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Newbie DarkRadiant Questions


demagogue

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Several newbie questions about making non-prefab stairs:

 

What is the steepest angle a TDM AI (e.g. a guard) can walk up the stairs without it causing bugs and glitches, or the AI falling off the stairs ? What's the steepest angle the player can ascend non-prefab, custom-built stairs, without running into bugs and issues ?

 

What is the recommended method of building non-spiralling stone or wooden stairs, especially ones that touch the corners of a rectangular interior ? I.e. rectangular stairs, either a simple triangle, or an L-shaped staircase, etc.

 

How do you solve the issue of making non-prefab stairs from brushes, if the stairs are meant for a relatively small interior space, and cannot be winding/spiral ? (I know ladders can be a solution, but if the ladder doesn't fit the environment, I'd like to know about stair solutions.)

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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Regarding the slope, check the Wiki page on limits. Personally, I would look at various prefab stairs and simulate them with brushes. Keep in mind that, if more than one AI is supposed to use the stairs, it should be wide enough for the AIs to walk past each other. If you have limited space, I would recommend a U-turn staircase. I think that should be the easiest to make (or is this what you mean with winding/spiral?). Just make a straight set of stairs that reaches half way to the top, create a little platform on the end, copy the stairs, rotate 180°, and move them to the platform, so they reach the top.

 

Ladders are not useable by AI! So, if you want AI to use the path you are making, you have to either use stairs or alternatively elevators (which are the option that uses the least space). For the elevator I would insert the prefab and tweak it the way you need it.

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advice

Thank you, Destined.

 

I don't intend to use ladders as staircase replacements, that's clearly not viable everywhere, due to the obvious AI limitations. You could use ladders in small attic spaces, but for AI areas, they're a no-go. The building for the FM I'm working on is too old-school to have a working elevator.

 

I haven't really attempted building more complex stairs in DR before. I'm still very new to this. Are there any good stone staircase prefabs you could recommend, either for U-turn staircases, or for staircases that rise along the inner walls of a tower ?

 

In the case of non-prefab stone staircases that are exposed from the side and have visible space underneath, is it viable to make an inclined brush with a stone texture, then copy the brushes of individual stone steps (with the same texture) onto the brush ?

 

In the case of non-prefab stone staircases that don't have that exposed space beneath them, and the player can't see what's below the steps, I'll simply let the steps float in mid-air. I figured as much, given that those parts of the architecture never need to be seen.

 

To make things a bit clearer, here's a rough outline of the two methods I'm asking about:

 

post-35080-0-92774300-1539962280_thumb.png

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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You can create stairs any way you like, as long as you later "cover it" with simple invisible material brushes that will be used to create the aas and provide the physics (stepping sound). That should probably be a solid mass, with no gaps. Something like the second of third sketch should do. This way you can create a stairs with organic touches, like broken down steps or rounded stone edges (by using patches) and that wont be a problem for AI as you will be covering it all later with invisible brushes which they will be actually using to navigate.

 

Ninjaed by ERH+.

Edited by RPGista
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Slopes and wedges tend to generate .99999 error whend dragged around or turned into f_s - in first case it can cause leak if you don't remember to snap it to the grid. If you don't need space below, just make every step long enough to enclouse all space.

Edited by ERH+

S2wtMNl.gif

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nevm that question, how do you select multiple surfaces? I found out that I can select one surface with the right alt key, shift and lmb but can't select more than one with this

 

update:

it's Shift+Ctrl+LMB

Edited by Zen3001
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stairs advice

 

stairs advice

 

Thanks. I have a further few questions:

 

What's the safest way to leave a hole in the ceiling of a room and the floor of the room above it, in order to make the stairs to an upper storey functional ?

 

The one thing I could think of is ensuring the hole isn't at the very edge of a rectangular room, so as to prevent a leak. There needs to be at least a thin sliver of wall between the upper and lower edge of the room and the space for the stairs. Alternatively, one could build a shaft-like room for the stairs and connected parts of it to the rest of the rooms. But I'm building a mission where interior space is fairly small ("at a premium"), so the stairs have to be in the room itself.

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Just a quick question regarding AI behavior... can I set one area as a "no go" zone so that AI will attack on sight, while if the spot the player in a different area they will stay neutral? Having trouble finding anything on the wiki, but I did find an old discussion here between Obs and Demagogue on this topic. Unfortunately there were no files/spawnargs or enough information to make them myself.

Just thinking about it I felt like it would be something related to info_location settings, I don't know if that's something that's implemented in the core game though, or if there is a script file floating around somewhere that would do the trick :)

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Chronicles of Skulduggery 0: To Catch a Thief                     The Night of Reluctant Benefaction

Chronicles of Skulduggery 1: Pearls and Swine                    Langhorne Lodge

Chronicles of Skulduggery 2: A Precarious Position              

Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide

 

 

 

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Oh... odd I didn't see that article. I guess the actions themselves don't matter in my case, just the areas.

