TDM NEW MAPPERS WORKSHOP

[Darkness_Falls]

Is it possible for a pointfile .lin file to go stale? I dmap'd tonight and there weren't any leaks. It lets me play the map, but the pointfile still shows a leak :-/ I wonder if DarkRadiant was holding onto a old (pre-correction) pointfile data?

 

Oh, I did filter "All Entities" like I always do... but I unfiltered for the screenshots, as I thought it might help you see the problem. Oopsie

 

PS: Are fire arrow impacts supposed to trigger buttons from 10 feet away? My secret button is at the base of a wall, yet hitting any part of that wall, the adjacent wall, or the floor within a 10-foot radius pushes it. I could maybe understand a 1-2 foot radius... but 10 seemed a little strange.

 

Obsttorte wrote:

 

Btw, from your screenshots it looks like you have placed brushwork directly behind the modules (that is ok) and than surrounded everything with more brushwork farther away (that is odd). Any reason for that, or is this just meant to be temporary and get removed later on?

Somewhere along the line, my prefab-built room got some gaps around its perimeter in the ceiling areas. And I'm pretty sure the window alcove mansion prefab has no ceiling top to it. So, to try and close those gaps visually (and sealingly), I put a bunch of thin trim around my ceiling areas and over the window alcoves by manually creating brushes and texturing them. Stuff like that. Should I be closing those gaps some other way? And because those brushes were, essentially, a bunch of band-aids to plug leaky holes, it apparently didn't seal things up airtight, so I built a big sealing box around everything.

[Obsttorte]

I think the pointfile does not get deleted upon a successful dmap. So an old file can still be lying around. However, normally you wouldn't take a look at it unless dmapping tells you that it found a leak.

 

Buttons get triggered if they receive damage. As the fire arrow does splash damage it is capable of triggering a button quiet at a distance. With feets do you refer to the unit or do you mean doom units?

 

Putting a big brush room around everything is ok for testing purposes, but definetely not the way you should ship your mission. Try to get used to seal each individual room properly, as this will save you problems later on (like internal leaks, which will affect sound propagation and cause troubles when using the location system).

[peter_spy]

If anything else fails, you can try deleting all the map files and writing them again. With your map opened in DR, delete all the mission files in maps folder, save map in DR, and then run TDM and dmap it.

[DoubleOhZero]

Hi all. Just checking in to let you all know I am still around. Work got in the way but I expect to have a new version my map within the next week. Thanks for all the hard work Springheel!

[Darkness_Falls]

I think the pointfile does not get deleted upon a successful dmap. So an old file can still be lying around. However, normally you wouldn't take a look at it unless dmapping tells you that it found a leak.

 

Buttons get triggered if they receive damage. As the fire arrow does splash damage it is capable of triggering a button quiet at a distance. With feets do you refer to the unit or do you mean doom units?

 

Putting a big brush room around everything is ok for testing purposes, but definetely not the way you should ship your mission. Try to get used to seal each individual room properly, as this will save you problems later on (like internal leaks, which will affect sound propagation and cause troubles when using the location system).

Thank you. For the fire arrow, I was referring to in-game feet, visually (what my eye sees). I will see if I can become more adept at sealing rooms properly

[Springheel]

Yeah, the fire arrow thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'd never noticed that behaviour.

[grayman]

Yeah, the fire arrow thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'd never noticed that behaviour.

 

I've seen it. There's a spawnarg "noimpact/1" you can set on buttons and levers when you don't want them to react to an explosion's pressure wave, or to being hit with a flying object like an arrow.

[Springheel]

I can understand a direct hit triggering a button, but having the blast radius do it doesn't feel quite right.

[Obsttorte]

Well, the explosion can push things straight through the room, so why shouldn't it push a button. Although I agree that this wouldn't be my first choice of use. The action of a button is handled by the frob action script, inthis case frob_button, iirc. If a mission author has an issue with it this script could be altered or disabled and the state_change_callback could be used instead to disable a reaction to indirect damage from the fire arrow but still allow buttons to be triggered by direct damage from arrows.

[Springheel]

The next video is up.

