FM: Lockdown Part 1 by GameDevGoro and BikerDude (2010/12/24)

[Fidcal]

This is a bit rushed but if you seriously want to do this then I can clarify.

You need first to get the materials from inside the model.

An .ase file is plain text; scan down for bitmap

A .lwo is binary so use a hex editor. materials near the top

Find the material def and copy it.

Make a new skin file to exchance that with a new name. I can give you details if you want.

 

The material file you know goes in the materials folder with your map.

You give it your own unique name in the def.

That name goes in the skin file.

 

In the material you change the values thus:

These two stages in the material set the brightness:

Increase the rgb values 0.00 to 0.99:

   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend       gl_dst_color, gl_one
       map         _white
       rgb         0.40 * parm11
   }
   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend       add
       map         models/darkmod/props/textures/book_red1
       rgb         0.20 * parm11
   }

[Thiefette]

I'm on my second run through. First time was on easy as I like to knock people out You know get them out of my way in case I have to go back to the area. Got all the loot but wanted to try and get the objectives on harder levels so am trying it on difficult.

 

both times now I've only had difficulty in the rooms above the guard house. It involved trying to use a water arrow on the torch in the room with the guard and arrows and loot. No matter where I shot that torch I could not put it out. I ended up throwing a candle at the door to distract him and ran in the room off the hall as fast as I could. Also during the second time playing, my game locked up but I'm suspecting it was because I'd saved in a doorway? I tried a previous save and everything worked fine

 

 

Anyways I now need help

I've received a new objective at the bar near end of mission. My question is: where is the desk to put the tip on? I have the robbers book and Rowan's tip that I started with and have tried both on every desk I could find. Am I missing something else? Any clues would be most appreciated. Thanks.

 

[grayman]

A mapper can do the following:

 

Make sure there is a good clue so the player should be certain that there is a switch and that it must be within a reasonably sized area (ie, not a city nor even a large room with lots of compexity.

Make sure the frob_distance and frobbox_size is sufficient so just scanning the book shelf the one book highlights easily and sticks out like a sore thumb.

If necessary, copy the material and increase its frob brightness.

Check local lighting so its frob highlight is not overwhelmed.

 

It is possible to make the book shine from across a room if necessary depending how easy you want it to be.

 

One other trick I've used (after providing a clue that there's possibly a switch in a room) is to place a loot item on the same shelf as the book switch. This should reel in the player and give them a higher probability of finding the book switch.

 

 

 

[grayman]

Grayman what the spects of your pc..?

 

We've been here before. My graphics card is a Radeon HD 2400, with 256mb memory. It has problems when there's a sudden load of new textures, which happens on events like door opens. There is a small handful of maps (like RTTC) that I can't play because of this.

 

Though the far door in the guardhouse is visportaled, the vp is open because of the open window next to it, so it really provides no advantage. But it wouldn't matter in my case anyway, because even if it was a closed vp, I would have been hit with the texture load when I opened that door.

 

I'm not too concerned about this because I'm planning to build a new system in January and include a faster card.

 

However, I'm sure there are other older systems out there that have the same problem.

[Fidcal]

Anyways I now need help

I've received a new objective at the bar near end of mission. My question is: where is the desk to put the tip on? I have the robbers book and Rowan's tip that I started with and have tried both on every desk I could find. Am I missing something else? Any clues would be most appreciated. Thanks.

 

 

hint:

Near the start when you first go through the guardhouse there is a wooden platform overhead. One side leads to the builder's door; the other is a window...

 

nudge:

Through that window, go to the furthest room on the left. A nobleman sleeps on a bed (I'm not sure if he gets up now and again.) You need to put the scroll in the middle of the desk not the edge.

 

[STiFU]

Great FM. Thanks people. After about one and a half hours of solid gameplay I finished on highest difficulty with only 50 loot missing. It was a great experience. The visuals were awesome really, as Serp puts it, a very nice HDR showcase. The lighting was just yummy and I always had good performance here.

 

The only downside for me were the AI. I was busted a few times and when the AI were alerted, they did all sorts of the usual funny things: Turning in front of a door, Running into obstacles while another AI is blocking, or simply running/walking into an obstacle alone. Because of this, I had to reload some times in order to maintain proper playability, although I usually play the "no reload until dead"-rule. I guess grayman will have a lot of test scenarios for his AI work on this one.

