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Editing Tip of the Day


Fidcal

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Fidcal, does it crash if you hit f3 with just a small room and one light?

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Hmm, maybe it can only handle so much?

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happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

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This tip is about frob difficulties which has been much complained about recently by players, particularly from chests but it applies to any situation.

 

The first rule is to test. If you are using the high crouch toggle, go down into standard crouch to test and assume that most players will be at that height or else standing. It should be easy to frob objects generally. It's not mean to be a challenging game to just pick something up out of an open chest. So check that all your loot etc can be frobbed without 10 minutes frustration.

 

Here are some things you can and should do to make frobables that are difficult to frob much easier:

 

Add this property:

 

frobbox_size 5

 

It should immediately be easier to frob. The value can be bigger but it might then interfere with other things so keep it low. Usually 3 or 5 is enough. This tip also works on frobables that are away from surfaces. The way that the Dark Mod frob works is enhanced by the surface behind it such as a button on a wall or a key on a table. But you might find a lock on a barred gate or a lever, or a rotary valve on a narrow pipe difficult to frob because there is no large surface behind them. The frobbox_size property is the one to remember and is usually the only one I need to use.

 

Another is frob_bias. This is mainly for groups like stuff on a shelf where you want to give one thing priority over another. I've never fully undestood it but I believe the values are from 0.1 to 1.9 where 1 is default. So all frobables by default are equally easy to frob with 1. So you might increase one to 1.5 and reduce another near it to 0.5.

 

Another useful property is frob_distance. Dark Mod frobables distances have been well thought through by the team as a balance between realism and gameplay. So doors have a longer frob_distance for smooth movement but a key on the floor would probably need the player to crouch just as they would in real life. This also means that loot doesn't shine from across a room but has to be searched for. But with that in mind, occasionally you might want to increase or decrease frob_distance. If you have a lever visible through a locked gate and you want the player to find a way around you might need to reduce the frob_distance of the lever so he can't just frob through the bars. Or if you put a button on the ceiling and you can't quite jump high enough then increase the frob_distance.

 

Placement should be considered. Raise objects in chests up high. There is often a fabric patch in the chest or easy to make one so objects can be high without floating.

 

Finally, take care your frobables can't be frobbed through thin walls or somehow reached when they should not be.

 

There is no special Dark Mod silver bullet to fix frobable difficulties - it is up to you, the mapper.

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This tip is about simulating a lower crouch or crawl, eg, hiding under tables, crawling through a low gap.

 

Some of you may have noticed in Heart there was a simulated low crawl. This method can also be used eg, to hide or sneak through under tables. This adds an extra dimension of gameplay. In Thief I used this method so the player could not only hide and sneak under the dining table but carefully steal a purse from a noble and a bracelet right of her ladyship's wrist as they sat at table chatting! This is how it's done for a standard dining table:

 

The normal max crouch height is 39. But there is also a player walk bob and a run bob that can clip up through a table and give glimpses above so treat the limit as 42 for this.

 

The normal table is slightly too low, even if you remove the side panels.

Changing crouch height with script is risky and wrong. If the player saves and exits while low crouched it could break other maps.

It is possible to slightly raise the table but we need to consider possible conflict with AI etc. eg card playing or other animation. So instead I prefer to lower the player.

 


  •  
  • Add to the table solid 0 and noShadows 1
  • Create textures/common/tdm_nodrawsolid_wood brushes for the legs and a slim table top of 1.25. The top of this should be level with the visible table top.
  • Clone those and give them textures/common/shadow. You might reduce the leg width or possibly cut them a little if you are concerned about the shadow matching the visible leg more closely.
  • Cut out a rectangular brush in the floor below the table 3 units deep and a generous player width extra around all accessible sides.
  • Clone it and give this textures/common/moveable_clip. This is to stop moveables sinking into the floor.
  • Clone it again and give it monsterclip
  • Back to the original with the floor texture and make it func_static and give it solid 0.

 

Minor downside is the player clips through the side panels on entry but I dismiss that as a quick head duck.

 

Originally I made a shallow ramp but the 3 units isn't really noticeable and even if it is will feel like the player is ducking slightly as he goes to the table. But for lower crawls then consider a ramp. Other variations are soft surfaces like mud or loose earth, leaves, where you can let the player sink in more convincingly.

 

A remaining problem is convincing the player you can go there. Maybe a visible goblet fallen under the table? A clue? If all else fails just say in the readme.

 

Think outside the box, then you can get under the box. What does that even mean? :laugh:

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  • 1 month later...

Posted edited:

 

(Wrote someting witty here)

 

About tiling textures:

 

When you want to tile a texture a certain number of times, enter the values 1/X and 1/Y (you need to compute them in your head) in the little boxes in the surface inspector, then press "Fit". It will tile your texture horizontally X times and vertically Y times.

