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14 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

This depends on the size of the wall segments, or more precisely their thickness. If the walls don't reach into the room too far (less that 8 doom units) you don't neccessarely have to mc them. It is often sufficient to clip the support beams, if any, although in that case a long mc brush might even be the easier choice.

You have to monsterclip walls that have trim along the bottom (as most of the modules do) otherwise AI will bounce up and off them if they walk too close to the wall.

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11 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

@Obsttorte(and anyone else) may I ask, when you use this approach what grid sizes (thickness) do you use for the detailing walls?  Do you use 8 for the sealing brushes, and then something thinner for the walls?  I'm kind of trying this approach for my second map, but the problem I keep having is if you use 8 + 8 the sealing + wall is too thick (especially if using the modules, which I love but am starting to find them too restrictive so using them less now).  If you use a smaller one for walls, you end up with weird grid sizes all over the place.  What do people find works best?

For walls idSoftware always recommended 8 or more, even for detail walls.

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

@Obsttorte(and anyone else) may I ask, when you use this approach what grid sizes (thickness) do you use for the detailing walls?  Do you use 8 for the sealing brushes, and then something thinner for the walls?  I'm kind of trying this approach for my second map, but the problem I keep having is if you use 8 + 8 the sealing + wall is too thick (especially if using the modules, which I love but am starting to find them too restrictive so using them less now).  If you use a smaller one for walls, you end up with weird grid sizes all over the place.  What do people find works best?

Yeah, 8 doom units is what I use for the sealing on both sides, so I end up with a wall thickness of 16 doom units (for indoor walls, outside walls are usually thicker), which isn't very thick. One doom units is approximmately two centimeters or a bit less then one inch, so we are talking about 30-40cm or a bit more then a foot here. 8 doom units should definetely be the absolute minimum for seperating visleafs imho.

Note that I am talking of an approach where the wall itself has no sealing purpose, and therefore no thickness.

Quote

You have to monsterclip walls that have trim along the bottom (as most of the modules do) otherwise AI will bounce up and off them if they walk too close to the wall.

I normally don't use that kind of walls, but I guess you are right. I was more thinking of relatively flat walls with some support beams placed in front of them here and there. And I have the habit of using walls with no thickness as mentioned above, so that the caulk wall behind them ends exactly were the wall plane is. Maybe that neglects the need of monsterclipping the walls to a certain degree.

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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@Obsttorte, could you elaborate on your wall technique a bit more... what is this "wall with no thickness" of which you speak? Is that a patch or decal? Also, it sounds like you make each room with its own caulk shell, so that 2 abutting rooms have 2 caulk walls between. So you cut through each to make a doorway+visportal?

To the more general discussion, @Frost_Salamander, my current project, based on and extending _Atti_'s castle-like architecture, typically has a single non-caulk worldspawn (so sealing) wall between abutting rooms. These walls are either 16 or 14 grid units thick... 14 looks a bit better with the suite of doorframes, 16 is probably more friendly to the engine and better supported by DR grid size options. (I haven't worked with modular walls, but from the tutorials it did seem 8-thick for a caulk interior layer would be too much.)

Sometimes I've had to make thinner than ideal sealing walls/floor/ceilings to solve various spatial problems, like head clearance. Things start to go to hell below 1-unit thick, and I try not to drop below 8.

BTW, my biggest source of problems are worldspawn walls at angles. Avoid them if you can, or if important (like roofs), don't hand-rotate them. Instead, use DR Modify > Rotate and Scale... with common whole angles like 45 or 30. Otherwise, there can be tedious redo or complicated fixup with the Clipper tool.

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Hi thanks for the replies/comments.  I guess my main issue with thick walls is when you go to join rooms using a doorframe or window frame model.  Say you are using the 'door_frame_wood_96x48' model.  It's 24 units thick, so if you have an 8 unit thick seal, plus 2 8 unit thick walls then the doorframe will be the same thickness as the walls and will look weird.  If you use thinner walls (or make your own frames)  I guess the issue goes away.

It's even worse with the module walls because if you use them for both inside and outside and you have an 8 unit thick seal, things like window and door frames will absolutely NOT be wide enough unless you move them into the sealing geometry, which is a big no-no.  It's still doable, but you have to use thinner seals (and mess around with smaller grid sizes) which conflicts with popular advice, and that's kind of where I got confused a little bit.

I haven't quite figured out what works best for myself - maybe by the 3rd or 4th map I will have it down 🤣.