 

Another issue I had was the skybox turning to awkward colors (yellow), which I had also on some other FMs. (No ATI here by the way)

 

Thanks again, guys!

[Aprilsister]

Yeah, at one point, I got a Builder running into a tree just head-on and continuously while there was plenty of room around either side it seemed. I have the savegame if it needs investigating.

[Fidcal]

Mmm.. might not be ideally monsterclipped then. While patrolling they just go the set route but when alert they might try to nip through anywhere and they just can't 'see' entities like trees unless they are surrounded by clip.

[Aprilsister]

Well, with 1.03 I went in and not only deleted all my FMs (and all that went with them), I also got rid of DR. And I'm not sure if I should re-install it -- not to mention if I'd be able to decide on which version is currently theOne.

 

So, if you are curious and just want to check this out, here is !The Tree In Question!:

 

 

 

 

 

And yes he was on alert. The bastard, along with 2 fascist nightwatch thugs, was in pursuit of good citizen me. He ran down from the Builder building in the background there as if it was any of his business what I was up to...

 

 

Edited December 26, 2010 by Aprilsister

[grayman]

Yeah, at one point, I got a Builder running into a tree just head-on and continuously while there was plenty of room around either side it seemed. I have the savegame if it needs investigating.

 

 

I'll take a copy of the savegame. Given that I can't really run the mission, I may or may not be able to use the save. Might as well try, though.

[grayman]

The only downside for me were the AI. I was busted a few times and when the AI were alerted, they did all sorts of the usual funny things: Turning in front of a door, Running into obstacles while another AI is blocking, or simply running/walking into an obstacle alone. Because of this, I had to reload some times in order to maintain proper playability, although I usually play the "no reload until dead"-rule. I guess grayman will have a lot of test scenarios for his AI work on this one.

 

 

I'll try to make a modified version of the map using fewer textures and see if it will run for me. I don't want to wait for my new system before I commit the movement changes, since the changes are going to need as much test time as possible for 1.04.

 

 

[grayman]

So, if you are curious and just want to check this out, here is !The Tree In Question!:

 

That tree has no monsterclip around it, and, though it has a collision surface, it presents a problem for the AI.

 

The movement changes I'm working on should allow an AI to free himself from this.

 

Thanks for the extra situation to test.

[Aprilsister]

Okay, I'll find the savegame. Give me a while as it's Hectic Day. Really glad to be of any help.

 

...

 

One other thing I meant to ask about this mission is about the

 

 

 

(hardly a "spoiler" really, but...)

About all the for-the-most-part horzontally hanging ropes, am I supposed to be able to walk on them or climb on them or something? I wasn't able to, though I didn't try very hard. But then again I've never mastered to swinging or the quick descend either...

 

 

[grayman]

I'll try to make a modified version of the map using fewer textures and see if it will run for me.

 

Knocking the texture use down to a few and deleting all the grime patches didn't help much; I'm still practically frozen in the courtyard beyond the guardhouse.

 

So I can't use this for a test case.

[Thiefette]

Thanks for the hint Fidcal, forgot all about that room. Will go and try it now.

[Aprilsister]

Wow, it's really that rough on even a 256 to load the textures? Sounds like this definitely the biggest issue going. I'm sure a whole heap of folks have 256 or less.

[Serpentine]

I'd firstly look at how many triangles/leaves are being drawn with r_showtris 3, if it's reasonable you might also want to look at r_showprimatives 1, it'll give you an idea of the size of textures used to draw, more importantly the draw call and vertex numbers etc, do they correlate to a similar scene in a different map/area? I have a fairly flimsy box here, but no trouble at all in regards to that area... hmm! you could also try killmonsters or whatever the command is to kill all AI.

[Fidcal]

One other thing I meant to ask about this mission is about the

 

 

 

(hardly a "spoiler" really, but...)

About all the for-the-most-part horzontally hanging ropes, am I supposed to be able to walk on them or climb on them or something? I wasn't able to, though I didn't try very hard. But then again I've never mastered to swinging or the quick descend either...

 

 

Not needed to finish this FM but whether they lead to anything I don't know. Whether they support the player depends how the mapper sets them up. In St. Lucia one could walk across them OK.

