Problem with material file for light shaders

[canopus]

Hello all.

Since I'm new to these forums, first a little intro.

I've been engrossed in DM editing for about a month now

and thanks to the excellent tutorials find it fairly smooth

sailing, tho' at times mindbendingly complicated.

I've done Doom and Q2 editing in the past so have a bit of

related experience and the The A-Z beginners guide was perfect

for the job. I've never done Thief editing but have always

loved the game - in fact I was replaying the original T2 for

the nth time when I came across the Dark Mod.

 

Now my little problem. I've been copy/pasting scrips found

in tutorials and fms to create new materials, learning higgledy piggledy

about the effects of changing some variables. I've now gotten some projected

lights shaders to work so can start experimenting with that, too.

However, tho' my shaders show up in Dark Radiant under my_fm folder and I can

apply them, after dmapping Dark Mod will then hang when I press 'attack'

to start the mission. After I rename lights.mtr to e.g. lights.bak so Dark Mod

can't find it the problem vanishes, Dark Mod starts up and my projected shader

is working just fine. Danged if I can figure out what I'm doing wrong!

 

Here's my setup. I have everything in my_fm folder immediately under Doom3,

set up as A-Z directs me. I have lights.mtr in the materials subfolder.

An example definition is:

 

lights/my_fm/textures/lights/win31_l

{

qer_editorimage textures/my_fm/lights/win31_l_ed

lightFalloffImage makeintensity( lights/spot01)

{

forcehighquality

map textures/my_fm/lights/win31_l

colored

zeroClamp

}

}

 

"win31_l" isn't defined elsewhere, in some other materials.mtr

 

Thanks for any help

 

canopus

[stumpy]

dont call your material file lights.mtr its overwriting darkmods own lights.mtr file thats whats causing dark mod to crash.

Edited May 23, 2012 by stumpy

[Bikerdude]

dont call your material file lights.mtr its overwriting darkmods own lights.mtr file thats whats causing dark mod to crash.

Following on from Stumpys reply what mappers normally do is have single material fial for thier map with all the materials descriptions inside it.

 

Eg if your map is for example called "sneakytaffer.map" etc, you could then call the material file "sneakytaffer.mtr" and you would have a subsection as follows

 

//mylights

lights/my_fm/textures/lights/win31_l
{
qer_editorimage textures/my_fm/lights/win31_l_ed
lightFalloffImage makeintensity( lights/spot01)
}
{
forcehighquality
map textures/my_fm/lights/win31_l
colored
zeroClamp
}

 

I edited the brackets etc, but I suggest you look at an existing definition from the relevant .PK4 file to get a better idea of how its done etc.

[Springheel]

Since I'm new to these forums, first a little intro.

I've been engrossed in DM editing for about a month now

 

Love to hear that. Welcome aboard!

[grayman]

Welcome, canopus!

 

For everyone else: I know canopus from previous projects dating back to the Middle Ages, it seems. It's great to have him here with us.

[Bikerdude]

I know canopus from previous projects dating back to the Middle Ages, it seems. It's great to have him here with us.

Cool, would be able to help you with your coding duties or is he more a mapper..?

[grayman]

Mapping, art, textures, and perhaps some scripting.

[Bikerdude]

[RPGista]

Yeah, I was thinking, a month and already he's into moddifying materials? Good to hear someone with talent is looking into map making!

[canopus]

Please be warned. Dangerous conditions. I do not know.

Praise Karras, the problem is removed. Lights.mtr is renamed.

I do not know. ... a malfunction.

 

Thanks all!

grayman is correct, what I know of programming and the

possibilities re coding game AI could be likened

to a vacuum, if only there was more of it, but there isn't.

We worked on an unreleased Q2 engine TC and he brought

things to life. I found that "just ask and it will be

given" goes a long way, but nothing asked for came close to

the surprises.

 

I'm very fortunate indeed to find grayman already working

on DM.

 

The Q2 TC had one 8-bit 256 color palette, for the whole game.

Trying to maximize on that taught me a whole world of color.

The DM 32-bit palette with alpha channel is a whole other world.

I've yet to have a clue, but I'm good at copy/paste and trial and

error, and the DM artists have paved a way. The Dark Mod is

already an impressive finished piece that stands solidly on its own.

 

gfx aside, a Dark Mod level requires more attention on details of

story/plotline than anything produced from id's arsenal. Nowhere in

an id game is a player required to pause and hold position, to go

forward cautiously after some time of calculation to blackjack a target.

In Thief a player is required to not only remain immersed through all

those minutes, but to emerge even more immersed. In fact, I can't

think of any first-person action game mode more opposite to the one

pioneered by id than that of the Thief series.

 

Quite a challenge, that.

 

canopus