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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37 minutes ago, Geep said:

@Obsttorte, could you elaborate on your wall technique a bit more... what is this "wall with no thickness" of which you speak? Is that a patch or decal? Also, it sounds like you make each room with its own caulk shell, so that 2 abutting rooms have 2 caulk walls between. So you cut through each to make a doorway+visportal?

When using modules the wall segments are normally either patches or a brush with all sides caulked except the one facing inside the room. In regards to the 8+8 I mean that the wall surface is 8 doom units away from a larger grids line, but I do not seal each room with its own caulk shell. I place the modules and add the caulk afterwards, which, if in between two adjacenting rooms is usually an 16 doom units thick brush. It can happen that if added afterwards there are two brushes. It doesn't make a difference for caulk walls, though, so you can do it both ways or as it suits the situation.

Check out the threads dealing with modular building techniques as well as information that can be found via google on that matter. There is plenty of information on that matter available.

43 minutes ago, Geep said:

BTW, my biggest source of problems are worldspawn walls at angles. Avoid them if you can, or if important (like roofs), don't hand-rotate them. Instead, use DR Modify > Rotate and Scale... with common whole angles like 45 or 30. Otherwise, there can be tedious redo or complicated fixup with the Clipper tool.

Creating angled brushes works imho best by either clipping them or by dragging the vertices in suitable place. Especially for sealing geometry it is important to have the vertices on grid.

 

3 minutes ago, Frost_Salamander said:

window and door frames will absolutely NOT be wide enough unless you move them into the sealing geometry, which is a big no-no.

If the modules are of cosmetic nature and the windows are not openable, it is no issue for them to clip into the sealing geometry if the latter is textured with caulk. Caulk doesn't get rendered and will not occlude the model as long as some part of the model is inside the pvs.

 

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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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13 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

If the modules are of cosmetic nature and the windows are not openable, it is no issue for them to clip into the sealing geometry if the latter is textured with caulk. Caulk doesn't get rendered and will not occlude the model as long as some part of the model is inside the pvs.

 

What I meant by this is the following scenario:  Say you use module walls on the inside of a house which is separated from the outside by a portalled window.  If all the modules are touching the sealing geometry then they will be 'visible' in the outside visleaf if using 'r_showtris 2', even if the portal is closed.  I had this in my first map and had to go back and fix a lot of them, along with loads of other models that were also sticking into the seals.  It's not a big issue if you have a model or two, but whole rooms of module walls will cause all your indoor models to be 'visible' to the engine/renderer from other visleafs.

I don't know if I'm using the correct terminology here, or if I even fully understand what I'm talking about, but I don't think this is a good thing for that to happen regardless 🙂

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. The question is whether this happens because of the models clipping into the sealing or because of their bounding boxes reaching into the other visleaf. The latter is inevitable, the first one would be odd.

EDIT: Just tested this and I am not able to reproduce the behaviour described by you. @Frost_SalamanderDo you have any screenshots or an example map that demonstrates the behaviour?

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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I'm running in to a weird problem where my map doesn't end when all mandatory objectives are complete. I've never seen this bug before... When I playtest it and go to the exfil area it says "objective complete" and continues on instead of getting the "mission complete" screen. I've triple checked all my objectives to make sure none have the mandatory flag that shouldn't have it. Any one have other ideas of what might be happening?

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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1 hour ago, Bienie said:

I'm running in to a weird problem where my map doesn't end when all mandatory objectives are complete. I've never seen this bug before... When I playtest it and go to the exfil area it says "objective complete" and continues on instead of getting the "mission complete" screen. I've triple checked all my objectives to make sure none have the mandatory flag that shouldn't have it. Any one have other ideas of what might be happening?

Wild guess here. In DR, the Mission Objectives dialog, at the bottom there's an Edit Mission Success Logic button. Is there anything specified in that dialog? Anything in there overrides the "normal" mission complete logic.

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3 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. The question is whether this happens because of the models clipping into the sealing or because of their bounding boxes reaching into the other visleaf. The latter is inevitable, the first one would be odd.

EDIT: Just tested this and I am not able to reproduce the behaviour described by you. @Frost_SalamanderDo you have any screenshots or an example map that demonstrates the behaviour?

So I created a small test map and I can't reproduce it now either!

But I've definitely had this problem, gone and moved the model, and that has fixed it. 

But I don't think it's as simple as I thought.  Here are 2 screenshots from my current WIP mission where something is happening.  In both cases, the model is outside of the current visleaf.  I need to look closer tomorrow, but in the 2nd screenshot the model wall (to the right of the window) doesn't even appear to be touching the sealing at all, so I have no idea why it is showing up here.

