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Newbie DarkRadiant Questions


demagogue

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No there are no mistakes, it simply starts to crash if i begin to make those visportals and seal areas off. I think its just because they are too complicated, as most a sealed area would be covered by VP's and not by World Spawn Brush, because this section of the map is hard to VP. I already have numerous VP's in places where they are easily placeable and they work fine.

 

The console says nothing, its a normal malloc error. The last thing he did was always something common like fixing some degenerate triangles or so, but he does that too without those VP's.

Edited by jysk
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The map is starting to lag now, not so sure why. Maybe I put too much stuff in there, but it mostly began after placing AI, routes and triggers. I was going over performance boosters and nocliped half the map, also REALLY simplified the map world with noclip brushes, dmap seems faster but no noticeable differance as far as I could see. The map is still playable in my laptop (in low settings), but I wouldnt want it to get worse than this for the people with low systems (and it would be ironic to not be able to play your own mission confortably in the end). There's one more AI to get in and a (somewhat complex) triggered scene to build, which wont make it easier on the cpu for sure. I also halved the thinking time for AI at a distance, made some dormant, not much impact either, took two out (will make it less challenging for those of us who dont flee from a fight, damn my computer). The thing is, I have a transition of ambient light to make right at the last part of the map, did a test run now with dynamic ambient light on (on the whole map) and it seemed to worsen the fps quite a bit (was expecting that). I already disabled the dynamic thing (I hope, wont test anymore today), anyone knows if this will make a difference? Is the script for the transition between zones be much of a drag on its own? Should I look for an alternative (if any), some kind of triggered event?

 

Also, would it be better (and would it work) to replace my trigger multiple, that changes the npcs team if you stand there too long (lock picking), for a trigger once that is somehow activated when you unlock and open the door that should be closed?

Edited by RPGista
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I'd like to create a small island. I'm starting with a large cube room with sky on the ceiling and walls, and then the sea bed/stone texture on the floor. However, even on normal ambient_world the join where sea meets the wall/sky is visible, and if I put on fog that just makes the sea bed grey and doesn't effect the sky at all. What is the best way of hiding this? Do I just reduce the volume of the ambient_world so it falls short of the far wall and make it dark, or is there a better way? Is the large cube a bad thing to be doing in any case? Thanks.

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I'd like to create a small island. I'm starting with a large cube room with sky on the ceiling and walls, and then the sea bed/stone texture on the floor. However, even on normal ambient_world the join where sea meets the wall/sky is visible, and if I put on fog that just makes the sea bed grey and doesn't effect the sky at all. What is the best way of hiding this? Do I just reduce the volume of the ambient_world so it falls short of the far wall and make it dark, or is there a better way? Is the large cube a bad thing to be doing in any case? Thanks.

 

The foglights can give a lot of atmosphere but can be truly a pain to get them set up correctly. I cannot remember since it was long time ago since I used them. But check my glenham tower map in DR. I used a foglight in that and it worked fine with a box exterior room with skybox walls and ceiling, similar to yours.

 

Once you've opened the map, press J. This brings the entity list after a few seconds lag. Then you can type in the entitylist to search the foglight. I think it was named "FogLight" or similar. That worked well with the glenham tower mission, so try to check its spawnargs and how light radius should be set in your map. Feel free to copy it into your map and experiment how to make it work.

 

Remember, for some reason switching off a foglight will results in weird things. I got around this by teleporting the foglight into a blueroom far away from the main map. You probably need the fog to be outside, but disable the fog when you are inside. You can mask the ugly transition with some particle fog. An example of this is also in glenham, in the basement entrance from the outside of the tower.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I have two elevators in my map. I used the simple "sliding-door" entity method from the tutorial. The problem is they have no appropriate moving sound. If I give them the tdm_elevator_loop sound for the snd_open snd_close property, then the elevator loop sound will play forever even when the elevator has reached its destination. Did i smth wrong, is there another way or is simply not possible to get an appropriate moving sound when using this elevator technique?

Edited by jysk
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I have two elevators in my map. I used the simple "sliding-door" entity method from the tutorial. The problem is they have no appropriate moving sound. If I give them the tdm_elevator_loop sound for the snd_open snd_close property, then the elevator loop sound will play forever even when the elevator has reached its destination. Did i smth wrong, is there another way or is simply not possible to get an appropriate moving sound when using this elevator technique?

