectives. Plus, I will be playing it again (when my new laptop with a standalone 144-core gpu instead of a 10-unified pipeline chip arrives, that is – I want to play it on at least a semi-decent system before I officially rate it). Please believe that, for me, that's a huge compliment! Despite the undead, the design was great, but what really made it for me was the strong story – joking aside, that was probably the reason I decided to go back and try to destroy the sphere. It felt like what I did mattered!
Overall, a really well-designed FM with a good story that kept me in it despite my dislike of the subject matter. Good stuff!
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OK - last one (for now, anyway - ai generally seem to be behaving themselves at the moment). This is a series of shots from the beginning of Sons of Baltona. No Photoshop trickery, scouts honour (I'm not clever enough) - the guard just seemed to touch the wall and shoot up on an invisible elevator.
I had done a quicksave just before this happened so I was able to go back and take screenshots, but then I overwrote it
- however, I did go back and managed to get a saved game where the guard does something very similar on the other side of the entrance. It's too big to upload here (800KB zipped) so if someone did want to give it a try to see if the same thing happened on their system - erm, not sure what to do...pm me - ??? 
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Hi gx, and welcome!
Please disable running while crouched in the next version, or at least give a function with which we can do it in the difficulty settings
As far as I'm aware, the default gameplay setting is you have to press 'shift' to run (whether standing or crouching). So not sure what you mean by 'disabling' it - like badcogg says, it should just be a question of 'don't hit the shift key'.
I believe it's too easy to crouch-run through missions. It's too fast without the disadvantage of being adequately noisy.
Gotta say I don't find it that quiet - like badcogg, I usually alert ai if I crouch-run near them. I think Garrett (oops) Farrell is noisier in TDM than in T3 but at least he isn't wearing his wooden clogs from T1/T2.
*gets coat
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Somehow I feel compelled to link this thread for you, since it is related to this topic.
Very interesting. To go even more off-topic: maybe it's just me but I really like coming across a readable giving a hint to something I've already found. Gives me a lovely warm glow of self-satisfaction about what a clever observant thief I am. On the other hand, the extreme opposite - reading a hint and then still not being able to find the d**n thing - gives me a dismal cold glow of vengeful frustration. (Interestingly, both of these happened in Heart of Lone Salvation. Fortunately the LWGs outweighed the DCGs.)
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I'm always in need of proofreading when the mission release is coming. I'll turn to you when the time comes... Thanks in advance.
Hope I'll be able to help!
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Spelling and simple grammar errors can be distracting.
Yup, especially for someone who's borderline OCD about it (like what i is)(grammatical joke there). Wouldn't say it's been a huge problem in the 20 +/- TDM FMs I've played so far - T2 FMs (the ones I played anyway) seemed to have loads more typos, although your second point may have some bearing here: -
Understandable from mission makers whose first language isn't English.
This has got me thinking (and possibly taking the post slightly off-topic) - how do the mission makers who may struggle with English* get their readables done? Is there any need for help in that area? I'd be interested to know. (I may be picking on an isolated example here - I played Silencium18's excellent 'A Special Delivery' last night and even though it's a short mission, I missed having much in the way of readables to add to the atmosphere.)
*I.e. Not those of you who speak/write English better than many of my fellow countrymen
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This may be of pretty limited helpfulness, but just wanted to say I'm happy to do any proofreading of readables, objectives, mission briefings etc of any WIP if it's any help.
(Double-double-triple-checks above to make sure there are no mistakes in it.)
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Really well-designed mission, nice and straightforward with enough challenges to keep it interesting. I did wonder whether the electric lights could be turned off somewhere, but that would probably have made it way too easy - as it was, having to lean out into brightly lit areas to check where footsteps were coming from really ratcheted up the tension. Good one for TDM newcomers to try out I reckon. Thanks silencium.
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Thanks for the list demagogue. 2nd-hand copy of HL2 is on order and (assuming it's playable) I'll check some of your suggestions out.
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Yep - downloaded & installed Desura, and it needed HL2 in order to play DE.
