Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[Dunedain19]

I'm trying to figure out how to get the textures on arches to line up properly. The idea is that the textures on the arch internal "roof" should match those that face outwards (I hope this makes sense).

 

Can anyone assist by providing a quick tutorial?

[Moonbo]

When lining up textures on arches, the two best methods are to use the "fit" command in the texture alignment tool ( just mess around with different values until you find something that looks good) or make a brush the size of you multiple patches and paste natural from the brush to the patches.

[SteveL]

I see! No problem though, I wasn't planning on including one, I was just messing around... Good luck with that!

 

Since I'm here, I wanted to ask this : I'm having some weird, unlogical shadows since I started my map. Are these common bugs? Or did I do something wrong?

 

Here are some examples :

 

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2015/09/1424996102-lights.jpg

 

Do any lights in that area have the "parallel" setting ticked? Parallel lights play by different rules.

[Deshtat]

 

Do any lights in that area have the "parallel" setting ticked? Parallel lights play by different rules.

No, it doesn't look like it...

 

Actually, I found out the problem with the lights going through walls : the problem is that I'm stupid. I applied a texture that had "noshadow" in it on my wall x) I must have misclicked...

 

For the other problems, though, I still have no clue.

[VanishedOne]

Is http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15683-light-bleed/?p=331288of any use?

[Springheel]

For the other problems, though, I still have no clue.

 

 

Do you see any shadows like this in other missions, or just your own?

[Deshtat]

Is http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/15683-light-bleed/?p=331288of any use?

Thank you, but the situation seems a little different here. I'll remember to change brushes to func-statics if this happens, though ^^

 

 

 

Do you see any shadows like this in other missions, or just your own?

 

I tried to reproduce this with the tutorial mission, but I couldn't find any problems with the lights. I'm confused x)

[SteveL]

So what's left? Shadows moving with the camera, and inappropriate shadows?

 

My next guess is you have an enormous shadowcasting light somewhere, that stretches over non-neighboring visleafs. Check your ambient isn't shadowcasting, and then if you do have a big shadowcaster, try opening all the doors between it and the glitchy spot and see whether the problems go away.

 

That moving line of shadow is probably in line with a visportal somewhere, but the root cause of that problem in the places I've seen it before is lights trying to cast shadows through too many visleafs. Two is always reliable, but three or more and you might need to spilt up your big light. That's because of optimizations in the engine, that cut out some light checks if the light probably can't affect the scene. The consequence is a limit on the number of visportals that a light can shine through and still cast reliable shadows.

[Deshtat]

You were right, my Ambient Light had shadows on. It didn't really change anything though, apparently.

 

But I found the problem : there was a broken vase model which was producing weird, enormous shadows everywhere. I disabled its shadows as well, now everything is working fine. Maybe I shouldn't have resized it.

 

Thanks everyone! There are still some light curiosities here and there, but I'll see that later.

[Obsttorte]

Resizing models is problematic, as for whatever reason only the visual model get's resized. The collision and the shadow mesh stay in their original size.

[Moonbo]

Yeah, if you resize an object you should almost always turn off its shadows and clip model (can replace with nodraw brush and shadow meshes if needed) otherwise you're going to run into a lot of problems.

[Deshtat]

I'll remember this from now on...!

 

Here is another question :

 

I want my campaign to be very story driven. Thus, I would like to add some cutscenes. I know it is possible to add movies at the beginning of a the map, but is it possible to have some DURING a mission?

 

In this particular situation, something important will happen when the player steals an item. There will be a short cutscene, and then the game will continue. I don't know if I can do that.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Deshtat

[grayman]

I'm not sure how you would play a ROQ file in the middle of a mission, but you can create a cutscene with actors while freezing the player in place, and letting the actors play out the scene. This has been done in several missions, and there's a tutorial here on how to set up a cutscene using cameras and a conversation.

[Obsttorte]

You can run roq files on materials, and those can be used on guis which you can use to overlay the whole screen. So all in all it should be doable. But I never tried it. I'll see if I can setup an example map tomorrow.

 

Just because I'm not sure about it: I recall reading somethin about supporting avis. Is this in discussion or already implemented?

[Tr00pertj]

G'day peoples,

 

I just opened up DR and loaded my WIP on a new system. There are no textures or shaders on anything. SHADER NOT FOUND on everything? Is there a simple way to load all?

[Deshtat]

You can run roq files on materials, and those can be used on guis which you can use to overlay the whole screen. So all in all it should be doable. But I never tried it. I'll see if I can setup an example map tomorrow.

