Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[JackFarmer]

@Springheel: Thanks a lot for the clarifications!

[Springheel]

No problem.

[NeonsStyle]

How do I make a body of water cloudy? I've used the thickmurk water entiy but the texture looks fine, but the water

is perfectly clear. I need the visibility to be very poor.

 

I tried using the fog texture on a patch with shaderParm5 but that didn't work, even though it was func_static. I also tried

using func_emitter with the fog particle but that sort of worked, but I'd need an awful lot of them to give it a convincing look,

and given it's an outside area with a lot of lights as is, I don't think adding emitters is a good way to go. So does anyone know

how to do it?

 

Ta

[Obsttorte]

Use a different material. There are dozens for water.

[NeonsStyle]

Use a different material. There are dozens for water.

 

I did that with guis\underwater\underwater_green_thickmurk.gui, and the textures/water_source/green_plain_flat_thickmurk. If I try using a different texture,

then the liquidity of the water is removed and also the water waves. I need it so that when the player is standing on land, and looks into the water from

above, he can't see the bottom. I need the surface to be murky, preferably the same as the underwater murk above. Just adding a texture to it, doesn't

work.

[Springheel]

You can put one of the murk textures on a patch over top of the water, but you might lose the ripples. The only way to do both is to put a foglight in the water and make it really thick.

[NeonsStyle]

You can put one of the murk textures on a patch over top of the water, but you might lose the ripples. The only way to do both is to put a foglight in the water and make it really thick.

 

Ahhh thank you once again Spring, that looks lovely.

[ERH+]

Why one of my ambient lights keep readjusting its colour/brightness? I remember I've encountered similar problem when I tried to turn off ambient - it turn off for a second but then it turn back. This time is something a bit different: player is teleported to new area, I see light colour as I put in light properties only for a second and then it go to gray, brightness about 30.

[grayman]

Why one of my ambient lights keep readjusting its colour/brightness? I remember I've encountered similar problem when I tried to turn off ambient - it turn off for a second but then it turn back. This time is something a bit different: player is teleported to new area, I see light colour as I put in light properties only for a second and then it go to gray, brightness about 30.

 

If you're using location entities (info_location), set this spawnarg on those entities:

 

"ambient_light_dynamic" "0 0 0"

 

Otherwise, when the player enters a new location, the location system will set the ambient for that location to a mixture of the brightness/color of all the lights inside the domain of the new location entity.

 

Sometimes the result can be quite jarring.

[teh_saccade]

 

Ahhh thank you once again Spring, that looks lovely.

 

Neon - do you ever use the wiki at all..? Or do you just forget that you made a thread on the subject, don't search the forums and ask again instead..?

 

I think that I've answered this question for you at least twice last year...

 

If you'd even bother to search "water" in the wiki - it tells you all of this...

 

*slams head into wall in attempt to get brain damage to understand neon's methods*.

[JackFarmer]

Happy New Year and furthermore happy mapping to all TDM mappers!

 

I have sucessfully finished my first mini map and have started to add additional visleafs to my original sealing brushes.

 

Shortly after I had started adding models and brushes to the new visleafs, I noticed that the dmapping time started to increase dramatically. Currently I have a map size of ca. 1.1 MB and the dmapping time is 205 seconds. If I check the console report, then I see two actions which take very long time:

 

1) The process which starts after the word "Worldpawn" shows up in the console and

2) the writing of the proc file (currently 10 MB)

 

Is this a generic condition or is there something I can do about it?

 

 

The Wiki includes a large section for performance issues, but I don't think this is a performance problem as after the time-exhausting dmapping, all visleafs still report stable 40 - 60 fps.

Edited January 3, 2018 by JackFarmer

[Springheel]

Do you have vsync on? That slows down dmapping.

[JackFarmer]

Hello Springheel,

 

I have just checked the setting in the game. It is switched off.

 

Alongside with the writing of the proc file, this takes the longest time:

 

removed 5 degenerate triangles
removed 75 degenerate triangles
removed 22 degenerate triangles
removed 23 degenerate triangles
WARNING:Couldn't load image: alembic_grey
removed 2 degenerate triangles
removed 59 degenerate triangles
removed 6 degenerate triangles
removed 4 degenerate triangles
removed 14 degenerate triangles
removed 56 degenerate triangles
removed 68 degenerate triangles
removed 112 degenerate triangles
removed 56 degenerate triangles
removed 4 degenerate triangles
removed 3 degenerate triangles

 

 

If I remove the new sections, then the dmapping times reduces once again dramatically. I understand that larger maps need longer dmapping, but this is much to much and prevents me from suitable progress.

 

Here are the quantities to be processed so far:

 

• 520 total world brushes
• 43 total world triSurfs
• 48 patches
• 874 entities
• 1436 planes
• 12 areaportals

[nbohr1more]

Monster Clipping?

[JackFarmer]

Hello Nbohr1more,

 

Well, The original section includes tons of monsterclips, but in the new areas I have not added any mc till now because I have

not decided yet whether I want enemies to walk around there. Do you think the missing clipping causes the dmapping delay?

[nbohr1more]

The more complex the pathing, the longer dmap will take to figure out how to path it.

 

To shorten DMAP times, make the map as simple to AI as possible. Think blocky and restricted.

No complex geometry.

[JackFarmer]

Thank you for the information. I will try this and revert.

[JackFarmer]

Hello Nbohr,

 

Well, I just added large MC brushes but it had no effect.

 

Do you have any other ideas?

[nbohr1more]

Time for leak testing:

 

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

[peter_spy]

AFAIK, if you have a lot of brushes, the engine will try to optimize (merge/remove) redundant triangles, and that takes a lot of time. (And it's kind of useless, because it will do the same thing during map load for players as well). The solution is to use as many models as you can (which you can't do for monsterclip, obviously).

 

Not sure if this still works with TDM, but there's noOpt parameter for Dmap which will skip that stage: https://modwiki.xnet.fi/Dmap_(console_command)

[JackFarmer]

@Judith: the command works and reports the line "noOptimize: true" during dmapping, but it does not have any effect; the triangles count as in my previous message still shows up, and the writing time for the proc file does not improve. However, thank you for your support.

 

@nbohr: I am not sure whether I understand you correctly, the file dmaps/maps in the right way, and thus the editor's pointfile shows no leaks. Ingame there are also no "Missing AAS xxx" messages or things like that. Everything looks ok.

 

I really don't know what happened. I had the new room already connected; then added four large patches and a few models and from that second on, the delays began which result currently in a dmapping time of 220 seconds...I really made (from my point of view) good progress during the past two weeks, and now I have this back-breaking problem. That's so frustrating :(

[peter_spy]

If you use standard approach, i.e. saving map with a different number every time you start working on something new (map01, map02, etc.), you could compare the last version without problems with the current one, but I have a feeling you don't work that way. Also, forgive me if this is obvious to you, but just in case you didn't know: you don't have to dmap your map every time you change something in the editor. Adding lighting or models? Just hit save in DR and reload your map. I dmap my level quite seldom, e.g. when I need to recalculate pathfinding or add some floor brushes.

[ERH+]

Very large patches / complex large models will make dmap take forever. Break larger patches / models into smaller parts, try (after saving under new name) 'scripts/convert to ase' - I think .ase model will not be processed in the same way as patch/brush geometry at dmap. You can open later two darkradiants with old and new map file and use 'edit/copy' 'edit/paste' between two maps so you can take old "patch" model and make changes to it if you need. Also use f1 ingame (_impulse27) and fly over rooftops and places where AI won't walk - many brush details will show as tiny complex walkways, consider making them nonsolid or make monster_clip ceilings as well as walls.

 

BTW why 'scripts/convert to ase' don't need .def file? Models show in DR and ingame but they shouldn't I guess?

Edited January 3, 2018 by ERH+

[Epifire]

Hey I have an interesting dilemma. Trying to get some cool water based off of legit normal maps. Problem is the texgen portion of my MTR doesn't want to translate. It basically looks crystal smooth but appears to be frozen. I can see the normal map moving but not the reflection. Is there a way I can override the entire process to just translate the entire material?

seaside_watertoplayer_001
{
discrete
noshadows
nonsolid
		
	{
        blend diffusemap  
        map     	 models/textures/water_color_001
    }
	
    {
        blend bumpmap
        map     	 models/textures/seaside_water_surface_001_local
	translate 	time*.01, time*.01
    }
	
	
    {
        blend gl_dst_alpha, gl_one
        cameraCubeMap   env/envsky_seaside
        texgen reflect
	translate 	time*.01, time*.01
    }
}

[ERH+]

I can't make atdm:readable_immobile_sign_small01 to work: if I put other readable with _world gui I can see text, but I've tested all fonts on this sign and none is wisible. Can someone point a mission where this sign is used?

Edited January 4, 2018 by ERH+