New Contributor: Intro

[Fidcal]

Although I've been occasionally posting on the public forums for a year or so I'll just post a few lines here about where I'm coming from:

 

Background is Thief right from the launch of Thief 1. Dromed level editing since the end of 2002 so I'd call myself a moderate Dromed expert. One T2 FM released (yeah not much in all that time but it's a big one.) I'm not into C++ unfortunately though I'm a homegrown amateur programmer for well over 20 years: various BASICs, Z80 assembler, a junior qualification in 'C' (though now very rusty) and currently using IBasic for any odd Windows stuff I might need.

 

A year ago I could see that TDM was definitely the way to go so tried a couple of beginner's Doom Edit tutorials just to get some idea of what it was about. Resolved to continue with that once I finished my T2 FM which I eventually did early this year. Once I had the basics I hoped to produce a modest Doom map for consideration so I might get accepted as a TDM mapper.

 

Circumstances pushed me along when the S & R thread in the ttlg editing forum led to me being (willingly) roped in early as a contributor. So strictly speaking I'm not really prepared and many of the Doom editing concepts and terms will be unknown to me. I plan to continue for a while with what DoomEdit tutorials I can find as it is not yet clear to me whether they will be meaningful in Dark Radiant; I've already noticed confusing differences even in the Doom Edit tutorials I've found to what is in the actual DoomEdit I'm using so I'd expect that to be worse using DR. (I'm assuming here there is no 'Dark Radiant Absolute Beginner's Tutorial' available as it's still being developed.)

 

Anyway, I downloaded what I think is the latest Dark Radiant (v2.0.3 19th March 07) but I will not be able to get the main mod itself for a while because it's too big a download for me unfortunately. I am considering different options but at best it will be weeks before I can get it. BTW I've also been unable to find the download link anyway! (a nudge would help?)

 

That said, I took a quick look at Dark Radiant and was very impressed - especially for me to be able to change the colours as the default in Doom Edit is close to unuseable, the selected red on bright white for instance being actually near invisible! I expected other colours might help but one look at Dark Radiant in black background astonished me at how vastly clearer it is to me; I can really work with this!

 

Dumb question: in DoomEdit I enter the game using F2 then dmap at the console etc. I see no such route from Dark Radiant and I'm just loading Doom separately each time, exit to console to dmap, exit again to map then close Doom to get back to DR! Surely not?

 

I took a first look at the S & R interface and it seems excellent but I need to study it before I can add any sensible input in that thread. I've also been reading through various threads to see the thinking so far.

[Crispy]

Hi Fidcal, welcome to our little hidey-hole.

 

The current beta mapper's alpha version is here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?act=a...p;f=31&id=9

 

BTW, the current version of DarkRadiant is actually 0.8... it sounds like you downloaded "revision 203", which has no connection to the version number.

 

Dumb question: in DoomEdit I enter the game using F2 then dmap at the console etc. I see no such route from Dark Radiant and I'm just loading Doom separately each time, exit to console to dmap, exit again to map then close Doom to get back to DR! Surely not?

You can leave Doom 3 open while you work in DarkRadiant. Should be a bit faster then.

 

I'm not sure whether or not you need to quit the map in Doom 3 while you work in DR (greebo or angua could probably tell you) - if so, you can quit a map without quitting the game by typing disconnect into the console.

[Fidcal]

Thanks Crispy.

 

Odd, the DR zip is about TWICE the size of the exe (which I would have assumed is an installer?) so can I further assume there is more in the zip and the exe is just the changes from the previous version? Furthermore, I'm supposing to be checking out the S & R which I thought was fairly recent; those downloads are way back in January. I seem to be doing a lot of assuming and guessing recently. My next guess is that they are the public issue and I should stick with the v203 that I've got? Anything else in the zip I ought to have?

 

That disconnect might help but it doesn't provide any exit from the game itself. I'll check on the other forum to see what they are doing. I hadn't realized there is what I think is a general Doom level editing forum.

[greebo]

I hope I can clarify things a bit:

 

The last DarkRadiant release was back in January, which was version 0.8.1. That's the one that is available on Sourceforge and in the announcement threads in these forums.