 

Just because I'm not sure about it: I recall reading somethin about supporting avis. Is this in discussion or already implemented?

 

This sounds interesting ^^ I'll try to stay informed about this as well. Actually, it would be way easier for me to create some 2D cutscenes, just like in the old Thief games.

 

 

I'm not sure how you would play a ROQ file in the middle of a mission, but you can create a cutscene with actors while freezing the player in place, and letting the actors play out the scene. This has been done in several missions, and there's a tutorial here on how to set up a cutscene using cameras and a conversation.

 

Thanks for sharing! This may be of use sometimes.

 

---

 

A quick question again : I would like to add some text on the screen in order to guide the player trough the level. Just like in the tutorial included with TDM. Something like "Walk to a ladder to climb it" or "Select the key to open the locked door". Is there a specific way to do this?

[SteveL]

A quick question again : I would like to add some text on the screen in order to guide the player trough the level. Just like in the tutorial included with TDM. Something like "Walk to a ladder to climb it" or "Select the key to open the locked door". Is there a specific way to do this?

In DR under "Targets" you'll find atdm:gui_message, which has a Text spawnarg that you can overtype with whatever text you like. Target the entity by any of the usual methods, like a door opening or a trigger or something looted, to get it to display its pop-up.

[Deshtat]

In DR under "Targets" you'll find atdm:gui_message, which has a Text spawnarg that you can overtype with whatever text you like. Target the entity by any of the usual methods, like a door opening or a trigger or something looted, to get it to display its pop-up.

 

Thanks! This is what I was looking for.

 

I'm a little confused though : in the tutorial mission, most of the messages appear when the player is near something important. For instance, in the main room, the player gets different information depending on the door he approaches.

 

I would like to have this as well, but I was told that the "trigger_touch" is very expensive when active. Did they use something else?

[Moonbo]

They probably used a trigger_multiple.

[Deshtat]

Does this react to the player being near it? I'm not sure I completely understand all trigger types yet x)

[Obsttorte]

Trigger_touch is only neccessary if you want to detect things additional to the player. If you only need the players position, you either use trigger_once (one time firing) or trigger_multiple, which do not cost much.

[Deshtat]

So that's how it works...! Thanks a lot!

[Sotha]

Does anyone know how to make a script that checks if an AI is alert? I need to circumvent the bug in the objective system that sometimes fails to detect AI getting alerted.

 

In pseudocode:

if($ai_named_bobby.alert==TRUE)
 {
something happens here
}

[Deshtat]

Does anyone know how to make a script that checks if an AI is alert? I need to circumvent the bug in the objective system that sometimes fails to detect AI getting alerted.

 

In pseudocode:

if($ai_named_bobby.alert==TRUE)
 {
something happens here
}

 

 

Well since there are 5 different levels of alert, you should probably choose how alerted your AI must be before the script goes on. If you want it to run at level 2 alert or more, then you might want to trigger the script whenever the AI's alert level is >= 2.

 

I think the getAcuity() might do the trick, according to the wiki, but maybe I'm wrong.

void check_ai_alert() {

float MAXALERT = 2;

if($ai_named_bobby.getAcuity() >= ALERTLVL) {
something happens here
}

Well I'm still a beginner so it might not be correct x) Also, I don't know how to get this script to repeat itself often.

 

I never had any problems with the alerts detection in Objectives though.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Deshtat

[SteveL]

@Deshtat: close, but Acuity is about how good the AI is at detecting you rather than how alerted they are.

 

There's a script event "getAlertLevelOfOtherAI" which seems to be the right one. I'm not sure why it's set up to be called on one ai but to report on a different AI, but it works. You can use it on the same AI that you want to know about. Example:

void report_alert_status()
{
    entity john = $guard_john;
    
    while (1) // Print a report every second
    {
        float alert_lev = john.getAlertLevelOfOtherAI(john);
        string message = "John's alert level:  " + alert_lev;
        
        if ( alert_lev >= john.getFloatKey("alert_thresh4") )
        {
            message = message + " (looking for you)";
        }
        
        sys.println(message);
        sys.wait(1); // wait one second
    }   
}

void main()
{
    report_alert_status();
}

The number it gives you isn't the alert level 1 to 5, it's a more granular reading that ramps up and down as the AI gets more or less alerted. AI can differ in how alerted they need to be to start searching or draw their weapons, so you can compare the alert level with the AI's thresholds by checking a spawnarg, like in the example above where it checks whether John is at level 4 (agitated searching) or not.

 

The levels are:

1 slightly suspicious
2 aroused
3 investigating
4 agitated investigating
5 hunting