Sir Taffsalot's mapping thread

[SiyahParsomen]

very strange indeed. I have no idea but want to know the reason badly. Does it appears w/o skybox, ambient light etc?

[Baddcog]

What grid is it snapped to?

 

The engine has an issue with concave brushes.If one vert is off on a tiny grid in a way that makes a face concave it could be screwing with the compiling. Turning it to func_static would solve it because it's not snapping to convex on compile.

 

Melan just meant complicate it by having another brush like a wood beam intersect it so it gets cut on compile, which might help the faces be rearranged into convex shapes.

 

I wouldn't seal the void with a triangular brush anyway, just asking for a leak, so making it a func_static shouldn't matter.

[Sir Taffsalot]

All the brushes are in grid 1. I've only gone below grid one to place models. As for Melans suggestion I did stick a brush in the middle and gave it a window texture and used CSG suptract so that broke it all up. It still didn't show up in DM.

 

Yeah I was never going to use it for sealing the void. I just like been able to decide what's worldspawn and what's func static for myself.

[rich_is_bored]

Delete your .cm and .proc files and then recompile. I'm not sure what the cause is but that should clear it up.

[demagogue]

It's not just grid-snapping. If there's a tiny gap or brush overlap or tiny wedge or brushes meeting at a weird angle (i.e., not perfectly flush) the rendering could hiccup on it and walls disappear. It's about the oldest consistently reported issue there is in this forum, and the usual solution is to simplify troublesome brushwork around the seam one way or another.

[Sir Taffsalot]

How would I go about setting up a security system like the T2 OM Shipping and Recieving where by doors are unlocked once a specific code is entered on to a number pad? Thanks.

[SiyahParsomen]

How would I go about setting up a security system like the T2 OM Shipping and Recieving where by doors are unlocked once a specific code is entered on to a number pad? Thanks.

 

you can check Alchemist fm for that. I think you can use it more than one target.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Thanks for that. Could you refresh my memory and tell me where in the FM a number pad was used? It's been so long since I played it I can't even remember using a number pad.

[SiyahParsomen]

Thanks for that. Could you refresh my memory and tell me where in the FM a number pad was used? It's been so long since I played it I can't even remember using a number pad.

 

when you enter the mansion, climb up stairs to go to left room which leads to alchemist's place.

[Sir Taffsalot]

OK will have a look. Thank You!

[Sir Taffsalot]

I'm going to try and make a two part campaign. It will be released in two seperate parts. I haven't started on part two yet but before I begin I'd like to know how my idea for part two would work. If it's even possible.

 

Here's the concept: A rich Lord has bought a V expensive painting. He wants to show off to everyone in the city so he has a ball in his mansion full of influential people from the city. Hanging from the rafters is the expensive painting in a cage that everyone can see. The player has to steal the painting. The player has to get into the rafters and press a buttom where a mechanical contraption will lift the cage into the rafters and the player can open the cage and take the painting. But of course people in the ball will see it, alert the guards and an alarm will go off. The player is not aloud to make an alarm go off. So he has to go into the basement to the generator supply room and turn off the lights for the ball room. There will be some lamps in the rafters so the player can still see what he is doing but are too high up for the people to see below. The thing is in real life the guests would alert the guards that the lights are off and he would go to the bassment and turn the lights back on. So I want a time limit that when the lights are turned off, after 5 minutes they go back on. If the player is not quick enough and the lights go back on while he is stealing the painting the alarm will go off.

 

I'm thinking that I should make the cage a func_static called "painting cage". Then put a tdm_info_objective_location around it. Then have it set that if the "painting cage" is not in the tdm_info_objective_location the alarm goes off. This has to be an exception if the lights are turned off though.

 

Any suggestions? I don't even know if this is possible tbh.

[Baddcog]

Guess:

 

Put the trigger zone in the rafters. Make it a sliding door. (no collision) If the player triggers the cage and it moves into the zone it triggers alarm.

 

If the player turns off the lights the door 'opens' away from the area the cage will go up to. If the cage is still there and the lights come on the zone would move into the cage.

 

Should work, not sure if triggers can move though.

[Sotha]

Why not use the relighting behavior? Put one guard into the ball room and give him 100% to relight lights. When the ballroom lights are switched off by a switch in the cellar, the guard (or anyone who has a chance to relight the ballroom lights) walks to the basement and flips the lever, then returns back.

 

Why do it artificially as you can do it geniunely. You can make the way to the basement so that the AI has to move a long way, and the player would have some kind of shortcut to the ball room, giving the player time to operate. This gives the player an option to intercept the guard too, which is cool. Or put some mines on the alarm, to give even more time!

 

You can also link the lights going off with the alarm being disabled like this:

Entities target each other like this:

cage door -> trigger multi -> alarm

 

When lights are switched OFF, you change the trigger multi target to something else, and it will not fire the alarm as long as the lights are off when the cage door is opened. I know this trigger target changing works perfectly, I've used in my WIP. There is a target entity in the target folder in DR which lets you change an entities spawnargs on the fly, but I cannot remember the name.

