Adsk1 on 15/10/2012 at 14:54
Quote Posted by Ravenhook
Lovely mission, only problem I have is when the alarm is raised and I have to find another way out, if I enter the secure storage room at the end of the corridor to pinch the valuable vases..it crashes to desktop.
Bug has been attended to.
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I completely forgot the gavel and decided to run the gauntlet again but as soon as I try to access anywhere else...crash to desktop..so its curtains for me I'm afraid.
Not had this bug reported before, I'll look into that.
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Regarding the jittering in the large open areas, did you use "zones", they really help in cutting down the frame rate jitters...I made a level which I never released and was surprised just how much smoother things were with "zones".
I did use zones, but not as many as I would have liked due to memory constraints. Because I wanted everything to fit into a single load (should really have been split across two load-ins) I had to cut corners and reducing Zone Portals was one of them. Mainly because I took the assumption that being 10 years old now, most fans computers would be much more capable of running TDS and thusly larger zones without jitter. For the record, Navigation Mesh Subtraction Volumes were also neglected to conserve memory, choosing to use the Static Meshes to subtract from it by default. This sometimes results in the AI trying to move directly to locations when they should go around.
But thank you for the feedback.
Beleg Cúthalion on 16/10/2012 at 08:24
Quote Posted by Adsk1
I did use zones, but not as many as I would have liked due to memory constraints. Because I wanted everything to fit into a single load (should really have been split across two load-ins) I had to cut corners and reducing Zone Portals was one of them. Mainly because I took the assumption that being 10 years old now, most fans computers would be much more capable of running TDS and thusly larger zones without jitter. For the record, Navigation Mesh Subtraction Volumes were also neglected to conserve memory, choosing to use the Static Meshes to subtract from it by default. This sometimes results in the AI trying to move directly to locations when they should go around.
AFAIK there are hardly actual memory constraints, only this cursed property storage count thingy. Zone(portal)s should only mess up things when they are done unclean and navmesh sub volumes reduce the complexity (and thus size/memory...?) of the navmesh. Of course both things use up properties just because they're objects in the map, but it shouldn't be a game-breaking factor (plus, I made the experience that simply deleting content doesn't solve the issue). We might take this to the T3Ed Guild to have a closer look at your problem, but I think something can be done about it.
platz on 16/10/2012 at 18:35
Quote Posted by Adsk1
The size was intentional... suffice to say, you worked out that you could get through it in the end.
Well no... I read the spoiler but agree I didn't search a lot ;)
Quote Posted by Adsk1
This was intentional and was based on the idea used in Thief 1 or 2 where there wasn't an objective until you reached a certain level.
I'm talking about a loot-info AFTER you reached that level. But maybe it's shown at the end of mission (I didn't read the debriefing) :tsktsk:
Adsk1 on 17/10/2012 at 12:36
Quote Posted by platz
I'm talking about a loot-info AFTER you reached that level. But maybe it's shown at the end of mission (I didn't read the debriefing) :tsktsk:
Ah, I see now. It may have been linked to the fact that it was wrongly listed under the Notes section rather than the Objectives section, but I'll add that to my list of bugs to check. Thank you.
Adsk1 on 17/10/2012 at 13:35
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
AFAIK there are hardly actual memory constraints, only this cursed property storage count thingy. Zone(portal)s should only mess up things when they are done unclean and navmesh sub volumes reduce the complexity (and thus size/memory...?) of the navmesh. Of course both things use up properties just because they're objects in the map, but it shouldn't be a game-breaking factor (plus, I made the experience that simply deleting content doesn't solve the issue). We might take this to the T3Ed Guild to have a closer look at your problem, but I think something can be done about it.
I have to appologise because I'm nowhere near an expert in all things T3Ed, so I wasn't quoting fact here, it was just based on my own personal experience and/or observations.
I know from the problems I was having during my learning process on the build of my first mission (Mansion) that once the unr file size reaches over 7MB the game always crashed during loading of the mission. That is what I was referring to when I said about memory constraints.
Originally I had a zone portal on either side of each doorway, as is recommended, but by removing one portal from each of them, it reduced the number of zone portals and portal properties and in consequence, the file size too, which stopped the crashing on load.
Another possibly related incident has occured on my current build of a mission where every second save I made during playtest caused the game to freeze before terminating to the desktop, even though the map was only 6.5MB in size. After two days spent, removing parts, re-testing and putting parts back, it transpired that it was down to too many static meshes (which I guess relates to the property storage count that you spoke of). So by replacing some static meshes (a load of large crates) with BSPs instead, it fixed the save-game problem.
