Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[Dragofer]

@JackFarmerwhat you can do is make a fake func_static book - frobable and bound to the bookcase - and give it S/R to frob the true book that's in your blue room + remove _SELF.

I'd like to ask you to use a different video hosting site though - i.e. Youtube - because I could barely see anything due to severe video compression, and it takes a full minute before the video starts playing.

[JackFarmer]

6 hours ago, Dragofer said:

@JackFarmerwhat you can do is make a fake func_static book - frobable and bound to the bookcase - and give it S/R to frob the true book that's in your blue room + remove _SELF.

 

remove_SELF is supposed to remove the fake func_static book from the map once the "real" book has been added to the inventory?

Edited March 1, 2020 by JackFarmer

[Dragofer]

@JackFarmerYes - the fake book is frobable and has a S/R towards frob that frobs the real book and deletes _SELF.

It'll look like you added the fake book to your inventory, even though it was destroyed and passed on the frob to the real book that's far away in your blue room.

[joebarnin]

I know this technique has been discussed before, but peter_spy's recent comment on another thread about non-diegetic lights finally clicked with me. To verify my understanding, here's an example. I'm working on a mission that has a shop whose entrance is located at street level, under an extended second floor. The door is in the dark, located where the red arrow points.

There's a sign on the door that is completely invisible from this distance. Even when you get a lot closer to the door, you can't read the sign because it is in the dark - you have to deploy your lantern just to read it!

So I put a tiny light right in front of the sign, and now it is visible. You notice it, and you can actually read it from this location using your spyglass.

Depending on your screen brightness, it may not be very obvious from these screen grabs. But in game, it is very clear that there is something worth looking at in that dark corner. As peter_spy said, it draws your eye and focuses you in that direction. And even when you get close to the door, the 'lit' sign doesn't look fake, because it is barely illuminated.

Anyway, that's my understanding of non-diegetic lighting; hopefully I got it right.

 

 

[Amadeus]

Alright, so I have an interesting problem. For some reason, every time I package my mission into a zip file and rename it as a pk4 (so that it reads "gn.pk4"), whenever I put that pk4 into the fms folder, the dark mod renames it to "gn_l10n.pk4" and it won't install. Help please!

EDIT: Nevermind. Dragofer found the fix. Apparently the dark mod did not like the fact that my pk4 name was "gn". Changed the name, works perfectly

Edited March 3, 2020 by Amadeus

[JackFarmer]

On 3/1/2020 at 7:35 PM, Dragofer said:

@JackFarmerYes - the fake book is frobable and has a S/R towards frob that frobs the real book and deletes _SELF.

It'll look like you added the fake book to your inventory, even though it was destroyed and passed on the frob to the real book that's far away in your blue room.

I finally got it; the fake book can have both stim and responses. Thus I gave the fake book the stim "frob" AND the response "frob". Additionally, the latter received to actions: 1. frob "real book - 2. remove_self. That works perfectly.

Thank you very much, that solves one of the last problems with the puzzles.

However, there is one more problem that might work with S/R as well but I do not know how to set it up. I will post this issue here asap.

Jack

[Dragofer]

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

I finally got it; the fake book can have both stim and responses. Thus I gave the fake book the stim "frob" AND the response "frob". Additionally, the latter received to actions: 1. frob "real book - 2. remove_self. That works perfectly.

Thank you very much, that solves one of the last problems with the puzzles.

However, there is one more problem that might work with S/R as well but I do not know how to set it up. I will post this issue here asap.

Jack

That's good to hear - but you don't need to give the book a frob stim, only a frob response. This is because the frob stim comes from the player's action. If you give the book a frob stim it'll emit "frob" to surrounding entities, and if they have a frob response they'll react as if the player has frobbed them.

Similarly, trigger responses only need to receive a trigger (i.e. from a trigger brush/objective completion/script) to perform their effects. You can get very diverse effects in response to a trigger event thanks to the S/R editor.

[JackFarmer]

43 minutes ago, Dragofer said:

That's good to hear - but you don't need to give the book a frob stim, only a frob response. T

 

You mean the fake book? I just removed the frob stim from it, but then it does not work anymore...

attached: testmap with working set-up (book = fake / scroll = goes into inventory - the door was just to test whether I can bind the fakebook to a rotating unit)

fakebook.map

Edited March 5, 2020 by JackFarmer

[Dragofer]

23 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

You mean the fake book? I just removed the frob stim from it, but then it does not work anymore...

In the testmap the frob stim has ID #1, while the frob response has ID #2. When you delete the frob stim the frob response keeps ID #2, and it looks like the S/R system doesn't work if there's no ID #1. That looks like a bug.

If you start from scratch and create only a frob response that'll be ID #1 and it'll work. Here's your test map back without a frob stim:

fakebook.map

[JackFarmer]

7 minutes ago, Dragofer said:

In the testmap the frob stim has ID #1, while the frob response has ID #2. When you delete the frob stim the frob response keeps ID #2, and it looks like the S/R system doesn't work if there's no ID #1. That looks like a bug.

 

Ah, I saw that and already thought there was something wrong when.

