Sir Taffsalot's mapping thread

[Sir Taffsalot]

Is there a way to see shadows in DR? At the moment I'm trying to create specific areas of light so I'm moving light sources around in DR and then Dmapping and then Mapping in D3. This is going to takeme forever unless there is an easier way.

[Sotha]

Not that I know of. You could encapsulate the area into a separate map, optimize lights like you do now, but dmapping is very fast if you have a small testing map of the area..

[Sir Taffsalot]

That sounds like a good idea. I'll just copy a certain area of my city into a new map andseal the gaps up with brushes.

 

Thank you Sotha!

[Sir Taffsalot]

I have a metal grate in my map that can be unlocked by a knife to give the player further access to my map. 2 questions.

 

The knife that unlocks the metal grate is basically just an ordinary key that has it's model changed to that of a knife. When I pick it up it sounds like keys jangling. How do I get rid of this sound?

 

Wheni frob the metal gate it sounds like someone trying to open a locked door. Again how can I get rid of this sound?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Sotha]

Check the spawnargs on the entities.

The ones with snd_x are the ones that deal with the sound.

 

The grate has snd_locked or something you need to change. They knife something like snd_pickup. Be sure to make the entity browser to show the inherited spawnargs.

 

For consitency: why does the grate need to be opened with a knife. Why not a locked grate and a key to the lock?

Knifing a grate feels less intuitive than unlocking a locked grate. And it is the same gameplay effect you are aiming to accomplish.

[Sir Taffsalot]

That's perfect Sotha. Thank you.

 

Don't worry I've thought very carefully about my FM. I'm sure the players will have no diffuculty in figuring out that the knife opens the metal grate that leads to the room with the hidden switch that opens the door which itself will be hidden in a part of the map that the players will need to find a way to teleport themselves too. Just incase that's too easy I imposed a time limit aswell.

[Sir Taffsalot]

I need some help with setting up my objectives.

 

 

The first objective requires the player to get to a certain area. I created a brush - gave it the texture Clip - gave it the entity info_tdm_objective_location - in the objectives editor I have the Type set to item in location - Entity set to any entity with SDK-level spawnclass - with idPLayer in the box next to it.

 

When I enter the area the objective ticks off fine but whenever I walk past that area the "objective complete" message and sound keep on occuring. As the player will need to walk through that section at various times I need that objective complete message to show up once and once only.

 

 

The second objective requires the player to collect a group of items. In the objectives editor I have the Type set to player posses item - the Item set to name of single entity - in the box next to Item I have them name of the various items with "and" in between them. Obviously this isn't how you set it up.

 

 

Thanks in advance for any help that comes my way.

[Sotha]

I need some help with setting up my objectives.

 

 

The first objective requires the player to get to a certain area. I created a brush - gave it the texture Clip - gave it the entity info_tdm_objective_location - in the objectives editor I have the Type set to item in location - Entity set to any entity with SDK-level spawnclass - with idPLayer in the box next to it.

 

When I enter the area the objective ticks off fine but whenever I walk past that area the "objective complete" message and sound keep on occuring. As the player will need to walk through that section at various times I need that objective complete message to show up once and once only.

 

You could make the "get to the location" objective to be controlled by an external script. Then simply make a trigger_once. When the player walks past that, you target an entity that switches the externally controlled objective to be completed.

http://wiki.thedarkm...ent_to_complete

 

Briefly, trigger_once -> target_tdm_setobjectivestate

 

The second objective requires the player to collect a group of items. In the objectives editor I have the Type set to player posses item - the Item set to name of single entity - in the box next to Item I have them name of the various items with "and" in between them. Obviously this isn't how you set it up.

 

How many objects? Are the objectives droppable? If not, you could do this:

1) put objective items in game

2) give all of the items S&R response to frob. When the player frob the item, the item's effect is: target a trigger_counter (or what it's name now was again...)

3) Make the trigger_counter count towards the amount of items the player needs to possess. Say you need to collect 3 of the items, each item targets the counter. And the counter counts to three and then fires an entity... You guessed it!

4) Again, as previously you use target_tdm_setobjectivestate to switch an externally controlled objective to complete.