 

Try this:

 

"snd_move" "tdm_elevator_loop"

 

You should be able to turn off the snd_open and snd_close sounds. Set them to "nosound".

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Ok i have to ask again for a more major problem. I want to add 2 maps in my map. One should be in the players inventory at the start and one should be in the shop buyable. I have tried to follow the instructions at the wiki but it does not work and trying to follow them had caused pain in my head, because it is very hard to find out what all those files i need to manipulate are for and what i actually have to do. ;P

 

So i have 2 tga's (drawn on the empty map of the starterpack). I called them citymap and bankmap.tga and put them in the guis\assets\game_maps folder. I have a bankmap.gui and a citymap.gui inside the gui folder (using the one from the starterpack as base) with the "guis/assets/game_maps/bankmap" as "background" path. I have a custom.def in the def folder. Inside it are 4 entites are defined (it took me hard time to find out from the wiki what all those files are supposed to do/mean and what i have actually to do)

 

 

 

// To disable a line, put a double slash // at the start

 

entityDef atdm:citymap

{

"inherit" "atdm:map_base"

 

"editor_usage" "game map of terrain for player" // THIS ONLY SHOWS IN ENTITY INSPECTOR

 

"inv_name" "Map of the City" // SHOWS IN PLAYER'S INVENTORY.

"inv_icon" "guis/assets/game_maps/map_of_icon.tga"

"gui" "guis/citymap.gui"

}

 

 

 

entityDef ShopItem_citymap

{

"inherit" "atdm:shopitem_base"

"editor_usage" "Shopitem for map of terrain" // THIS ONLY SHOWS IN ENTITY INSPECTOR

"displayName" "Map of the city" // NAME SHOWN IN SHOP

"displayDesc" "A map of the city" // DESCRIPTION SHOWN IN SHOP

"itemClassname" "atdm:citymap" //MUST BE SAME AS MAP ENTITY DEF NAME

"image" "guis/assets/purchase_menu/map_of" // ICON SHOWN IN SHOP

"price" "20"

}

 

 

entityDef atdm:bankmap

{

"inherit" "atdm:map_base"

 

"editor_usage" "game map of terrain for player" // THIS ONLY SHOWS IN ENTITY INSPECTOR

 

"inv_name" "Bank map" // SHOWS IN PLAYER'S INVENTORY.

"inv_icon" "guis/assets/game_maps/map_of_icon.tga"

"gui" "guis/bankmap.gui"

}

 

 

 

entityDef ShopItem_bankmap

{

"inherit" "atdm:shopitem_base"

"editor_usage" "Shopitem for map of terrain" // THIS ONLY SHOWS IN ENTITY INSPECTOR

"displayName" "Map of the Grimson's bank" // NAME SHOWN IN SHOP

"displayDesc" "A map of the interior of the Grimson's bank" // DESCRIPTION SHOWN IN SHOP

"itemClassname" "atdm:bankmap" //MUST BE SAME AS MAP ENTITY DEF NAME

"image" "guis/assets/purchase_menu/map_of" // ICON SHOWN IN SHOP

"price" "20"

}

 

 

 

 

 

Using the one from the startermap again as base. I have two (dont know if two are needed?) mtrs in the materials folder (bankmap.mtr und citymap.mtr). I used again those from the startermap and didnt changed them, because they only point to the icon gui from the startermap which i didnt altered. I have no atdm:map_of entity in the map itself as the wiki says i should delete it if i want the maps in the shop.

 

The problem is: it dont works. I have packed my map to a pk4 and everything runs, but in the shop they dont show up and they are not in the game. Since i can test it only with dmapping/packing/installing my map (as the shop is needed to check) I am asking directly for help. Did i missed something? I still dont fully understand how this mess of files needed is supposed to work together, especially with that custom.def, so i have no clue how to fix it.

Edited by jysk
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Ok guys, I have my briefing all figured (story) out and Im working on the images, its going to be a button controled animated briefing, I tihnk Im getting how it works so far but I havent found anything about sounds and music timed with the images and/or one after the other or looping. In fact, this is what I wanted to know: I want soundtrack A to start as soon as the briefing start. After its done, another should play on a loop, until the player is done with the briefing, would that be possible?

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I need to make a door suddenly and visually fall, anyony knows how to achieve that? And how to play a custom sound exactly when it hits the ground ( i dont mean a model sound, but actually some triggered speaker)?

 

I cant seem to find information on adding and limiting speech of a particular ai to a couple of custom sounds, would that be easily possible?

 

Any research on acuity levels (besides Springheel's experiment)? Im getting inconclusive results...

 

Edited by RPGista
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I need to make a door suddenly and visually fall, anyony knows how to achieve that? And how to play a custom sound exactly when it hits the ground ( i dont mean a model sound, but actually some triggered speaker)?

 

I'm assuming you want it to fall from its hinges to the floor? Make it a standard door, but make it open like a hatch by moving the origin and setting the rotate spawnargh. You might want to experiment with translate too to make the move fall away from the door frame. Change the spawnarg that controls the opening time. I can't remember its name, movetime or something? Once you set the door to fall down at a certain speed have the door target a trigger that targets the door-crashing-down-sound speaker. Give the relaying trigger a delay equalling the door opening time. You also need to change the fallen door frobability so that it cannot be closed. AI_can_handle (or something like that) spawnargs should also be set to prevent search AI to do something silly with the door.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Okay, Im having a big problem in my map: yesterday I somehow introduced a problem in it, that makes the map suddenly start to lag considerably, and gradually become unplayable, next to freezing (I thought it was after a certain point in the map but it actually happens anywhere, after a few minutes playing). I didnt make any big modification - the most complex were decorating a couple of places (visportaling interiors) and also a pretty large stiched up visportal in the middle of the map, in a big open area, that had to be crossed by all sorts of noclip and nodraw brushes (I suspect he's the culprit, but in game he is actually working (shows up green). Anyone experienced this?

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I dont want to divert from RPGista's more serious question/problem, but i have a small question by my own.

 

I want to make a guard drunken. Aside from giving him a bottle and making him "drunk" per spawnarg I used path anims for "drunken" animations. The problem is: At the end the result is normal guard who dont looks drunken. I made a testmap using different models, using path_anims and path_cycleanim, with or without an attached bottle, with or without the Guard "drunken", and with idle_drunken, idle_bottle_drunk1 and idle_bottle_drunk2 (found those 3 in the proguard def) as animations but nothing distinctive happens. Or are those animations so subtle that i simply dont see the difference between a normal guard and a "drunken" guard?

test7.map.txt

Edited by jysk
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RPGista: First thing to do is change the visportal surface to nodraw and dmap to test if that fixes it so you know where the problem lies. A question: does that visportal ever turn red? It's not enough that is shows green; that might mean it's open all the time.

 

jysk: If no one else has the answer I'll take a look at this.

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RPGista: First thing to do is change the visportal surface to nodraw and dmap to test if that fixes it so you know where the problem lies. A question: does that visportal ever turn red? It's not enough that is shows green; that might mean it's open all the time.

 

I tried deleting a bunch of things yesterday on a copy of the map (including the big portal) and it didnt make a difference, it still happens. The portal worked fine, I was pretty happy with it because it helped me gain around 20% performance in the worst spot of my map (its a pretty complex area to visportal), I can confirm it was closing as well. Im kinda of stuck because I cant see what else could be causing it, the map was working fine a couple of days ago, I didnt do any heavy construction, like I said, only this visportal and a bunch of interiors (maybe its one of those small visportals), some entity work (basicly path nodes, triggers and conv starters). I usually playtest after every decent amount of work, and the portals were working, when I played for a little while longer thats when I noticed the problem. Its a pain to test this map... Takes me 5 minutes everytime I want to take a look.

 

But is an internal leak capable of doing this? I thought it would be just a matter of a visportal not doing its job and you getting the worng sound propagation and the extra rooms rendered...

Edited by RPGista
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Seems you have little choice but to keep checking all the changes you made since it was working correctly. If you've got a recent backup then compare. As a last resort you might need to go back to your last map and redo what you've done since rather than just abandon the map. Also check the console during play in case there is a clue such as a continuously big alert or something.

 

Most of us have had this sort of problem from time to time. Another thing to try is to copy the map, select a section and delete it then caulk up the openings. If that solves the problem it suggests the problem might be in that deleted area (but not necessarily - it might just be the map was overloaded by say, path complexity. If deleting an area doesn't fix it then delete a bit more and so on. Try to narrow down where the error is.

 

Have you added any stims that fire and trigger something repeatedly like every millisecond.

 

I think I had a slowdown once that was a horse in a small stable. It couldn't move (wasn't intended) but this messed up pathfinding I think. I created another horse in a small blue room with room to pathfind then it was alright.

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