 

 

If you want to have areas where the player is allowed to be, and others where he isn't, you need to use the zone system (via info_location_settings and info_location / info_location_seperator). On the info_location entities belonging to areas where the player is allowed to be, add "call_on_entry" "setNeutralZone", on the entities belonging to not allowed areas, set "call_on_entry" "setHostileZone".

Is this something that is already part of "vanilla", or does it require that same script linked in the article?

My Fan Missions:

   Series:                                                                           Standalone:

Chronicles of Skulduggery 0: To Catch a Thief                     The Night of Reluctant Benefaction

Chronicles of Skulduggery 1: Pearls and Swine                    Langhorne Lodge

Chronicles of Skulduggery 2: A Precarious Position              

Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide

 

 

 

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Oh... odd I didn't see that article. I guess the actions themselves don't matter in my case, just the areas.

 

 

Is this something that is already part of "vanilla", or does it require that same script linked in the article?

The info_location stuff is stock content, the script functions will only work with the scriptobject linked in the article.

 

The first steps to do is to download the script file here and put it in the script folder.

Those who can read ... ;)

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Thanks. I have a further few questions:

 

What's the safest way to leave a hole in the ceiling of a room and the floor of the room above it, in order to make the stairs to an upper storey functional ?

 

The one thing I could think of is ensuring the hole isn't at the very edge of a rectangular room, so as to prevent a leak. There needs to be at least a thin sliver of wall between the upper and lower edge of the room and the space for the stairs. Alternatively, one could build a shaft-like room for the stairs and connected parts of it to the rest of the rooms. But I'm building a mission where interior space is fairly small ("at a premium"), so the stairs have to be in the room itself.

That depends on how you build your mission in general. If you have a room after room approach (as described in Springheel's tutorial), I would position the rooms above each other so the ceiling of one and the floor of the other touch, then select these two and use the clipping tool to cut out the hole. One of the resulting brushes can immedaitely be turned into a visportal, the other can be deleted. Personally, I usually surround the ceiling and floor with the wall brushes, so leaks are usually no problem here.

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I have two questions related to loot:

 

First I want to make one of the loot items frobbable, but not able to be picked up. A message will be shown saying why the player can't pick up this loot item which works as long as it can be frobbed. I tweaked the default values like inherit, grabbable but the player will still pick up the piece of loot. I looked for some other entity class that would allow me to make it frobable, but not moveable or pick up able but couldn't find one. What should I use to create this kind of item?

 

Second I want to make one of the ordinary items a piece of loot. Right now I've made it inherit one of the loot base classes and given it a loot value but it still doesn't add it to the loot total when picked up. The current class of the object is one of the moveable entity classes.

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That depends on how you build your mission in general. If you have a room after room approach (as described in Springheel's tutorial), I would position the rooms above each other so the ceiling of one and the floor of the other touch, then select these two and use the clipping tool to cut out the hole. One of the resulting brushes can immedaitely be turned into a visportal, the other can be deleted. Personally, I usually surround the ceiling and floor with the wall brushes, so leaks are usually no problem here.

 

Interesting. I have preferred the copying and resizing approach, but I will try to use the clipping tool more.

 

I had a "no entities" dmap warning and AAS 32 error last time I tested the prototype map. It didn't leak, but I probably underestimated something.

 

Also, what's the quickest way to convert a selected brush into a working visportal ? I keep forgetting the procedure.

 

And does connecting rooms vertically without a visportal crash the map ?

Edited by Petike the Taffer
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No idea, where the "no entities" warning comes from. Never had it myself.

 

The quickest way to create a visportal is: Select Brush -> Righ Mouse Button -> "Make Visportal" As simple as it gets ;)

 

Connecting rooms vertically without a visportal will have the same effect as connecting rooms horizontally without a visportal. It won't crash the map, but it may have an impact on performance as both rooms will get rendered as soon as one them is.

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I have two questions related to loot:

 

First I want to make one of the loot items frobbable, but not able to be picked up. A message will be shown saying why the player can't pick up this loot item which works as long as it can be frobbed. I tweaked the default values like inherit, grabbable but the player will still pick up the piece of loot. I looked for some other entity class that would allow me to make it frobable, but not moveable or pick up able but couldn't find one. What should I use to create this kind of item?

 

Second I want to make one of the ordinary items a piece of loot. Right now I've made it inherit one of the loot base classes and given it a loot value but it still doesn't add it to the loot total when picked up. The current class of the object is one of the moveable entity classes.

For the first, I would suggest to use a dummy func_static that is frobable and replace it with the loot you want, as soon as it should be possible to pick it up.

 

For the second I would recommend to use a loot entity of the category you want it to be in and simply replace the model with the one you want.

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For the first, I would suggest to use a dummy func_static that is frobable and replace it with the loot you want, as soon as it should be possible to pick it up.

 

For the second I would recommend to use a loot entity of the category you want it to be in and simply replace the model with the one you want.

 

1. This worked, just had to copy over a few spawnargs from the loot object and it activated the message.

 

2. This works too, though the inventory icon doesn't match with what the player picks up. I put in an invalid value for the spawn arg so it shows a black square, better than the wrong object I find. I tried finding the path to inventory icons so I may be able to make something that matches but I couldn't find them or a way to browse them.

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