Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[datiswous]

On 9/13/2024 at 9:16 PM, MirceaKitsune said:

How do I keep AI from becoming alerted by seeing a ragdoll that spawns at the start and they're supposed to be used to?

What if you disable AIUSE spawnarg?

[MirceaKitsune]

I keep forgetting: If when editing a patch you accidentally put a green or pink vertice over the other, how do you separate them again? Clicking on the spot where two vertices are located always selects both and drags them together.

On 9/18/2024 at 12:25 PM, datiswous said:

What if you disable AIUSE spawnarg?

I believe I tried that and it didn't fix it, the armature falling over sometimes still alerts everyone around it.

[MirceaKitsune]

I have two questions about lights. For the first I know the answer will likely be no but asking to make sure: Do parallel lights support volumetric lighting for sun god rays, and if not are there ever any plans to fix it? I tried but volumetric_light and volumetric_dust don't seem to mix with parallel and parallelsky. At the most this should be documented on the wiki page so everyone knows they don't work together yet.

And something else since I can't seem to find an answer on that page: What are the spawnargs to make a light slowly fade in and out when triggered? I think most flame lights and some lamps that can be frob toggled use this, but I can't tell what settings they use to make the light slowly transition on or off rather than changing instantly.

[Geep]

On 9/13/2024 at 5:20 PM, MirceaKitsune said:

Edit: Doesn't work. I set the ragdoll team to 5 and AI team to 2, the wiki page indicates they are neutral. The ragdoll still makes AI alert when the map starts.

Could you make the ragdoll a friend instead of a neutral? Maybe that would work.

[Geep]

On 9/17/2024 at 8:55 PM, ERH+ said:

What this script error means?:
"...EnterFunction: locals stack overflow"

In general in programming, it often indicates you've called a function from within itself (e.g., recursively), and didn't provide any way to stop the recursion. Sometimes more than 1 function is involved in the endless call chain.

[MirceaKitsune]

5 hours ago, Geep said:

Could you make the ragdoll a friend instead of a neutral? Maybe that would work.

I tried changing the team of the ragdoll at first, it didn't work. I then tried setting a different AIUSE like marking it as a door or light, that didn't stop the alerts either.

[Geep]

I wonder if you could suppress response temporarily on nearby guards using SetAlertLevel or SetAlertGracePeriod script functions

[thebigh]

How do I get a particle effect, specifically the magical explosion, to be able to be triggered multiple times? In my mission I'm working on I have a wizard who can teleport around, disappearing and reappearing in a cloud of magical smoke and with a teleport noise. Unfortunately, I can only get the teleporting and noise to work repeatedly. The magical explosion particle effect only works the first time he teleports. How can get it to play every time?

[JackFarmer]

5 minutes ago, thebigh said:

How do I get a particle effect, specifically the magical explosion, to be able to be triggered multiple times? In my mission I'm working on I have a wizard who can teleport around, disappearing and reappearing in a cloud of magical smoke and with a teleport noise. Unfortunately, I can only get the teleporting and noise to work repeatedly. The magical explosion particle effect only works the first time he teleports. How can get it to play every time?

Instead of firing the particle directly, try this:

1. Create a a trigger sequencer and give it the property "loop - 1"

2. Create two entities of the desired particle

3. Target both particle effects from the trigger

4. ...then target the sequencer instead of the particle

 

 

[thebigh]

30 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

Instead of firing the particle directly, try this:

1. Create a a trigger sequencer and give it the property "loop - 1"

2. Create two entities of the desired particle

3. Target both particle effects from the trigger

4. ...then target the sequencer instead of the particle

 

 

 

My original setup had the wizard trigger a callscript when he reached a particular path_corner. This used setOrigin to teleport him, and trigger a trigger_relay that in turn targets the smoke puffs and speakers at his origin and destination. That worked fine for the speakers and the first time the smoke puffs went off.

Placing two smoke puffs at both origin and destination and trying to hit them alternately with a pair of trigger_sequencers didn't help. The two duplicates go off once each and then never again.

Is there a way to make a particle effect triggerable multiple times?

[JackFarmer]

1 hour ago, thebigh said:

 

My original setup had the wizard trigger a callscript when he reached a particular path_corner. This used setOrigin to teleport him, and trigger a trigger_relay that in turn targets the smoke puffs and speakers at his origin and destination. That worked fine for the speakers and the first time the smoke puffs went off.

Placing two smoke puffs at both origin and destination and trying to hit them alternately with a pair of trigger_sequencers didn't help. The two duplicates go off once each and then never again.

Is there a way to make a particle effect triggerable multiple times?

Have you tried

on the particle?

 

[thebigh]

Yep, that seems to have done the trick. Now I just gotta find a way to make him reliably patrol after teleporting, sometimes he just stops and I can't figure out why. No combination of stopPatrol, restartPatrol, and target_changetarget manipulation seems to help XD.

[grodenglaive]

22 hours ago, thebigh said:

Yep, that seems to have done the trick. Now I just gotta find a way to make him reliably patrol after teleporting, sometimes he just stops and I can't figure out why. No combination of stopPatrol, restartPatrol, and target_changetarget manipulation seems to help XD.

I had the same problem with teleporting and patrolling. Sometimes works, sometimes the AI would just stand there or even lie down on the path! It seemed random each time I ran it. It drove me crazy. As far as I can tell it is bugged.

[JackFarmer]

On 10/4/2024 at 12:58 PM, thebigh said:

Yep, that seems to have done the trick. Now I just gotta find a way to make him reliably patrol after teleporting, sometimes he just stops and I can't figure out why. No combination of stopPatrol, restartPatrol, and target_changetarget manipulation seems to help XD.

You still have problems with the patrols?

[thebigh]

Yeah, still having issues getting the wizard to patrol. I've got him on two disconnected patrol routes that he's supposed to teleport between and I'm trying to get him to go to his next patrol point with a target_changetarget entity. Sometimes it works, but often he just stands idling after teleporting. Or he'll go to his first path_corner and then stop. I've also seen him sit down in midair and warm his hands on nothing, which are animations that are supposed to play elsewhere on his route. I think you're right @grodenglaive, I think it's just plain bugged and I might have to forget the whole thing. Would've been really cool. Oh well.

[JackFarmer]

40 minutes ago, thebigh said:

Yeah, still having issues getting the wizard to patrol. I've got him on two disconnected patrol routes that he's supposed to teleport between and I'm trying to get him to go to his next patrol point with a target_changetarget entity. Sometimes it works, but often he just stands idling after teleporting. Or he'll go to his first path_corner and then stop. I've also seen him sit down in midair and warm his hands on nothing, which are animations that are supposed to play elsewhere on his route. I think you're right @grodenglaive, I think it's just plain bugged and I might have to forget the whole thing. Would've been really cool. Oh well.

I know exactly what you mean. I already had these problems with TBM and most recently again with HHBAM. Can drive you crazy.

Perhaps the problem also has to do with the fact that the targets are added too quickly when using changetarget_entities...maybe this can be solved with a scripted alternative like below...?

sys.trigger($teleporter_x");
sys.wait(2);
$wizard_ai.addTarget($path_corner_x);

Thing is, you have to make sure that an already existing target has to be removed before you add a new target.

Edited October 5, 2024 by JackFarmer

[thebigh]

That shouldn't be a problem. The last path_corner of each segment targets a callscript rather than another path_corner which IIUC should remove the last target of the wizard's current route automatically. I'll experiment with addTarget / changetarget combinations later and see how I go

[boissiere]

You might consider setting the 3 following CVars.

tdm_ai_debug_blocked
tdm_ai_showdest
tdm_ai_showtasks

They give visual indications as to what an AI is actually trying to do. Compare what happens when it works against when it doesn't. I've seen AI stop patrolling from time to time (but they're not using teleport) and think there's a bug somewhere.

[JackFarmer]

9 hours ago, thebigh said:

That shouldn't be a problem. The last path_corner of each segment targets a callscript rather than another path_corner which IIUC should remove the last target of the wizard's current route automatically. I'll experiment with addTarget / changetarget combinations later and see how I go

Last night I had another idea, though, this one is so crazy that I almost do not even dare to mention it:

What happens if you give the AI just one target for a path entity (X) and then you teleport X to different locations?

I am not sure if I have tried this in the past.

[datiswous]

On 10/4/2024 at 12:58 PM, thebigh said:

Now I just gotta find a way to make him reliably patrol after teleporting, sometimes he just stops and I can't figure out why. No combination of stopPatrol, restartPatrol, and target_changetarget manipulation seems to help XD.

I think I heard @Dragofer was working on a specific script for (something like) this a while back. I could be completelly wrong though.

[grodenglaive]

On 10/6/2024 at 2:57 AM, JackFarmer said:

Last night I had another idea, though, this one is so crazy that I almost do not even dare to mention it:

What happens if you give the AI just one target for a path entity (X) and then you teleport X to different locations?

I am not sure if I have tried this in the past.

I just tried it, this actually works. You just need to have the AI hit a trigger brush that triggers the teleport before they can reach the path corner. You can also teleport the AI at the same time (if desired to reach an inaccessible area for example) and they will continue walking to the path entity afterwords.
  

[JackFarmer]

2 hours ago, grodenglaive said:

I just tried it, this actually works. You just need to have the AI hit a trigger brush that triggers the teleport before they can reach the path corner. You can also teleport the AI at the same time (if desired to reach an inaccessible area for example) and they will continue walking to the path entity afterwords.
  

@thebigh

 

 

 

 

[thebigh]

Cool, let me try it now...

[thebigh]

WOOHOO

That works really well! The wizard is now teleporting multiple times without getting stuck and without getting confused about which pathcorner to go next.

[JackFarmer]

8 hours ago, thebigh said:

WOOHOO

That works really well! The wizard is now teleporting multiple times without getting stuck and without getting confused about which pathcorner to go next.

At this point, I think we all just have to say once again that I am brilliant. Man, I almost fear my superbrain to explode!