Wishlist For Darkradiant

[greebo]

Nothing like a quick fix, but this is something I envisioned when writing the code for the AI head selector. An "AI Editing Panel" plugin could facilitate this process, but it's quite some work. (It's unfortunate, as I'm pretty overwhelmed by the things to do in the editor, let alone the mod code, so this might take months before such a feature is seeing any daylight.)

[Baddcog]

T2 had selections for skins and voices. I don't recal it ever choosing different voices for me.

 

I think the main difference is each of their ai was seperate.

 

So you chose gaurd1, guard2, guard 3 and people would vary them. Each has it's own voice and skin (which can be swapped)

 

But in DR you choose builder (guard1,2 and 3), then you HAVE to choose head and voice to mix it up.

 

So thief appeared to have more AI when you create them. DR appears to have less because the skin and voice system are 'hidden' and you ave to make a second choice to get the options.

 

I just see this as more of the DR learning curve. When you create a door entity you get one skin. You then have to select an alternate skin and nothing says "skins" to draw your attention.

But if you create a model door you clearly see a list of 20 skins.

 

Maybe entities just need more descripts at the bottom of the window that says "add model prop>skin" to change looks of door/ai...

[Fidcal]

No, as I said, Dromed (or maybe the spawning process) varied the voices for you automatically. That's why you don't remember because you didn't have to do anything. If you create three guards of identical type all close together say in the same street then it gave one the voice of Benny, one another voice, and the other one was the third voice. Of course, as you continued to create a 4th and more then it would have to use the same voices but since typically you wouldn't normally put than two or three close together it worked quite well. But you could still change a specific voice if you wanted but few did because there was little reason to. One reason might be if you made a conversation using say Benny's voice then you would want to make sure that AI had Benny's voice specifically for his normal mutterings.

[Baddcog]

It's been awhile, but I did select different guard Ai's to put in the same spots because I didn't want to have clones. So maybe I avoided ever seeing that in place because of my choices of placing Ai.

 

Either way that's an option that is clearly and easily available in Dromed. In DR it is a bit 'hidden'.

[Fidcal]

Yes, it's a matter of raising awareness. I bet around Christmas there'll be a few of these contest FMs all with one voice and one head. The A to Z can only give the basics but we're all learning without end. I don't think all these voices were set up yet when I first created Chalice. Anyway, I'm aware of it now in my next FM and they're all getting different heads, hats, voices, even walk speed is varying slightly in the same place or they start to sound like they are marching in sync.

[Springheel]

Maybe entities just need more descripts at the bottom of the window that says "add model prop>skin" to change looks of door/ai...

 

Yes, one thing that might go a long way is adding the "choose skin" button by default to the entity window. It's a minor hassle to type in an imaginary skin to get the button to show up, and many novice mappers won't even be aware that AI skins exist, let alone how to find them. Once the button is there I suspect most mappers will check out the options.

 

Is that something difficult to do?

[SneaksieDave]

Suggest tracking it (and similar requests); one such request is already up:

 

http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=1978

[Fidcal]

Yes, there are quite a few entities which would benefit from some default spawnargs showing. I don't think that can be done with skin though. Well, it can but a default skin or head would show as black whereas a speaker radius value is always valid as is the door rotation. A voice could be made to show but it wouldn't tell what other voices are available. It is possible to add a comment and make it show. Suppose the base AI def was given a voice comment property and the popup loaded (and maintained) with all available voices. So the mapper see say:

 

VOICES available

 

Hovering over it the popup lists all the voices. That could be universal for all AI because the names usually indicate what voices are appropriate. Can't copy and past from a popup I don't think though.

 

Similarly:

 

SKINS available

 

This might popup might simply say to always select the skin property (which would have a 'bad' default) and pick a skin from the list.

 

Likewise for heads.

 

Don't know if the above would help in the short term. At first thought it seems it would be relatively easy to set up. I occasionally use capitals for comments and not seen any problem. By using caps it indicates it is not a real property.