 

If the objects are droppable and you cannot even consider making them droppable, then you need to use make a single objective that ticks off when multiple component objectives have ticked off:

player possesses item entityname1

player possesses item entityname2

player possesses item entityname3

and so forth.

 

I've not done this myself as I usually prefer the counters as they are easier to troubleshoot. If you need an example for the counters, check mandrasola. The mandrasola collection objectives were handled with the counters.

 

Thanks in advance for any help that comes my way.

You welcome.. I'll eagerly await your mission!

[Sir Taffsalot]

Wow! Thank you for the super quick response! Your solutions did the job perfectly. Not much left to do now. Going to try and wrap this up for beta testing V soon.

[Sir Taffsalot]

How do you do the "Don't kill anyone" objective? I have the boxes "boolean" and "satisfied at the start" ticked. The Objective editor wiki doesn't tell me what else to do. What am I supposed to put for type?

 

Thank you

[grayman]

How do you do the "Don't kill anyone" objective? I have the boxes "boolean" and "satisfied at the start" ticked. The Objective editor wiki doesn't tell me what else to do. What am I supposed to put for type?

 

Thank you

 

Maybe some pics will help ...

 

 

 

This prevents killing anyone on team 2 OR anyone on team 3.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Thanks for that grayman! It works fine now.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Can someone tell me why my FM won't load in Dark Mod. I get to the loading screen and then it sends me right back to the main menu. I've tracked the issue to my guis folder. When that's not included in the zip it loads fine. I need it to use a custom inventory icon. Why is it causing an issue?

 

Here's the set up of my guis folder

 

[Sir Taffsalot]

Here is a picture of Sotha's set for his guis folder that he used for the exact same purpose in the phrase book.

 

 

Whats the difference?

[Sir Taffsalot]

Those picture's are bloody useless.

 

Here's the setup - guis/assets/hud/inventory_icons/knife.tga

[Sir Taffsalot]

If my inventory icon happens to be the same name as the map would that confuse DM hence why it kicks me back to the main menu after the loading screen?

 

Edit: changed the name. It still won't load with the guis folder. This is rubbish!

Edited August 16, 2012 by Sir Taffsalot

[Sotha]

I'm not sure if I understand the problem fully. I do not see the details in those pictures. Does TDM give any error messages?

 

Could the .tga have been accidentally saved into some graphic format TDM does not support, but yet still have .tga in file name?

[grayman]

After you're kicked back to the menu, bring down the console and type

 

condump kicked

 

Then look in your mission folder for a file named kicked.txt.

 

Post it.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Well it says TGA in the file type.

 

Plus no error message. It just kicks me back to the main menu after loading. It's definately the guis folder as it loads when thats taken out. All that's in it is the tga file at the moment.

[Sir Taffsalot]

kicked.txt

 

There you go GM

[Sotha]

ERROR: LoadTGA( guis/assets/hud/inventory_icons/knife.tga ): Only type 2 (RGB)

, 3 (gray), and 10 (RGB) TGA images supported

 

Sounds like your TGA file is not of the supported type. With what did you save it with?

I used GIMP to produce the working tgas I had in phrase_book.

[Sir Taffsalot]

I just used GIMP to turn it into a TGA and it loads fine. But now the inventory icon doesn't display when I pick up the knife. I have the Inventory icon spawnrag written out exactly as it should be in the directory.

 

I've got guis/assets/hud/inventory_icons/knife.tga

Edited August 16, 2012 by Sir Taffsalot

[Sotha]

Looks correct.

 

Are you sure it is "inv_icon" spawnarg? Maybe there is a typo?

 

Leave the .tga out, maybe that helps?

 

Maybe if you made the knife entity an own entitydef, as in phrase_book:

phrase_book/def/phrase_book.def

 

Check the "entityDef atdm:playertools_lead_ball" for details.

[Sir Taffsalot]

it's definately inv_icon. no typo

 

Leaving the .tga didn't change anything.

 

What is an entitydef? I see that in phrase book it's a text file. I don't know what that means or how to create one.

 

V sorry for this silliness

[grayman]

So now you don't crash back to the menu?