Please ask your basic (newbie) questions in here.

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 11:11

Quote Posted by Ziemanskye

Easiest way to place a secret (or not so) door with an unusual mesh is to place the "normal" one out of the Actor browser, then use the properties to make it look like a different Smesh (Display>ViewMesh, I think, but it's a fairly easy to spot property whatever it's called)

You can set these things up yourself, but it's a pain to do so. *DoorAttachmentLink to itself, some extra properties added to things, a lot of tweaking to get it to move correctly and so on, compared to just changing the one setting.

Yeah, I think the 1ft door is defined as an actor in the SM lib where the others are not. The 2ft doors only have yaw defined as 0.00 and no movement sound scripts attached; so, I duped the scripting and added yaw. That's as far as I've gotten beyond linking and adding the standard open, close and message scripts. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel before asking someone who knows more than me. I've been neck deep in the wiki and have read through Komag's tutorial several times. I could probably quote it verbatim after the last few days. lol.

Anyway, just got off work and getting ready to dig in again and beat this thing one way or another. Thanks for the help. Still feel a little in the dark; but, with more illumination than before for certain ;)

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 12:19

Ok, here's what I did, and it's working.

1. In the Actor browser, I created a new worldobject with SecretStone1FTDoor as the parent. The new door inherits ALL the properties of the original and overrides with those of it's own that differ.

2. Opened the Static mesh browser and selected the Doortype I wanted, then the texture.

3. Back to the Actor Browser, I went to render:objectmesh and selected "..." which took me to the sm browser and the
Mesh I wanted already selected. So I hit "use" and it imported the Mesh and texture I needed.

4. I had to save the gamesys (changed it). Went back in and added an instance of the new door type, scripted it and added all the standard properties (bslocked, etc) and it's now working.

The only thing I don't like is that it's frobable and eminates blue light making it obvious if you get near it. So, I'll have to do some more looking; but, that seems to have licked that problem. The question now is how practical a solution it is from a packaging standpoint. I know there's an export option for the new world object, so I'd think this is case closed. Am I good on this or does someone see a problem I may not be seeing?

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 13:24

..more info:

I was able to alter properties and fix the highlight issue and the frob issue rather easily. I'm going to script out to make the door frobable and highlighted again after it's been opened the first time. Next thing is to change the generic script I used to open it for testing and get on with building my location.

BTW, my project starts in a Tavern/Inn/Brothel that's been converted to a jailhouse. I have a pretty good idea for my plotline and hope to expand this into a multiple mission campaign; but, we'll see. As used to the editor as I'm getting, it's taking a lot of time.

Ziemanskye on 22/6/2008 at 13:55

Someone's getting the hang of this pretty quick :thumb:

As for the issue of packaging things up, we need to put a new Gamesys in with pretty much all the TDS FMs, otherwise the objectives/briefing don't work properly, so adding extra classes to it isn't much of a problem. Personally I'd probaby just have done the render>displaymesh thing on an instance of the 1ft placed in the world rather than create a new archetype, but that's just personal preference.

I think the easiest way to "toggle" if things can be frobbed or not is to set the HighlightDist to 0 (for unfrobable), and then just script it (set [property] to [value]) back to something like 128 so it highlights again after.

And I'm not entirely sure converting a brothel into a jailhouse is a good idea, but that might just be because in my mind one is designed to be easy to get out of, and the other is designed very much not to be. Still, I suppose a building is mostly four walls and a roof, and what the insides get arranged for is somewhat fluid depending on the current owner/occupier, it just might be difficult to show what the "previous owners" used the place for with the available art assets.

Also - making missions is like pretty much anything else - the process is easy enough, but time consuming. My current mission has been on the go for around three years now (though it is going unusually slowly *still hoping for before christmas 2008* release). Don't worry about it going slow - we aren't getting paid for this anyway, so there's no strict deadlines. Just have fun, and ask when you want help/advice. We don't always know the answer, but I'll usually chime in with something if I have even a remote idea on where the solution may be.

Beleg Cúthalion on 22/6/2008 at 15:03

I read about big mansions being converted into tenements in the late middle ages or shortly after...not sure if it was because of the plague, but the concept was interesting.

By the way; if you have JohnP's high-res textures installed in your TDS setup (once again: his page is down somehow and I'm not quite sure how many other mirrors exist) you can copy them from the game's Dynamically-Loaded folder and put them into your PC-Textures. The nasty blue frob highlight will then get replaced by a copper one, left aside that these high-res things look usually prettier.

@Ziemanskye: How's the Cabal coming along, by the way...?

Flux on 22/6/2008 at 15:31

Quote:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having two guys on one set of patrol points.

How can you prevent them bumping each other or getting stuck ridiculously when they return from final patrol to the first one?

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 15:42

Quote Posted by Ziemanskye

Someone's getting the hang of this pretty quick :thumb:

I pick up on things very quickly as a rule.. when the old thinker is working properly anyhow. Critical thinking is
one of my best suites. I'm an artist with a firm background
in logic and math. I picked up pascal in six weeks, and was
doing code profiling and writing unprotects for the old ssi games within weeks after that. I miss codeview a little, come to think of it.. a good MS app from back when they still made good stuff. lol.. long ago and far away..