[Thiefette]

Fidcal - again thanks for your help.

 

 

In my rush to not read to much of the hint I thought you meant the room at the beginning as this was the only room I hadn't retried so off I went. Of course that didn't work. So I reread your clue - again in a rush - thinking maybe you meant the first room that I'd run through a dozen times to go to all the other desks beyond. Finally I had to read your nudge and it was a good thing I did as I had tried that desk a couple of times but obviously not right in the middle. Yay completed it all!

 

[Aprilsister]

Okay, I recreated a situation to get them riled and here is a savegame that for me (even after a reload) has a fascist pig (nightwatch) stuck to !!!The Tree In Question!!!.

 

The file "Treestuck.rar.torrent.txt" is attached (remove the ".txt", it's a torrent tracked by "openbittorrent.com") it's got the savegame, the txt and the tga rared-up.

 

...

 

BTW1: this relates to the savegame compression thing, and since you, grayman, are here I'll mention it here; I did a test saving this for uploading with best zip and best rar, and rar kicked zip's ass for what kind of data presently makes up a savegame --- some 2.2MB to 4.8MB (working with ~44MB raw). If you and stgatilov do decide to tackle the savegame thing maybe you can consider implementing rar libs instead?

 

BTW2: As I was back in there messing around I decided to use a some gas arrows because I love 'em but rarely utilize 'em... and man did they freaking knock the intended for a loop a couple of times. I mean really like I'd shot the poor guy (fascist pig!) with a bazooka.

Treestuck.rar.torrent.txt

Edited December 26, 2010 by Aprilsister

[grayman]

The file "Treestuck.rar.torrent.txt" is attached (remove the ".txt", it's a torrent tracked by "openbittorrent.com") it's got the savegame, the txt and the tga rared-up.

 

Could you make this available in zip form? I have neither rar nor torrent installed on this system.

 

Thanks.

 

BTW1: this relates to the savegame compression thing, and since you, grayman, are here I'll mention it here; I did a test saving this for uploading with best zip and best rar, and rar kicked zip's ass for what kind of data presently makes up a savegame --- some 2.2MB to 4.8MB (working with ~44MB raw). If you and stgatilov do decide to tackle the savegame thing maybe you can consider implementing rar libs instead?

 

I got the impression that stgatilov was looking into the zip situation, so I'm not planning any work there.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aprilsister]

Okay, I'll get you the zip. Tell me how you'd prefer/recommend because my drop.io which was hassle-free has gone and sold out to facefuckingbook and all the other bigtimers (hotfile, etc) I imagine will be hassles too... but just let me know. As I mentioned the zip is ~4.8MB on best compression... so no attaching that here.

 

This messing with these overtly commercial or otherwise scheming filesharing systems is a pain, I really wish that everyone would get to torrenting. All the cool kids do it.

 

...

 

As stgatilov is not necessarily here I'm going to copy the info about this rar vs zip scenario over to that thread...

[Midnight]

Congrats to GDG (and Bikerdude for his part) in a very enjoyable mission. There were a couple issues I experienced (like the AI getting stuck) but overall this is one of my favourite TDM experiences so far. Thank you.

 

This messing with these overtly commercial or otherwise scheming filesharing systems is a pain, I really wish that everyone would get to torrenting. All the cool kids do it.

Have you heard of DropBox? First 2GB is free, very handy clients for Windows / OSX and Linux, and download speeds are very good.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Midnight

[Aprilsister]

Thanks for that, Midnight. It all sounded good up until this "feature" which honestly just worries me:

 

Control who has access to your shared folders. Kick people out and remove the shared files from their computers in the process.

 

It lets me know that anyone who uses this is open to having the site have too much control over personal file systems.

 

I am NOT cool with any "service" that wants the ability to delete from my hard drive.

 

And once again we can see from miles away that this is going to "grow" into a completely commercial enterprise. Ads or pay or ads and pay...

 

I just don't understand people jumping around with this stuff when you can download utorrent (1.6.1) which is... completely portable... has a tiny footprint... and is based on a sharing system that is absolutely established but free of (in fact undermines and bothers the hell out of) The Establishment.

[lost_soul]

This mission feels straight out of Thief 2... and that is meant as a compliment. We haven't had many town-based missions where you can break into many residents like this. It reminds me of Life of the Party very much.