Beta Testers for The Parcel

[Xonze]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm at the point with my Christmas Contest FM, "The Parcel" that I need a few beta testers to kind of iron things out, and things like that. If you have the time and would like to help please send me a pm.

 

The map is on the small side (built in less than 2 weeks) so it shouldn't take to long to test, so the commitment isn't the same as with larger missions.

 

Thank you,

 

Xonze

[Namdrol]

PM sent.

[Serpentine]

Sure, PM me a link and Im happy to provide feedback etc

[Berny]

Here comes my feedback

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all - a nice little mission - it was fun playing it. The snow is cool!

 

a background melody would be nice, but not nessesary.

 

I think it's a bit too bright. I lowered the gamma to make the mission darker.

 

killing (knocking out) one of the guards makes his sword fly ^^ - look at the screeny:

 

http://img5.abload.d...ot000044krm.jpg - I tried this several times.

 

I just found 813 gold. And in my opinion I looked very well. So the hardest difficult would be impossible for me.. maybe I'm just lame (;

 

Is there something wrong with the sound? it seems that wals don't block the sound. Every guard hears me, and also I hear them - also if they are on the upper floor.

 

the bedroom key has no use.

 

 

 

 

Objectives are working well. patrol works.

the secret chamber works - but for me, quite hard to find

 

 

 

I played it in 22minutes. Quite fun!

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2009 by Berny

[7upMan]

Okay, here are my two cents.

 

 

First, I attached a screenie to show a certain stone picture (that of the stairway up to the second floor). I'd really appreciate if you could use another texture, as this one is just plain ugly.

 

Second, I didn't find the secret storage room, and so I also haven't gotten to the 1000 loot. Right now I'm on 830, iirc.

 

I too noticed the odd sound problems, with me being able to hear every AI walking and opening/closing doors. 

 

 

All in all a very enjoyable little mission, and I didn't have any trouble playing it on Difficult. Also, there were no texture problems with the front steps. However, I noticed that the sky rotates when I look up (I have this problem with several FMs, and even the wiki mentions it. Seems to be Radeon-specific.). Maybe you could ask GameDevGoro what he did differently, because when I played his FM, the sky behaved completely normal.

[7upMan]

Here comes my feedback

 

 

 

 

the bedroom key has no use.

 

 

 

 

Bernie,

I don't know if I did it the way Xonze intended it, but I crept near the guard as he tried to open the bedroom door, and when it was about to close I frobbed it so it would stay open. Problem solved. ^^

 

 

Also, I second the opinion that the mission was a bit too bright. But instead of changing the Gamma, I just lived with it.

[Namdrol]

 

The loots all there just takes a little hunt. I got most of it, enough to finish on expert, then heard about the last 90 in PM's with Xonze

I'm not it spoilering here just in case someone can't resist.

 

 

 

A guard left the bedroom door open for me and the key worked on the storage room.

I had no probs with brightness.

 

Edited December 21, 2009 by Namdrol

[Serpentine]

Gave it a go, took around 30 minutes - pretty in depth look at things.

 

Notes :

 

• The doorknob on the first door ahead of you once you have entered the building's handles arnt centered.
• Panels on the floor around the enterence and first level look quite out of place, a bit bright
• Windows to the front area are transparent, but they dont reaaaaally need to be - changing them to something opaque would most likely boost performance quite dramatically and stop the 'whole house' from hearing you outside.
• There are a few other areas where you seem to be able to get heard everywhere, I suspect they also need portalling looked at, cant think of them off hand tho!
• The runner guy, I thought he was meant to be knocked out or something - the note sort of implied it, but he's quite dead
• A few other windows seemed to be transparent when it wasnt required - but I could be seeing things - just make sure it doesnt leak performance
• In the kitchen the AI patrol node that seems to be in some monster clip - the one nearest the chest, looks a bit funny when he walks there (like he bumps into the box a few times then it seems to arrive)
• Some notes are collectable, some just readable - I only played medium, but dont remember them being needed... just seemed a bit odd
  
• Your front door and study area visportals are not working - check with r_showportals 1
• There is a wall section that is too short and leaking behind the front door on the right of the front door, on the most easily visable from the outside
• There is another leak on the 2nd floor, on the left indent, one of the closed windows has a gap between it and the wall, leaking to outside and making the bedroom always render.
  

 

 

Fixing up those leaks and making sure your portals work after that should dramatically increase your performance!

[Xonze]

Some responses:

 

 

Yeah the bedroom key is to open the bedroom door where the parcel is, I had a feeling some would do it they way you guys did and that's fine as it works just as well (though it helps that the guard doesn't close a door if it's open when he gets there). The key will open the door though. Maybe I'll change it so the guard doesn't go in, but stands in front of the door? I'll have to think on it.

 

Not sure what secret storage room is being mentioned. There are two secrets in the map, none are rooms. The only 'storage room' I can think of is the room where the guard stands in front of the door. Is that it? If so, it's not a secret, as there is an objective in there on higher difficulty levels.

