Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[grayman]

A related problem.

[Melan]

Out of idle curiosity, how hard is it to implement flowing water (with a current) in a mission? If it is relatively simple, I might look into it, but if it is complicated, I am probably not going to bother.

[Bikerdude]

I beleive Arcturus did it, I think I have that demo map around somewhere, give me a sec.

 

here yer go - mega

[Melan]

Thanks! I will see how it goes.

[Spooks]

Is there a reason why zoned ambient sounds sound awful compared to normal ones in-game? Put the same ambient .oggs, one normal and one zoned (e.g. forest_children and forest_children_z), on two different speakers/zones and you'll hear the difference. Mono and crushed down to like 22KHz.

 

The only difference in the sndshd files is the leadin, global, omni and loop keywords. Could it be silence.ogg is a mono sound? I dunno, it's bugging me.

[Nico A.]

Me too has another question: How to do a cool directed moonlight inside a building through some kind of opening (e.g., a window)? Maybe also with some dust particles in it? Couldn't find it in the wiki upon quick scanning...

[nbohr1more]

I'm pretty sure there's a prefab of the moonlight window in

tdm_prefabs01.pk4

?

[VanishedOne]

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/9082-newbie-darkradiant-questions/?p=375979(func_beam entities are a possible alternative to deform tube).

[Obsttorte]

Me too has another question: How to do a cool directed moonlight inside a building through some kind of opening (e.g., a window)? Maybe also with some dust particles in it? Couldn't find it in the wiki upon quick scanning...

You can check my fm Old Habits 2. I've done it there.

[Nico A.]

You can check my fm Old Habits 2. I've done it there.

 

Thanks, I will. I was looking for another map that has done this.

 

Okay, now I'm wondering if a random AI bloke ( ) isn't capable of walking on terrain, that is only A LITTLE BIT bumpy from a 2D patch. The vertex elevations are not that huge. Maybe I'd also consider putting an invisible nice flat brush between the AI's feet and the terrain, that is only solid for the AI but not for the player. Because the player can walk just fine over the bumpy terrain.

What can I do to make the AI walk? He doesn't even follow his patrol route.

 

Could it have something to do with monster_clip? I don't understand this concept entirely.

 

edit: Now after adding some water (that lurks out of the elevations, forming puddles) that man walks just fine. Maybe it is just not reliable enough.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Nico A.

[SteveL]

Okay, now I'm wondering if a random AI bloke ( ) isn't capable of walking on terrain, that is only A LITTLE BIT bumpy from a 2D patch. The vertex elevations are not that huge. Maybe I'd also consider putting an invisible nice flat brush between the AI's feet and the terrain, that is only solid for the AI but not for the player. Because the player can walk just fine over the bumpy terrain.

What can I do to make the AI walk? He doesn't even follow his patrol route.

 

Could it have something to do with monster_clip? I don't understand this concept entirely.

 

edit: Now after adding some water (that lurks out of the elevations, forming puddles) that man walks just fine. Maybe it is just not reliable enough.

AI can walk up steep slopes, and up steps of up to 13 units in height. If you have steps bigger than that, add a little bit of nodrawsolid or monsterclip to make the stages less than 13 units. It can be extremely narrow, just a slither lying against the front of the step will work.

 

You'll occasionally find that an AI will simply refuse to take an expected route where there's nothing in the way. You can often fix it by tweaking almost any nearby worldspawn. I'd place a small block of monsterclip below the patch halfway along the route, which will make dmap recalculate the pathing through that area. Once you get it working it'll be stable.

 

Patches should have monsterclip or some solid material below them for the AI pathing. It doesn't have to be *very* close to the patch -- 32 units' gap, probably more, is no problem.

[Spooks]

When I select multiple func_statics made out of brushes and rotate/mirror their origin point remains unchanged/they don't rotate around it if the func_* entities around origin is enabled. Was this always the case or is my DR borked somehow? I swear I remember it didn't work like this.

[MirceaKitsune]

I had a question: Is it possible to define by what amount a door or portal block off sound? I want to create a door that blocks 100% sound, so when it's closed the AI cannot be alerted by anything outside nor can the player hear any sounds from behind it.

[VanishedOne]

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Controlling_Sound_Loss_Across_Portals

[Melan]

A quick question: where can I find the pushable buttons among the resources? Neither prefabs nor entities seem to have them, yet they are commonly used for elevators and stuff in missions.

[Destined]

You can just take any func_static or moveable or worldwpawn and turn it into an entity "atdm:mover_button". But you have to check, in which direction it moves. The first time I tried it for a light switch, it moved from left to right along the wall instead of into the wall and out again.