Quote:

As for the issue of packaging things up, we need to put a new Gamesys in with pretty much all the TDS FMs, otherwise the objectives/briefing don't work properly, so adding extra classes to it isn't much of a problem. Personally I'd probaby just have done the render>displaymesh thing on an instance of the 1ft placed in the world rather than create a new archetype, but that's just personal preference.

Yeah, I thought of a number of ways of approaching it this morning; but, went to work last night thinking about class inheritance from my programming experience and since I plan on using it for more than one instance over the long haul, figured try that first. If it were just for a few instances, you're right, it would be better to tweak a single object and clone it in the editor as the clone would inherit all the tweaks. ;)

Quote:

I think the easiest way to "toggle" if things can be frobbed or not is to set the HighlightDist to 0 (for unfrobable), and then just script it (set [property] to [value]) back to something like 128 so it highlights again after.

Good tip, thanks. The way I read the Highlight option was
that it only set how close the player had to be to set it. But, you're correct, the zero setting would logically mean unfrobable. That'll save me coding for two variables.

Quote:

And I'm not entirely sure converting a brothel into a jailhouse is a good idea, but that might just be because in my mind one is designed to be easy to get out of, and the other is designed very much not to be. Still, I suppose a building is mostly four walls and a roof, and what the insides get arranged for is somewhat fluid depending on the current owner/occupier, it just might be difficult to show what the "previous owners" used the place for with the available art assets.

Well, a lot of that was born of necessity. I love a good story. I hate it when the reason something is being done
just doesn't add up. I had a good idea for an overall story arc; but, I needed a reason to have Garrett become involved in that story. Getting caught fencing goods seemed reasonable enough. Winding up in jail again seemed reasonable too. I figured, do it in a small town or a town that had just been through some disaster and the jail had been wiped out. Whatever the case, the jail gets relocated and Garrett ends up the first inmate in an unfinished and not completely familiar (to the constabulary) building. It's made some of the character interractions in the readables pretty fun to write. And I've been able to add in some allusions to some favorite material that's been fun too.

Quote:

Also - making missions is like pretty much anything else - the process is easy enough, but time consuming. My current mission has been on the go for around three years now (though it is going unusually slowly *still hoping for before christmas 2008* release). Don't worry about it going slow - we aren't getting paid for this anyway, so there's no strict deadlines. Just have fun, and ask when you want help/advice. We don't always know the answer, but I'll usually chime in with something if I have even a remote idea on where the solution may be.

Definitely having fun. I love this series of games. I waited patiently for the the two sequals to come out after playing the first one. TES is my other fav. I think I currently have something like 100gb of mods for Morrowind and Oblivion. Just plain fun stuff. I'd intended to break into modding with Morrowind; but, just never got around to it. I'm an artist and love the process of creation as much as creating.
So, I'm enjoying the game from another angle. I had just played through Thief II again after finishing T2X for the first time. I found my way back to the circle afterward and a week later, here I am still burning time on the game lol.

Well, just taking a break from the kitchen.. in my inn. It's in process of being rebuilt in the story line; so, I'm having fun being creative in making Cabinets that look like they're actually being built in place. I've built cabinets before. This is a little cruder version of it; but, still fun.. ;)

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 15:49

Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion

Hehe, yeah, I finished downloading the torrent of it around 6 this morning. Haven't installed it or the others I pulled in over the past few days.. yet. But, I'm planning to do so in the next few days. Got Monday and Tuesday nights off, so
I'm planning to do a lot of editing apart from my house chores and tending to the garden. Might be able to work a carb job on the bike in there somewhere (only an hour's work). I'll hate myself by Wednesday.. ;D

havoc211 on 22/6/2008 at 15:52

Quote Posted by Flux

If you clone an actor, you might never know when the problem will arise later on, especially if it is a brush. (vertex edited, unsnapped brush!)So, please do not copy-paste actors, if you want to play it 100% safe.

How can you prevent them bumping each other or getting stuck ridiculously when they return from final patrol to the first one?

Could one use collision detection to revert to a sidestep script till the other actor passes? I haven't gotten that far in my mission building yet. Might be useful to know.

Ziemanskye on 22/6/2008 at 16:15

They do bump even if you have two sets of patrol points, if one catches up to the other. Then they step around each other, a brief exchange of barks later. Otherwise, as I think you said yourself earlier - these are not unreal apples - the AI will just sidestep around other NPCs as long as they have space to do so. Same way you don't need to add extra patrol points for when doors open, and how, after a moment of running into physics stuff (or Garrett), they'll try to move around it (/him).

No extra work required: the AI is fairly good in this.

And back to the cloning thing - if you want to work that paranoid, that's your choice. It's not given me any trouble, so I'll stick to using it where I feel comfortable. I do feel a bit uncomfortable with you telling other people outright not to do it when I know it has worked out just fine for me, but I've probably said similarly blunt things to people about whatever other topics around here at some point, since I am kind of the resident know-it-all.

As for the Cabal, well, I wouldn't want to comment on the other guys missions, but mine is... coalescing slowly. Still a bit early to tell if it's going to work or not as a level, but the art is going to be good.