The RichDiesel University Tutorial Questions Thread. - Page 2

RichDiesal · 06-30-2002, 02:18 PM

Quote:

The smallest tunnel Kyle can duck through is 48 units heigh by 36 units wide.

Thanks! Useful information.

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Exactly how you put chaulk on the nonvisible sides of any patch mesh?

You don't! Patches are technically only textured on one side, so the engine treats them as if caulk was on the backside anyway.

Derisor · 06-30-2002, 05:06 PM

I build a door according to the info you gave in the tutorial but there is one problem. As soon as I put the area portal inside the door brush, I now get a wacky HOM effect instead of a door. What did I do wrong ?

Master Xavier · 06-30-2002, 08:29 PM

(praises the mapping god that is Rich)

thanks for the help

(i'd send you pic's of my map but I have nowhere to upload them)

Derisor · 06-30-2002, 10:25 PM

Get a free site from lycos. =)

RichDiesal · 07-01-2002, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Derisor
I build a door according to the info you gave in the tutorial but there is one problem. As soon as I put the area portal inside the door brush, I now get a wacky HOM effect instead of a door. What did I do wrong ?

That means you didn't put the areaportal in the right place.

The area portal should fit ENTIRELY inside the door - as in, in Radiant, you should be unable to see the areaportal itself from any side of the door. You should also only use it on doors that block off entire corridors from other areas.

You can create a HOM when you place an areaportal in a visible part of a door.

snakeeyesa27 · 07-01-2002, 09:55 AM

Hey Rich, I am having a compile problem.
Whenever I reach a certian level of complexity (for lack of a better word) I get the compile error NUM POINT EXCEED MAX POINTS ON WINDING. It doesn't matter what kind of compile, and I don't know what to do, since I get this problem even though this is barely the beginning of my level. Also Raven's maps are far more complex, and apparently they compiled. This has happened on various level's i've made. Also, changing brushes between detail and structural makes no difference. Have you ever had this problem?

p.s. if you'd like specifics i can send you my .map

snakeeyesa27 · 07-01-2002, 11:30 AM

uh.. he he... nevermind. sorry for asking before i looked at all the old posts.

if anyone else has this
http://teamhuh.com/articles.asp?articleid=22

jedihunter · 07-01-2002, 09:46 PM

I have a rather simple question.

How can you tell if a brush is set as detailed or structural?
Is there a little button or icon you can check?

RichDiesal · 07-01-2002, 10:10 PM

Any time you want to tell the difference, press CTRL+D and all the Detail Brushes will disappear. Anything left is (obviously) Structural.

Redvan · 07-02-2002, 02:02 AM

How did you get so GOOD?!!

RichDiesal · 07-02-2002, 02:23 AM

It's all just randomly acquired bits and pieces of information about Radiant and mapping.

Just a good memory more than anything else.

Anyone can make a great map in the Q3A engine - it just takes actually taking the time to learn the ins and outs of Radiant/scripting and learning all of the commands and techniques.

Oh, and be creative and never give up!

Derisor · 07-02-2002, 06:20 AM

Great .. now can you tell me how to attach a script to an entity at spawn time? How to trigger a script on death of an entity? Or how to create a script for any generic object that is run whe the user picks that object up?

RichDiesal · 07-02-2002, 06:40 AM

Don't know scripting, sorry.

Learning it now myself. Read the ICARUS manual - that'll get you started.

Though I do know if you want to have a script start when an NPC is spawned, you can set the key spawnscript and a value. If you want a script to run on the main PC (Kyle), you need to target the info_player_start at a target_scriptrunner.

Derisor · 07-02-2002, 07:07 AM

it would be nice to have a document somewhere wiht all the keys that once can set on objects.

I have created a script that sets force powers on startup of a level and would be happy to make a tutorial for it if you accept submissions.

RichDiesal · 07-02-2002, 01:46 PM

All the possible keys for entities are listed in the little gray box in the entity panel...

And I'll be writing that tutorial myself later - thanks though.

Derisor · 07-02-2002, 06:35 PM

Actually ... they arent. There are some undocumented keys in the system.

RichDiesal · 07-03-2002, 04:33 AM

Oh really? Such as what?

And I assume you're using the SP entity help files, because the MP entity help files are incomplete.

jipe · 07-03-2002, 05:18 AM

Quote:

How to trigger a script on death of an entity?

Target the entity at a target_scriptrunner that has the spawnscript key and the value is the path to your script.

Derisor · 07-03-2002, 10:01 AM

Such as the keys that make something force activatable. I really wish they would have given us Yavin trials for example.

RichDiesal · 07-03-2002, 11:56 AM

Create a func_door in SP and see what the FORCE_ACTIVATE checkbox adds for spawnflags. It is also talked about in the help box. Then use that value on your MP map.

