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demagogue

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Yay! Replaced that monsterclip with tdm_nodrawsolid_wood and now it works perfectly. No more "stepping down" and sound is correct too.

 

PranQster, thanks for the suggestion; that's exactly what I tried in the beginning (trying to stick to the Wiki). I suppose that works just fine when the actual physics model the AI steps on is gapless - in my case the gaps between planks caused problems though. Anyway, got it to work (almost) flawlessly with monsterclip walls alongside the side of the "bridge".

 

Some strange phenomenon remains though: When ingame, the planks (only the parts of them that are directly over the canal), and even the model of the AI, when walking over them, twist and warp a bit. I suppose that is some side effect of the heatHaze*.vfp program used by water materials. If it were a real heat haze (think lava) that'd look quite realistic - but can I limit the effect height for plain water somehow?

(The water + overlay patch I use are just some murky ones I copied from Fidcals Startpack v3, no spawnargs modified).

 

Oh - that brings up another question I almost forgot about by now: initially, when creating the water entity for my canal, I just copied one from the Startpack. However I wasn't able to resize that anymore (any hidden feature in DR that allows that?). So I created a new brush, fitted it geometry-wise, then converted it to the same water-entity as the template and replicated the surface textures and spawnargs. When doing that, I was thinking there had to be an easier way... is there?

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You can resize your water entity by selecting it, then press Tab... then you can resize it like it was a regular worldspawn brush. Keep in mind that when you do this, the origin of that entity stays where it was before you resize it. So if you have done that and then you end up moving the entity to a new position, there is the possibility of the origin ending up out in the void. So you will want to manually adjust the entity's origin after resizing it. This is especially true if your create your own door, then decide to resize it later... the door will rotate around the old origin if you don't adjust it

Yes, that heathaze effect can play some nasty tricks on the eye when viewing objects between yourself and the water.

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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http://forums.thedar...em/page__st__25

Hellooo. Resurrecting this topic cause a fella here seems to have figured out a cool way to make rain:

 

particle tdm_rain_light {

{

count 200

material textures/particles/drop2

time 1.000

cycles 0.000

bunching 1.000

distribution rect 50.000 50.000 32.000

direction cone "0.000"

orientation aimed 1.000 0.050

speed "-500.000"

size "0.500"

aspect "1.000"

randomDistribution 1

boundsExpansion 0.000

fadeIn 1.000

fadeOut 1.000

fadeIndex 1.000

color 0.040 0.040 0.050 1.000

fadeColor 0.039 0.043 0.047 1.000

offset 0.000 0.000 240

gravity 0

}

}

 

 

Change the gravity to 0, speed to -500 and the z offset to 240. Now the patch is in the middle of the rain instead of the very top, this makes it harder for the patch to go off screen while looking at the raindrops.

And since it is the speed of the particles making them fall and not gravity you can angle them for wind effects.

...and because I can't seem to get it working!

I'm fairly new to the concept so perhaps that's at fault here but I really think it should make sense and work.

I made a .mtr file in darkmod/materials called mysky1.mtr where I copied the quoted script to try it out. I put the newly made shader of tdm_rain_light and skinned my former rain patch with it (could this be the mistake?). It says "shader not found" all over the texture even though it directy refers to my mtr. file with all the fancy coding. Ingame Now normally I don't take this seriously, but ingame those patches are just black and there's no rain. Mmh =/

 

P.S. If anyone replies here maybe he/she knows the answer to another dumb question? I'm curious on how the "script" tab is used (between entity, media, console and textures tabs) since all the scripts seem to be happening in a saved .mtr file and stuff.

Since I didn't get a reply there, thought I'd have a better luck here maybe. I wouldn't be asking this if I had enough common knowledge to sovle this one myself. I am slowly filling the gaps though.

 

P.S. I never did start with the startpack. From what I remember it's just all the main contents pulled together so it's ultimately one big deletefest. Or was there another meaning for it?

Edited by Thor
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I have a couple of novice questions about attaching binded objects to AI:

 

1- For the object to be actually placed exactly on one of the AI's hands, is there a better way than putting it more or less floating around the area you think the model will have his hand on idle animation? Since the models are always with arms wide open in DR, I can't seem to be able to place it well enough, I always get clipping problems.

 

2- I basicly want the AI to carry a body piece on his hand - I can't seem to find a DM entity like that (is there a comprehensive list that I have overlooked by the way?), so I used this gib entity from Doom, which works fine in game and even has its own joints, but I can't seem to be able to make it bind to the AI, it just falls flat on the ground at the map start. I have no problems attaching DM entities on the AI, but not this one, so I'm guessing the bind spawnarg doesn't work on Doom entities?

