In the Shadows

[Seven]

Hello sock,

Very interesting clip.
I know you want straight feedback, so I am trying to write what came to my mind while watching it:

1.) Particles from big flames and teleporter are too identical. Try to bring more difference in them.
2.) The big flames particles: Their size, lifetime and flying radius seems a little overdone.
You seem to make use of the "time" keyword rather than the alpha-fading out keyword.
Maybe using alpha to determin their lifetime would look better ? Because now they dissapear abrupt (because of reaching the time value). Try fading out into thin air with alpha keyword.
3.) Corona around big flames look much better than before. Nice !
4.) Small candles seem to have none (it is hard to see because you move so fast in the clip) ?
5.) Teleporter particles (pretty much the same as with big flames).
I like the fact that you use square shaped particle textures, that fits very good into the ITS MOD ambience. Maybe nevertheless, try to not make them complete opaque (see alpha keyword above).
6.) Teleporter texture/shader. It was a good idea to add the same particles into the teleporter texture. That looks great and gives the feeling they fly out of it.
A good mixture of reflective and non-reflective areas of the texture.
The color of the teleporter: It is different than the other colors that are used in the map (like MG said), but that is a rather good thing, because it pops out of it this way. Like an eye-catcher. The complete teleporter area is an eye-catcher aynhow
Oh wait... The floor tiles have the same color as the teleporter. For me he looks fine.

We have a saying in Germany that I want to mention regarding the Darkplaces features:
"Wenn man einmal Blut geleckt hat, kann man nicht mehr aufh�ren."

I would say that you managed it to bring some advanced engine features into the ITS universe, without making it look wrong/overdone. Maybe take the time and think about above mentioned points though.

Great job !

[sock]

When you commented on my first controller mod thread I was like "Hooray! more and new people have stopped ignoring my work."

I don't ignore people's work here I am just more careful what I say. After the last debackle with "I am too pro for feedback" I decided to keep my views to myself. That is not to say I won't offer feedback anymore, just that people have to ask me directly and it won't come sugar coated either!

Google has a funny idea sometimes about video tags and I don't understand how "eye candy" + "video game" can mean face paint, but I can fix that by refining the video tags.

The portal colour is partly me trying to break the brown, brown and more brown palette problems with Quake. I thought the blue would be striking enough that it would be more interesting. I can certainly make different colours and purple would certainly be a nice colour for a different map.

The portal rotates counter clockwise because this portal is an exit and on a subconscious level the player should feel like this portal is pushing them away, hence the rotation is opposite. For portals that the player can enter I have the rotation the right way round.

@talisa, yeah I do like some of the particle replacement flames, I need to sit down and fix the flame model first so that it can rotate properly and not do its strange stuttering. I also believe in cvars for players to tweak stuff and I am certainly looking to create some dp specific console controls.

@Seven, actually this is exactly the type of feedback I like, uncensored and to the point. I really do prefer people to tell me what they don't like or tell me about things they feel could be different.

The particles on the flames are models, I created small diamond models with 40+ skins and 10 different frames for various sizes. I can certainly add more variety of sizes but I think I need to switch these out for something else when running darkplaces. Oh btw your German saying, it rocks!

I am gradually working my way back through all the maps in my MOD and sorting out the rtlight file and replacing basic shader stuff like liquids and portals. Here are the first set of screenshots of the map Shadowgate (S1M1).

Guard Duty in the Cave


New beginning area to the start of the map


Indoor slime pits are awesome!

[talisa]

RT lighting in those pics is looking goods so far

and the shaders look nice too


idea: mebbe add a blue light right in front of the portal, so that it looks like the portal is glowing?

[gnounc]

I use fte for my modding, so I'm not actually familiar with dp's extension list.
But I think more mods in general, could do cool things with sound, dp for example has
pitch shifting.

DP_SOUND7_WIP2 is the builtin according to LH.

oh, forgot to say, I love that portal, it looks great! keep it up.


Also maybe look into cubemaps. You can make some nice stuff with them.

[gnounc]

Just went and did a quick play of the start map. Nice Menu!

I was talking to gb a day or so ago and mentioned that most quake mods
overlook switch weapon sounds.

You should definately put in a unique sound for switching to each weapon.
And possibly a small weapon switching and idle animation.

More nice touches for sounds would be different axe hitting sounds on the walls, one for stone, one for wood, one for paper bookcases.

And footstep sounds. not all the time, just occasionally through water, slime or blood.
Oh and water slime or blood on the floor to step in once and a while to make those sounds too...or just footstep sounds for when you're stepping on/in a dead body. something sloshy.

