Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[Melan]

A minor question. How can I add openable furnaces to my mission? I noticed them in In the North and I think other missions, but can't find them among either prefabs or entities (or even an open version of furnace_small_round). I see stove_small_square comes open with a door model, though.

[grayman]

These exist in the SVN trunk:

 

Create model ... ->mechanical->furnace_small_round_openable

Create model ... ->mechanical->furnace_small_round_openable_grate

 

Biker made these, but still needs to add the iron skin to SVN. I included the iron skin definition as part of In the North:

 

skin furnace_small_round_iron
{
  model models/darkmod/mechanical/furnace_small_round_openable.ase
  model models/darkmod/mechanical/furnace_small_round_openable_grate.ase

  textures/darkmod/metal/flat/rusty_crusted_brownish textures/darkmod/metal/flat/iron_rough
}

[Kiln]

Since the weather has turned for the worse, I'm digging back into DR again. I've been away since v1.5 or so and after getting TDM going on 1.08 (excellent update btw gents) and DR v1.72 going I have major lag issues. Old maps or brand new, doesn't matter. Ortho windows seem to be refreshing only when they want to and the 3d preview is virtually unusable. Resizing a single brush in say the xy ortho view - no actual response in that same window (the cursor dissappears), but it's being updated real time in the xz ortho. Granted, I've got bad DR rust, but there's no way it performed this poorly on the same rig 18 months ago.

 

Video drivers are up to date, and all the path changes due to TDM 1.08 are correct (I think). Possibly related, the media browser doesn't seem to be refreshing correctly either. Browsing through the textures is also laggy, or multiple repeats of the same texture thumb on clearly unrelated textures (example: a slime green texture thumb associated with "blocks_brown", or just a blank white field in the texture preview) Ugh - I'm going to probably nuke it from orbit and start all over from scratch - it's the only way to be sure...

Edited November 1, 2012 by Kiln

[nbohr1more]

Nvidia card Kiln?

 

If so did you make sure to disable threading optimizations?

[Kiln]

Nope, ATI 4870. Wouldn't surprise me if they have something equally boneheaded in their drivers though. Otherwise I have a Phenom II 4 cores@3.4GHz, 8 gigs Ram(DDR2), Win7Pro 64 bit. Ran DR like a fiend along with TDM idling windowed in the background even on big maps. Hell I'd have the Gimp, Task Monitor, along with FF open on these forums, the TDM Wiki, Pandora and possibly something like The Daily Show/Colbert streaming on monitor #2 all going silmultaneously just to try to make it choke, never broke a sweat... Oh how the mighty have fallen. In the process of wiping everything D3/DR/TDM related and reinstalling totally fresh.

[Kiln]

Okay, after a clean wipe it looks like we're back in business - there's the old snappy responsiveness I was missing... oh and textures... I have normal textures! Cooking with gas now baby! Only thing that concerns me is it opened the media browser and Layer windows on monitor #2 in exactly the same place as the old install, so there must have been some registry entries I missed. Hopefully it's a moot point.

[Melan]

Thanks, Grayman!

[Bikerdude]

Biker made these, but still needs to add the iron skin to SVN. I included the iron skin definition as part of In the North:

oops.. I shall do that now then mista.

[Moonbo]

Newbie mapper and first time poster here...so hopefully not making a fool of myself: I'm trying to set up a fireplace that will hurt the player slightly (like one HP) if they get close to the flame. I've tried two different methods but neither seem to work very well:

 

1) First I set up a trigger around the fireplace and linked it to a static mesh on which I placed a damage response (damage player1 using atdm:damage_fire). The problem is that I'm instantly killed when I touch the trigger, even though atdm:damage_fire should only be giving me 10 damage. Ideally I'd like to only give the player 1 damage (just to ward them off)...but I can't find any damage entity that will do that.

 

2) Then I tried just using stim/response. I placed a static mesh in the center of the fireplace and put a "player" stim on it with a radius of 10. I gave it a magnitude of 10, and set up the response in the same way as method #1. This worked in that I now got a lot less damage than before, but it started hurting me from waaaaay farther away than 10 units. I tried lowering the radius all the way down the 1 and not using the magnitude parameter but still no luck.

