The_Deep's Mapping Troubles.

[the_deep]

You can simply open the entity menu and type "frobable" into the upper line and "1" into the lower line (with the check-sign). This also works for AI even though "frobable" is not present in the menu "add spawnarg".

I see... Thanks.

[SteveL]

Cool. I'm not sure I want the NPCs to highlight though. Can I trigger another visual cue, like a cursor of some sort?

I'm not sure. We don't have an in-game cursor, so highlighting might be the only way. You have to interact with the 3d world, not a HUD. Highlighting is unsubtle in some circs, but it's consistent in the game too. Players will know what it means. If you're really determined, TDM's HUD is editable and extendible, and scripting could give you an even quicker fix if you wanted to do something different.

[the_deep]

I'm not sure. We don't have an in-game cursor, so highlighting might be the only way. You have to interact with the 3d world, not a HUD. Highlighting is unsubtle in some circs, but it's consistent in the game too. Players will know what it means. If you're really determined, TDM's HUD is editable and extendible, and scripting could give you an even quicker fix if you wanted to do something different.

It's a fairly well-lit area and the highlighting isn't very noticeable in those circumstances. Another possible solution would be to have the NPC turn towards the player when in focus and utter a quick :"Yes?" or "What can I do for you?" or something of that sort indicating that an action can be performed with a possible on-screen message (but I'd like to keep those to a minimum). The question is if it's apparent enough that a conversation can be started, also it may be a messy solution if there are more NPCs in close proximity. A cursor that appears only at moments when there's an action to perform would be the best option.

[Destined]

Maybe you could just insert a message, when the player enters the area. Something like "This is a safehouse. Talk to other people by pressing "frob"" and also add other infos, what is different here or something like that.

[the_deep]

Maybe you could just insert a message, when the player enters the area. Something like "This is a safehouse. Talk to other people by pressing "frob"" and also add other infos, what is different here or something like that.

I'd really like to stick to the rule of "Show, Don't Tell" as much as possible.

 

Maybe there's a frob-highlight value I could play with? See if that makes a difference without getting too funky.

[VanishedOne]

Frob highlights are set up in material files (the conditional bits referencing parm11).

[the_deep]

Frob highlights are set up in material files (the conditional bits referencing parm11).

Thanks. Sounds a little too complicated for me at this stage, I'll have to revisit this idea later.

[the_deep]

This seems very unlikely to me, but I have to ask...

 

Is there a performance hit when adding spawnargs that override inherited properties on entities? I swear I notice a severe frame rate drop after doing this to a number of objects in a scene.

[SteveL]

There is no performance overhead to using spawnargs generally, but of course they can change the behaviour of an entity. What entities / spawnargs?

[the_deep]

Just simple stuff.... Candles that I set to be non-frobable, shelves and furniture set to be non-mantleable etc.

 

I found a misbehaving light source though, that might be the culprit. When viewed from certain angles the shadows start flickering. Interestingly it only happens in the native Linux version, the Windows version through Wine is fine (and that, yep, that's a rhyme.)

[the_deep]

Are there any post-processing shaders, or tutorials on how to do them? I'm thinking film grain, and also desaturation filters.

[HMart]

Yes there are post-processing shaders in TDM bloom being one of them, about tutorials i'm afraid i can't help you, just now that TDM uses ARB shaders so any post-processing shader needs to be done on ARB, look on the internet for examples.

[nbohr1more]

You can use makeIntensity in your material definition to set materials to black and white and there is a desaturation factor in our post process shader:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Advanced_TDM_Visuals_Tweaking

 

We also have a posterize shader as I recall. Yes, you would need to use ARB assembly to build your shaders.

[VanishedOne]

You can add ARB program effects via a GUI overlay.

 

E.g. if you look in the attachment for http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4214it has files for a distortion overlay (but no script file because the bug relates to underwater overlays).

[the_deep]

Thanks guys Assembly seems a little unfeasible for me however, had an assembly language manual on the Vic20 back in the day, but stuck to writing text adventures in basic- . I'll have a look and see anyway.