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Spooks' Mapbook Thread


Spooks

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Okay, here's a question for you all. I looked around and it seems TDM has three options for Ambient Rendering, but I was never aware of that since the options menu only displays Simple and Enhanced (Enhanced being the equivalent of what I read being described as "Normal"). This stuff has been in since 1.03 and putting it in the console actually makes a difference, but hell if I know why it isn't in the menus. Can anyone give me a rundown?

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/13676-whats-the-difference-between-ambient-modes/ Reference thread.

 

edit: hey here's a post

 

edit edit: The one reason I'm investigating this is just trying to get better looking cubemapped materials.

 

edit the 3rd: it's not worth updating the thread over this, but I'm just going to edit in this snippet I posted on Epi's thread, because I think this code's about the best I'm going to get for cubemaps for now and it's nice to have it here in one place. I suppose I'm done with env stuff for the moment.

{
maskcolor
map makealpha (textures/darkmod/tile_s_bright) //here I use the specular of the texture
alpha 0.5		//this darkens the alpha by half, modify it as you wish
}
	
{
blend gl_dst_alpha, gl_one
maskalpha
cubeMap      env/gen2
texgen      reflect
}
Edited by Spooks

My FMs: The King of Diamonds (2016) | Visit my Mapbook thread sometimes! | Read my tutorial on Image-Based Lighting Workflows for TDM!

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Oh awesome, I was wondering how to do cube maps in TDM. The effect you've managed to get looks great.

Are those cubemaps you've created or are those stored somewhere in the default materials?

 

Thanks!

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TDM has two default cubemaps as far as I'm aware, env/gen1 and env/gen2. They're both pretty generic, so I made the cubemaps myself with the envshot console command. Right now it's a bother to be putting cubemaps directly into materials rather than having an env_light entity and if you want, say, a texture with two different cubemaps, you'd need to make/use two different materials in DR. However, I think keeping your cubemaps blurry and generic looking, and limiting yourself to about 3 max in your map might reduce the bloat in a practical scenario.

 

The code snippet from the second post is what you'd want, since masking reflection by an image's specular map is the most logical way to do it, regarding how real life light works. The gl_dst_color method is also good, however, since it ensures you won't get shiny materials in complete darkness. On the flipside, it over-brightens bright areas, so watch out for that.

My FMs: The King of Diamonds (2016) | Visit my Mapbook thread sometimes! | Read my tutorial on Image-Based Lighting Workflows for TDM!

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 years later...

You got it right on the geometry front. Lights in foreground? Two. Green spotlight and a blue moonlight that is only really visible in motion (though you can spot the specular on the right wall). After the gate you can count three more.

 

I've grown dissatisfied with the state the map this particular screenshot is from and I'll very likely be gutting it and redoing the greybox to something less rushed. This was supposed to be the speedbuild, but I guess I can't let speedbuilds be that when I sink my teeth into them. For now though, and this is a rare diary entry in my own thread that I should probably be updating more often, I think I'll come back to an old WIP, roll up my sleeves and do some much needed work on another sewer section.

My FMs: The King of Diamonds (2016) | Visit my Mapbook thread sometimes! | Read my tutorial on Image-Based Lighting Workflows for TDM!

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

Reminds me of the area around the start of Behind Closed Doors (the "back way" around). You might get inspiration looking at it again.

I learned a lot from just opening it up in DR and looking at how things were put together.

 

The scaling looks to be almost exactly twice the size of your drawn version, which at least would make the math easy to work out in re-scaling it.

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 think it's always a good idea to have some drawing / sketch or not only the area, but also some scenes and of the mission itself - it's easier to work from a reference than sit at DR and go, ok, I'm building another mansion.
Taking photos of places for inspiration is also useful, is also good as you can nick the textures of the materials.

Looks as if spooks might have learned some oil painting techniques at some point.

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