Quaerendo Invenietis, as they say...

[The Watcher]

This may or may not be the best place for this, I went back and forth about the most appropriate forum, please move it if it's in the wrong place.

 

Anyway, so, I have been Thinking (always a dangerous thing) after sparhawk's comment over on the release thread at TTLG and the bottom section on the Saint Lucia wiki page, and decided, what the hell...

 

I've been considering trying to fiddle with TDM related stuff for a while, and I'm at a point in Shadowed Mayfield where I'm not only stretching dromed's abilities, I'm having to resort to custom object trickery and arcane incantations just to stop it falling over. It's frustrating and occasionally disheartening to have to reign in my intentions because of the constraints of an 8 year old engine, and I'm wondering how much else will have to go to make it work. I'd be interested in seeing if I could pull off remaking the geometry I currently have using dark mod's facilites, and do the things I've had to leave out because of Dromed throwing a hissyfit when I push it too hard.

 

I know for certain that Tears of St. Lucia will not include all the assets I'd need to do this, and I also know that, even with the assets removed from the ToSL release, I'd need to make more, but I'm curious about how much difference there really is - how substantial a portion of omitted assest are there - and whether it is actually really worth me making any serious effort to remake Shadowed Mayfield using TDM. I would be frankly quite spectacularly displeased to invest significant quantities of time and effort in making something, only to find that it breaks horribly when TDM is finally released - is this, realistically, not likely to be the case?

 

On connected matters, at present I've built several dozen custom objects and textures for Shadowed Mayfield, excluding ones that are needed just to support my engine-stretching. You can see many of the custom objects in my object development gallery and in my Shadowed Mayfield gallery and as you might be able to tell, I have some experience using Lightwave (although, admittedly, much of my practice has been with other subject matter...) If I did end up remaking Shadowed Mayfield in TDM, I'd need to make higher quality versions of most of the objects, I suspect. Would the team be interested in the objects, textures and so on I'd need to make?

[Tels]

Harry Potter, is that you?

 

Anyway, a few general comments:

 

* We cannot promise that changes in the code/assets/textures etc. will not "break"[0] a map you build now in the future. Having said that, however, most of these changes are of simple "rename texture A to B" and can be easily automated. Also, we don't expect too many of these changes now, most things are quite stable.

* TDM has more assets than the SL release contains, although we welcome (quality of course) new objects all the time

 

I think it if you really ponder remaking your mission in TDM, then I'd suggest you do the following:

 

* get "wet" with DarkRadiant and make a very small test mission. Just to see how it works

* Then apply as betamapper. Betamappers get full access to the assets, and if you contribute objects, it is better you are already know which exist etc. Also, betamappers get changes much more earlier than if you know rework your mission for 3months, then find out what has been broken, so you can gradually fix it as you go along, this is much much easier. You also benefit from fixed bugs etc. earlier, plus, you can influence the TDM by voicing your needs.

 

The decision is of course up to you, but my personal opinion is that you will not regret the switch - you'll probably ask yourself why you didn't do it earlier

 

[0]: break in the sense that textures get renamed and thus show "shader not found", not in the sense "that wood board texture suddenly looks much better"

[SneaksieDave]

@The Watcher: oh I guess my comment wasn't good enough? Enemy for life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joking. Welcome.

 

Expect that SL contains only what you see in the map. There isn't much reason to include more than that, for the sake of the package size. Yes, there will be more material definitions, as one contrary example, but the image files that make the material won't be there.

 

You may expect some minor breakage of little things here or there, but by and large, the mod is settling into how it is going to be (with more improvement coming of course), so we don't really expect massive sweeping changes that would break your work. It is in our best interest to support the community past, present, and future. Texture reorganization was a typical such event we hit a while back, but even fixing that is no big deal, thanks to the open (text) format of map files, and Darkradiant's search and replace.