Although I'm not entirely sure that that specific key works in MP... haven't tried it.

Derisor · 07-03-2002, 05:04 PM

Well, except that im not looking to make a door but rather something like those sliders in the Yavin Trial level.

Derisor · 07-03-2002, 08:45 PM

OK RichDiesel. This student of yours has created a map as a WIP for a SP level. It has quite a few different things in the map. Give it a look and let me know what you think. The map file is included in the PK3.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/derisor/sewers.pk3

RichDiesal · 07-03-2002, 11:08 PM

Well, the sliders in the Yavin Trial level were all done with scripting.

As for the map, not bad... definitely a good start. But I did notice a couple of things.

For one, there's a grate in the floor in between rooms with what looked like HOM behind it... You need to have something back there.

It looks a tad odd.

In the hallways, you have a bit of texturing mismatching... As in there is a visible line between the lower texture and the upper texture.

Also, it's really annoying to have tons of doors where only some of them work and there's no good way to figure out which is which.

You also need to master your func_usables to make the switches change (or work them via scripting).

On the upside though, your architecture is pretty well designed - good vertex editing on the curves (no seams that I saw) and most everything seems appropriately caulked... although I did just look at the BSP and didn't check out the MAP. I will assume you did it right.

G-ForceX4 · 07-03-2002, 11:28 PM

Couple Questions Rich,
1.)Where can I find a site that has an in depth tutorial on shaders?(im sure yours will have it soonly but i need it NOW

)

2.)Is it possible to create a moving fog?

3.)Is it possible to lessen the number of particles in a fog and spread them apart? ( in case you havent figured it out, im trying to create RAIN!)

Anywho, great job with the kamino map, i was especially impressed with the accuracy of the textures and the actual design ALMOST fit exactly with the movie.

RichDiesal · 07-03-2002, 11:31 PM

1) No real good shader-coding tutorials that I know of except for the shader manual itself.
2) Yes... with shaders.

3) Do you mean actual fog or fog shaders? Actual fog (as in, the fog inside water), there aren't individual particles, so you just increase/decrease its opacity (which is in the shader script). A fog shader, yes, although I'm exactly sure how on that one.

And thanks! I was going for a movie feel and not a movie design (was aiming more at good dueling gameplay) so that's why it's not exact to the movie.

Derisor · 07-03-2002, 11:40 PM

Yeah .. but did you notice my hallway carpet texture ?

Btw .. watch where you shoot in the sewers themselves. Remember the scene from episode 4 ?

Ill check the points you mentioned. Right now what gets me is there is a sparklies effect in the sewers where one curve meets the sewer but the merge is EXACT and Im nto sure wherei t is comming from.

As for the usables, I just enabled everything. In the third room, walk up to the blinking panel on the levt and hit your use key and you will see the switch on the sewer door change.

Did you find the secret area?

DarkSkywalker · 07-04-2002, 01:00 AM

Hey Rich, nice tutorials, even my brother can do them

I guess Im used to Serious Sam, where you dont have to make a single brush for every single wall, istead flag a brush as "room," but anyways I have a question.

All of the pipes i see in single player seem to be models with bounding boxes made of invisible brushes. Is this true? If not do you have a tutorial on making those nice curvy pipes?

RichDiesal · 07-04-2002, 01:27 AM

Neh, as far as I know, they're all just square caulk pipes with bevels inside to give the appearance of a pipe. Just use my arched-ceiling in a hallway tutorial and double it to encompass the entire hallway.

And as for Derisor, you need usables!

Usables make your map seem interactive instead of just being a big congregation of blocks that you can poke. All I noticed is that that first door up on the left from the start didn't switch when I switched it.

And I wasn't looking for a secret area, so no.

DarkSkywalker · 07-04-2002, 01:31 AM

So why is it when you shoot the pipes, they dont leave any scorch marks? I thought that only happens you you have a model and a bounding box?

RichDiesal · 07-04-2002, 01:33 AM

It will also happen if you put an invisible shader on top of it (for example - slick). If you're referring to the bespin air vents, I think they have invisible curves inside the actual curves covered with system/slick

Not 100% sure on that though.

DarkSkywalker · 07-04-2002, 01:37 AM

Also, I was having problems with the bouncers yesterday. I made a brush, copied it, put it right on top of the other, covered it with trigger, made it a trigger push, made another bush and made it a target whatever it was, then linked it with the ctrl k, the line even showed up to show that they were linked, but when i tested it no luck. Any ideas?

DarkSkywalker · 07-04-2002, 01:52 AM

oh, and do you know wha tthe opengl lighting feature in GTK does exactly? I cant notice any real difference when its selected and not...

