Beta testers? that can fix my briefing/ objectives?

[Garreth]

Fixed Beta testers needed.

mission uploaded below.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Garreth

[Obsttorte]

Will take a look.

[Obsttorte]

OK, the briefing is working properly. It seems you've packed the files wrong. Make sure to pack them as zip and then rename the archive to pk4. In addition, only ship the pk4. The rest (darkmod.txt etc.) gets extracted automatically upon first startup.

 

Some additional notes:

• dds files only come into the dds folder, delete the copies under guis/assets/etc...
  
• don't ship the bak file, it's a backup of your map and will only increase the pk4 size
  

btw: is this mission actually ready for beta-testing? If so you could sign me in, as I've downloaded it anyways

[Garreth]

Yes you can beta test it, only i have a problem at the bathroom door, sometimes they just walk in circles over there

And i am puzzled why i cannot see the briefing, did you change anything?

The thing is packed as a pk4, but it is zipped again for upload.

or 7zip is not zip?

yeah the dds i put there because i copied that approach from another fanmission.

If you see anything wrong you can change it, add it, and put your name in white next to mine, in mission_start.tga , later i can see exactly what i did wrong, if you want that is...

it was a nice little experiment with open windows, but maybe not the best way to do it.

i am far from professional, i acctualy triggered a door to kill a zombie to finish the mission, no joke, i just couldent figure out scripting, but i am getting there step by step, but then there is this point where you just try and give up

Edited February 2, 2014 by Garreth

[Obsttorte]

or 7zip is not zip?

Nope, those are different formats. But you can use 7zip to pack it in zip format. And please don't pack the pk4 again.

[grayman]

When you have the packaging issues sorted out, I'll be glad to look at the AI circling problem. Perhaps there's a monsterclip issue in that area.

 

I tried to look at the current package and couldn't get winzip to understand the pk4 file; not sure what's going on there. At least Obs was able to get into it.

 

(I can't sign up for full beta testing, though. There should be plenty of takers for that when you're ready to ask.)

[Obsttorte]

@grayman: the pk4 is in 7z format, so you need 7zip for extraction.

[Garreth]

o man i totaly forgot about monsterclip, better do that first then, pffff

repacked it with winzip as said, and it works, i will do some more work like re-configure the shop, fix that pathfinding problem, maybe place some more AI's in it. then i will reupload it here for the testing.

i couldent see the briefing arrows though, the boxes where just black.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Garreth

[Garreth]

Ready, you can now betatest.

 

elite.pk4

[Obsttorte]

Just took a quick look.

 

• Due to the transparent windows almost the whole map gets rendered at the same time, causing terrible low framerates
  
• monsterclipping still not optimal
  
• the level of detail is way too low for such a small mission
  
• the lighting is not optimal (too bright)
  
• no sentences in the briefing makes it hard to read
  
• texture scale way too high and some mistextured areas
  
• the breaking ladder was cool
  
• an extreme high amount of loot concentrated on such a small spot
  
• loot goals does not differ enough at difficulty levels
  
• briefing speaks about zombies and there are mines to be buyed, but they are not of any use in this mission
  
• the trees in the background are way too big
  
• the main goal object was just lying around there
  
• I don't really get the sense/story of the mission
  

 

 

I know this is a lot of negative feedback, but to be honest this mission is far from being releaseable. If you really want to use transparent windows, you have to rethink the complete map layout. The other possibility is to use opaque windows.

[Garreth]

My machine can pull this map, and i don't want to re desighn the map so this will have to do.

the mines i can remove.

the zombies come in part 2

the story will be revealed as you go trough parts.

it was just a small mission to run up to the 2nd one.

the brightness i can fix, but do have it set on default tdm, so if you upped your brightness you might have to default it but i will check on that in the training mission then re- tune my brightness

the main goal was just getting under the wall in to the city, nothing more nothing less, you are supposed to be able to just run trough.

i will wait a few days for others to test, and see what i can fix change.

[RJFerret]

(FYI, to download from that site, one needs to enable web browser cookies as well as your browser's referrer. It doesn't give you an error message initially to let you know that, but will give an error message later if you let it have access to cookies without the referrer.)

[RJFerret]

I have to run out, but my initial look has some significant news...

 

 

 

I'm not sure what is going on story-wise, as I couldn't figure out where sentences began or ended in the briefing, some capitalization would help there, and punctuation too! :-)

 

5 fps

I'm used to having 60 fps in missions, with the worst slow spots sometimes dipping to 40-30 fps, only the very rare mission with tons of AI and few visportals give me 20ish fps. So I was surprised to see this one has 4-6 fps outside, and about the same inside (where it should shoot up to max normally). The basement was a normal 60 fps though, so you just need to implement that condition upstairs as well. It's pretty easy to do, as you have walls to seal stuff.

 

Hitting r_showprimitives 1 revealed the drawcall count wasn't too high, but over a million tris were trying to be rendered. That's an explanation of why the performance is so dismal. Given how little visual detail there is, that's a LOT of info being sent to the graphics card to be rendered, when it can't even be seen.

 

r_showlights 1 revealed an insane amount of lights at once, you only want 2 or 3, and I was seeing numbers like 9, 6, and 15!

r_showlightcount 1 showed mostly a white screen, which indicates WAY too many, you don't even want to see purple and cyan nevermind get to white.

 

I'm afraid I might suggest it's premature suggesting it's ready for beta test? It's still at alpha stage in my opinion, until visportals are fully implemented, opaque windows, and each section to be rendered has it's own separate "leaf". Currently you are throwing everything at the graphics card, including what isn't in view! The good news is you already have geometry that should work well for visportals it looks like, given the valley shape. :-) If you had a mountain top or flat plain it would require significant work, but this shouldn't be that hard thanfully.

 

Enough with the general, a couple specifics I saw before stopping to write this before heading out:

The AIs I saw on the first floor all were trying to access a locked stained glass door they couldn't get in to. can_unlock1 doorname is the spawnarg to put on them for that.

An AI beyond that door was stuck trying endlessly trying to sit in a chair.

 

There's info here that will help: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Category:Visportal (particularly see "creating large areas")

Also: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance:_Essential_Must-Knows

 

Sorry for such a cursory look, but until it's ready for beta test, there's not much else I can reasonably discover I'm afraid. :/

 

 

 

The hard part is over, with some TLC I believe we'll see quite a promising mission in the future!

[Garreth]

Most of the windows have been replaced by brushes with a projected light as moon beam.

performance increased drasticaly

now the readables.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Garreth