 

When lights are turned back ON, the trigger multi target is changed back to alarm.

[Mortem Desino]

Put the trigger zone in the rafters. Make it a sliding door. (no collision) If the player triggers the cage and it moves into the zone it triggers alarm.

 

If the player turns off the lights the door 'opens' away from the area the cage will go up to. If the cage is still there and the lights come on the zone would move into the cage.

 

Should work, not sure if triggers can move though.

Yep. That'll work. It still has to be a trigger_multiple or trigger_once entity, but you can bind it to a nonsolid nodraw sliding door, and let the door move in and out of the area. "The Creeps" has trigger volumes that move to and from a "blue room" using this method.

When lights are switched OFF, you change the trigger multi target to something else, and it will not fire the alarm as long as the lights are off when the cage door is opened. I know this trigger target changing works perfectly, I've used in my WIP. There is a target entity in the target folder in DR which lets you change an entities spawnargs on the fly, but I cannot remember the name.

 

When lights are turned back ON, the trigger multi target is changed back to alarm.

Ooh. Never knew about this. I've always gone the loooong way around and done this with scripts.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Thanks for the replies chaps! I'll have a play around with this at the weekend and see if i can get your suggestions to work.

 

One more thing. The painting needs to be replaced by a replica. Without looking I'm going to assume that there are no paintings in the Movable Entities section. How can I get a Model to go into the players inventory that can be dropped whenever he chooses?

[Sotha]

Thanks for the replies chaps! I'll have a play around with this at the weekend and see if i can get your suggestions to work.

 

One more thing. The painting needs to be replaced by a replica. Without looking I'm going to assume that there are no paintings in the Movable Entities section. How can I get a Model to go into the players inventory that can be dropped whenever he chooses?

 

Make a moveable collision brush. Put the model painting inside it and bind it to the collision brush. You need to set frobable, frob_peers and frob_distances so that the collision brush makes the painting highlight etc. Check transaction.map.

 

 

In the old house there are firewood the player had to carry to the fireplace in the cellar. Those firewoods are done exactly like this. Check how the spawnargs are set up, I cannot remember how it was done.

 

 

[Sir Taffsalot]

Thank you very much for your help Sotha. Will have a look at your map.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Is there a way to put a timer on a light switch so when it is off it will turn back on after a certain amount of time? The problem with getting the AI to do this is that the player could easily knock them out thus eliminating the threat.

[Sotha]

Switch targets light and a trigger_multi. The trigger multi targets the light again. You set on the trigger multi spawnarg 'delay' with the time you want the trigger to wait before activating the light again.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Thanks once again Sotha.

[Sir Taffsalot]

I've just started working on this cage alarm concept. I have the cage targetting a trigger. I have the trigger targetting the speaker. I also have the spawnrag S-waitfortrigger 1 on the speaker. I have the cage setup so that when it's raised it is inside the trigger. When I raise the cage the speaker doesn't work. Where am I going wrong? This is the first time I've used triggers. I can't see any tuts about it on the DM wiki tut page except for face triggers. A wiki would have been helpful.

 

Also I can't see any alarm sounds from the list of sounds avilalbe. I've looked under A and S for alarms and sirens. I've even scrolled down the entire list and can't see anything. Surely there's an alarm of some sort I can use?

 

I'm going to apologise in advance chaps. I have a feeling I'm going to be asking an awful lot of questions trying to get this concept to work.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Typical. It was just a mispelling in one of the target spawnrags. OK the speaker goes off when the cage is raised.

 

Another problem though. I'm using Baddcogs method for this.Ive targetted the Trigger_Multiple to a non solid nodraw sliding door that pulls it out of the way when the light switch is turned off. The sliding door appeared to move in game before I textured it nodraw. So I'm assuming the Trigger_multiple isn't moving with this. Do I have to do more than just target it to the nodraw sliding door?

 

Also I still can't find an alarm sound.

[Sir Taffsalot]

Guess:

 

Put the trigger zone in the rafters. Make it a sliding door. (no collision) If the player triggers the cage and it moves into the zone it triggers alarm.

 

 

OK how do I get the alarm to go off when it's in the trigger zone? I've targetted the cage to the trigger zone but this means the alarm goes off as soon as the cage starts moving.

[Baddcog]

Again guessing.

 

The trigger zone should target the alarm.

 

Probably source/receptron is best way. Put a source on the cage and a receptron on the target zone. When the touch send a stim to trigger the alarm.

 

(I really haven't messed with any of this technical stuff much but it should work much like Dromed and that's how i would have done it)

[Sir Taffsalot]

I'm an evil genius!!!!! I created 2 levers. One that raises the cage and sets off the alarm and one that just raises a cage. I binded them to a sliding door that moves when the lights are turned off. So basicaly when the lights go out the switches get swapped around. No need for S&Rs or scripting!

 

Still can't find any alarms in any of the sound options. I find it hard to believe the TDM team haven't put any in. These are essential for mansion heists.