[Spike]

aye, if you add an extra argument to the sound builtin, you can get slightly different pitches for each sound.
this is awesome for things like footsteps and the player jumps...
best of all, engines normally ignore that extra argument so you don't even need to check if its supported or not. just supply some extra randomized argument and you get less monotonous footsteps etc in both fte and dp. obviously the exact pitch range to use varies by the sound effect and the material its interacting with.
but where I like it the most has to be on jump sounds. seriously.
too many mods do the bare minimum when it comes to sounds.
then again, I personally tend to play with sound disabled anyway, so oh well...

[gdiddy62]

I'm loving the shaders and lighting. Keep up the work and I look forward to enjoying it. The portal is unique and that is a good thing. And I'm glad to see anything break from the normal Quake palette of colors.

[MadGypsy]

"I am too pro for feedback"

You aren't saying that I said this, right? Cause, I'm not pro at all. If I ever said something that made you think this, I assure that was a mistake. I can be aggressive at times and I know people can take my words the wrong way. I'm racking my brains to think of something I said that can be misread this way and I am blank. However, if I gave that impression somehow. I straight-up apologize. Believing in myself is my fuel, I try not to claim to be things that I know I am not though and am definitely no pro at any of this, beyond maybe modding radiant files.

---

The shot of the portal above, actually looks really good to me! Maybe it was just the angles in the video or something, cause when I saw that picture I was like "woah, I was wrong. That looks fantastic!"

the player should feel like this portal is pushing them away

Mission accomplished, cause that's exactly what I didn't like about it. However, now that you explained it, it doesn't seem weird at all.

[sock]

@talisa, there is a blue light infront of the portal with a style of 5. In the video you can see the portal surface glow blue from the light but the colour is very subtle.

@gnounc+spike, yeah I like the idea of pitch shifting existing sounds.

too many mods do the bare minimum when it comes to sounds.

This situation will never change, the amount of free sounds or libraries available on the internet is limited. Most people don't have the experience or resources to produce quality sounds and this is unlikely to change. I would gladly add more sounds to my MOD if I could find a good source that did not involve me spending money! Also if you know anyone who has that experience that could help, let me know!

@gdiddy62, totally agree, it is frustrating when most of the Quake textures are limited to a certain colour range.

You aren't saying that I said this, right? Cause, I'm not pro at all.

No, sorry my mistake, I was talking about this person and how others here decided it was cool to bring the pitchforks and take sides.

One of the primary features of the stealth system is that monsters explode into a shower of body parts and the default system is very basic (arm/leg/torso/slice). I felt this was something that should be more interesting visually, so I started by rework the existing assets and add new multiple frames for variety. The next step was to create custom body parts which randomly drop and the final step to add various explode and impact sounds to the gibs. Here is a collection of the more unique body parts that can appear from monsters, this is an ongoing process and more will be made.

[talisa]

awesome to see you will be adding more gib-model to your mod and make monsters each have some custom gibs. i been working on and off on myself with making custom gib models for all enemies of quake, so that in normal quake all enemies could splatter into gibs which actually look like parts of the enemies rather then just random chunks which dun look like anything at all

.

also, will look at the clip again to check out the light you already added to the portal

EDIT: ah yes i see it now. the light doesnt really look blue though and its perhaps a bit to subtle? mebbe try making it stronger and make it more blue?

[gnounc]

The post above reminds me of mortal kombat, where you get like 3 sets of lungs and 2 sets of intestines whenever somebody explodes. that always made me laugh.

[gdiddy62]

I agree that individual gib parts from specific enemies is awesome! I always liked how enemies gibbed/exploded in Serious Sam and then body parts from that enemy rolled around. That could now be possible if you and Talisa finish your body/gib parts!!

[Seven]

Hello sock,

I like the idea of varying the existing gib models, like you did it here VERY much.

But I am not a big friend of creating cut off legs and arms from individual monsters and spawn them when they are gibbed.
The models have straight cuts like from a really sharp sword or scalpel. That is not really fitting to a gibbed monster in my personal opinion. It is more a chirurgical (if this the correct english word) amputation rather than "torn" out by explosives (which is most the time the case when gibbing).

Again, this idea is wonderful, as it brings a huge variation to gibs. I am a big friend of variations.
That is why i like mods with multiple skins/types for each monster.

Best wishes.

[gdiddy62]

I'll disagree a little Seven. If done correctly without surgical cuts that you mention (which I will agree looks silly) they can look excellent. I've mentioned this to Talisa on her gibs. If you roughen up the edges I think then the variety you mention and seek will come to fruition.

[Seven]

Yes, you are right Jeff.

It depends on how the new gib models are designed
I am a big fan of the "throwing-away-their-weapon" idea.
Especially when the weapons look so cool.
Making some of them pickable and using them would be amazing