 

You can also enter things like "2" and "1" and get a texture that only occupies half of the width. You can then use the "Right" or "Left" buttons to align it quickly at the ends.

 

Pro-tip: Press CTRL+ALT+T to open the texture tool, it allows super quick aligning of textures on patches. Esp. useful for decals where the decal texture consists of multiple decals.

"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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Didn't even know that was there! Has that always been there? No, don't tell me. I'd rather pretend it was new in the last update. I think I'd better delete my dumb tip then else people will think I'm stupid. Ah wait - that's why you quoted it all in full you b*!*-x**!

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Didn't even know that was there! Has that always been there? No, don't tell me. I'd rather pretend it was new in the last update. I think I'd better delete my dumb tip then else people will think I'm stupid. Ah wait - that's why you quoted it all in full you b*!*-x**!

 

Erm, sorry about that, I cleaned my post. And please don't feel stupid, I get all these things all the time. That's why we have such a thread, no? :)

"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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By the way, the tip is completely out of context now. Tels should edit his post once more to show what the tip is about... :)

 

Done :)

"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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A quick way to make an N-sided brush is to highlight the brush and push cntl+N (N being the number of sides for the top face). So if you want a 5-sided brush, highlight it and push cntl+5. But the best way to get the walls of a multi-sided brush to line up seamlessly is still to use the clipper-tool and precisely cut off a slice. (And don't use CSG Subtract unless you know what you're doing and aren't creating a million splinters!)

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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A quick way to make an N-sided brush is to highlight the brush and push cntl+N (N being the number of sides for the top face)

 

ahhhh now this is useful.. many times I have needed an extra side or 2, and used the clipper to cut off a corner, and then drag around all the verts until they are all where i need them. nice to know i can shave off a couple steps.

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That's another that is new to me.

 

Domes and spheres: I think this is on the wiki but I don't see many in FMs. Make a cone patch and drag down the top vertex to form a dome. Invert the matrix if you want an internal dome or thicken if you want it to be visible inside and out. A sphere is just two of these stuck together. Also tweak the tesselation in patch inspector if it is too chunky. You can have fun with the textures though; try fit.

 

If you totally flatten the dome you have a disc which can produce some nice texture effects, eg, the marble floor centrepiece in Lady Helena's suite in Heart. Try it as a round rug. Drag a side to make it oval.

 

post-400-128565618129_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Forum-search is not a friend lately, also it seemed not worth a new thread so I ask here: Is it possible to show the context-menu in the 3D-view for exact positioning of models/entities, so on?

 

Also I would like to change some Mouse-button-settings: Because my MMB doesn´t work for what reason ever, and I really would like to assign "Drag Camera here" to 'Ctrl+LMB', but it´s not in the Shortcut-window. <_<

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That's another that is new to me.

 

Domes and spheres: I think this is on the wiki but I don't see many in FMs. Make a cone patch and drag down the top vertex to form a dome. Invert the matrix if you want an internal dome or thicken if you want it to be visible inside and out. A sphere is just two of these stuck together. Also tweak the tesselation in patch inspector if it is too chunky. You can have fun with the textures though; try fit.

 

If you totally flatten the dome you have a disc which can produce some nice texture effects, eg, the marble floor centrepiece in Lady Helena's suite in Heart. Try it as a round rug. Drag a side to make it oval.

 

post-400-128565618129_thumb.jpg

 

you can make a cube the size of that rug, copy/paste shader from top face and apply it to rug. it'll map better(not show the weird tri seams) though it won't make a square tex round)

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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  • 5 months later...

menu > view > hide/show > hide deselect. Don't know when that was introduced but I only noticed it in recent weeks (months?) I don't know how I managed without it and use it most sessions now. Keys: (and I think these are default) Ctrl + Shift + H so you just select the few things you are working on and hit those keys to hide everything but what you want.

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  • 1 month later...

Mating two brush edges together: It oftens happens you have two brushes, often trim or similar that need to meet at a corner etc. sometimes a diagonal.

 

Drag the brushes so they well overlap at the point where you want them to join.

Select both and in clipper mode mark the join you want and use Shift + Enter to cut both.

Nothing new there.

Now it oftens happens that the ends you want to discard are lost in the walls or they are tiny and hard to see. I've spent some time in the past chasing these to remove them! (though it helsp to make the overlaps big of course)

Instead, DEselect the two large brushes you want to keep and the discards should now be still selected.

Hit Backspace to delete them.

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Good tip Fidcal! Something similar can be done when you thicken patches, or make end caps:Thicken the patch and deselect the parts you want to keep. Then press the delete button.

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