So I guess next question is, apart from Dear Esther, are there many (any?) Thief-like atmospheric mods for HL2? Enough to make it worth forking out £2-3 for a s.h. copy of HL2? (Cap'n Tightwad in full control here.) Just had a quick look on moddb and it looks like there's over a thousand HL2 mods, most of which seem to involve either (i) killing zombies, (ii) killing zombies, or (iii) killing zombies (none of which I'm particularly interested in). Any advice welcome!
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That's why I ended up asking here - couldn't find any clear statement one way or the other on any other DE-connected websites. Anyway, I'm downloading Desura now and will report back for anyone else who may be interested. I have a back-up OS image I can reinstall if it all goes horribly wrong...
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I'm definitely intrigued, but I do need to ask - do I have to have a copy of HL2 to play the original mod, or (given HL2 source code has been open source for quite a while) is it now a stand-alone mod? Can i start playing if I install using this Desura thingy? Sorry if this is a 'facepalm-the-newbie' question, but, y'know, i'm a newbie (and also a tightwad
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Wow, I've never seen that before outside of characters getting out of bed. AI can just fall through the floor while patrolling??
IIRC (and I may not): -
i) I had water-arrowed the torch being carried by the guard in the cellar area.
ii) This had put him into high-alert and every attempt to blackjack him went horribly wrong, so I just crept round him to the guards' mess area where I remember there being a couple more guards who were quite easy to bj & hide.
iii) The first (torch-carrying) guard, however, seemed to have vanished, although I could still hear footsteps. Then I went into the generator area, and thought 'Oh - there he is'.
So I thought the guard had levitated rather dropped. Could have got that completely wrongity-wrong though. Still pretty much a TDM newbie.
I will say that I'm playing TDM on an ultra-cheapo laptop with Intel integrated graphics; from what I've seen on other threads, this contradicts most of the known laws of physics, so my silly screenshots are probably localised quantum fluctuations in the reality matrix which (if I keep on playing) will give rise to a wormhole in the spacetime continuum that will drag the planet into an alternative universe where dinosaurs and MACHINES and ALIENS engage in UNENDING BATTLE for THE SOUL OF MANKIND. Still, what can you do eh
*reaches for medication
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Some shots from The Builder's Influence - one of the guards in the first section seemed to vanish until I cautiously poked my head round the entrance to the generator area to see this:
He was in hot foot pursuit!!! Hotfoot!! Geddit!! Cuz his foot looks like it's somewhere - ah forget it...anyway - got a bit closer and took this: -
(Actually - jus wanna say - amazing texture on the blackjack...) - but again, anyway, got upstairs and eventually came across this (: -
...kudos to the guy, being buried up his neck in tiled flooring didn't deter him in the least from carrying out his guardly duties - the s.o.b. managed to get a sword hit in on me....can't honestly remember what I did in response - must have killed him somehow (once I had finished laughing)...
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It's... better, but still daft.
Crivens! Sounds like it's a minor miracle I'm able to play TDM at all
.I had wanted to support these Intel HD shitfests
Yeah, when I googled it earlier I came across several gaming reviews which were at best condescending about the chip ('Not the worst' was one of the more favourable comments). I'm not taking it personally - I am genuinely clueless about this sort of stuff and I'm just glad my ultra-cheapo laptop manages to play TDM.
(EDIT: I had asked for advice about upgrading to another Samsung laptop, but after doing some research I'm going to save up for a custom-built jobbie.)
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Awesome...just awesome.....
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Just done a bit of googling myself and found four references to Intel GMA X4500M DVMT graphics card (should maybe add that my full model no. is samsung RV511-A07UK). Is that any help?
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Thanks nbohr - had a nasty suspicion someone would ask bikerdude's question, and my only honest answer would have been a Homer Simpson-style *shrug/mouth-closed "I dunno"/stare vacantly into middle distance while scratching nether regions*
Does this mean my clicking the Intel choice on the poll is riotously wrong wrong wrong? I'm such a noob.
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Laptop, samsung RV511 with i3 core & 3gb RAM (running xp pro) - TDM plays fine so far
Tiling part of texture creation
in I want to Help
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I can EASILY imagine!