 

3- I built a test room just to see if I can do this:

 

AI goes from A to B (with some path corners in between just to make the path non linear);

 

He is carrying an attached object from A to B;

 

On B, he drops the object;

 

Goes back to A, where a new object should "spawn" on his hand again, and repeat; (I would actually prefer to use the animation "crouching to check on body" to simulate him picking up another object, instead of just having the object appear on his hand, but I have no clue as to how to achieve either one, so...);

 

The path is easy, the attachment part has the issue I mentioned, and I would really appreciate if anyone could tell me how to get the AI to drop an attached object and how to make a new one appear on him.

I realise this might demand a lot of work, maybe not really something a tip or two would explain, but if anyone could point me in the right direction. Thie functionality would be pretty much crucial for my map idea.

Edited by RPGista
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The most accurate way of doing it is creating special entitydefs for the object and then using frame commands in animations to spawn and drop the object at the right time (similar to the way AI create playing cards or flint at appropriate times). But that's a bit involved.

 

I can help you with the animation frame commands if you can sort out the entity for the object. You can look at the movable weapon.def as an example and substitute your model.

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FastestFasterFastMediumSlowSlowerSlowest

 

 

Thor:

 

Your script is not a shader it's a particle definition. You need to put that in the particles folder with the suffix .prt, eg, myparticles.ptr.

 

[EDIT] Note that you still need to use the original light rain texture on your patch. That shader references the above particle def so you need to keep the names the same unless you create a completely new shader as well.

 

The startpack is essentially a working mission with all the common elements so you just delete what you don't want and you have stuff to hand for reference. For instance if you can't get water to work then there's already some there already working. But note the startpack can never keep uptodate with newer AI and so on.

 

There is a complete wiki article on startpack and it's worth installing startpack and browsing that article to get an overview of how to finish and distribute an FM. However, Dark Radiant now has a head selector and a readables editor so in practice, once you've tried out startpack it is probably easier to instead just insert the prefab:

 

misc/StartObjectives,Shop,Tools,Ammo

 

That contains all the really essential stuff from startpack and again, just delete what you don't want when you've finished your FM.

 

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Okay, I'll really check out that startpack guide when I'll start worrying about the packaging of this silly mission.

 

On the rain side. I didst figure that I was doing something wrong out through the entire yesterday indeed, so I dug deep within the netherlands of tdm .mtr files and such and I did name them all under .mtr so I guses that's the mistake.

(Also note that I did do my own sky & horizon now. You like it? Hopefully the sun bit goes together with light rain.)

 

 

Aand now I tried saving them properly with .prt... and it works! Thanks for that. Man of all the things I tried yesterday I couildn't thnk of opening the .prt files with a text editor! Man the light rain is hardly noticable though. Gonna try moderate rain soon. And swap all the little stats around. So much thigns to experiment on.

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Alright NOW I created a problem. Like a pretty big problem. I can't dmap my map anymore. It's stuck at "Putting primitives in areas' or something like that. I'm the "primitive" aren't I. :P

 

Well anyhow I removed a bucnh of shperical patches that I used for surrounding my beach area (that I had just created to smoothen it up) and it worked... Does this mean I can't have a nicely detailed beach and I wasted my entire evening? Can I still salvage from this and do it in a more efficient manner? Won't proceed with maps creation until I know what to do with this.

Edited by Thor
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Alright NOW I created a problem. Like a pretty big problem. I can't dmap my map anymore. It's stuck at "Putting primitives in areas' or something like that. I'm the "primitive" aren't I. :P

 

Well anyhow I removed a bucnh of shperical patches that I used for surrounding my beach area (that I had just created to smoothen it up) and it worked... Does this mean I can't have a nicely detailed beach and I wasted my entire evening? Can I still salvage from this and do it in a more efficient manner? Won't proceed with maps creation until I know what to do with this.

 

How many patches are involved? Have you tried putting them back one-by-one? Perhaps only one of them is causing the problem.

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Dont give up Thor I'm really digging that beach landscape and I'm amazed at what you are going for. By the way, have you ever seen this -

 

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/videos/drams-airship-side-project-demo

 

Pretty amazing, I imagine a thing like this would be perfect for your idea...