As far as the NavMesh is concerned the area of reference was particularly relevent to stairs, where the navmesh would join to areas of the floor from the sides of several steps up, where an AI clearly couldn't step-up. The only resolve is to place NavMesh subtraction Volumes (Or static meshes such as railings and use NavMesh Subtraction feature) on either side of the steps to stop the NavMesh from joining to the ground at these higher points and thusly, I assume, adding two more property storage counts to the file, increasing file size. These are the kind of features that I had to cut out in order to keep the file size down.
Other aspects of the NavMesh are where I used Static Meshes to subtract from the NavMesh instead of NavMesh Subtraction Volumes. I made a small sample room with some furniture and four pillars in the middle of the room. Fully compiled, using only the Static Mesh NavMesh Subtraction function the unr file was 111KB. When I used NavMesh Subtraction Volumes around areas of static meshes, the fully compiled unr file was 129KB.
My take on this was that, by using Navmesh Subtraction Volumes, the tiny amount of reduction in complication of the NavMesh was out-weighed by the amount of data used for the properties of each of the NavMesh Subtraction Volumes. So in most circumstances I decided not to use them. The only benefit to using NavMesh Subtraction Volumes that I found, was in large areas of Static Meshes, where the AI can't, shouldn't or wouldn't go.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong here... But indeed, it would be interesting to hear yours and the T3ED Guilds take on this.
Linda on 28/11/2012 at 02:45
There must be an error in the second mission, "The Mansion": I just entered
in the room where there is the Lord Wandsworth's bottle, but when I grab the goods, the percentage goes up, but in the objectives it remains at 81%, and I cannot complete the objective. Stealing the bottle I'm at 91%.Is it a bug or is there any loot elsewhere? I grabbed everything was in the rooms and in the bathrooms.
Inline Image:
http://i50.tinypic.com/533b4i.jpgInline Image:
http://i49.tinypic.com/14b83ug.jpgKoning Kaas on 28/11/2012 at 14:14
Quote Posted by ”Linda”
There must be an error in the second mission, "The Mansion": I just entered
in the room where there is the Lord Wandsworth's bottle, but when I grab the goods, the percentage goes up, but in the objectives it remains at 81%, and I cannot complete the objective. Stealing the bottle I'm at 91%.Is it a bug or is there any loot elsewhere? I grabbed everything was in the rooms and in the bathrooms.
In mission 2 the loot is not properly counted. The only workaround at this moment is to restart the level on a lower difficulty where 81% loot is sufficient.
@Adsk1:
Great mission pack. I really liked the diversity of the levels. You can see your skill with level designing increase with each consecutive mission :-). If you could fix the remaining bugs this mission pack would be truly great, especially mission 4 takes some determination due to the save bug.
All-in all I really appreciate your effort. It took me about 14 hours to finish and those hours were happily spend.
Adsk1 on 2/12/2012 at 19:15
Quote Posted by Koning Kaas
In mission 2 the loot is not properly counted. The only workaround at this moment is to restart the level on a lower difficulty where 81% loot is sufficient.
@Adsk1:
Great mission pack. I really liked the diversity of the levels. You can see your skill with level designing increase with each consecutive mission :-). If you could fix the remaining bugs this mission pack would be truly great, especially mission 4 takes some determination due to the save bug.
All-in all I really appreciate your effort. It took me about 14 hours to finish and those hours were happily spend.
Your compliments are appreciated. And thank you for answering Linda's question on my behalf.
It's funny that you say you can see my skill with level designing increase with each mission, because I didn't actually design them in the order they are presented. The Mansion mission was the first and had many subsequent revamps over the course of the whole campaign build.
As we speak, work is in progress with an updated version that I am calling Thief's Rising, Gold Edition. The new version not only fixes a whole host of bugs and improvements from the original mission set, but also has some marked modifications too. It also includes two new missions that tie in to the story and some additional features like loading screens, other languages, and such.
You can check my progress on the bottom of the first post, where I score a rough completion percentage. Bottom line, it's not going to be until next year, I'd like to think February, but time being as it is, could be longer. Maybe you'd like to revisit it then?
Linda on 30/12/2012 at 03:11
stuck again in mountain castle... :sweat:
I'm 94% and I need 95% loot. Where I have to search?
gnartsch on 30/12/2012 at 09:43
Quote Posted by Linda
stuck again in mountain castle... :sweat:
I'm 94% and I need 95% loot. Where I have to search?
According to my own notes, there is no big honey-pot or any hard-to-find loot
in the upper levels.
My best bet would to send you
down to the zombies again. :sly:
Most (if not all) of these rooms have some loot. Have fun. :cheeky:
