mapping basics

[ungoliant]

alright, might as well start from the beginning. Start here: http://modetwo.net/d...appers%27_Guide

 

the past couple FM's I worked on I didn't use the startpack, but for a new mapper, this is probably the way to go. instructions are pretty easy to follow.

 

download it here: http://www.bloodgate...ms/startmap.pk4

[brethren]

Good call. Also, read Fidcal's A-Z tutorial cover-to-cover, it'll make anyone a pro in no time:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here%21

[ungoliant]

oldie but a goody: Komag's first-2-rooms tutorial video available from shadowdark keep: http://www.shadowdar..._720t30p_6m.wmv

 

(this was the video i cut my teeth on when starting DR)

Edited June 10, 2011 by ungoliant

[ungoliant]

in commemoration of the start of this project, I've created my own DR tutorial video on the basics (and not so basics) of using brushwork for you guys. If it's well received I'll probably post it on the public forums as well. Enjoy!

 

http://www.gamefront.com/files/20443779/tutorial_wmv

[fllood]

I recommend doing Fidcal's A-Z tutorial before using the stuff from the startmap.

 

The startpack have a lot things ready-made to use. But I think it's beneficial - if not essential - to learn the background of the "how's" and "why's" things work in DR/TDM.

 

While it takes some more time to dig into things then just using them I think it will help a lot later to avoid errors and come up with cool ideas and possibilities. Think of it like mathematics. You do not need to understand a formula to use it. But if you understand how the formula was build it help you a lot later on understanding and using more varied and complicated stuff .... and sooner or later you want/need to build things a little different than in the startpack or tutorials...

Edited June 15, 2011 by fllood

[ungoliant]

.... and sooner or later you want/need to build things a little different than in the startpack or tutorials...

 

i agree. some of the stuff I learned on my own i put into the new video (see above)

[fllood]

I've created my own DR tutorial video on the basics (and not so basics) of using brushwork for you guys.

Great brushwork video tutorial ungoliant. Well done! Continue doing that vid's man...

 

Komag's are also great. A pity he didn't made more.

 

To me video tut's are the most effective way to learn things seeing someone doing and taking hands on about mapping techniques. thanks for that one.

[brethren]

Yes, good stuff on the vid, I've actually never used the "Rotate and Scale" option before.

[fllood]

Some questions one of you guys may have an answer for me:

 

1) Doom console: Is there a way to have typing cvar's in the console directly work?

 

When I open the console which mapped it to one hotkey in the windowed mode I have to backspace two times until the things I type in are colored white and work as they should. If I type in sth. in the console directly it is colored black (black letter on black background - uh!). After using backspace one time the characters typed in become blue (and the cvar don't work there as well) until it gets white and the cvar do work. Kind of annoying for dmap and other stuff in the console.

Worth of notion that doesn't happen in non window mode (which I don't use while in DR)

 

2) Is there any solution the barrier between fog brush lights can't be seen?

 

3) How can I make a any non loot object into a loot item adding to the loot count, loot picture and loot category?

 

I tried with the args:

classname - atdm:static_custom_item

inherit - atdm:loot_base

frob_action_script - frob_item

inv_category - Loot

inv_icon - guis/assets/hud/inventory_icons/default/spyglass_fancy_icon.dds

inv_name - Loot

loot_type - 3

model - models/darkmod/loot/exotic/spyglass_fancy.ase

used_action_script - frob_trigger

 

(yep, I know there is a loot spyglass entity as well. I just used the same model to try how it works to make any model to loot)

Edited June 18, 2011 by fllood

[ungoliant]

1) thats some f'd up stuff right there. no idea what thats about. As far as dmap/map commands go, i just type them in the first time, then if i need to use them again, use the up arrow key to cycle through previous commands. also, home key resets cursor to start of the line. so if you enter a dmap xxxxx command, when its finished, hit up arrow -> home -> delete, and now you have a map xxxx command instead of dmap xxxx.

 

2) fidcal figured something out with scripting in HoLS, check his map. Otherwise, I've also heard there's a theoretical way to bind a fog box onto the player. if you need fog in a small L-shaped area, just use fog particle emitters instead, I guess.

 

3) Actually I still haven't placed a single piece of loot in DR, can't help on this one. (see I'm noob. theres plenty of stuff I don't know yet)

Edited June 18, 2011 by ungoliant

[fllood]

1) thats some f'd up stuff right there. no idea what thats about. As far as dmap/map commands go, i just type them in the first time, then if i need to use them again, use the up arrow key to cycle through previous commands.

thanks ungoliant! does that mean you have the same console behaviour in window mode? or is that just in my system?

I'll do it the same with using previous commands. but thought there may be sth. wrong I do or in my setup.

 

Another question I like to add:

 

4) I remember there should be a way to disable the "the Dark mod" splash screen that comes when starting a FM. Anyone remember how? That gets tiresome if you start test using the game menu install and start, for example testing the shop or briefing texts.

[brethren]

Wondered if anyone knows if lava is possible in TDM? A search of the wiki brought up nothing. I don't recall seeing any lava in any TDM misison to date, but I may be wrong on that.

[ungoliant]

theres at least 2 FM's with lava. If its not in darkmod, try the D3 assets.

[fllood]

If you don't intend to bevel corner edges on two wall brushes touching making up a corner do miter them to reduce the displayed faces per edge from three to two. This save Tris, thus rendered Polygons and might increase performance a little. As mentioned in Brethrens thread it might be not very much for a small map like ours, but it's good getting into the habit doing that little performance reliefers right from the start while learning things.

Mitering is a common brush technique stangely enough not mentioned in the A-Z or Wiki, at least not that I noticed. It means to let the walls diagonally touch each other at the corners so that no unnecessary frush faces touch. That is important as every touching edge increase tris rendered.