If I was wrong about what I said about the effects of models poking into sealing geometry then I apologize for spreading misinformation.  If that's the case then I am even more puzzled about what is causing this.  It's not an 'internal leak' either, as I am very familiar with those now (location entities wouldn't work and you'd see everything in the next visleaf, not just a single model).

hits2_2021-03-29_00_58_55.thumb.jpg.11342cce297af30fccb8e9e6fb7d2554.jpghits2_2021-03-29_00_41_12.thumb.jpg.2f32e5b8a92ed120e682d10844ddfc34.jpg

Edited by Frost_Salamander
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5 hours ago, Obsttorte said:

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. The question is whether this happens because of the models clipping into the sealing or because of their bounding boxes reaching into the other visleaf. The latter is inevitable, the first one would be odd.

EDIT: Just tested this and I am not able to reproduce the behaviour described by you. @Frost_SalamanderDo you have any screenshots or an example map that demonstrates the behaviour?

I ran into that a while back and what I discovered is that your module clipping into the worldspawn isn't a problem on its own, the corner case happened when the bounding box or origin of the module was even with the "outside" of the sealing geometry. In this instance, the module was inconsistently reachable from the other side, for me it varied based on which way the model was rotated but I assume it comes down to floating point weirdness when 2 things are in the same location.

For that reason I've designed my modules to be used with 8-unit thick sealing walls, but the sealing walls must extend +4 / - 4 from the major grid, and the modules themselves will snap to the major grid.  The main visible geometry of the module starts 4 units off the model origin to accommodate this, and things like windows can recess back to 0.  Since the modules never cross the centerline of the worldspawn, they won't leak into adjoining visleafs.

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@Frost_SalamanderGuessing from those shots I would stick with my initial assumption, that the bounding boxes of said models are reaching into the current visleaf. That's the only explanation that makes sense. Note that the bounding boxes are cuboid containing the whole model, so they can be quite a bit larger then the model itself. They are also slightly larger then they have to be to contain the model to accomodate for rounding errors. g_showentityinfo displays them.

I don't know whether the models origin is taken into account here and whether it affects the bounding box (when creating models on my own I always place the origin somewhere at the models edge, usually at the bottom).

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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Is it possible to see the 'bounding box' in Dark Radiant?  This is the first I've heard of such a thing.

I guess then this is something that is sort of out of our control, and perhaps nothing to really worry too much about?

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I don't think there is a command for that in DR. I think the bounding boxes are created by the engine. They are basically cuboids containing the model, axis-aligned if not rotated as far as I am aware of. They serve the purpose to allow a fast way to determine which models cannot be seen and therefore doesn't need rendering (cuboids only have 8 vertices, and if none of them is visible than everything contained inside the cuboid is invisible).

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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DR calculates and processing bounding boxes internally and they are pretty simple to render, so I don't think it would be all the difficult to allow visualisation of model bounding boxes if enough people felt it would be useful.

We'd probably want to check how the game calculates them to make sure we were generating them with the same size (i.e. if there is an internal margin making the AABB slightly larger than the true model bounds).

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18 hours ago, joebarnin said:

Wild guess here. In DR, the Mission Objectives dialog, at the bottom there's an Edit Mission Success Logic button. Is there anything specified in that dialog? Anything in there overrides the "normal" mission complete logic.

I didn't realize that was a thing. It's completely empty though so I'm guessing that's not the problem.

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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@Bienie

If I recall correctly, I had the same problem with HHVF, but do not remember how I fixed it. :( :( (maybe I deleted everything and started from scratch).

Somehow have the feeling, that some things are not working correctly anymore (that is, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work), that goes for triggers, locations, S/R commands...

 

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3 hours ago, Bienie said:

I didn't realize that was a thing. It's completely empty though so I'm guessing that's not the problem.

The logic in the code is:

Check each objective that is visible and that applies to this difficulty level:
  For each of these objectives, do the following four checks:
     objective state is Complete
     objective state is Invalid
     objective is not Mandatory
     objective is Ongoing
  If, for a given objective, any of those four tests are true, then that objective is "done", from the point of view of completing the mission.
  If, for a given objective, all four of those tests are false, then the mission can't be completed.
If all of the checked objectives are "done", the mission is complete.

I hope this makes sense. If you want to attach your map I can take a look at the objectives section. Or just the atdm:target_addobjectives section from the map.

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7 minutes ago, joebarnin said:

The logic in the code is:

Check each objective that is visible and that applies to this difficulty level:
  For each of these objectives, do the following four checks:
     objective state is Complete
     objective state is Invalid
     objective is not Mandatory
     objective is Ongoing
  If, for a given objective, any of those four tests are true, then that objective is "done", from the point of view of completing the mission.
  If, for a given objective, all four of those tests are false, then the mission can't be completed.
If all of the checked objectives are "done", the mission is complete.

