So, what are you working on right now?

[geegee]

Having a beer at the bier outside the barn at the farm.

My WIP will probably go by the name 'Lucy'.  
It's too large to be a first FM.  The architecture is the easy part, and even that's very difficult to learn.  I'm only now getting an inkling as to what goes into "building vertically" - so my FM is flat.  Couldn't be flatter if it were steamrolled. 
But then there's lighting, audio, scripting, building a captivating immersive story... 

The architecture is getting close to finished.  Or so I tell myself.
The main plot, the core objectives, several optional side trips, are set down in outline form so there's a stable foundation.
Lighting is passable.
Ambient audio is very rudimentary or non-existent.
Storyline audio is non-existent and at the moment the story is told mostly through notes tied to starting/completing objectives, and to fx.  
There are no intro screens/video/texts yet.   
I don't know if I even can finish the thing.

Hmmm, now let's see how that file attachment thing works to send the pic

[demagogue]

Cool scene.

My constructive comment is that all walls should basically always have border work & interlacing planks to break up the space. It should be drilled in by habit, any time that you make a wall you make it with that. And then they should be combined into a func stat since they aren't separating geometry.

There are some tricks to hide the path/dirt seam. It's not a big deal to have it, but I like to lay down an n-shaped patch over the seam so it looks like a mound of dirt or rocks over the seam. Another trick is to glue a bunch of rocks together in long rows, and you only need a few that you can lay down over the seam or that you can quickly alter to follow the curve. Another way is to use a prefab surface with an alpha blend texture, but I never got into that method, basically because you're stuck with the pre-drawn curves (I think) instead of the arbitrary curves you want.

[geegee]

You mean the far wall with the tdm low_brick_wall_old tex.  It's a func_static but you're right, very monotonous - just a long rectangle.  I guess I just got used to it, so left it, having so much else to work on.  Your observation is noted, it'll be fixed up.

Here's a closeup of the grass edge.  I tried following Sotha's tutorial on building an edged road, but have my difficulties following arbitrary corners and meanderings.  I used the standard tdm grass_edge texture, but since there wasn't one for grass4 I swapped the grass4 diffuse for one in Fidcal's material defs.  As you can see, the grass4 in the edging is a very different scale than that in the patch it joins.  I don't like that either.  I've only recently started work on edging and will no doubt experiment with adjusting the alpha blend so I know how to give it more teeth, while also controlling the scale of the diffuse.  The edging around the straw in the barn is atrocious and definitely technique is a work in progress and I'm a slow learner.

[demagogue]

That looks pretty respectable actually. It's a challenge for everybody anyway.

For the border work, I was speaking about the facade of the barn. It's a big wall of a brush (/set of brushes) with one unbroken texture for the bulk of the surface, and I tend to think big stretches of an unbroken single texture are like dead space when they get too big. Breaking it up with borders or windows or anything that's contrasting makes the space come alive. It's a minor observation just IMO though.

[Dragofer]

Just for fun I recently updated my "Ships of TDM" map with both new ships and ones that weren't included before. It's quite the view now, and most of them have fleshed out interiors:

 

Back row from the right: Airship (Dram), Invernesse (Dragofer), Ship Wreck in 2 halves (Dram), Galleon (Dram + Springheel), Airship (Jesps, Pandora's Box), Galleon (PinkDot, core asset and found in many FMs), Barque (Dragofer)

Front row from the left: Indiaman (Dragofer, Perilous Refuge), Carack (Dragofer, One Step Too Far), Paddle Boat (Dragofer), Steam Schooner (Dragofer, Down by the Riverside, Away 1: Air Pocket), Caravel (Dragofer, in Dragofer's Stuff), Sloop (Dragofer), Brig (Dragofer, in Dragofer's Stuff), Yacht (Dragofer, in Dragofer's Stuff), Knarr (Dragofer), Boat1 & Boat2 (core assets).

No shortage of ships of all types if anyone ever needs one.

And a a barque interior shot taking advantage of DR's new ability to show lighting previews for all types of lights:

 

[nbohr1more]

What about a giant Chinese style ship?

 

[Dragofer]

1 minute ago, nbohr1more said:

What about a giant Chinese style ship?

I actually tried to make a giant European warship (i.e. HMS Victory) but those things get so huge. The time taken to make a ship increases exponentially with its size.

The next iteration of this map will likely go in a more metallic & industrial (& huge) direction, representing the upper limts of technology in TDM's setting. One of the next ships may be an ironclad.

[Frost_Salamander]

On 4/12/2021 at 2:30 AM, demagogue said:

And then they should be combined into a func stat since they aren't separating geometry.

