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Things that could be improved


Berny

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How exactly would you like the engine to "automatically" light every room appropriately? :huh:

 

Wait, now I'm confused- I thought it already IS implemented, just not on by default. So why are you asking this?

Just in case, I'll answer- take the summary brightness of all the lights in the room, divide by the room's size, multiply by a factor that needs to be determined with a short experiment and increase the room's ambient brightness by the resulting value.

I'm new to TDM so I don't know if every room is logically distinguished by the mapper as a separate room... but then again, it's only a matter of drawing a box around it, isn't it?

 

the coders job is to provide mappers with flexible tools to create their own artistic visions. It is the mappers job to learn how the hell to use them. If you educate yourself on the wiki/forums about all the important topics like lighting, S/R, particles, models, pathfinding, etc, you should find that the coders have done a goddamned fine job of providing us mappers with an extreme amount of artistic freedom to do what we want with our maps.

 

Don't gripe about default settings. Work up the intestinal fortitude to do some work and set things how you want them in your map.

 

Oh, I myself am okay with it when it comes to my maps. But what about the other creators' maps? After all, I also want to play the game so what I'm doing is simply suggesting what would make the game better. I'm not griping or anything, I really do appreciate the buttload of magnificent work that TDM is. :unsure:

Edited by mike mayday
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mike mayday: I'm confused by all this. To me the ambient lighting in all the released FMs has been very good to excellent. I can only repeat, have you calibrated to the standard in the gamma room? Are you seeing what the rest of us are seeing as you seem to be the only one seeing it this way?

 

Regarding the suspicion thing, there is another aspect to this. If players are used to AI not not relighting torches and not noticing open doors then it can be a bit unfair if they get caught out. I'm thinking of making one important door suspicious (though I can't remember if this code is in place yet but I might be able to simulate it.) If I do I think I'll put a note somewhere with orders to the guards to keep an eye on this door.

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Wait, now I'm confused- I thought it already IS implemented, just not on by default. So why are you asking this?

 

Dynamic ambient light was a feature added by us, as an extension of the ambient lighting system...which was refined for use by the TDM team. D3 did not use ambient lighting at all...hence the pitch black shadows.

 

I'm pretty sure if you tried to stretch a dynamic ambient light over the entire map, like a regular ambient light, this would cause the light level across the entire map to decrease...even if you only snuffed candle indoors...the entire light level of the map would decrease. That's why mappers set the level ambient, and then can decide if they want to set certain rooms up with dynamic ambient lights. I believe the dynamic ambient turns off the regular ambient in the room and uses its own levels. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's how it works.

 

In any case, you can't simply have the engine do this automatically without setting up the lighting for it. Even if D3 had a system in place for this by default, it would require setting some type of 'zone info' about the room so it would behave properly.

 

Anyway, that's my limited understanding of how it all works. Someone who has worked with the code could tell you more.

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mike mayday: I'm confused by all this. To me the ambient lighting in all the released FMs has been very good to excellent. I can only repeat, have you calibrated to the standard in the gamma room? Are you seeing what the rest of us are seeing as you seem to be the only one seeing it this way?

I've tried it many times, yes. Perhaps I'm not expressing myself correctly: the problem isn't that the falloff is generally inappropriate, the problem is that one candle is pretty well simulated, but six candles should light up the entire room slightly.

 

Regarding the suspicion thing, there is another aspect to this. If players are used to AI not not relighting torches and not noticing open doors then it can be a bit unfair if they get caught out.

Well, at this point I imagine the player base is so used to standard Thief rules that adding anything new could only be done as an option anyway.

 

I'm pretty sure if you tried to stretch a dynamic ambient light over the entire map, like a regular ambient light, this would cause the light level across the entire map to decrease...even if you only snuffed candle indoors...the entire light level of the map would decrease. That's why mappers set the level ambient, and then can decide if they want to set certain rooms up with dynamic ambient lights. I believe the dynamic ambient turns off the regular ambient in the room and uses its own levels. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's how it works.

