So, what are you working on right now?

[AluminumHaste]

I recorded some sounds of eating bread and I think it's used as the generic eating sound now.

[Geep]

Agreed, those plates are good. Most likely it would be best if the cake and plate models were separate. Since TDM already has comparable plate models that are skinable, maybe all that would be needed plate-wise are the new textures, packaged into skins.

For the cake slice, it's possible to imagine a few progressive swapped models with nothing left at the end except a smear of frosting and a few crumbs.

[Geep]

@MirceaKitsune, riffing off the carrot model...

If you had in hand two cake slice models (uneaten and mostly-eaten), then in your entityDef for that cake slice, you would reference "model" and "model_eaten". You'd also set additional spawnargs defaults like:

equippable 1

equip_action_script eat_it

heal_amount <say, 3>

snd_eaten <munch sound shader>

The "eat_it" script function (in tdm_base01.pk4\script\tdm_equip_actions.script) will read those heal, munch, & 2 model spawnargs and pace out the sound effects and model swap.

I imagine if you had a couple more model stages, it wouldn't be hard to make a variant of eat_it to use them.

[Geep]

@Filizitas, if you'd like to create skins for your plate textures, to use on the existing TDM chinaware sets, I can help with that.

For a given plate texture, the first step would be to create a 256x256 (diffuse) image, with the plate circle going edge to edge; white background is good, no transparency needed. TDM wants this in compressed .dds format, as described here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DDS_Creation_with_GIMP

While .tga was the traditional starting point for conversion to .dds, GIMP will be happy to start with .jpg or .png as well.

Assuming your plates don't have any raised texture related to the pattern, there's a generic specular image that can be used, so you don't have to supply that (and you can skip the normal/bump map entirely).

If you can get it to .dds, I can take it from there. If that's too heavy a lift, I can do the conversion, but may take a while to get to it.

 

[datiswous]

3 hours ago, Geep said:

256x256 (diffuse) image

Isn't that a bit low resolution?

[AluminumHaste]

Normally I would agree with you but the plates are small.

[Geep]

Yup, that was my thinking. The existing dds for the plate skins, like "blue_china", are that size, and I didn't see a reason to enlarge beyond that.

[Goldwell]

I'm dropping my next standalone mission next week. And I wanted to give everyone a little teaser of what's to come by showing off my new briefing video. In it you'll hear a brand new voiced protagonist which is quite a bit different to the norm 

 

The mission was supposed to be featured in the Connections Contest but due to real life constraints I was not able to make the contest deadline. Because it was originally a connections contest mission you'll notice some references to the Volta universe (I was given permission by Kingsal to do so of course). With the extra time, I have spent it polishing and finishing up the mission which is now in beta and almost already to be released.

 

 

[AluminumHaste]

OMG another Goldwell mission??!?!?! Hot dog!!!! Can't wait!

[HMart]

Nice video Goldwell and man, voice acting in some TDM missions has more quality and better acting than some comercial games. 

[peter_spy]

I meant this as an exercise in mirrored UVs technique. Both version of the fence and the door are unwrapped in one texture space. By creatively cloning and rotating faces that player will never see at the same time, I managed to save a lot of space on the texture and get better pixel density. The biggest downside of this technique is that it can require a lot of planning, and it's best suited towards inorganic props.

While the unique faces that were used to build the above look like this:

Edited February 23, 2022 by peter_spy

[DeTeEff]

I'm creeping closer to starting the real alpha testing stage of my VIP. Meaning I will play the mission from the beginning as if it was a real mission. I still have some graphical stuff that needs tending to, but gameplay wise, I'm getting closer... I guess it's fair game to send the mission to beta while still working on visual stuff to save time. Or what do you say? Is it too risky? Forgetting some important stuff and releasing a non tested version as finished? 

[Anderson]

14 minutes ago, DeTeEff said:

I'm creeping closer to starting the real alpha testing stage of my VIP. Meaning I will play the mission from the beginning as if it was a real mission. I still have some graphical stuff that needs tending to, but gameplay wise, I'm getting closer... I guess it's fair game to send the mission to beta while still working on visual stuff to save time. Or what do you say? Is it too risky? Forgetting some important stuff and releasing a non tested version as finished? 