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WAaaaaaah! I gave it a really long chance of loading. It took about 30-40 minutes. WAY TOO LONG. Then I remembered... This thing.. that I smugly ignored first time I read about it. Patch Tesselation! (Btw all respect but that description there is just a tad outdated (the said setting is located at patch inspector). Man I can go to sleep happy now. This should totally make the situation more reasonable. Also I checkd out maps by the pros (that moving grass demo (2nd most amazing thing I've seen in TDM), NHAT etc.) and I seem to be the only one who builds like crap. (patches sticking out the map if you go outside, no fancy use of monster clip (and i was most mystereriousified (that's a word now) by the abscence of patches yet presence of all the textures and details))

 

Dont give up Thor I'm really digging that beach landscape and I'm amazed at what you are going for. By the way, have you ever seen this -

 

http://www.moddb.com...de-project-demo

 

Pretty amazing, I imagine a thing like this would be perfect for your idea...

 

Thanks! Now I feel even better. :D Naivety does bring a hellish determination sometimes.

As for that link: I remember seeing it just some weeks ago and then I decided that I'll be building a daylight mission and that that is the 1st most amazing thing I've see in TDM. And I will never even comprehend how he built something so awesome. And thanks but that cool thing isn't in my league at all :D

Well now. Now that I seem to be conquering all the fundamental problems I have (I made an actual list) one by one... I tihnk I'll create another one by seeing if I can make anything like that automated opening scene from Knighton Manor's mission. It would make the mission more cinematic.

 

Alright I've been babbling a lot, but I'm very pleased of not having lost to Darkradiant today.

 

Edit: decreased the polygonal count or whatever it is to 5x5 and it loaded in a totally reasonable time. Woop woop.

 

DOOM32011-11-0701-11-33-97.jpg

See? Looking better by the step, eh? I know it's rough and the change of color in the right side is mysterious, but I'll fix all that up. I think the rough bits of it is done.

Edited by Thor
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Brilliant shot, again, I really like what you are going for. I was actually about to say "have you tried subdividing all the patches?" but then I was like, SURELY he has that covered by now, dont embarass yourself by stating the obvious! :) Glad you got that solved, I'm actually doing the exact same thing your doing, but going in a totally different direction, into hardcore architectural detail. I will still research more, later, on bringing new assets to TDM, like what you are doing (I suppose) with your work on skyboxes and textures.

 

My only suggestion at all: the beach looks great, but I would scale up considerably all stone textures untill you simply cant see any seams anymore - it's my opinion than even blurry textures look better (specially form a distance) than repeated patterns like that. But I'm sure all of this can be left for later.

 

I would definetly talk to Dram though, maybe he could donate a working mechanism you could use with your own boat model, or maybe give you hints on how to create your own simplified version. Wouldnt hurt to try, once you get all your mapping work done. That is, of course, if there would be actual steering of a ship.

Edited by RPGista
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hehe, yes. That not knowing of subdividing was another great example of my fundamental gaps in DR & related knowledge. Good hint on the textures, should've thought of that. I actually thought of that exact texture as a placeholder cause I figured maybe I'd find something better but we'll see. I do consider changing the tone of sea water a bit though so it matches up better with the background. I checked out those sea waves in NHAT2 and I gotta say that the part of it was was working (some loocked static) really did look like textures and not actual water motion. I probably won't be getting that part done for a loong time, if ever. That area is a bit small for steering even a boat, but I may think of something (when I get more of an inspiration). Now that you talk about it I'm thinking of steering a boat in a cistern or something like that. Would that be cool or what. :D

 

 

But do show what you're working on sometime. I adore fancy architecture myself. (momentarely picturing grand arches in your mission & some stained glass artwork but that's not architecture anymore now is it). You use modelling for most of your architecture btw right? Do you make them with blender perhaps?

Edited by Thor
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@@acolyte6

I think it would be smart to go ahead and start a "Newbie thread" that covers all newbie questions in one place, as with the TDS Forum. It doesn't have to be this one, just for future reference.

 

Aaanyway, I was going through the A-Z Tutorial, and right about the time you make the pool of water, I fixed some leaks, thought I got them all. Now it won't Dmap again, but when I hit Pointfile, it says "Could not open pointfile: E:/games/ ... /TutorialMap.lin" I don't know why since it's been working up to now.

 

So if I have a leak I can't find it, but it's troubling just that Pointfile suddenly, inexplicably doesn't open! There isn't any ".lin" file either; not sure what happened to it.

Any ideas?

 

Edit: I started a map from scratch and Pointfile didn't show up again. So whatever it is, it isn't something I messed up in that first map, but a general problem I'm having with DR.

Edit2: But it does Dmap and Map just fine, so that's ok.

 

This A-Z tutorial you refer to, where can I find/download that?

 

I gave the T3 Editor a try with Komag's tutorial and found it helpful (very) to get the ball rolling, but then TDM came around and I started playing the games instead :) Now, a few years later I decide to give it another try, but I have practically forgotten how the T3ed works so why not give Dark Radiant a try instead? I like TDM better anyway. Reminds me more of T2. Not as gloomy blue either as T3.