 

In any case, you can't simply have the engine do this automatically without setting up the lighting for it. Even if D3 had a system in place for this by default, it would require setting some type of 'zone info' about the room so it would behave properly.

Ah, I thought the zone info (distinguishing a room as a separate place, is that what you mean) already has to be there anyway.

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I believe the dynamic ambient turns off the regular ambient in the room and uses its own levels. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's how it works.

 

It's probably better to describe it not as turning it "off" but just fading (tweaking) the regular ambient a few notches for that zone, then then fading it back to the default when you leave.

 

it would require setting some type of 'zone info' about the room so it would behave properly.

 

Yeah, this is right.

 

Since these are mapper controlled things, what Mike is basically asking about amounts to opening up an FM in DR and "fixing" some things he wants to improve (whether or not the mapper even meant to leave it out). For those kinds of changes, if you're really heart-set on changing an FM, it's probably best not to advertise it since the mapper might take it personally, but you know once you download an FM it's basically yours to play with if you want to open it up in DR and play with all sorts of things (it's actually a great way to learn about building, like a pre-made playground to try ideas; though of course it's even better to make your own playground.) But anyway the best way to do that is to read the wiki and do it yourself in DR; it's all there if you look for it. But it's not really something we're going to help you with on the forums (except maybe pointing you in the direction to do stuff yourself for your own personal use), since those of us that have mapped really respect the creative work of other mappers and are sensitive to the idea of "authorship", esp for more artistic choices like lighting. We don't presume to say their artistic choices were "wrong" and need to be "fixed", just that that was their artistic choice for their own FM and you can like it or not (and you can critique it all you want, of course) but you acknowledge that it was their choice and it's best letting the FM stand as such.

 

Edit: Of course this applies more to aesthetic things than mechanical, gameplay things where the player's enjoyment is a key part of the equation too and they may feel entitled to want some things (and I realize that sometimes the line between the two, e.g., with lighting, can be fuzzy. That's just part of the interesting dynamic of gaming, which is unlike things like art, movies and books in that it's more of a dialog between author and player, where the player participates, than a pure monologue where audience only watches. Not going to solve everything about that dynamic in this little post, though, lol.)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Well, TBH, I agree that it is both an aesthetical and gameplay problem, but I strongly believe the game would benefit in both cases, it's more of a "fixing a problem" than "changing a design decision".

I mean just take a look at this picture again:

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/darkmod/3.gif

I understand that there may be cases when an author wants this kind of thing to happen, but it's extremely jarring that a light so strong doesn't light up a larger area and seeing it happen every time (unless an author actually takes the time to implement dynamic ambient) is just disappointing for me. That's why I assume that it should happen only when a mapper consciously decides to do it.

 

And well, editing every room of a mission in DR before I play it kinda takes away the fun, doesn't it?

Edited by mike mayday
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I did, but does it matter? Here's the same situation (from the training mission) without bloom:

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/4.gif

No matter if there's only one lit candle or seven, only an area as small as one candle would light is lit. Which makes the bright spot look unnaturally small. I understand that summing the force of all nearby candles is too calculate a new "avarage" light radius value is too difficult, that's why I'm proposing a trade-off in the form of increasing the room's ambient value (which should happen anyway to simulate light bouncing off surfaces and filling the whole room).

 

EDIT: And here I lit almost all the light sources in this room:

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/3.jpg

I believe this is the equivalent of placing 40W lightbulbs all around. Yet there are still places as pitch-black as if there was no light in the room.

Edited by mike mayday
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I understand that summing the force of all nearby candles is too calculate a new "avarage" light radius value is too difficult, that's why I'm proposing a trade-off in the form of increasing the room's ambient value (which should happen anyway to simulate light bouncing off surfaces and filling the whole room).

 

I don't understand that sentence.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Uh, yeah sorry, it's way too late in the night here. Corrected the terrible mistakes...

 

I believe it was Springheel who brought up the idea that this problem could be alleviated by creating lights that have a much larger range and a quick falloff. In that case lighting up many lights would eventually make the whole room noticeably brighter- which is the natural thing to happen. But that would consume too much GPU-power.

