Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[grayman]

Check out how everything looks now!

 

Needs dirt!

 

The door of the room you start in has its tiny keyhole on the hinge side of the door.

[Goldwell]

Needs dirt!

 

The door of the room you start in has its tiny keyhole on the hinge side of the door.

 

There actually is dirt on all floors throughout the house but perhaps the video quality doesn't capture it well enough. Or do you notice the dirt and just think it needs a different type of dirt? / more obvious dirt on the floors?

 

And the door is now fixed, thanks!

[Springheel]

That wall texture isn't great for that use. The wood is very repetitive and shiny, and awfully long when you put them horizontally. Looks more like the hull of a ship than the inside of a house.

 

I think grayman was referring to dirt decals. The walls could really benefit from them.

[RJFerret]

But to be encouraging, it does look lived in now, like a space where someone exists rather than an empty shell that's for sale or something like that. A big difference, nicely done! :-)

 

Think of dirt decals like makeup for women's faces. When putting it on, it might seem like too much/bold, but when it's all done, it doesn't catch your eye and stand out, but all blends/contributes to the whole appearance. The other beauty of dirt decals is they make walls look different, rather than all appearing like replicas of each other.

[Digi]

Next on the noob list: Visportals!

 

This one isn't quite so bad. They're working for me (mostly), and I don't actually think I need to do anything else with visportals on the map I'm currently working on. I just have a couple questions that have arisen. I didn't see these in the tutorial pages I've read (I also watched the video), though it's always possible I missed something. Anyway:

 

1. Do see-through windows need visportals? I read something in the tutorial that suggested "no", but when I don't visportal the windows in a house, a couple of the door portals don't register at all when I display visportals while testing.

2. Do all visportals need to be "sealed" like they are with door openings? Like, I wouldn't want one just sitting on a street somewhere, right?

3. Similarly, the seal doesn't need to be perfect, yeah? I'm cheating a little and having them be slightly bigger than the doors and/or windows they're portaling.

4. I have a visportal in a window (not a brush or entity, literally just a hole in a wall that acts as a window), and the visportal is completely sealed relative to the opening (again, it's actually a tiny bit larger). There are no other openings to the room. But the visportal doesn't show up when I do the "show" script while testing.

5. I've also had a door portal not show up when it's right next to another door (I have it set up as double doors for a mansion). Can I use one portal for both doorways, since it's really just one hole in the wall? And is it a problem that it doesn't show one of them when I have it as two portals, one for each door?

 

There's something basic that I'm missing here in my understanding of visportals, I'm just not quite sure what it is.

 

Sorry for all the questions. I promise I'll be done soon and won't be in this thread every day. :-)

Edited June 10, 2014 by Digi

[stumpy]

5. double doors in one hole in wall is one visportal, the visportal is going to open regardless of which of the two doors gets opened.

Edited June 10, 2014 by stumpy

[SteveL]

1. Yes, see through windows in a sealed room need a visportal.

2. Yes all visportals need to be sealed--touching walls on all sides--or they will simply be ignored and you won't see them in game.

3. Overlapping is usually ok. Mappers sometimes find problems with overlapping brushwork and prefer to keep it all clean, but dmap supports overlapping brushwork even if it occasionally chokes on it. If something's working, don't worry about tidying it up.

4. Sounds like an internal leak, or maybe the visportal isn't fitting properly. It's not the whole brush that's the visportal, it's just the one face that has the VP texture on it, so make sure that that face is in contact with your wall on all sides.

 

Think of your map as a collection of sealed boxes. Those boxes (visleafs) have to have solid opaque textures on all sides, except where you have a visportal to plug the gap. A few special textures (sky portal, caulk) can also seal visleafs and they let you pull off a few tricks. But the general rule for a visleaf is, solid and opaque everywhere except for visportals.

[RJFerret]

Note, visportals have dual function, one is to seal areas to prevent pointless rendering, another is for sound propagation. As such, you might put a visportal in a street, it would have to meet the sky, walls, roof and ground to seal. However if the player's line of sight would always keep it open, it would be solely for sound.

 

This isn't particularly a "newbie" technique, but I ended up building a visportal "shed" or lean-to, if you will, in a mission, providing a complete corner of three visportals (ceiling and two vp walls) that only met the ground and two walls of a building to improve rendering and sound. This not only improved rendering, but made it so AI on the far side of the building didn't respond to noise as if the building wasn't there.

[grayman]

If you use a visportal and a transparent window together, and you want sound to be muted when the window is closed, do this:

 

- place the visportal so it touches the window (just like you would a door)

 

- put the spawnarg "transparent" "1" on the window.

 

That spawnarg keeps the portal from being closed when the window is closed, which allows you to see through the window when it's closed.

[Springheel]

Have you watched Komag's video on visportals? I learned a lot from it.

 

[Digi]

Lots to consider. Thanks for the info. Visportals seem much more intuitive in indoor environments. My level is small enough that it's not going to be a big deal, but visportaling a city mission seems like it would be a much tougher task.

 

Have you watched Komag's video on visportals? I learned a lot from it.

 

 

I have, but thanks. And yes, it was very instructive.

[RJFerret]

My level is small enough that it's not going to be a big deal, but visportaling a city mission seems like it would be a much tougher task.

 

It can be if the layout didn't consider it to begin with.

 

But streets are just hallways--the only difference is the ceiling is sky. This is why so many missions have zig-zagging streets and you turn lots of corners, it's not just to have spots for the player to hide, it's also so visportals may close.