I think it's better to rush it than to procrastinate because there is no limit to perfection and it bogs everything down until it's never finished.

You'll return later to polish it or you can let someone else do it and you may just approve the changes or modify, reject them as you please.

The most painful is when something is left unfinished and it's never released IMHO.

[thebigh]

I'm more than happy to beta test a mission that still has cosmetic touches to go in. Scripting, gameplay, and balance are all things that can be tested early on.

[HMart]

Sorry if this isn't really directed at TDM but here is a simple boids system that I'm implementing on Dewm3 engine, sorry for the programmer art and the blurry video, will try to record something with more quality.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w1JIai8QNP3NiF9wBNb_gd73kXhQ5lvU/view?usp=sharing

Boids are used to simulate, bird flocks, fish groups, in large scale, etc.  This boids aren't AI's they are just simple renderEntity_t, they avoid each other, walls and move at different speeds, to simulate slow or sick animals, right now they avoid walls by using the engine ray tracing/testing. Because of that and even thou I did my best to optimize performance, this means that is really not a very fast system but in the video you see 500 boids working with imo good performance, albeit in a very simple scene.

Hope you guys like it.

edit: Better quality video (looks better in fullscreen), a more representative model, for the current boid behavior. Is a relatively highpoly model so performance got a tad lower with it, but still 500 boids. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by HMart

[HMart]

Improved the boids/fish behavior a little, now they seam to stay in close groups more often but for some reason, compared to the older system, performance took a nose dive with 500 boids. I don't really know why but I'm trying to find out.

This is not final and still very much WIP.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r5zVyDCl0mfHD_VqRZVPI2CZhjP3a1ge/view?usp=sharing

[peter_spy]

Looks fun!

[HMart]

indeed  and happy you liked it.    

btw was able to improve performance to be more or less the older system, now stays at 50fps's with 500 boids (the fish model is not optimized also), in real game you would use way less than that.  Still not finished, need to improve collision, specially at corners, because of the way I'm making the ray tracing, sometimes when a boid gets into a level corner it misses collision and gets out of the level into the void... like i said WIP.  

[Dragofer]

We should get @STRUNK in this thread for those boids, they look very relevant to his work.

[Epifire]

As some of you may know, I've been building up my dev portfolio in preparation for launching into professional Environment Modeling. Goldwell was kind enough to offer me a collaboration in an all new seaside location, which in turn granted me something neat to showcase. The goal was to create a larger area using all models to attempt something unique and visually compelling. This is a combination of high resolution sculpts in Zbrush + more traditional hard surface modeling in Maya, & textured in Substance Painter. Cape Aniva was also a huge inspiration for the lighthouse design. Very excited for the final playable version but till then, we've got some teaser shots for ya'll!















 

[thebigh]

Nice! The lighthouse, detailed rock models, and highlights on the sharper rock edges, give this an almost Dishonored vibe. It looks really cool.

[Amadeus]

Looks absolutely stellar Epifire!!!! 

[Epifire]

41 minutes ago, thebigh said:

Nice! The lighthouse, detailed rock models, and highlights on the sharper rock edges, give this an almost Dishonored vibe. It looks really cool.

Thanks! That's the benefit of throwing all the detailing at texture data. There's actually very few (separated) meshes in that scene. Most areas are divided into single chunks to save on the draw calls. Currently with the entire scene in view, it clocks at 454 draw calls and 16,625 shadow count. That's the added benefit of a fully modeled scene and having total control. Downside is that with it being all combined, major changes to the layout a very difficult to do when it's all finished. So it forces you to plan well in advance and anything reworked has to fit in the bounds of what you've already made.

[peter_spy]

Fantastic work Epi, as always!

[thebigh]

I'm in the early planning stages of my next mission. I'm tentatively calling it The Ring of Despair and much of it will take place in an Inventors' Guild establishment laid out a bit like a university building. Initial stages will involve you making your way through the City streets, exploring some side alleys and buildings, before you reach your goal.

In my previous maps I've had rough sketches of the layout of everything but this time I really want to be as meticulous as possible in planning it all out. I won't even touch DR, except to test some new models, until I've drawn up a bunch of floor plans, modules, and textures. Let's see if this approach works for me.

Goal is to release on Dec 31, with two weeks or so of betatesting beforehand.