 

To summarize:

The problem is that 1 candle has the same light radius as ten candles standing next to each other. Ten candles should be enough to light the entire room slightly.

 

But hey, I've got an idea. Let's stop this discussion- I'll try to make a demonstration in DR to show my point better.

Edited by mike mayday
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The problem is that 1 candle has the same light radius as ten candles standing next to each other. Ten candles should be enough to light the entire room slightly.

 

So what you want is for lights to function as though they are conscious of the other lights around them?

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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I think I understand.

 

Problem:

  • On lights, mappers set brightness and radius
  • They tend to keep both small because this is a game of shadows and also because overlapping radii reduce performance.
  • If a player moves several lights together then although there is an accumulative brightness the radius is never affected.
  • Theoretically this could be fixed if all mappers set large radii as it might be assumed that a low level of brightness would fade to the same point anyway.
  • But in fact in Doom 3 lighting the brightness always fades to zero at the edge of the radii. Plus it would badly affect performance.

 

Possible solution:

  • Mappers also set a background low level ambient light to simulate complete darkness without actually being inky black. This is for gameplay reasons.
  • This is mostly one giant light whose radius covers the entire map (also used to pre-calculate this light with fast rendering for better performance.)
  • This light can be modified in game by local controls.
  • With a group of lights, eg, candles, they could be linked to say a script that increases the ambient light to simulate an increased radii of the candles.

 

Downside:


  •  
  • More work for mappers
  • Not so obvious how to detect a group of moveable lights that are brought together from different areas.
  • Most players including myself are happy with the current situation.

 

Conclusion: Seems very unlikely anything will change.

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This is basically about simulating radiosity. I'm sure many here are familiar with it, but it is of course very processor intensive when done the realistic way.

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I did, but does it matter? Here's the same situation (from the training mission) without bloom:

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/4.gif

No matter if there's only one lit candle or seven, only an area as small as one candle would light is lit. Which makes the bright spot look unnaturally small. I understand that summing the force of all nearby candles is too calculate a new "avarage" light radius value is too difficult, that's why I'm proposing a trade-off in the form of increasing the room's ambient value (which should happen anyway to simulate light bouncing off surfaces and filling the whole room).

 

First, doing this in a realistic manner is *hard*. It is so hard, that as far as I know (with a few exceptions), no real-time game rendering engine does this.

 

Second, a very crude form is already implemented (by yours truly) in TDM, however, it has to be setup to be used. An for some reason, the guy who made the first training map version, was opposed to "zones" in TDM, and hence did not use them, and hence, the training map has no dynamic ambient whatsoever (as you noted above).

 

EDIT: And here I lit almost all the light sources in this room:

http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/~mayday/upload/3.jpg

I believe this is the equivalent of placing 40W lightbulbs all around. Yet there are still places as pitch-black as if there was no light in the room.

 

With a properly setup zoning info in the map, thats how it works. Here are two screenshots from the testmap (I can upload this for you if you want), watch the floor in front of the lightgem, where only ambient light hits:

 

Lights off:

post-144-127442844682_thumb.jpg

 

Lights on:

post-144-127442843014_thumb.jpg

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Conclusion: Seems very unlikely anything will change.

 

Because it is already implemented... it just has to be used:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Location_Settings#Ambient_light_settings

 

(See ambient_light_dynamic)

 

(One of these days I get tired implementing features and asking for them to be tested only to have people (from the team nontheless) discussing the very same feature months later as if I am invisible...*sigh*)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Because it is already implemented... it just has to be used:

[...]

(One of these days I get tired implementing features and asking for them to be tested only to have people (from the team nontheless) discussing the very same feature months later as if I am invisible...*sigh*)

 

lol laugh.gif

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Tels, those features will become well known when someone builds a mission shows them to the world - kinda like how the possibility of camvators in Dromed was picked up after Saturnine's mansion mission, which (I think)first used them.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Tels, those features will become well known when someone builds a mission shows them to the world - kinda like how the possibility of camvators in Dromed was picked up after Saturnine's mansion mission, which (I think)first used them.