 

Others might have more to add on this, but the short version is that you can feel confident mapping with SL. Adjustments needed to go to TDM 1.0 (if any) should be minor. We hope.

 

 

Edit: Blast! Slow-motion ninja'd!

[sparhawk]

Wow! Wouldn't have thought that my small comment would really have an impact.

 

As for map breaking issues, well you will not be 100% against that, but as Sneaksie already said, we are pretty much settled and there are no known issues which would warrant a big overhaul anymore.

 

For small changes, this should be rather easy to fix and if really some bigger issues come up, we usually also try to support this with scripts to automate a conversion process.

 

As for Darkradiant, I think it's a pretty mature tool already, and what I heard from some people used to Dromed they are quite happy with it, after getting used to the different approach (additive versus subtractive brushes).

 

For some simple tests to get a feeling for Darkradiant, you can simply download the package and give it a try with the SL assets. If you still consider redoing your project in Darkradiant, I would recommend to apply as a betamapper and work with the full mod though.

 

We also have already lockpicking working *hint* (subject to some tweaking though but mapperwise I don't expect any serious changes there).

[HappyCheeze]

The reason I applied for betamapper was to get all the latest assets :-D

 

I have a lot of fun testing and suggesting ideas and other stuff too. Its a really cool experience and the people on the team are pretty cool.

 

Its also a plus if you can do modeling as well as mapping.

 

If you're serious about this, and it sounds like you are, than I'd say go for it. Learn the ropes of Darkradiant, post some screenshots of your work in our forum, and the team will vote on it.

[Komag]

Let me just say that if you already have geometry you've made in Dromed, you'll be able to (once you learn the basic ropes of DarkRadiant) re-build it quite quickly. DR is SOOO fast and easy compared to Dromed when it comes to basic construction. It's much more intuitive as well - you can actually build a wall where there is a wall instead of just carving out fake air brushes to "leave behind" the shape of the wall you want. Plus you can split and bend and cut brushes all you want, no geometric limitations, and very fast.

 

So I would suggest you try out DR for a couple weeks, give yourself a chance to learn the basics, and see the potential.

 

(by the way, I currently have a large city mission in the works that contains the equivalent of 5 or 6 full size Dromed missions, no problem with any limits so far!)

[The Watcher]

Wow! Wouldn't have thought that my small comment would really have an impact.

 

Heh, I'd use analogies involving camels and backs, but it'd have the wrong connotations

 

As for map breaking issues, well you will not be 100% against that, but as Sneaksie already said, we are pretty much settled and there are no known issues which would warrant a big overhaul anymore.

 

For small changes, this should be rather easy to fix and if really some bigger issues come up, we usually also try to support this with scripts to automate a conversion process.

 

Well, as long as they're documented somehow, and programatically fixable I'd be fine - I'm a coder in Real Life, among far too many other things, so I'd be okay with writing a script to wrangle it, provided I know what I'm wrangling..

 

As for Darkradiant, I think it's a pretty mature tool already, and what I heard from some people used to Dromed they are quite happy with it, after getting used to the different approach (additive versus subtractive brushes).

 

Well, I have it, now I just need to learn it

 

We also have already lockpicking working *hint* (subject to some tweaking though but mapperwise I don't expect any serious changes there).

 

Ooh, shiny. Does it behave in a similar way to T2, or?

[The Watcher]

It's much more intuitive as well - you can actually build a wall where there is a wall instead of just carving out fake air brushes to "leave behind" the shape of the wall you want. Plus you can split and bend and cut brushes all you want, no geometric limitations, and very fast.

 

Sounds good! Given I have lightwave on my side, too, I suspect this might be quite interesting...

[Springheel]

Yes, we can always use another modeler using LW.

[sparhawk]

Ooh, shiny. Does it behave in a similar way to T2, or?

 

I hope that it is a bit more challenging than that. So that you actually need to learn some skill to beat it. Though we might have a T2 compatibillity mode as well. Not sure if this got implemented.