 

At this point I'm just about ready to just let the player waltz around fireplaces without getting hurt...any thoughts?

Edited December 15, 2012 by Moonbo

[Sotha]

TDM gaming convention typically favours non-damaging flames. Some reasons: No AI accidentally burning/injuring themselves, players are bound to avoid flames anyways due to visibility reasons, players are used to non-damaging flames.

 

If you really need to make flames to damage due to some gameplay reason (let's say: a burning house), you could use trigger_hurt. Draw a brush box around the fire and make it into trigger_hurt with "def_damage" "damage_painTrigger"

 

You'll also need some kind of trigger-system to disable and enable the trigger_hurt with smothering and reigniting the flame. I'm not sure how to accomplish that. Probably S&R effects or scripting.

 

Just make sure the flames look intimidating enough so that the player understands your mission is differing from the normal convention and that the flames really hurt. PainTrigger will hurt more than 1 damage, but I think that is more realistic if you stand in a flame.

 

BTW: if you are planning to make a map with unconventional gameplay elements, why not enroll to the unusual contest?

[Springheel]

TDM gaming convention typically favours non-damaging flames.

 

I wouldn't agree with that, personally. I think it has more to do with not being sure how to do it. It always bugs me when I can hop into a lit fireplace without any consequence.

 

It's been a while, but the following values should work:

 

sr_class 1

sr_magnitude .5

sr_radius 0

sr_state 1

sr_time_interval

sr_type_1 STIM DAMAGE

sr_use_bounds_1 1

 

That should keep the damage from happening at a distance...the player will only be damaged if he touches the func_static it is attached to.

[Fidcal]

I seem to recall previous discussions where the #1 problem was said to be AI burning themselves on torches etc. I don't know why it never occurred to me at that time but surely we all use monster clip around torches anyway - I know I do. Otherwise, AI can get jammed (maybe nowadays with grayman's fixes they are smarter but still - monster clip ought to be used.)

 

That said, why isn't flame damage the default in TDM?

[Sotha]

That said, why isn't flame damage the default in TDM?

 

Because flame damage is not important in gameplay terms, it would be a small side detail. Gameplay-important flame damage would be important is special conditions, like a burning house or hellfire or something.

 

Ai relighting a light source sticks his arms into it? Would they get damaged? If you now turn flame damage on, the lich queen missions would break because she is on fire...

[Bikerdude]

A minor question. How can I add openable furnaces to my mission? And I see these exist in the SVN trunk:

 

Create model ... ->mechanical->furnace_small_round_openable

Create model ... ->mechanical->furnace_small_round_openable_grate

 

Biker made these, but still needs to add the iron skin to SVN. I included the iron skin definition as part of In the North:

 

skin furnace_small_round_iron
{
  model models/darkmod/mechanical/furnace_small_round_openable.ase
  model models/darkmod/mechanical/furnace_small_round_openable_grate.ase

  textures/darkmod/metal/flat/rusty_crusted_brownish textures/darkmod/metal/flat/iron_rough
}

 

yup and Badcogg cleaned it up and made it a model.

@Gman, I shall add this to 1.09 if it hasnt already been done.

 

 

Because flame damage is not important in gameplay terms, it would be a small side detail. Gameplay-important flame damage would be important is special conditions, like a burning house or hellfire or something.

Wuld be nice iof a flame created a soot mark on what ever surface it was touching though...

[Tels]

I seem to recall previous discussions where the #1 problem was said to be AI burning themselves on torches etc. I don't know why it never occurred to me at that time but surely we all use monster clip around torches anyway - I know I do. Otherwise, AI can get jammed (maybe nowadays with grayman's fixes they are smarter but still - monster clip ought to be used.)

 

That said, why isn't flame damage the default in TDM?

 

My opinion, exactly. But the "oh it will break something" crowd has prevented it being the default for years, and now we are stuck with it Should have been the default since v1.0.

 

(I even experiemented with damage on flames when I was remaking the flames/torches etc, but somehow it got lost in the "discussion" if we want it or not.)