 

Yeah, and that is why I was campaigning pretty hard that this very feature to be added to the training map - apart from the dynamic lights the zoning features also audio-per-zone (demagogue started with that - great work), scripts that can run at zone exit/entry, and so on. It is quite powerful and flexible, and it avoids the mapper having to write scripts for common things (like "play audio cue when player enters kitchen, regardless where he enters (window, door, trapdoor, secret door etc)).

 

Unfortunately, the training map was done without that. :-/

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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No matter if there's only one lit candle or seven, only an area as small as one candle would light is lit. Which makes the bright spot look unnaturally small.

 

Or here is my solve, separately placed particles that are targeted from a fake light.

Here

Edited by _Atti_
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First thing, this mod is amazing. Very great achievement and work. Good job. :)

 

However, the only thing I would like to see added to this mod is the ability to use a longsword. It could complement the game's fighting system and make it more interesting, because now the sword is too weak and small. But, of course a thief would not bring such a large sword when going sneaking, so a short sword as now, is more ideal. Yup, I agree much on this.

 

Although, sometimes I would like to be able to choose a bigger sword to fight better in combat. It could be heavier and more damaging but slower to move when wielded and reveal you much more, but it was your own choice to bring such a weapon to your mission. A sneakier person will bring a smaller weapon while one who is interested in combat will decide to equip himself with a larger weapon.

 

Maybe the player could choose which type of sword they wanted to bring to missions? Missions with a lot of undead and fighting may benefit from a "better" weapon?

 

Anyway, that is all about this mod that I have a "complaint" about. Everything else, well done.

 

Also, I apologize if there has already been suggestions about this on other topics or on this topic because as I write this now I have not checked. :D Sorry.

Edited by Taffer418
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@Tels: A slight correction - the trainer does include dynamic ambient lighting - but it uses its own script by Flanders I believe. My belief is that it was set up in the early days just before your general ambient standard was set up. And I guess since the custom made one worked in the trainer there was no need to fix it. So there is a difference in the ambient light when you go outside to the archery range and climbing area and also down to the gamma room. I think others possibly too.

 

I have not used this myself (except to adjust the above when I worked on the trainer) in my own maps nor the audio one simply because there are so many things to work on when making a map and in most cases one ambient will do and is far easier; same for speakers. So it's extra work and different people have different priorities and value so unless I see a problem in my FM that bugs me I'm not looking for more work. ;) Having said that, I put in a huge amount of effort say, adding grime corners. Hundreds of 'em in Heart. Just done a small section in 'Heart 2' too. Looks great and simulates shadow and radiosity and grime all in one - but few use them probably because of the extra work - or simply not being aware. No problem. Everyone is drawn to different things or has different priorities. It's not a matter of not appreciating a feature. :)

 

post-400-127443465252_thumb.jpg

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However, the only thing I would like to see added to this mod is the ability to use a longsword. It could complement the game's fighting system and make it more interesting, because now the sword is too weak and small.

 

Nah, longswords are for pussies. I'd want a cannon. Can you imagine wheeling that bad boy into battle and watching all the guards scatter. rolleyes.gif

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(One of these days I get tired implementing features and asking for them to be tested only to have people (from the team nontheless) discussing the very same feature months later as if I am invisible...*sigh*)

 

Before you start sighing about being unappreciated, read the thread carefully. At least four people (including me) already pointed out the existence of the location ambient feature you implemented. Mortem even posted the same link you did. In the message you quoted, Fidcal was also acknowledging the existence of the system.

 

The original poster wanted something would work automatically, without the mapper having to do anything, and THAT is what Fidcal was referring to when he said things would not likely change. Accusing him of ignoring your work is inaccurate, at best.

 

An for some reason, the guy who made the first training map version, was opposed to "zones" in TDM, and hence did not use them,

 

This is also a misrepresentation. The training map had its own method for controlling local ambient before you implemented your system, and the mapper did not want to undo his own work to implement a new system that had not (at that time) been tested. Since we were extremely pressed for time at that point, it seems like a perfectly appropriate decision.

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