[jdude]

While working on my latest project I thought how nice it would be to have a stamp-like tool. This tool would place entities or models you choose by clicking on the 3d view. It would also include the ability to set x, y, or z, offsets encase you want to have all the objects go 4 units in the ground or if the origin is in the middle of the object, as well as the ability to rotate to a random degree on x, y, or z. You should also be able to assign each stamp to have similar spawn-args. For example, noshadow 1 and solid 0.

 

This would make populating those forested areas way easier especially if it aligned correctly on patch slopes.

[jdude]

Also: Having a slider to adjust the distance the 3d view sees would be nice

[greebo]

Also: Having a slider to adjust the distance the 3d view sees would be nice

That's adjustable via View > Camera > Far Clip Plane

[jdude]

Oh, Damn DR is functional!

[Fidcal]

That far clip plane hasn't worked for me in over a year.

[SneaksieDave]

@Fidcal: might it be toggled off? You can change the distance in or out without it auto-toggling on and won't see the changes if you have it disabled (the little icon that looks like a blue and white window).

 

Also maybe you're a victim of this as well: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10554-cam-refresh-issue-testers-needed/

[jdude]

That far clip plane hasn't worked for me in over a year.

 

Big maps must lag a ton for you! Maybe your config file needs resetting? I've noticed when messing with the distances of rendering using Ctrl and - or + The withdraw view shortcut seems to be broken. It also gets confusing if you've been impatient and pressed the shortcut a couple times and then it gets tricky.

[Fidcal]

I try it now and again but not for a few months so maybe I'll try again. Yes, I know that it can be toggled off and on and I've also double checked the keys bound to it but no success. If it's to do with that bug I can test that either because I cannot get render mode to work. Now that I do know *used* to work, but I rarely used it so wasn't bothered when it stopped working for me (in fact crashes.) Mines an Nvidia card; maybe there is a setting there that should be enabled?

[Fidcal]

Just tried again in the hope that Sod's law would make it work after I reported it again but no. I have checked the shortcut keys and it shows as Ctrl + Plus and Ctrl + Minus. I have tried these both on the numeric keypad and on the main keyboard just in case. Also tried both with the enable button up and down. No change at all in the camera view.

[greebo]

You can search for "cubicScale" in your AppData\Roaming\DarkRadiant\user.xml file - my value is set to "14", what is yours?

[Fidcal]

You can search for "cubicScale" in your AppData\Roaming\DarkRadiant\user.xml file - my value is set to "14", what is yours?

It's 24. Is that good or bad?

[greebo]

That sounds normal, I was expecting some insanely small or large value, that's why I asked.

 

You can try to quit DarkRadiant, change that value in the XML to 14 and the "enableCubicClipping" value to "1" (= switched on), then restart DarkRadiant.

[Fidcal]

Now working thanks! After setting it to 14 I could see the distance was missing. I pressed Ctrl + minus and further territory appeared until it reached the limit. Then I pressed Ctrl + Plus and nothing happened. So checked the key shortcuts again and it was correctly set for Ctrl + plus. Then I thought, the + sign is a shifted key so I tried Ctrl + Shift + plus. Nothing. So I re-assigned that key to Ctrl + equal and it now works. So how are others using this default?

[jdude]

I don't think anyone else is using this really. I didn't even realize it existed until I asked recently Something is wrong with the ctrl + though. For some reason it's default assignment doesn't work even though it says ctrl +.

[greebo]

Yeah, that's an old issue: http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=246

 

It seems that US/UK keyboard layouts don't like the Ctrl-+ shortcut. Any suggestions for a better default?

[jdude]

Perhaps [ and ] or < and > if their not already assigned.

[Fidcal]

I was going to suggest the numeric + and - but they are in use for cam speed. It may have been I who suggested adding keys for cam speed but in fact the default is so ideal I don't use them. Maybe nobody does. How about numeric + and - for far clip plane and Ctrl numeric + - for cam speed?