 

 

AI prefabs (unzip in your prefabs/ai folder):
http://www.mindplaces.com/save/put_in_ai.zip

Additional information about pathnodes:
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Path_Nodes

Advanced Pathfinding information:
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Pathfinding

For information on how to def_attach objects to AI:
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Attaching_Props_to_AI

Setting up AI Teams:
http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=AI_Relations_(Editing)

[Destined]

H iSpringheel,

thanks for the video, it was great as always! It gives you tons of possibilities with just a few tools. As you already stated, it is quite long and covers a lot of stuff, but I still wanted to mention one thing that I would have added in the video and that is the path node "path_flee_point", because it does not require a lot of work and can add to realism. These path nodes are put into the map and are the first point unarmed AI (and wounded guards for that matter) will flee to. These can be placed, for example, near stationary guards, so civilians run to where they know guards are, or maybe somewhere where the AI would be more likely to flee to, like the exit of a building. The generic behaviour lets AI simply run away from the player, so they would likely run into corners or just anywhere in a house. The great thing is, you don't need any targets on it, you just put them into the map and the AI will use it. Additionally, the fleeing AI will pass information about an intruder to any AI they meet on their way (or their destination), so guards will come and investigate after a civilian has successfully fled. For further information, check the "Flee Points" section of the Path Nodes Wiki page.

[Springheel]

Yeah, I considered adding Flee points, but AI do have a default flee behaviour even without them, so they're not essential (though still useful).

 

On a separate note, I want to mention that I'm going to be entering a much more busy phase in RL starting next week, so although there are two videos left that I plan on making (Objectives and Briefing/Final steps), I can make no promises about how quickly they'll get done.

 

Anyone reaching that point before then can look for info here:

 

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

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

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

[Springheel]

So did everyone else get as busy as I did? Anyone actually still working on their maps?

[Amadeus]

Yeah, still working on it. I hit a point where most of my free time was taken up by IRL things, but I do still manage to get a decent amount of DR time in.

[Bikerdude]

On a related note, I still need to wrap up the speedbuild I did with these modules.

[Destined]

I am also still working on it, but I am stuck on some scripting stuff that I would like to implement.

[The Dark One]

I was waiting to see if I needed to mess with the newest version of DR/trying to get slightly less busy before I dove back into it.

[Darkness_Falls]

You guessed it, Springheel. My computer issues had me unable to work for a while, but once that was squared away, life and other priorities got in the way. I will try to get back into it as soon as I'm able, but I don't currently see a lot of free time in my near future :-/ I will try to shift priorities around a bit

[Springheel]

I'm not judging....I'm super busy myself.

[Darkness_Falls]

I didn't think you were judging... I just didn't (don't) want to let you down, if I can help it. You spent good time on making the videos for a reason; I would like to do my part to learn the teachings

[JackFarmer]

First of all, thank you very much @Springheel & Sotha for your video tutorials. These are extremely helpful (sometimes even funny), and for the very first time I was able to create a small area mapping (almost) to my expectations.

 

I understand that visportals are essential to the entire process and before I continue adding more details, I would like to solve this problem first.

 

Regarding visportals and window models surrounded by brushes, the WIKI tutorial (written by Sotha?) recommends to "put in a worldspawn brush with nodraw texture on".

 

So I did, and I carefully located these "No-Draw" brushes between the window prefabs in question to make sure that there are no gaps left (I also double checked with grid snap and carried out visual control via DR).

 

Result: "r_showtris 2" shows that the entire outside area of the building is still being rendered, fps down to ca. 10 - 15 fps.

 

If I replace the window prefabs (brushes, windows and no draw brush) and replace them with solid wall brushes, it works perfectly and the fps rate is sky-rocketing up to 50 - 60 fps. Thus I think that the "no draw" brush does not seal my wall works at all. What is my mistake?

 

Please find below a picture; the red frame in the detail depicted on the right side shows the exact position of the no draw brush.

 

Many thanks for your help in advance.

 

[Springheel]

No, you're correct, nodraw textures don't seal visleafs. You generally want to use caulk, or a texture that is close to the wall textures. Can you point me to where it says to use nodraw brushes?

[JackFarmer]

Hello Springheel,

 

Thank you very much for your quick help. I will try as you suggest.

 

I found the paragraph in question here:

 

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

 

The above mentioned statement can be found under headline "Where to place your Visportal" in the second paragraph.

 

Is it ok to go on here with questions or do I have to return to the "Newbie" thread?

[Springheel]

I've added a note to that wiki page, thanks.

 

Is it ok to go on here with questions or do I have to return to the "Newbie" thread?

 

 

Questions about the new mapper workshop videos can go here, but you'll probably get more responses for more general issues in the newbie thread.

[JackFarmer]

Hello Springheel,

 

Thanks a lot for your help

Edited December 15, 2017 by JackFarmer