Thank you, I will use this set-up then.

 

 

[JackFarmer]

 

1. The player shall pick up an item (A) that goes into the inventory

2. Then this item shall be dropped into the player`s hand (keyboard "R").

3. Then the player shall frob a casing (B) with the item (A)

4. When the casing has been frobbed, item (A) shall be removed from the inventory and the till then hidden func static (C) shall show up (and some other action shall be triggered. e.g. a light shall be turned on)

I anticipate I can do that with the objectives editor ("let entity A be within a radius of xxx"), but I would like to set this up via S/R...that is, if it is possible?

I have attached a test map. I do not know how one can frob something when holding an item in the hand. Maybe this is not possible in the first place?

 

 

frobtest.map

[Destined]

For this case, I would suggest the used_action_script (see Wiki page). This way, the player wouldn't even need to drop the skull into his hands, but could use the skull on the casing directly from the inventory. The downside with this is, that you would need to write a script to do what you want to happen. Apart from that you could try to use a custom stim. You could give the skull a custom stim with a low range and the casing a response to the same custom stim and use the S/R system as usual. However, I have not used custom stims much myself, but there is also a Wiki page on how to create a custom stim

Edited March 5, 2020 by Destined

[JackFarmer]

13 hours ago, Destined said:

For this case, I would suggest the used_action_script (see Wiki page). This way, the player wouldn't even need to drop the skull into his hands, but could use the skull on the casing directly from the inventory. The downside with this is, that you would need to write a script to do what you want to happen. Apart from that you could try to use a custom stim. You could give the skull a custom stim with a low range and the casing a response to the same custom stim and use the S/R system as usual. However, I have not used custom stims much myself, but there is also a Wiki page on how to create a custom stim

I don't know what I have been doing, but you are right, it works with S/R - see attached map. Grab the skull, press "R", walk towards the brush and see what's happening.

Thank you!

Geep ist right, the S/R system is a very powerful tool.

 

frobtest.map

[Destined]

Glad I could help.

[JackFarmer]

I want to include custom pictures and followed the workflow as described in the Wiki, but ingame my result looks very dark and greenish:

 

I have created a 24bit TGA file of the Builders depicted above and created the following material file:

textures/puzzle/sample
 {
    surftype15
    //description "painting"

    bumpmap          textures/puzzle/sample
    diffusemap         textures/puzzle/sample    
 
    {
        if ( parm11 > 0 )
        blend       gl_dst_color, gl_one
        map         _white.tga
        rgb         0.40 * parm11
    }
    {
        if ( parm11 > 0 )
        blend       add
        map         textures/puzzle/sample
        rgb         0.15 * parm11
    }

        // TDM Ambient Method Related
        {
                if (global5 == 1)
                blend add
                map                             textures/puzzle/sample
                scale                   1, 1
                red                             global2
                green                   global3
                blue                    global4
        }
        
 }

 

 

What is my mistake?

[Dragofer]

@JackFarmerCould start with giving it a proper surftype15 by uncommenting and changing the description - there's a list of them here.

You've made only one image file, but are defining it as both a diffusemap and a bumpmap (aka normalmap), I can't see how that could work. Making normalmaps is fairly technical, so you could maybe just point to an existing bumpmap i.e. from a painting.

[JackFarmer]

 

How do I get the func_earthquake entity working?

 

This is how snd_quake is defined in the sndshd file:

 

Result: When triggering the func_earthquake entity via a simple trigger_once entity in a test map, nothing happens...

The wave file works correctly and uses 44100 hz.

 

 

[Dragofer]

Wouldn't it be enough just to have a speaker playing that sound? You can either set "shakes" in the soundshader (as you've done) or "s_shakes" on the speaker to let the screen shake whenever the sound plays - I've used that in Down by the Riverside mission 2 for metal stress sounds. Can't think of anything else that a func_earthquake entity would have to offer.

(Requirement for "shake" or "s_shake" to work is that the sound is in .wav format, not .ogg like most TDM sounds)

[JackFarmer]

 

3 minutes ago, Dragofer said:

Wouldn't it be enough just to have a speaker playing that sound? You can either set "shakes" in the soundshader (as you've done) or "s_shakes" on the speaker to let the screen shake whenever the sound plays - I've used that in Down by the Riverside mission 2 for metal stress sounds. Can't think of anything else that a func_earthquake entity would have to offer.

Good idea, will try that, thank you!

 

[STRUNK]

Is there a way to filter the green "blobs" in DR,  that come with using speakers?

[Jedi_Wannabe]

I’m a dummy with filters I always forget to use them. Look on the wiki for custom filters

[STRUNK]

@Jedi_Wannabe

I tried to make a custom filter for that one day, but after half an hour and no result I stopped trying : )

[Springheel]

1 hour ago, STRUNK said:

Is there a way to filter the green "blobs" in DR,  that come with using speakers?

You can put them on a separate layer and then hide that layer.

[STRUNK]

@Springheel

Ok, never worked with layers in DR, but that sounds like an obvious way tackle this : )  Thanx.

[Jedi_Wannabe]

thats what I meant lol. LAYERS. Always forget.