 

There is one feature of T2 I would like to add into a TDM mission though (this may sound really far ahead, but...). I'd like to add the feature of eating foods in the game you could increase your health again. I have eaten the different things available, but never noticed any rise in the 'health bar' :(

 

Anyway, where's that tutorial?

 

P.S. Joined Twitter today for TDM, let's see what happens when I press that icon up there... Don't have a clue what just happened lol

(Not on my machine, In Europé, but it works excellent )

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The A to Z tutorial is on our wiki: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here!

 

If you like Komag's tutorials, he has some for DR too: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=A_-_Z_Beginner_Full_Guide_Start_Here!

 

I'd like to add the feature of eating foods in the game you could increase your health again.

 

It does, just not very much (1 hp, I believe).

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Hey there,

 

maybe this is somehow a too newbish question but I have problems with creating architecture which is rotated, for example some kind of building. I think my city looks boring because of all the simple cube buildings. How do you build rotated houses with perfectly aligned windows, roofs, towers etc.? Do you create it just like any other building, convert it to a func_static and then rotate it? Any advice? Thank you! :)

Edited by Seuchensoldat
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There can be problems in DR with rortating multiple objects where some origins may get out of line. But you could create the basic shell all in worldspawn and rotate it OK then add your models and other func_statics separately and rotate them the same amount.

 

 

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First, you can have a base with square & simple angles and still look non-square & interesting, with appendages, niches, patches, awnings, etc.

 

Look at this geometry that Johannes has been building: http://forums.thedar...post__p__270577

It's mostly square & 45d angles, but with the curved patches & accentuating the angles it's very visually interesting.

 

To your question though, I never tried it before, but you might try building everything straight then selecting it all and rotating it en masse, or your idea of converting it to a single func_stat, rotate, then revert it back to worldspawn (if you want it to close a portal). It's worth trying it anyway. If it doesn't work you can just undo or revert to your last save & do what Fidcal said.

 

I have a house in my FM where everything is rotated about 10 degrees -- the entire house, windows, doors, fireplace, everything -- and I did it like Fidcal just explained. It takes work but it's possible, but there were lots of issues -- rounding flubs, little wedges sticking out, z-fighting, "sparklies" (lines of sparkling dots along seams), and general mayhem that I had to work at hiding. And even after all that it was still squarish, just rotated. I realized it's more effective to accentuate simple 45d angles & appendages and have interesting architecture itself (like I said, awnings, niches, patches) than rotating en masse per se.

 

BTW, on interesting neighborhood architecture generally, you still can't beat some of the classics. Go back & look at the architecture in Midnight at Murkbell (2nd FM of Calendra's Legacy, or the OM Assassins or Ambush for that matter). Purah built the ground as massive squashed cones like gradually sloping hills (we'd use patches), then built the streets and buildings naturally following the slopes (so they were a little stair-steppish), and most buildings had layered architecture (and awnings, niches). Even though a lot of the base angles were still squarish (but on sloping ground), with alt angled stuff stacked on it, it was all very visually interesting & realistic architecture.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I'm having a bit of trouble with a bridge I'm making. It is a wooden plank + rope bridge connecting two raised platforms... see screenshot below. When left as is, I could cross it both ways, but found that I would sometimes either suddenly take damage and die, or get thrown off sideways. I resorted to making a patch, slightly raised above the bridge and contoured with it, and textured it with nodraw with wood sound. I'm trying not to raise the patch too high above the bridge, but I still tend to get thrown off sideways, especially if I get near the edge at the middle of the upward curve.

Does anyone have a solution for this?

bridge01.jpg

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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Hmm. Thanks, I'll look into it. I can apply that keyword to the material shader, but not have to actually use a ladder texture. If I do that, will the player climb it as if it were a ladder? I want to avoid that at all costs.

I think what I might try is to bend the nodraw patch upward along the sides. I'm thinking it is those curved rope models which are causing the problem. If I can keep the player from getting too close to those, maybe I'll have better luck. Or I can try replacing them with non-solid patch cylinders with rope texture.

Edited by PranQster

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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Problem solved. It was the rope models I had used that caused the trouble. I replaced them with curved patch cylinders, made func_static and set to 'solid 0' with rope texture. I can walk all over that bridge now with no trouble. Replacing the rope model also solved another problem. The ropes used to disappear when viewed from certain angles as the player would reach the higher side of the bridge. Now they stay drawn the whole time. Love killing two birds with one stone.

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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