 

However, development has progressed quite a bit since then and to let people try out the new versions without having to setup a build environment, I'm uploading a zipped "snapshot" build to our FTP quite regularly (the last one is a few days old). This can be downloaded here (the link won't change until I say so):

 

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/DarkRadia..._latest_SVN.zip

 

This ZIP contains a few files that have to be unzipped over an existing DarkRadiant installation. So you have to install the release version 0.8.1 first before you can unzip that snapshot build over your install folder.

 

Chances are that this snapshot build is interfering with the existing 0.8.1 config files, so a cleanup of your local settings may be in order (these are located in C:\Documents and Settings\Fidcal\Application Data\DarkRadiant, just wipe the folder).

 

Feel free to ask more questions, they shall be answered.

[OrbWeaver]

The ZIP is larger than the EXE because the ZIP uses ordinary Deflate compression while the EXE uses the LZMA compression provided by InnoSetup. The official 0.8.x DarkRadiant releases do not have the S/R editor in them, you should use the latest snapshot build which Greebo provides (which it sounds like you already have). You can confirm by checking for a file dm_stimresponse.dll in the plugins folder.

 

To compile maps you have to use Doom 3, since the map compiler is closed source and cannot be part of DarkRadiant. This is easiest if you run Doom 3 in windowed mode so you can switch away from it like any other application.

[Crispy]

That disconnect might help but it doesn't provide any exit from the game itself.

Well that's the point... you don't need to quit D3 in order to go back to DarkRadiant (not if you run it windowed, at least, which is the idea). Just disconnect from the map, edit and save the map in DR, then switch back and do "testmap mymap".

I'll check on the other forum to see what they are doing. I hadn't realized there is what I think is a general Doom level editing forum.

Doom3world.org is quite useful. They're using DoomEd though, so they get to just hit F2 or whatever.

[SneaksieDave]

As they've mentioned, just launch TDM in windowed mode, e.g.,

 

c:\Doom3\Doom3.exe com_allowConsole 1 +set r_fullscreen 0 +set fs_game darkmod

 

And launch DarkRadiant. Leave them both open; no need to close unless you have a memory shortage on your system, but even with only 768Mb, I'm fine so far (maybe not when maps get huge, I don't know, but that's what regions are for )

 

Work on your map, save it. Tab over to TDM, bring down the console with tilde and dmap and then run the map. When finished, just tab back to DarkRadiant; no need to issue a disconnect command or exit TDM.

[Fidcal]

Sorry for delay; for some reason I am no longer getting email notifications of any replies from these forums even though I still have it set and it's the right email address.

 

Anyway, regarding switching between Doom (still not got TDM) and DR I was probably doing it right but it just seemed awkward to what I'm used to with Dromed - one shifted key and I'm playing; ditto and I'm editing. In the Doom console even when windowed there is no direct way to 'get out' that is, the mouse is 'trapped' in the window so no way to just click on DR as the mouse pointer disappears outside the Doom window. The only way I know is Alt + Tab to switch so I assume that is what you mean. I just didn't want to do that for the next 99 years then find HaHa there is an easy way. Regarding which, is there no way for DR to 'feed' a string to Doom, dmap currentmap etc., tilde, map currentmap, to get straight in by pressing F2 or something? You guys must have typed dmap like a million times by now! Wonder if my key macro prog will work in that console?.....

 

As for DR, now I think maybe that's what I did! The other day I think I downloaded the 'public' version but found it had no s & r so I thought I had the wrong one. Then in another session I found the SVN link, downloaded it, must have found it didn't work so instinctively extracted it again over the first download. Seems to be working at least as far as it can without TDM. My memory is not so good but it looks like I did two things right by dumb luck!

 

Thanks for all help. I'll carry on learning but meanwhile suffering from data overload.

[New Horizon]

There is a possibility we might be able to convert q3map into an opened source version of dmap. I think our coders are going to take a look at it in the not too distant future. You would still have to run the map in D3, but I think having control over the compilation would be a good thing for DR to have.