 

To do so in DR do activate "Show Edges" in the menu bar. Then for both wall brushes click and drag the blue edge dot until you have a diagonal line from inner to outer wall corner. Do that for both wall brushes so that they both touch diagonally within the wall.

 

Note: All faces that the player can't see don't matter and won't need to be considered for optimizing.

 

Example:

 

Unmitered with 3 wall faces to the player:

 

 

 

 

Mitered with only 2 wall faces the player can see:

 

 

Edited June 27, 2011 by fllood

[fllood]

And while I speak of getting in habit of good performance mapping practices:

 

Do try diagonally Visportaling a corridor corner. With one VP touching the inner corner edge instead of two straight 90 degree touching VP's!

 

Reason: You want to create thre portal areas. With the diagonal VP you always have maximum 2 rendered areas when in one of the both outer ones touching the corner area. If using two touching 90 degree VP's most of the time you see all three areas rendered while being near the corner. And thus the VP being not as much effective as they could be!

 

To do in DR:

 

Create a nodraw bush to fill the corridor edge. Use the Clipper Tool and set clipper point 1 at the inner corner of the corridor. Set point 2 a few units next to it to have a symetrical triangle. Then cut delete. Add the VP texture to the portal side (the long brush side touching the corridor edge).

 

Example:

 

(again with mitered wall edges)

 

 

 

 

Finally add the VP texture.

 

Please Note: only the face with VP will be rendered in the compiled map. The nodraw parts don't matter while overlapping brushes.

 

Edited June 27, 2011 by fllood

[brethren]

I was completely confused by the mitering concept, until I realized (duh!) that you were referring to exterior walls only! In the case of my current mission, there aren't many exterior walls viewable by the player, and since the exterior side of almost all of my walls touch the void, they won't be considered by the renderer anyway.

[fllood]

I was completely confused by the mitering concept, until I realized (duh!) that you were referring to exterior walls only!

not really... only if you have a map with only square rooms and nothing else

 

I do also refer to corridors and room edges within areas. The more complex your geometry become in the map the more you will create brush touching corners for possible mitering. For example even in my (yet very basic) geometry I have already inner wall corners and edges at the ceiling in my map (see screen below with just one view angle from one single room). I don't want t to over-emphasize the impact of mitering. In fact I think it's much less plus for performance for example than using diagonal VP or always the same scale setting for a certain texture. Anyway wanted to make you aware of it case you didn't know about...

 

and yeah look forward to any similar advices, techniques and tips of you guys as we go along learning stuff. That's the project is about, right?

 

 

Edited June 27, 2011 by fllood

[ungoliant]

the corner visportalling idea is brilliant. never thought of that.

 

On the other hand, the mitering idea is just too much work for too little gain. Also, if afterwards you want to resize the thickness of one of the brushes, the other brush must be resized with it unless you want a strange corner thing sticking out.

Edited June 27, 2011 by ungoliant

[brethren]

not really... only if you have a map with only square rooms and nothing else

 

OK let me put it this way - if the location where you are reducing from 3 walls to 2 is not visible to the player, than it doesn't really matter, correct?

[Springheel]

I don't quite get the benefit of that corner visportal. With two visportals in an L-shaped hall, the end of the hall isn't rendered when you're at the other end. (see image below...if player is at green dot, the grey area would not be rendered). With a diagonal visportal, it would be, wouldn't it? What am I missing?

[fllood]

Yeah that's ture: The gain won't be much for sure as mentioned. But for my noob map learning experience I like to give things a try doing like the idTech4 seniors recommand. And afterwards hopefully will know if it was worth the effort and advice. Or simply a waste . So far I found efforts be minimal. Might change, I'll see ...

ungoliant has a point about when things must be changed. hm. I try to keep my wall brushes most all the same size as recommended by Baddcog. So I think I will be quiet safe I hope.

 

hm would have to see you map to possibly understand what you mean Brethren.

Edited June 27, 2011 by fllood

[brethren]

It would be interesting to implement these types of techniques repeatedly in a medium to large size map, and see if the efficiency of the map was increased substantially or not. It's kind of like caulk, some say it makes a big difference, others say the gain in fps isn't worth the time it takes to do it.

 

With mitered corners, I'd think as long as your map was visportaled correctly, it wouldn't matter much.

[ungoliant]

I think everyone is on a separate page here.

 

First of all: Springs, in your diagram, that grey leaf would be open. there's a clear line of sight from the closest portal straight through to the second portal (assuming the visportal face of the purple brushes are joined at the corner). Even if not, its not a very far jump for the player to move a bit left and open both portals.

 

But on your question about whether corner visportals would work at all, I think you may be right. If a portal is open, then the portal is open. If the player can see through one side of the corner portal, then by default the rest of the portal must be open as well.

 

HOWEVER: what if you split the corner visportal directly in 2 at the corner joint. The obvious peformance advantage that fllood is going for here is that if 2 portals are exactly parallel along the same line in our L-hallway, and are separated by a corner, then the player must physically cross the portal in order for both portals to open.

[brethren]

Fyi, here's a relevant article to the mitering question:

 

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=10372

[fllood]

What am I missing?

You are missing moving the green dot getting loser to the VP

At some distance he will see area three round the corner when viewing (see green diagonal line). That shouldn't happen with using a diagonal VP.

 

About using one or two diagonal VP's? I think I read some theory that brush touching a brush with different texture do split it (correct me if that's wrong!). The Quake 4 tutorial I got the VP recommendation only uses one diagonal VP brush. Can't make a small test right now. However when I'm able I think it will be easy to see if we need one or two diagonal VP's at corners ...

 

Edited June 27, 2011 by fllood