 

The size of the map doesn't really impact it, where the sounds travel does. There's a not-too-big map out there that's little more than a U-shaped layout with a building in the middle. I don't know if there are internal leaks or visportal issue, but it has major sound issues, such that an AI closes a door somewhere out of sight, yet it sounds like it's right next to you.

[Digi]

It can be if the layout didn't consider it to begin with.

 

But streets are just hallways--the only difference is the ceiling is sky. This is why so many missions have zig-zagging streets and you turn lots of corners, it's not just to have spots for the player to hide, it's also so visportals may close.

 

Makes sense. I understand the underlying concept; it's just the layout part itself that gets to be confusing (outdoors, at least. indoor missions seem much more straightforward with visportals, imo). Like, I'd love to make a Thieves Highway mission someday. But making a non-linear, open Thieves Highway map that is properly visportaled boggles my mind. I'd likely need to research some existing missions to see how they do it.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Digi

[grayman]

I'd likely need to research some existing missions to see how they do it.

 

WS2: Home Again is a rooftop mission. (Play WS1: In the North first, though.)

[Digi]

WS2: Home Again is a rooftop mission. (Play WS1: In the North first, though.)

 

Cool. The WS series is on my list. I tend to compartmentalize; I'm working on my FM, then I have some other projects that will take me away from TDM. But once I'm back, I'll be sure to give it a thorough look-through. I really want to be able to make a true Thieves Highway mission eventually, but it's also currently the hardest for me to wrap my head around.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Digi

[Digi]

Do briefings show up when you test a map? I ask because mine should be set up properly, per the tutorial wiki on Briefings. I also loaded Fidcal's startmap to test it, and there was also no briefing, even though there's a file for it.

 

How can I view it in the context of testing? Or should it be showing up when I run the maps, and something else is wrong?

[Springheel]

Did you install the pk4 as an fm, or did you just load the map from the console? Briefings should work with the former route.

[RJFerret]

Have you seen http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=How_to_pack_your_Mission ?

 

If not, you'll want to go through that process, then copy the .pk4 to your FMS folder as Springs was referring to, so the game installs it to play, as first your beta testers, then others shall.

[Digi]

This thread has been invaluable to me. Thanks as always to everyone who has answered my questions. I'm making good progress.

 

Did you install the pk4 as an fm, or did you just load the map from the console? Briefings should work with the former route.

 

Ah, ok. This was what I suspected, but I don't like making assumptions. So no, I did the latter. So nothing's amiss. Thanks.

 

Have you seen http://wiki.thedarkm...ck_your_Mission ?

 

If not, you'll want to go through that process, then copy the .pk4 to your FMS folder as Springs was referring to, so the game installs it to play, as first your beta testers, then others shall.

 

Yeah, Fidcal's tutorial links to it, but hadn't gotten to reading it yet. I just didn't realize reading the Briefing was going to involve all of that, and I'm trying to address problems as they occur so that they don't start piling up on me. But thanks.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Digi

[Obsttorte]

Note that you do not have to pack your mission as a pk4 eveytime you want to test it out. Just place your files in the respective fms folder (like fms/mymission). You need a darkmod.txt to run the mission. This approach is called project mapping. Check the wiki for infos.

[buck28]

Is there a reason I get an error, cannot load .lin file, when I try to run pointfile to check for leaks? I have no problem with dmap; that I can see anyway. But when I try to run pointfile, it doesn't work anymore, and I get the error bubble message???? It's hard to check for a leak if you cannot run the pointfile?

[SteveL]

No worries, you haven't got a leak. If you had a leak, a pointfile would be generated. And DMAP would stop with an error in any case,leaving the console open. If dmap completes and the console vanishes and you see the tdm main menu, then there was no leak.

 

There's been some confusion recently about how this works because dmap sometimes fails to delete the pointfile when you do a successful dmap. taaaki is looking at that issue. So sometimes after a successful dmap, there'll be a pointfile to check, sometimes not. But you don't need to check the pointfile to find out whether you had a leak. Hope that made sense.

[Goldwell]

Just after some opinions on the walldirt, I have left my map for a day or so and come back with a fresh mind and after placing dirt decals on the walls I don't really think it suits it.. I changed the wood texture on the wall and I think it just doesn't need it.

 

I'm focusing so heavily on this because i'm trying to build each room to a final state before moving onto the next (a better mapping technique in my opinion) so I just want to make sure this is done before moving on.

 

With dirt

 

 

Without dirt

 

 

[AluminumHaste]

Just a word of warning; point files are created in the directory of the currently installed mission. Not the directory of the map being dmapped. Darkradiant looks for the point file in the same directory as the .map file loaded.

[Springheel]

With dirt

 

Dirt tends to accumulate in the corners of rooms. I'd use those kind of dirt decals rather than the random splatter.

 

I'm focusing so heavily on this because i'm trying to build each room to a final state before moving onto the next (a better mapping technique in my opinion)

 

Everyone has their own style, but I'd heartily recommend against that. It's a good recipe for winding up with an unfinished map that has two amazing rooms. If you leave decals until the end and do them all at once, you can decide how much energy you still have left and spend it accordingly...it's harder to get burned out when you know the whole map is virtually done. It also helps to do it in one pass because you can focus on only decals...examing what types there are and bouncing around the map as needed ("Oh, there's a cool decal for under windows, I'll go drop that in this section") rather than having to wait until you work on that part of the map and possibly forget the decal is there.