[sparhawk]

I just didn't want to do that for the next 99 years then find HaHa there is an easy way. Regarding which, is there no way for DR to 'feed' a string to Doom, dmap currentmap etc., tilde, map currentmap, to get straight in by pressing F2 or something?

 

Well, we could do that, but it wouldn't be a really good solution either. Currently it works as it is and we will see what we do, once D3 is open sourced. Then the map compiler should be available and we can integrate it.

 

You guys must have typed dmap like a million times by now! Wonder if my key macro prog will work in that console?.....

 

No need for that. The console has a history, so you can just do cursor up and enter.

 

Thanks for all help. I'll carry on learning but meanwhile suffering from data overload.

 

It will become easier once you are settled in.

[Fidcal]

Sounds good and that history I didn't know - that will probably do. Hope it scrolls up AND down unlike the crappy Dromed one which has a one way scroll. duh?

 

Meanwhile I had already tried my idea of a keyboard macro and it works OK. I'm using Macro Express and at the console I press Ctrl + D and ME feeds:

 

dmap name

pause n seconds

<tilde>

map name

 

And the map ran. I will refine this but it is promising. I should be able to get it to press Ctrl D or whatever in DR itself and it switch to the Doom 3 window and do the whole business.

 

Even so I might need to either keep the same map name, eg, 'current' and then save separate name saves every n saves as security. Alternatively it's probably just as easy to change the name in the macro now and again.

 

Exiting back to DR will be as before.

 

I've used Macro Express for years to add functionality or make programs do what they don't wanna do but it's not a freebie. Anyone interested in that method it might be worth searching the net for a freeware key macro program I guess otherwise you'd have to fork out about $40 for ME.

 

But for now I need to compare it with just using the history and see which is easiest.

[OrbWeaver]

dmap name

pause n seconds

<tilde>

map name

 

testmap <mapname>

[Crispy]

Using a macro system is a good idea. I've heard AutoHotkey is pretty good (and free!), don't use it myself (though I probably should, it looks pretty cool).

[Fidcal]

testmap? Does that do dmap+map in one go? Even better, means I needn't worry about the size of pause n.

[Crispy]

testmap? Does that do dmap+map in one go?

Exactly.

[greebo]

In case you didn't know:

 

Given your map is named current.map, you can type in testmap c (first letter of your map) and then hit TAB to cycle through the map file candidates that the console is proposing (starting with the c), like in every Linux or WinXP console. If there are too many map files beginning with the letter c you can always specify more characters to give the console more hints about your map filename.

 

Doesn't work when you're adding additional commands like dmap noaas bla.map, but it usually saves a lot of typing and typos.

[Fidcal]

Thanks. I need to do some playing around with a command list I guess.

[sparhawk]

Sounds good and that history I didn't know - that will probably do. Hope it scrolls up AND down unlike the crappy Dromed one which has a one way scroll. duh?

 

It even supports a scrollmouse. So you can easily get at the history with your cursor keys, and scroll the text up and down with your mousewheel.

 

Meanwhile I had already tried my idea of a keyboard macro and it works OK. I'm using Macro Express and at the console I press Ctrl + D and ME feeds:

 

Is this Macro Express free? Sounds usefull.

 

I've used Macro Express for years to add functionality or make programs do what they don't wanna do but it's not a freebie. Anyone interested in that method it might be worth searching the net for a freeware key macro program I guess otherwise you'd have to fork out about $40 for ME.

 

I guess that answered my question.

[Fidcal]

I've now greatly improved my keyboard macro and can run any current map from Dark Radiant with one shifted keypress and return with Alt+Tab. The macro retrieves the map path and name from the Dark Radiant title bar into a variable, strips off the absolute path leaving only the relative part then switches to Doom, launching the program if not yet launched, and keys in testmap relativepath\mapname.

 

I'm happy with this and if anyone should get Macro Express I'll upload the macro to save you re-inventing the wheel. It's only 4 lines but would take a bit of head scratching for anyone new to ME's script.

[Crispy]

Awesome.

 

One of these days I'll get around to setting up AutoHotKey... maybe I'll make a similar script for it when I do that. (Or, more likely, I'll forget about it and never bother. )