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Newbie DarkRadiant Questions


demagogue

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I'd really love to get some daylight + storm. And also how do I get rid of the blackness below the stormy clouds and preferrably rweplace it with some sea water? I hope that's doable.

 

 

The night storm prefab uses this texture:

 

textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds

 

I suppose you might try modifying it. I've not tried this. It's just a wild guess:

 

Paste the following in a text file and save it in darkmod/materials as eg, mysky.mtr. (if successful you will need to include this with your FM if/when distributing.)

 

 

textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds_day

{

 

 

translucent

 

{ forceHighQuality

blend blend

map textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds

rgb 0.5

translate (time+parm7)*(-0.006*parm3)+parm5,(time+parm7)*(-0.006*parm3)+parm5

}

{ forceHighQuality

blend diffusemap

map textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds

translate (time+parm7)*(-0.006*parm3)+parm5,(time+parm7)*(-0.006*parm3)+parm5

}

 

 

//BRIGHTEN SKY......

{

blend add

map textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds

scale 1, 1

red 0.5

green 0.5

blue 0.5

}

 

 

// TDM Ambient Method Related

{

if (global5 == 1)

blend add

map textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds

scale 1, 1

red global2

green global3

blue global4

}

{

if (global5 == 2)

blend add

program ambientEnvironment.vfp

vertexParm 0 1, 1, 1, 1 // UV Scales for Diffuse and Bump

vertexParm 1 1, 1, 1, 1 // (X,Y) UV Scale for specular

vertexParm 2 global2, global3, global4, 1

 

fragmentMap 0 cubeMap env/gen1

fragmentMap 1 _flat // Bump

fragmentMap 2 textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds // Diffuse

fragmentMap 3 _black // Specular

}

 

 

}

 

 

 

Then import the storm prefab and go inside it in Dark Radiant and change the thunderclouds texture to:

 

textures/darkmod/nature/skybox/thunderclouds_day

 

Then in the mysky.mtr edit colours in the section I headed //BRIGHTEN SKY......

 

so red 0.9 would be bright and red 0.1 would be darker. Change red green and blue equally or slightly different to change the hue.

 

If testing in-game you enter reloadDecls in the console to reload the textures if you tweak the above while testing.

 

Hope that gives you a start anyway.

 

The sea is not easy. The sky textures consists of six images forming the surrounding box - one for the sides, one above and one below. Changing the bottom one might work but I'm in unknown territory here for water. There are also several issues. Can the player and/or other obects fall in the water? If so it needs to be swimmable/floatable water so make it a water entity.

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Thor: Producing the appearance of big open areas is not trivial - it takes experience. Likely you will need to compromise. Likely you will need to split up areas and hide the splits so it looks bigger than it is. Likely you will not be able to have too much complexity out in the open except for LOD stuff.

 

I recommend you practice with building some stuff and examine other big missions to find out what works and what doesn't. There is no easy answer in one paragraph.

 

What you should NOT do is start building your actual giant FM, keeping your fingers crossed that it can be made to work later. That's likely to fail. A big open mission has to be planned from the start so practice and learn first. An alternative would be to work with someone else who knows how to do it and can help build it or at least advise along the way.

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Thank you for all that. :) Now I have a better idea of the structure of clouds. (I hadn't actually explode the prefabs that much before thinking it's way beyond me but now it's only kinda way beyond me. :P)

 

But upon testing I came across a nonsense problem that's statrting to really annoy me. It complains of a leak. By an entity apparently Why?? I checked the basic margins for my map over and over again and they were just file. The File->Pointfile function just throws an error saying I'm missing/can't open a <missionname>.lin file (in my case 10.lin).

