nicked on 1/10/2016 at 09:35
Does Time, or the surrounding brushes, or something else not obvious, have any effect on flow brushes? I'm having a terrible time trying to set up a river with a current, because the flow brush properties like to leak, and don't correspond to the actual volume of water surrounded by the flow brush. Frustrating to say the least.
Nameless Voice on 1/10/2016 at 10:17
I'd imagine that the flow brushes apply to cells, so you might try using blockable brushes to force a cell boundary where you want the flow to change
nicked on 1/10/2016 at 12:14
I think you're right - never used blockable brushes before, but after looking them up and strategically placing a few, it's looking a lot neater. Thanks!
SlyFoxx on 1/10/2016 at 13:18
I've released 9 missions and have another that's been in the works for 10+ years and none of this made sense to me. Just goes to show how little you need to know to build one of these suckers. :o
qolelis on 1/10/2016 at 13:21
For future reference: The command "show_cell_flow" is very, very useful if you have complex underwater terrain. When invoked with the flow group index as its only parameter, it will show water cells affected by the given flow group in pink and all other in dark blue. If a water cell has no flow, it will be shown in green, which makes it a lot easier to spot problematic areas. If the given flow group index is zero, the colouring of water cells is disabled.
LarryG on 1/10/2016 at 15:01
If you go back and look at original LGS missions you'll see how crappy their flow looked too. But players pretty much don't notice or don't care. So don't worry about it too much.
john9818a on 1/10/2016 at 15:52
In one of my missions I offset each section of river by a tiny amount because the flow of one brush would bleed over onto the next in an erratic manner.
nicked on 1/10/2016 at 16:00
The problem I had was there were corners in a river where the flow was pushing the player into the wall rather than around the corner. It's working now though, so you can jump in at one end and the current will accurately transport you to the other end without additional input. Took me way longer than it should have though, because blockable brushes add cells and I'm right up against the cell limit. Had to simplify a few unrelated areas.
Nameless Voice on 2/10/2016 at 00:42
Quote Posted by SlyFoxx
I've released 9 missions and have another that's been in the works for 10+ years and none of this made sense to me. Just goes to show how little you need to know to build one of these suckers. :o
Dark's terrain is made out of "cells". A cell is basically an open area of some kind, very similar to a fill air brush but at a lower level.
For example, when you create a fill air brush with a fill solid "pillar" in the middle, Dark will create four cells (imagine how you would create that same area with only air brushes.)
Cells are usually of a smaller size than air brushes. Texture edges and various intersections will cause cell boundaries. Portalisation turns all the brushes into cells, to the best of its ability.
Blockable brushes allow you to add "hints" for the portaliser - the edge of a blockable brush will always be a cell edge.
In the case of flow brushes, the flow is applies to all water cells inside it. If you want the flow to be split in a precise place, you can use a blockable brush to force a cell transition at that exact location - otherwise, you can only split it at whichever location the portaliser decides to put a cell division.
nicked on 2/10/2016 at 10:43
Great explanation! Once you realise flow brushes affect cells rather than directly affecting the water brushes, it all makes sense.