Blaster · 07-04-2002, 04:19 AM

I am having problems with Gtk Radiant, what happens is I design my map and compile it...The map compiles OK and I get to check out my level. However when I return to GtkRadiant to add to my level, the parts of my level that I have just worked on disappears.
Please help since I have no idea whats going on and I can't make levels if I can't solve this problem.

The GtkRadiant is version 1.2.9 and my systems specs are: -
900Mhz Celeron processor
512MB SDRAM
60GB hard drive
64MB Geforce2 Ti (with the latest Detonator drivers)
Jedi Outcast also has the latest patch.

DarkSkywalker · 07-04-2002, 05:00 AM

try making a backup of you .map file before you compile, until you find out whats going on.

daywalkerx · 07-04-2002, 05:51 AM

how do i make a certain that when someone crosses it they die. ( like when they fall off the side of the building into the pit of darkness)

RichDiesal · 07-04-2002, 06:14 AM

Quote:

I made a brush, copied it, put it right on top of the other, covered it with trigger, made it a trigger push, made another bush and made it a target whatever it was, then linked it with the ctrl k, the line even showed up to show that they were linked, but when i tested it no luck. Any ideas?

That should work just fine... Are you sure that the trigger_push brush can be walked into by the player? The player needs to be able to physically touch the trigger brush for it to throw him.

Quote:

oh, and do you know wha tthe opengl lighting feature in GTK does exactly? I cant notice any real difference when its selected and not...

That switches the rendering in the 3D View between Direct3D and OpenGL drivers... if you have an nVidia card, you should be able to browse the 3D View in OpenGL faster than in D3D.

Quote:

I am having problems with Gtk Radiant

Sorry, I don't use GTK. Does it do it in JK2R?

Quote:

how do i make a certain that when someone crosses it they die. ( like when they fall off the side of the building into the pit of darkness)

It is in my tutorials at http://richdiesal.jedioutcastmaps.com/tutorials/ ... the servers are down at the moment, but they should be back up soon.

simarilius · 07-04-2002, 06:33 AM

Rich, any idea why I'm getting this in my level? the patches are all lined up perfectly in the editor.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/simariliu...peeder/wtf.jpg

thanks for the tutorials by the way, you've done a really good job explaining complicated stuff in a simple way.

RichDiesal · 07-04-2002, 06:47 AM

Well, you need to first realize that patches aren't technically curves... they are just highly triangulated (that's probably not the right word) surfaces. Thus, in the game, sometimes two patches up next to each other won't have their triangles matched up to each other.

The only way to make sure that they are perfectly lined up is to make sure that the vertices (not the curves themselves) in Radiant are perfectly lined up. Even a fraction of a grid unit will cause problems.

Just a random guess, but you didn't use bevels for your curve and then make an endcap cap did you? And you made sure to add the cap after you'd manipulated the vertices? Failing either of those would cause a problem like that.

WhiteShdw · 07-04-2002, 07:52 AM

Hey, Richdiesel. Thanks for the tutorials. They've been a great help so far. I do have some questions though.

1. I created a small hallway for Kyle to crawl through and i put a door at the end that leads to another room. I put an area portal brush inside the door, like in your tutorial. Now when the door opens i get the HOM effect. In another part of the map i also created a door with a area portal in it and that worked fine. I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong. The only difference is that one door is a lot bigger than the other one.

2. I'm trying to get the vacuum of space effect that Raven put in some of their SP maps. I got a big room with a force field. I made a button/trigger which activates and deactivates the forcefield. I was trying to use trigger_push for the vacuum effect, but i want it to activate and deactivate with the forcefield. Is it possible to activate/deactivate trigger_push, or am i doing this all wrong and is there another way to make this work.

3. Does MP use the same lighting engine as SP? I loaded up my map in Sp and Mp and the lighting looks a lot better in SP.

Shadriss · 07-04-2002, 09:17 AM

Ok, Rich. I join my thanks to the countless others doubtlessly already expressed. Those tuts have gotten me off to a great start. But since I design for MP exclusively (and duel maps for that matter) there are a couple areas that I'm not to clear on.

First off, they both have to do with PK3's (I think...)

Like, for example, how to get music to play in your level? Architecture, lighting and gameplay are all great, ,but hey, you gotta have tunes!

Second, I HAVE to know how to do BOT routing. I mean, as you said, it's the right thing to do. I have a duel map ready except for those elements (may not be GREAT, but Hey, *I* like it!) so I'd REALLY like to finish it off before moving on to another map.

Anyone else with these answers, feel free to let me know - I've searched all kinds of forums, and no clear answers. And as yet, no tuts! (nudge nudge, Rich...)