[MirceaKitsune]

My current mission seems to have issues of the FPS, due to a lot of distant lights being visible at once from certain locations. I was wondering if there's a property for the maximum distance of light sources, so a light will turn off when the camera is further from the given distance. Since they are pretty far and there are decorations in the way and those lights also flicker, the player shouldn't notice this, especially if a transition effect is possible like with ambient lighting.

[Obsttorte]

This is scriptable, but iirc not part of their default behaviour.

[Bienie]

When I select multiple func_statics made out of brushes and rotate/mirror their origin point remains unchanged/they don't rotate around it if the func_* entities around origin is enabled. Was this always the case or is my DR borked somehow? I swear I remember it didn't work like this.

 

Yes, this drives me absolutely mad! I have a home brew cabinet thing that I've tried to rotate 90 degrees but the stupid origins simply don't follow, and nothing I can figure helps it. Would be glad to hear any kind of workaround to this, instead of having to manually replace all the origins each time! I also have a feeling that I've done this without losing origin integrity some time ago, but I don't think I've updated DR since I first installed it.

[Nico A.]

Quick question - how do I edit a scroll so that there is something drawn onto it, not just text? I mean like a map that the player owns at the start.

[demagogue]

The first thing is that this has been done a lot, so it's easy to crack open any FM that does it and dig into their xd or guis folder and find out.

 

But anyway, this is what I did. In the standard code in the .xd file for any readable, at the bottom of an entry you'll see a line like

 

"gui_page1" : "guis/readables/sheets/sheet_paper_some_font.gui"

 

Change that line in your scroll's .xd to

 

"gui_page1" : "guis/my_map.gui"

 

If you want text on it, then you'd make a copy of the sheet_paper_some_font.gui, from the "guis/readables/sheets" folder in the core assets, in whichever pk4 it is, and change the backgroundImage line from "guis/assets/scroll_background01X.tga" to

 

backgroundImage {

WORLD_SCALE

rect x, x, x, x

background "guis/assets/my_map.tga"

...

Save the copy as "my_map.gui", put it in a "gui" folder in your FM's pk4, then copy the scroll_background01X.tga file from the core's guis/assets, draw your map on the copy, save it as my_map.tga and be sure it keeps the alpha transparency, and put it in guis/assets in your pk4.

 

If you don't want book text, only the image, then I think it's even shorter, you can just make a gui file from scratch with just an entry for my_map, rect x, x, x, x with the numbers of your image size, and a background "guis/assets/my_map.tga" line. But I don't have an example right here so can't quote it directly. Experiment with what you know and you can do it that way too.

[Obsttorte]

Quick question - how do I edit a scroll so that there is something drawn onto it, not just text? I mean like a map that the player owns at the start.

Read up on guis.

[DoubleOhZero]

DarkRadiant Newb of NOTE here - trying to make my first actual FM (I've made maps in the past but never on this scale)

 

I tried making curtains like so (editor view.jpg) - which was a patch with a texture applied and then warped in vertex mode

 

1) Is there a 'preferred' way of making curtains? I can't find ideas on the wiki and while I like the prefab, its not exactly what I need.

2) I wanted to make a rope (its a poor house) to hold the curtains back but besides using a Patch > Create Cylinder I cant really find a good way of doing this that won't take me hours in vertex mode. Any ideas?

3) Notice its a poor house (supposed to be semi-poor) but they have a Hammerite Builder chest of drawers. I'm not sure where to fine other usable ones? Or do I have to make my own from brushes or the drawer entities?

 

Then I used Patch>Thicken Selected Patches by 1 unit to make them have body, but I changed my mind and when I deleted it I was left with this (quinn_2015_12_08.....jpg)

 

4) I cant find the patches that are stretched like that! For the life of me, in the editor, I can see NOTHING and I really want to delete them but I don't know how!?

is there some kind of 'Patch List' like the entity list?

 

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated

TIA

[VanishedOne]

Sotha's curtains in The Golden Skull might be along the lines of what you're aiming for, but I don't think they have any thickness.

 

The second picture looks like a case of http://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=4189

 

Edit: by the way, did you know about the curtain models under /darkmod/decorative/wall?

Edited December 8, 2015 by VanishedOne

[DoubleOhZero]

@VanshedOne

 

Thanks for the help.

 

That is a case of the same bug. I'm trying to recreate it so I can upload some images. Restarting DarkRadiant made them visible

 

Those curtains are what I had envisioned - I'm trying to recreate them but I'm not sure of the techniques used?

The /darkmod/decorative/wall curtains are perfect but of course have a 'rich persons cloth' texture, how would I go about changing this?

 

Also, and ideas about the cupboard? In terms of customising an existing one (to remove the Hammerite Builder logos)

 

Thanks