 

Yeah and about the mission itself: It's not like I'm trying to make seomthing grand and epic at the very start. I'm still kinda naive but not that naive. I may have meant "open areas" in my understanding (since I seem to be easily scared by limitations even though I shouldn't really be yet). But yeah I'm building right away and just making it up as I go along. I have some ideas but depending on my abiltities and so on I'll have to adjust. I already enlargened the big area (cause I like to contain everything (or moreso an area)within 1 big room anyway) a couple of times and it was only a slight bother! Well we'll see how it goes I guess. Also I have no friends here to create maps with. Feeling like a lost child seeking shelter. :P

 

alright the tongue smiley is a little bit too silly for my intended reaction buit whatever

Edited by Thor
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In the objectives menu it should just set the box blank same as incomplete. I don't know what effect it has in the code but it sounds like it would never complete after that. Does it?

 

What effect are you trying to achieve? AFAIK nobody has used 'invalid' so likely it is not needed and whatever you want to do can/should be done some other way. I'm guessing you want it to be not necessary to complete that objective in order to finish the mission? If so, then it wants changing to optional (but that would still complete if it is possible in the game.)

 

If it is still possible to complete but you don't want it to - you want it to remain blank no matter what - then what I would consider is set up two objectives listed one above the other in the list. Make them identical in text but one is visible and mandatory while the other is invisible and optional (and made impossible, eg, get 999999 in loot.) To simulate invalid you then set the first invisible and the second visible. Of course you can put some special message in the text for the new if you want like INVALIDATED!

 

Is that what you want?

 

Yes, like that...I think they used a circle with a slash in Thief...It would be nice to hear a doing and Objective invalid, or to combine it with "New objective"...But I could just make it invisible.

 

Thanks :)

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have you also set the obj_id to the number of the objective your trying to change should be something along the lines of

 

say objective 3 is to kill a rabbit

 

then on the entity atdm:change_objective_state

 

you should have

 

name objective3statechange

obj_id 3

obj_state 1

 

then to use it via a script you $objective3statechange.activate( $player1 );

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But upon testing I came across a nonsense problem that's statrting to really annoy me. It complains of a leak. By an entity apparently Why?? I checked the basic margins for my map over and over again and they were just file. The File->Pointfile function just throws an error saying I'm missing/can't open a <missionname>.lin file (in my case 10.lin).

People report this problem now and again so I ought to know the answer but I'm not sure. I think it's a path error where doom3 writes the lin file in one folder but Dark Radiant is looking in another. I would do an Explorer search. Have you perhaps got a copy of the map with the same name in the darkmod/maps folder and another in a game folder? Or perhaps you are testing within a pk4 and doom3 cannot write into it.

 

Another thing to try is both a forum search for the error and a google search including the keyword doom3.

 

No doubt someone will come back here anyway with the right answer.

 

btw you can't always detect a leak by just looking for gaps. It might be an entity that is inside but its origin is outside. If you scroll up the console it will tell you the name of the entity and you can find that in Dark Radiant's entity list. But you still eventually need to figure out why you can't find the lin file.

 

btw2 Building in a giant box is OK for testing but not recommended. (if that's what you are doing.) Best to build like a space station or submarine with multiple airtight compartments connected to each other.

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Yes, like that...I think they used a circle with a slash in Thief...It would be nice to hear a doing and Objective invalid, or to combine it with "New objective"...But I could just make it invisible.

 

Thanks :)

 

Ah yes I think I know what you mean. Is this like you have an objective "Meet Harry on the corner to get the map." then before you can do that Harry gets killed or whatever and a new objective is to get the map elsewhere so the original objective is cancelled but still visible?

 

We don't have any equivalent no entry sign. Maybe we should have. A message can be done another way (eg, examine the script in Heart to see how the Secrets were done) but I'm not sure what such a message would say. "Invalid" sounds like the player made a mistake even if he didn't. I'd prefer "cancelled" I think (if I've understood you right."

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...btw you can't always detect a leak by just looking for gaps. It might be an entity that is inside but its origin is outside.