 

Loot is pretty scattered around, and I figured it should be harder on expert to get all the loot you need.

 

 

 

 

 

7up, could you post a screen of a close up of the steps, just want to make sure it's the right texture.

 

Thanks all that have taken the time to help me test

[Serpentine]

A tip to spot leaks like that is:

 

1. Make sure all transparent surfaces like windows etc are opaque for the duration of this.

2. Make sure your ambient light is inside the building or whatever, in this case it doesnt need any moving.

3. Open a section of the skybox to create a leak.

4. Change the texture of the front door, or whatever visportal you want to test to something like stone.

5. Dmap and trace where the leak is, make the chane then repeat until it starts moaning that entities are leaking (i.e an entity/patch is exposed to the void)

6. Once all the fixes are made, select the 'visportal' and 'make visportal' it again.

7. Make sure if you changed any doors or other visportals that they are back to how they should be.

 

Also note, I didnt look for the leak in the study, its portal is always open, you can most likely find that by inducing a leak to the void from one of its walls. But its most likely related to the model you are using for a doorframe not blocking correctly.

[Xonze]

Thanks Serp for your help and time!

 

 

 

I agree, I'm really, really debating whether to change them all to opaque, I like being able to look outside from the inside but I'm not sure if it's worth the performance hit. I may try to get those portals fixed and see if that helps.

 

It's a ragdoll as I didn't want him wake up and all that fun stuff lol. I had originally had him getting out an objective but scrapped it as I couldn't get it to work.

 

I'll check that node and make sure, as monster clip was one of the last things I did so I may have messed it up a bit there.

 

The one note in the room is an objective on expert and hard I believe, the other one isn't but maybe it shouldn't be moveable.

 

Nice, I can't believe I missed those, thanks

 

 

 

 

I'll be fixing some things up and sending out the fixed pk4 if you all would be interested in helping again. Serp, did you notice anything with the textures outside? I have one tester who had an issue with them and just wanted to see if anyone else did before I went in and starting playing.

 

Thanks again everyone!

 

Gave it a go, took around 30 minutes - pretty in depth look at things.

 

Notes :

 

• The doorknob on the first door ahead of you once you have entered the building's handles arnt centered.
• Panels on the floor around the enterence and first level look quite out of place, a bit bright
• Windows to the front area are transparent, but they dont reaaaaally need to be - changing them to something opaque would most likely boost performance quite dramatically and stop the 'whole house' from hearing you outside.
• There are a few other areas where you seem to be able to get heard everywhere, I suspect they also need portalling looked at, cant think of them off hand tho!
• The runner guy, I thought he was meant to be knocked out or something - the note sort of implied it, but he's quite dead
• A few other windows seemed to be transparent when it wasnt required - but I could be seeing things - just make sure it doesnt leak performance
• In the kitchen the AI patrol node that seems to be in some monster clip - the one nearest the chest, looks a bit funny when he walks there (like he bumps into the box a few times then it seems to arrive)
• Some notes are collectable, some just readable - I only played medium, but dont remember them being needed... just seemed a bit odd
• Your front door and study area visportals are not working - check with r_showportals 1
• There is a wall section that is too short and leaking behind the front door on the right of the front door, on the most easily visable from the outside
• There is another leak on the 2nd floor, on the left indent, one of the closed windows has a gap between it and the wall, leaking to outside and making the bedroom always render.

 

 

Fixing up those leaks and making sure your portals work after that should dramatically increase your performance!

[7upMan]

7up, could you post a screen of a close up of the steps, just want to make sure it's the right texture.

 

 

Well, here they are, from both sides. As you can see, there are no errors here. I'm using an ATI Radeon HD4870/1GB with Catalyst 9.10.

 

 

A quick note about the windows being transparent: I absolutely love that you can peer inside or outside. I wouldn't have it any other way. On the other hand, my graphics card is powered by a AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE overclocked to 3.4 GHz and backed up by 4 GB RAM, which makes it one of the most powerful computers among the Thief players. That being said, I'm always into trading fps for immersive detail, even if it means that my fps fall below 20 (I have 4xSuper-sampling Anti-aliasing enabled to get more beautiful looks, so this happens every once in a while).

[Namdrol]

Yea it was me that had trouble with the steps.

But I'm running a low end Toshiba Celeron 2 gb with onboard Intel graphics. (Free from the Open University, I love Scotland)

I had absolutely no probs anywhere with performance though. My fps dropped a bit but I had no lags.

(Dark Mod runs great, only probs was in Soren's lab in Demagogue's.)

 

I also really like the transparent windows and it would be a shame to lose 'em but if the leaks that Serp' spotted were plugged it all may be cool

Edited December 21, 2009 by Namdrol

[Xonze]

I think I know why you got black textures, I didn't make dds textures and so if you're running low textures they won't load...I think, I'm not really sure to be honest so I'm talking outta my butt I haven't figured out how to do dds textures yet sadly.