[Obsttorte]

I don't see any use of getting damaged everytime I accidently get to close to a torch or a fireplace.

I just played DX 1 again where it is that the player get damaged when getting to close to burning barrels and I find it very annoying as their purpose is just decoration.

[Moonbo]

Thanks guys for the quick responses, I'll probably use Springheel's solution...once I solve this other problem :

 

Right now I'm building a small city area and there are two or three spots where pretty consistently if I mantle up, my screen suddenly turns black. It seems like from the error messages in the console that what's happening is that I'm falling into the void. Really not sure how to solve this...here's a spot where this happens 100% of the time:

 

 

If I mantle onto that surface, bam, I'm out of the map. Do I need to surround this room (which is touching the void) with another box?

Edited December 15, 2012 by Moonbo

[Obsttorte]

you may slightly increase the size of the hole

 

EDIT: another point is that there is an animation running when the player mantles up somewhere. So he is not just going elevator-straight ahead like it was in the original Thief games. This can cause the by you mentioned problems if yyour hole or whatever is to close to a wall or another "solid" think because the player then sticks his head into it

Edited December 15, 2012 by Obsttorte

[Moonbo]

Hey Obsttorte,

 

No luck: I tried making the hole wider, deeper, longer, the brushes thicker. Nothing's worked. On a fluke though, I tried lining that mantle surface with a resized static model (plank_short). That worked for some reason. So I guess that's one solution (put in static models at various places because the player will fall into the void if they mantle onto a brush), but there has to be an easier way...right?

 

Edit: while lining the walls with models worked, it causes problems when the player walks over them (they'll get caught on the edges and sort of bounce around), so I guess it's not much of a solution.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Moonbo

[grayman]

AI can get jammed (maybe nowadays with grayman's fixes they are smarter but still - monster clip ought to be used.)

 

If they walk into a wall torch that has no monster clip around it, the worst that should happen is that they bump it and continue around it. Pathfinding won't see a func_static as an obstacle unless an AI bumps it. They used to treadmill into it and get stuck, but that changed back in 1.04.

[Springheel]

There might be gameplay reasons to keep torches from delivering damage, but AI don't walk into fireplaces. I had planned on adding damage stims to the new fireplace entities for 1.08, but ran out of time.

[Moonbo]

Okay, so I solved the issue of clipping through brush geometry when mantling up a narrow space. Apparently you can mantle onto static models in much narrower spaces than you can brushes, so what I did was I found a small, thin model (railing_wrought_iron_01_plain_1) and rotated it (but did not resize it). Then I stuck it on the brush faces that were causing the void issue such that it was sticking out slightly.

 

This let me effectively mantle on the model instead of on the brush and I didn't fall into the void. The model I picked is small enough that it's collision does not protrude above/below the brush face so the player doesn't bump into it when approaching the hole from above or below. I then covered up the models with some non-solid trim so that nobody could see the trick.

 

I've learned my lesson though - try mantling onto any entrances/ladder holes before going crazy with the rest of the map and resize until you don't have this issue. But the above way does work when you're in a pickle :-).

[Fidcal]

I've set up a lever to target two func_rotatings. They are not models but patch cylinders. One is solid 1 and the other is solid 0.

 

When I throw the lever then they both stop rotating but they both become small black cubes. When I throw the lever again then the solid 1 one starts rotating again but is still a black cube. The solid 0 remains a static black cube.

 

Any ideas? Has anyone else put a controlled brush or patch rotator in a mission?

[Fidcal]

No, wait. Just remembered, I gave them sensible names just before doing this so I probably need to dmap. I'll come back later when my brain wakes up!

 

[EDIT - yes that was it. Same with any brush or patch entity - need to dmap if you change the name because the model field changes as well.

[Baddcog]

There might be gameplay reasons to keep torches from delivering damage, but AI don't walk into fireplaces. I had planned on adding damage stims to the new fireplace entities for 1.08, but ran out of time.

 

Seems to make the most sense. Even for the player it's quite easy to get into a fireplace, but not so easy to get on a torch. And realistically a player might have a reason to try and get in a fireplace (hiding/passage,etc..) as opposed to mantling on a torch.