What is the primary reason for this, besides being able to set things like 'noshadows' on the func_static?  Is that the only reason?  Does is 'hurt' to just leave them as worldspawn somehow?  I mean, I've started doing this as well without really understanding why, just that we 'should'.

[Springheel]

32 minutes ago, Frost_Salamander said:

What is the primary reason for this, besides being able to set things like 'noshadows' on the func_static?  Is that the only reason?  Does is 'hurt' to just leave them as worldspawn somehow?  I mean, I've started doing this as well without really understanding why, just that we 'should'.

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.

[AluminumHaste]

I think it also reduces draw calls as it's all sent as one to the GPU. Maybe

[Dragofer]

On 4/14/2021 at 9:32 PM, Frost_Salamander said:

Does is 'hurt' to just leave them as worldspawn somehow?

For me the main problem with leaving decorative brushes & patches as worldspawn is that wherever a brush meets another brush, dmap will try to optimise them in all kinds of ways. With increasing complexity you risk getting artefacts such as missing faces, glittery lines because of many very thin triangles and weird shadow projections, which typically all get resolved by converting into func_static.

Furthermore, dmap will also generate unnecessarily intricate pathfinding areas around such brushwork - it would be better just to surround the whole thing in simple monsterclip brushes.

As Springheel says, it's also great to be able to just enable the "All entities" filter to strip away the decorations if you ever get a problem with sealing, pathing, visportals etc

[Geep]

Upcoming TDM 2.10 will have more features for debugging info_location problems, thanks to @stgatilov. These are summarized in my update to The Location Entities section of Location Settings. Also See More at the bottom has additional links.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Geep

[Geep]

Beta Testing of Away 0: Stolen Heart Now Open

Please consider participation if your schedule allows. Thanks.

UPDATE: Participation is now paused, due to ample input, until the forthcoming Release Candidate 1

Edited June 16, 2021 by Geep
Participation is now paused

[Dragofer]

An encounter with some rather unsavoury types is taking shape...

[MirceaKitsune]

Just one sneak peak from mine for the time being.

[AluminumHaste]

Freaking awesome

[roygato]

9 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

Just one sneak peak from mine for the time being.

"I think you meant sneak peek".

I wonder if that twitter account still exists.

And whatever this compound is looks baller. Very imposing.

[MirceaKitsune]

Typo, sorry about that. Thanks... worked quite a bit on it! Made the two towers for the purpose of proper vis portaling, it's nice to see how that encouraged a nicer overall design as well

[peter_spy]

A little study in metals: copper, silver, gold. Tried to use as much as I know from the PBR workflow.

[JackFarmer]

@Dragofer

Geweldig & super gut!

On a different note: Is this the mission which will include the

Spoiler

submarine

you introduced to me a few months ago? Can't wait for that, you are a true sorcerer!

Edited June 28, 2021 by JackFarmer

[JackFarmer]

On 6/22/2021 at 2:55 PM, MirceaKitsune said:

Just one sneak peak from mine for the time being.

First thing that comes to my mind: The planets "Calladan" and "Gideon Prime" from David Lynch's movie "Dune" shot back in 1984 (if my recollection is correct).

Drawcalls?

Edited June 28, 2021 by JackFarmer

[MirceaKitsune]

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

First thing that comes to my mind: The planets "Calladan" and "Gideon Prime" from David Lynch's movie "Dune" shot back in 1984 (if my recollection is correct).

Drawcalls?

I kind of forgot the command used to check performance. My other excuse is that I allowed myself to forget because I was afraid of what I might see if I used them

[Dragofer]

@JackFarmer
I can't comment on any 

Spoiler

submarines,

you might be thinking of one of the excellent models created by ERH+?

54 minutes ago, MirceaKitsune said:

I kind of forgot the command used to check performance. My other excuse is that I allowed myself to forget because I was afraid of what I might see if I used them

In your defence, cabalistic says drawcalls aren't as important as they used to be.

[MirceaKitsune]

Here's a teaser of the second town. Same FM... since this one is going to have 3 separate city hubs you'll be able to travel between, I like open worlds like that and find it a shame there aren't more of them in TDM. Third still pending creation after I finish its route first.

Spoiler

 

[JackFarmer]

18 hours ago, Dragofer said:

@JackFarmer
I can't comment on any 

  Reveal hidden contents

submarines,

you might be thinking of one of the excellent models created by ERH+?

No, no, you showed it to me privately on discord a few months ago, thus I do not want to paste the picture here. It had

Spoiler

lighs with rays and looked like a submarine and you said it could swim or fly (but I think it was meant for swimming)

An extraordinary vehicle!