 

I have found this situation to be quite common when you have a brush which has been converted to a func_static and then later it gets re-sized (press Tab when func_static is selected and it can be re-sized). SEED entities come to mind because it is often necessary to resize and move them around a bit. When that happens, the origin stays where it was before the re-size. This is especially troublesome when you take a large entity and re-size it smaller or re-shape it entirely and the move it to a new location. If you don't notice the origin staying where it was, which is now likely outside of the entity itself, then when you move it to a new position you can easily end up with the origin outside the worldspawn and in the void... and it might be hard to locate until you select the entity itself and see the origin highlight.

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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how do you get the ground fog to work, made the patches, added the texture, turned into func_static added shaderparm5 1 for scroll, and shaderparm6 for density of texture, and fog texture doesn't show when in game.

 

fixed it, it needs to be a volume, 5 sides nodraw, and top groundfog texture, noclipmodel true so you can walk through it., wont be using it, needs to be done in a non cluttered area. Seams parts wont draw if intersected by things.

Edited by stumpy
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is there a way to disable the player lantern from being added to zone based dynamic lighting?

anybody?

 

This is Tels' code so you might PM him this question. He'll know before anyone.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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how do you get the ground fog to work, made the patches, added the texture, turned into func_static added shaderparm5 1 for scroll, and shaderparm6 for density of texture, and fog texture doesn't show when in game.

 

fixed it, it needs to be a volume, 5 sides nodraw, and top groundfog texture, noclipmodel true so you can walk through it., wont be using it, needs to be done in a non cluttered area. Seams parts wont draw if intersected by things.

 

What about a little particle fog instead?

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12495-particle-fog-made-easier/

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Alright, I got some leaks again that I couldn't find so easily so decided I'm going to end the silliness once and for all. Ironically it was your own post of the past, Fidcal, that saved me there. :) (this thread http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10276-dmap-leak/page__p__202486#entry202486). Turns out I just needed to a add a bit of an addition to doom3.exe so it looks like "C:\Program Files\DOOM 3\Doom3.exe +set fs_game darkmod".

 

Funnily enough, when 1 problem disappears, another takes the spotlight. It's not as serious but it's uncharismatic enough. DMapping took an eternity, during which I noticed the consule repeating the line "backwards triangle generated". But I'm going to sleep now. Very late here.

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particle fog would slow the map down so much it would be unplayable.

 

 

 

you can basically ignore backward triangles as we all get them, and they're usually associated with patches, deformed faces, and faces too small to generate a face for( eg. 2 darkradiant units or less on curved patches.)

Edited by stumpy
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ah, I see. I also had a really long dmapping time which annoyed me. Usually it took a few seconds but now I'd guess it spanned up to a minute or half a minute. Which wasn't nice. I didn't add *that* much, just made a few more brushes so the whole map wouldn't be 1 giant room.

 

Also if anyone has a suggestion a decent texture for beach sand + place where it stops and proper ground (potentially with grass) starts I'd be really happy (couldn't find any in the default resources).

Maybe there's some texture content made by fans or does that kind of stuff always get dumped in the mod itself with every update?

 

Sorry if I'm asking such dumb questions. I guess that happens when I migrate suddenly to something quite different.

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Radiant for COD has built in blending painting, where you can manually make the transition between any of the game's textures. I think in DOOM3 you can only do that with imported 3d models that were previously painted in a 3d program like Blender or 3D studio. There are a couple of tutorials, but you would need knowledge on those 3d programs:

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=12067

 

http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/idtech/vertex-texture-blending-applied-to-models.php

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DrVertexBlend_%28tutorial%29

 

Like the last tutorial says, NHAT3 uses it well to blend the road with the forest, and since you are going for a beach area, you should DEFINETLY check out NHAT2, the first area outside the hotel you begin in is a port/beach area with a huge caravel, complete with wave texture effects.

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I'll try the Grass edges link in time as well (just a tad confused about the meaning oof the fastestfaster thing but w/e), but now I've nailed my determination strictly to DrVertex Blending tutorial (3rd link, thanks RPGista). But somehow I got stomped before even beginning. I tried all kinds of ways to install those damned ASE addons but I just can't do it. It's like the program telling me I shouldn't even bother.

