Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[thebigh]

Heh, that works better than I expected.

[grodenglaive]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:42 AM, Amadeus said:

WOAH! Great work!! It's kinda funny that you have to take a potion, but that could actually be an interesting thing you buy at an in-game shop. maybe to herd zombie AIs? Anyway, this is cool and I hope you share a test map please

Here's the test map (I haven't fixed the warning yet Test Map

 

Edited April 12 by grodenglaive

[DeTeEff]

Is it possible to mute all player grunts/sounds? 

[grodenglaive]

12 hours ago, DeTeEff said:

Is it possible to mute all player grunts/sounds? 

Yes, I just figured out a way. The player sounds are located in sound/tdm_player.snd.shd and this file is zipped in the main tdm directory tdm_sound_vocals_decls01.pk4tdm_sound_vocals_decls.pk4

If you make a sound folder in your fm folder and copy tdm_player.snd.shd into that, you can edit it for your fm and disable whatever sounds you don't want the player to make.

For example, I tried it with the mantle grunts by commenting out the sounds (most were already disabled).

tdm_player_mantle_pull
{

    volume -5

    // sound/voices/player/mantle_pull01.ogg    // too much straining
    // sound/voices/player/mantle_pull02.ogg    // too much straining
    // sound/voices/player/player_mantle_2.ogg  // too much straining
    //sound/voices/player/player_mantle_3.ogg
}

tdm_player_mantle_push
{

    volume -10

    // sound/voices/player/mantle_push01.ogg    // too much straining
    // sound/voices/player/mantle_push02.ogg    // too much straining
    //sound/voices/player/mantle_push03.ogg
}

 

[Bergante]

Please anyone give me a hint ! 
on how to implement This : (this is Snipping tool generated !!!)
so i can adress someone especialy in my Messages !

[joebarnin]

Just type the @ character, and then the first character of username (for example ‘k’ for kingsal). That will bring up an autocomplete list of users starting with that character. Keep typing, or pick the user from the list

[datiswous]

Hi quick question: Is it correct that you cannot use a number as the start of a skin-name?

Does this apply to all defenition type names, like materials, def, gui, etc. ? I mean, where does this rule apply and where not?

I want to make sure before I add info to the wiki.

Edit: No answers, so I added the info

Edited April 12 by datiswous

[grodenglaive]

After editing some objectives, now I'm getting this console warning pop up any time I check the objectives in game.  I've never seen it before. Everything appears to be working though. 

I have not edited the tdm_objectives.gui file and it is intact in the tdm_gui01.pk4 folder in TDM. It references DestroyDelay here.

onAction
    {
        set "gui::DestroyDelay" OBJECTIVES_DESTROY_DELAY;
        set "gui::CloseGUI" "1";
        set "cmd" "updateObjectives";
    }

but I have no idea what I could have done in my fm to give it issue.

[EDIT] I get this warning in other missions now, not just mine. I reinstalled TDM and I still get this warning. Is this a 2.12 thing?

Edited April 12 by grodenglaive

[datiswous]

Is it possble to make skins for brushes/patches by conferting them to func_static?

Models are func_static when you add them in DR, but in the skin file you reference them with the model name instead of the entity name.

When you convert a brush/patch though, it converts it uses a model with the same name as the entity name, so in this case func_static_1 for example. Would it be enough to use that in the skin file? Allthough the wiki article states it's important to add an extension.

Edited April 12 by datiswous

[OrbWeaver]

Skins don't require a model path, that's just a convenience feature to allow the skins to be associated with the model(s) in the editor.

However I have no idea if an unassociated skin can be used on a func_static. I suppose there's no reason why it couldn't work, but it's not something I've ever tested and I wouldn't be surprised if it fails to do anything (either in the editor or the game).

[grodenglaive]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:11 AM, Amadeus said:

try giving your ai the spawnarg/value "use_aas"/"aas32"

You were on to something with that, but TDM won't let atdm:ai_base use another class's aas file. I changed tactics and switched it to atdm:steambot_base instead (it also happens to be the only AI base that doesn't say "do not use").  Dmap auto-generates the associated aas file (aas96) so there is no warning when the player starts. More importantly, it actually still works! So my AI will now follow the player with no errors or warnings.

 

[datiswous]

3 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

However I have no idea if an unassociated skin can be used on a func_static. I suppose there's no reason why it couldn't work, but it's not something I've ever tested and I wouldn't be surprised if it fails to do anything (either in the editor or the game).

Hm after testing:  This does actually work fine. Both in DR and in tdm.

 

I guess there's no point in specifing the model path, because then it only works on one specific func_static.

Edited April 12 by datiswous

[Amadeus]

10 hours ago, grodenglaive said:

You were on to something with that, but TDM won't let atdm:ai_base use another class's aas file. I changed tactics and switched it to atdm:steambot_base instead (it also happens to be the only AI base that doesn't say "do not use").  Dmap auto-generates the associated aas file (aas96) so there is no warning when the player starts. More importantly, it actually still works! So my AI will now follow the player with no errors or warnings.

 

Hard to argue with results! Glad you found a fix for this

[thebigh]

My first thought would have been to use a rat or spider babby on the grounds that it's small.

[grodenglaive]

I wouldn't want rats or spiders following me around.

[Geep]

On 4/12/2024 at 8:11 AM, grodenglaive said:

So my AI will now follow the player with no errors or warnings.

To the "Path Nodes" wiki article, I've added a few sentences about path_follow_actor. It mentions that it currently doesn't support the actor being the player, and has pointers to the new bug report and the workaround given in this thread.

The entry for path_follow_actor in the Entity Database now reads "... actor (= other AI, not player)...

[Amadeus]

6 hours ago, grodenglaive said:

I wouldn't want rats or spiders following me around.

Now there's a good idea for a custom AI. A spider queen with six or seven spiders following her....

[Geep]

On 4/5/2024 at 3:59 PM, OrbWeaver said:

You can drag outside a selected speaker and resize it exactly like a brush

I've added your much better description of the process to the existing mention of resizing speakers in https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Setting_Up_Speakers#maxDistance%2F_s_maxdistance

[grodenglaive]

1 hour ago, Amadeus said:

Now there's a good idea for a custom AI. A spider queen with six or seven spiders following her....

Yes and she explodes, spawning more babies if you kill her!

[datiswous]

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Objectives#Mission states:

Quote

Objectives are stored by entities named target_tdm_addobjectives. Your mission can have several of these but typically you will only want one for all your objectives.

Is this correct? Because DR's objective editor creates an entity called atdm_target_addobjectives .

Edit: Changed it into atdm_target_addobjectives

Edited April 25 by datiswous

[Ansome]

Query: when playing a level, how sharp must a corner in the level geometry be for it to look bad to you? I'm sculpting my current FM from scratch as there aren't many prefab modules fitting my theme and the question has been nagging me for a bit. I've been using bevel patches to smooth out 90 degree corners made of brickwork for a slightly more realistic look to them, but I'm not sure where else I should be smoothing out the angles of my level geometry. Most notably I have a larger room where the main center piece is a large octagonal tower made of brick and I'm unsure if players will find its sharp angles unappealing to look at despite its ornamentation. Try as I might to smooth out those corners, an octagon is still an octagon.

[grodenglaive]

If it's supposed to be an octagon, I don't think the corners need to be bevelled. Certainly it looks much better to bevel square corners, but the angles of an octagon don't look bad imo. If you want a smooth cylinder though, the default cylinder patch has 16 sides, which looks smooth enough in game. That would be easier than bevelling 8 corners.

Speaking of smoothing; I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you make a model in Blender with smooth-shading ticked, then export an ase file, it will retain the smooth shading when imported to darkradiant. 

Edited April 25 by grodenglaive

[AluminumHaste]

8 hours ago, Ansome said:

Query: when playing a level, how sharp must a corner in the level geometry be for it to look bad to you? I'm sculpting my current FM from scratch as there aren't many prefab modules fitting my theme and the question has been nagging me for a bit. I've been using bevel patches to smooth out 90 degree corners made of brickwork for a slightly more realistic look to them, but I'm not sure where else I should be smoothing out the angles of my level geometry. Most notably I have a larger room where the main center piece is a large octagonal tower made of brick and I'm unsure if players will find its sharp angles unappealing to look at despite its ornamentation. Try as I might to smooth out those corners, an octagon is still an octagon.

Well most things made of brick or cut stone have sharp corners/edges, so that's normal.

[OrbWeaver]

@Ansome's question is correct. Nothing in real life ever has a perfectly sharp corner, and one of the pieces of advice often given to newbie modellers trying to make things look realistic and avoid the "obvious CG" look, is to give sharp edges a tiny bevel so they look like something that might be manufactured in real life.

The problem you've got in DarkRadiant is (1) dealing with tiny bevels using regular brush geometry is awkward, and (2) brushes aren't smoothed at all (unlike the cube on the right which actually has full smooth shading which you don't notice because of the tiny bevel). So unless you're willing to create imported 3D models with smoothed bevelled edges and place them on the corner of your buildings, adding bevels in brushwork might be more trouble than it's worth.

Probably the most important things with brickwork corners is to make sure the bricks line up properly. There's nothing more obviously CG than a plastered-on brickwork texture which just ends in an unrealistic column of cut-off bricks, with mortar joints that are completely unaligned with the brickwork on the adjacent face.

[grodenglaive]

4 hours ago, OrbWeaver said:

Probably the most important things with brickwork corners is to make sure the bricks line up properly.

Indeed and try to wait until you are sure the model is finished before you go through the trouble of aligning textures. I couldn't tell you how much time I spent realigning textures after adjusting walls, windows, etc., or changing my mind about the materials (especially when bevels are involved).