 

Performance has been fixed I think (quite a few leaks, mostly stupid ones, and a few badly done visportals are working now), and so has the sound issue. I'm now getting 60 constant frames (I have vsync on) before it would drop to 30 in some parts not anymore. I also have a pretty powerful system (3ghz, 4 gigs, 260gtx) so that's why I kept asking about performance. I'll be repacking it and sending it out to everyone as soon as I can, just make sure you delete the old pk4 file.

 

Thanks again to everyone who's helped so far.

 

 

 

Yea it was me that had trouble with the steps.

But I'm running a low end Toshiba Celeron 2 gb with onboard Intel graphics. (Free from the Open University, I love Scotland)

I had absolutely no probs anywhere with performance though. My fps dropped a bit but I had no lags.

(Dark Mod runs great, only probs was in Soren's lab in Demagogue's.)

 

I also really like the transparent windows and it would be a shame to lose 'em but if the leaks that Serp' spotted were plugged it all may be cool

[New Horizon]

Hmmm, shouldn't get black textures if image_useallformats 1 is set.

[Berny]

tested the lastest version

 

 

 

 

I haven't seen any problems his time. Just the thing with the sound. also found most of the gold (10 were missing) also the fps were a bit higher

 

 

[Xonze]

The sound is still not working correctly? So the AI can hear you where ever you are?

 

tested the lastest version

 

 

 

 

I haven't seen any problems his time. Just the thing with the sound. also found most of the gold (10 were missing) also the fps were a bit higher

 

 

[Serpentine]

Beta 2:

 

Looking very good, the changes to panel and wall textures really looks a lot better - portals are working well and peformance is up and as a knock on the AI also reacts much less 'globally'(now its how you would expect it). Good work!

 

Small cosmetic things :

• A few door handles are not centered, so theres space between the door and the handle.
  
• Tiny z-fighting above the sitting room door.
  

[Namdrol]

I didn't find the AI reacting last time but I was really sneaking.

This time I jumped about and only the ones in the locality reacted.

Sound isn't travelling anymore for me. (Me hearing guards I mean)

I'm going to have another good old run about tomorrow and try a couple of things but this is looking good.

As I said in last nights pm, good improvements in fps.

It's a go I reckon Xonze.

 

[Xonze]

Okay, I'll take a look at the doors and the z-fighting that serp and bern spoke of and do one last pack and send it out tonight. As long as my changes don't break anything it's seeming like this could be released very soon. Thanks guys for all your work and help, wouldn't of gotten this mission to where it is without you.

 

Take care,

 

Xonze

 

I didn't find the AI reacting last time but I was really sneaking.

This time I jumped about and only the ones in the locality reacted.

Sound isn't travelling anymore for me. (Me hearing guards I mean)

I'm going to have another good old run about tomorrow and try a couple of things but this is looking good.

As I said in last nights pm, good improvements in fps.

It's a go I reckon Xonze.

 

[Baddcog]

Don't know if you want a fresh set of eyes but I could give it a run through tommorrow.

[Namdrol]

Hi Xonze.

 

I did find a couple of points.

As before in the PM's, some are just nit picking.

I'm posting all these in thread this time rather than PM'ing so all can see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still no textures on the steps for me but remember my rig is very low spec, (mission runs really well though)

 

 

 

Looking out of the sitting room window there is no snow coming down, while there is when looking out the others.

 

 

 

At the bottom of the stairs, by the door frame there's a tiny bit of panel showing, as marked.

 

 

 

In the front courtyard, this tree branch is clipping through the wall.

 

 

 

 

But Xonze, this mission is nicely polished and as said, runs nicely, which is the priority for me.

 

Edit: Removed accidental reveal of loot location.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Namdrol

[7upMan]

I've just finished the mission. I also had the tree clipping error as well as the snow missing when looking out of the window of the greeen room (see second screenshot). In addition, when I was standing on the second floor directly above the green room (I think), I could hear the house owner walk and talk. I'm not sure that is intentional. Please see the first screenshot.

 

Second, when I get the parcel, it's not displayed in my inventory. Please see the second screenshot.

 

That's all I found. Oh, and I found both secrets. The first one through sheer luck, and the second through using logic.   

[Xonze]

Okay, I think I fix all the things (tree clipping, the wrong texture at the bottom of the stairs) but the parcel, as its a custom loot object there isn't an inv icon for it and I haven't quite learn how to do that. Its something that will have to wait for another mission as this mission is already passing the cut off date lol.

 

I'm not sure if I can fix hearing the voice but I'll play with the visportal and see.

 

Thanks everyone I'll be sending out one more beta after I hear back from a few more. Thanks for all your help

 

take care,

 

Xonze

 

I've just finished the mission. I also had the tree clipping error as well as the snow missing when looking out of the window of the greeen room (see second screenshot). In addition, when I was standing on the second floor directly above the green room (I think), I could hear the house owner walk and talk. I'm not sure that is intentional. Please see the first screenshot.

 

Second, when I get the parcel, it's not displayed in my inventory. Please see the second screenshot.

 

That's all I found. Oh, and I found both secrets. The first one through sheer luck, and the second through using logic.