I hope this makes sense. If you want to attach your map I can take a look at the objectives section. Or just the atdm:target_addobjectives section from the map.

Well since the objective completes but mission simply doesn't end I don't that code is the problem. Hopefully it's not a bug like JackFarmer is describing... Maybe deleting and remaking the objectives could help, haven't tried that.

I can upload just the map file I guess, if you would like to take a look for me: dropbox

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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36 minutes ago, Bienie said:

Well since the objective completes but mission simply doesn't end I don't that code is the problem. Hopefully it's not a bug like JackFarmer is describing... Maybe deleting and remaking the objectives could help, haven't tried that.

I can upload just the map file I guess, if you would like to take a look for me: dropbox

I think I see the problem. The "don't kill" objectives need the "Ongoing" flag set on them. The wiki says: "Important: No kill objectives need be set as "Satisfied at Game Start" and "ongoing" or they will not work!". You've got the "satisfied" checked, but not "ongoing". See if that helps.

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23 minutes ago, joebarnin said:

I think I see the problem. The "don't kill" objectives need the "Ongoing" flag set on them. The wiki says: "Important: No kill objectives need be set as "Satisfied at Game Start" and "ongoing" or they will not work!". You've got the "satisfied" checked, but not "ongoing". See if that helps.

Wow, that simple huh? I enabled ongoing and it works a charm! I remember having issues with the no-kill objectives in Pearls and Swine because of this same reason, but with very different symptoms. I think the startmap pack has a functioning no kill objective which I normally keep but must have overridden it this time I guess. Thanks for finding the fault!

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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2 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

@Bienie

If I recall correctly, I had the same problem with HHVF, but do not remember how I fixed it. :( :( (maybe I deleted everything and started from scratch).

Somehow have the feeling, that some things are not working correctly anymore (that is, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work), that goes for triggers, locations, S/R commands...

 

I can agree that the S/R system seems unstable, but I think it might just be a bit limited. A lot of times when I try to use it I just have to abandon it because it often won't react to the stim I'm using, and I have to find a different mechanism...

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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I'm hoping to jump back into DarkRadiant soon to try and continue a map I started long ago with Springheel's awesome training video series.

I updated DR to latest version, and am excited to try the new 'live link' to TDM; which I don't think existed when I was working on my map.

From the seasoned DR vets, do you have any keyboard shortcut/hotkey recommendations I should configure that are different than the defaults, or that I should add?

And do you think it'd be detrimental for me to change my camera nav keys to WASD instead of arrow directional keys? (UPDATE: I now see mousewheel moves cam forward and back! That may solve my woes. I probably knew that before and forgot.) I'll put my previous question details about WASD camera nav in spoilers in case I need to ask it again in future.

  • Spoiler

     

    • I've always found the arrow keys unnatural since I always use WASD in FPS games for moving around, and it feels awkward to move my left hand all the way over to the arrow keys But on the flip side, I use Maya all the time and so definitely want "w" to to enable the object translation manipulation tool.
    • If I have to choose one or the other, I definitely want "w" for object Translate manipulator; and have a feeling that is why arrow keys are the cam nav keys
    • I do not see any way to make "w" be dual purpose. Can it serve two purposes?
      • In theory, when 3D viewport is activated with right-mouse, I might want "w" to move the cam forward through my level
      • When 3D viewport is not activated, I want "w" to act as object translation tool
      • Then again, maybe it'd feel weird going from arrow keys to WASD keys depending on if 3D viewport is active or not and I should just stick with default setup for cam nav

    "w" seems to be the only problem key if I want to re-map for WASD movement. The A, S, and D keys could be re-assigned and I would be okay with that, I think.

Any hotkey recommendations are appreciated.

I watched a vid regarding the live link. I have a feeling a hotkey for Connection -> Tell game to reload .map file now  would be very handy. Is there any way to set that up?

image.png.2274b72860cf518fb7d1b347e807922e.png

Edited by Darkness_Falls
Found mousewheel moves cam
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2 hours ago, Darkness_Falls said:

From the seasoned DR vets, do you have any keyboard shortcut/hotkey recommendations I should configure that are different than the defaults, or that I should add?

I found filters to be useful. I use one to filter away entities as well as one for patches that I use to check the sealing and the visportals and one that filters away caulk and portal_sky textured surfaces, helping me to get an overview from the outside. The shortcuts for texture pasting are also useful when working with patches and those opening the most used editors, of course.

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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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