So yeah I'm asking You where on earth am I supposed to put those ASE import and export files cause in scripts/io (created the io map myself) doesn't work and neither does putting them in any other directory or asking blender itself to install them. It's just not happening. I am using 2.6 version, however, but out of curiosity I tried 2.53 and it still didn't work. But yeah I had thought of the wave effect on the coastline so I'll definitely want that too if I ever get anywhere with this.

Edited by Thor
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Blenders plugin's go in a weird place basically in xp they go in Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Blender Foundation\Blender\scripts\ probably same type of directory for vista and win 7.

Likely in '/Users/username/AppData/Local/Blender Foundation/Blender/scripts'

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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AI falling into water

 

Hi guys,

I'm quite new to TDM and am just slowly learning the basics of DarkRadiant.

Sorry if those questions have been asked before - I tried to get as much info as I could from the Wiki and Forum posts before asking.

 

Recently I was reading the Pathfinding Wiki article and built a quick testmap to try out monsterclipping.

Basically just a big room intersected by a straight water-filled canal running through the middle of it; the intention was to try out getting AI to use a model-based-bridge (just 3 (model) boards placed across the canal side-by-side) by placing a monsterclip brush below them, like this (top view):

 

 

               |AI size|

              |xx| |xx| |xx|   LAND
---------------|xx|-|xx|-|xx|-------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|xx|~|xx|~|xx|~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|xx|~|xx|~|xx|~~~WATER~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|xx|~|xx|~|xx|~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|xx|~|xx|~|xx|~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---------------|xx|-|xx|-|xx|-------------
              |xx| |xx| |xx|   LAND

               ^          ^
               |MONSTERCLP|
               | all over |
               |the canal |

 

First problems: occasionally the AI seemed to step right on the space between the boards, sinking in about a foot or so, although there was a monsterclip brush under it. Looked weird, but at least they continued to walk over the "bridge". Translating to real space, the gap between boards wasn't much bigger than 1 or 2 cm. The monsterclip brush was right under the 3 planks (intersecting the boards at about half their height).

 

This leads me to question #1: I was thinking the collision model of the AI to be a box or cylinder, so why would it sink into the small gaps between the boards? What can I do to prevent that (apart of placing the boards so tight that there isn't any gap left [which actually worked])?

 

However a more drastic result of that simple setup:

I changed the AI path_corners to "run" -> AI quite reliably fell into the water and drowned when running unto my bridge. This still happened with inter-board-gaps closed. Had to add some invisible "handrail"-monsterclips to the left and right of the bridge to avoid that.

 

But: further playing around (getting the AI alert and coming after me), it several times just fell into the channel very FAR away from that bridge...

 

So question #2: when mapping something like that (channel, stream), is it always necessary to monsterclip the edge/shoreline too to avoid falling AI into it?

 

Thanks in advance,

Quant.

Edited by Quant
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You can raise the height of the bridge monsterclip to be level with the boards. That eliminates the gaps between the boards and gives the AI a smooth floor to walk on. The problem with this is that the default sound for walking on monsterclip is stone. Since your boards are wood, you'd want to use tdm_nodrawsolid_wood instead of monsterclip. You can find this and other nodraw solid textures in the common folder.

 

Wrt the AI's bounding box, there are several known issues with AI falling through floors, even solid ones. AI will also sometimes "step down" if they have to walk near monsterclip or solid geometry walls. We haven't addressed these problems yet. This could be why your AI consistently fall through the bridge when running across it.

 

Wrt placing m_c along the sides of the canal: Yes. Think of the monsterclip walls providing a tunnel through which your AI will walk. Regardless of how complex the area's geometry is, you can use monsterclip to guide AI through it.

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You also may want to try running the monsterclip down the center of your bridge, but not extending to the sides, so the AI don't fall off the edge. If the monsterclip goes all the way to the sides of the bridge, AI approaching the bridge from either side will tend to "cut the corner" when stepping onto the bridge and end up falling in the water. I don't remember exactly, but you may want to keep the monsterclip 18 units in from either side. There is more info about this in the wiki.

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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