DrK on 27/9/2012 at 14:50
The idea of this thread is to create a list of all the new things and improvements this outstanding patch adds for us FM authors.
I think there are tons of new possibilities with this new dromed, and we'll discover them through trial & error. To have a list of features in the readme file is one thing, to actually build and create these is something else. Furthermore, it seems the interface has changed a little as well.
So, everytime you create or discover something new, I suggest you post in this thread an explanation, a tutorial or something the like, even a simple screenshot to show it. Then I'll link them in the main post. Share the knowledge taffers !
This way we should have a clear list of what's actually new for FM authors, new things to take in consideration when you build a FM 1.19.
First you should download a fixed dromed.exe, now the objects cast shadows from sunlight :
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http://www.wearytaffer.com/storage/DROMED_119_SunlightFix.zip) DROMED V1.19 SUNLIGHT FIX
DROMED INTERFACE :
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0dHgEaUCEQ) - A tutorial by SneaksieGarrett
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144066&viewfull=1#post2144066) - Full hardware rendering in the editor 3D view
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140110) - Resizing the Dromed interface fields
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140110&p=2144604&viewfull=1#post2144604) - Numpad works in dromed windows now
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140652) - Making a list of all .bin files in your mission!
BRUSHES :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144067&viewfull=1#post2144067) - Possibility to create cylinders with 26 faces. (with the 3 cylinders trick we can have 52 sides ! )
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http://www.ricebug.net/Tutorials/Exporting.html) - Terrain Export Feature.
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140206) - Room brushing improvements!
TEXTURES :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140086&p=2143561&viewfull=1#post2143561) - Supports high resolution textures (up to 4096x4096 16M according to readme file)
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144462&viewfull=1#post2144462) - Supports GIF, PCX, TGA, PNG, DDS, PCX 32-bit, BMP 24/32-bit, TGA RLE as textures
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144259&viewfull=1#post2144259) - Full.pcx not required anymore for brush textures
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144067&viewfull=1#post2144067) - Supports DDS files (Thief 3 textures)
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2144083&viewfull=1#post2144083) - Uvmap_cylinder command forces a texture to tile around a cylinder
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118907&p=2145882&viewfull=1#post2145882) - AlignExt feature
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140122&p=2146324&viewfull=1#post2146324) - Terrain scale, an easy way to update existing textures with higher resolution ones
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140634&p=2159806&viewfull=1#post2159806) - TxtRepl properties don't require the texture to be on a terrain brush or another object
LIGHTING :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140086&p=2143513&viewfull=1#post2143513) - Better rendering for lights and colors ingame
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140086&p=2144160&viewfull=1#post2144160) - 3 different kinds of lightmaps : 16bit, 32bit & 32bit 2x
- Coronas have new features : to follow moving objects, have spotlight cones, custom colors.
AI :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140097&p=2145076&viewfull=1#post2145076) - AIs cast shadows now
BOOKS :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140086&p=2145530&viewfull=1#post2145530) - Images in readables
PARTICLES :
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http://thief.starforge.co.uk/wiki/Tutorials:NewDark/Particle_effects_-_Bitmap_Disk_Fire) - Particle effects : Bitmap Disk Fire
INVENTORY :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141162) - New possibilities with the automap
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141187) - PNG automaps
MISC :
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http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140106) - Thief in 3D ! (This might interest fm authors)
R Soul on 27/9/2012 at 15:30
Quote Posted by DrK
- Possibility to create cylinders with 26 faces top.
And with the 3 cylinders trick we can get 52 sides!
We also have the uvmap_cylinder command, so we can force a texture to wrap around a cylinder, or tile it
seamlessly. I tried this with an 8 sided cylinder, aligned by sides, with a wood panel texture. D&W: 4, H: 8. The uvmap values were Num U Tiles: 8, Num V Tiles: 1, everything else default. Try it with vicm09\vic36, or one of the other narrow textures.
--------------
There's a list of new commands in doc\new_commands.txt. Well worth a read.
DrK on 27/9/2012 at 15:39
Quote Posted by R Soul
And with the 3 cylinders trick we can get 52 sides!
We also have the uvmap_cylinder command, so we can force a texture to wrap around a cylinder, or tile it
seamlesslyI need new pants... Oh boy this is gonna be so much fun.
epithumia on 27/9/2012 at 15:45
With the possibility of dromed not being impossibly crashy, I'm actually thinking of picking it up to tinker a bit. I've never touched it before except to start it and look through the mass of menus.
It would be substantially awesome if some kind soul went through some of the basic tutorials and updated them for the new engine. I know the concepts are all the same but stuff like the new all-in-one build dialog would probably be useful to mention (if I'm even understanding what that part of the release notes is talking about).
ZylonBane on 27/9/2012 at 22:45
Y'know, if whoever released these patches decides to continue their work, releasing a v1.20, v1.21, etc, this is going to result in a lot of confusing/misleading/obsolete thread titles.
Xorak on 27/9/2012 at 22:51
I might be dreaming this, but I had higher quality versions of my 256x256 textures on a completely different drive, and the new dromed recognized and used them instead automatically. As long as they have the same name.
Yandros on 28/9/2012 at 04:00
Wow, how timely! I'm going to be trying to improve the flames in Codex tonight and will definitely check this out as a starting point. We're going to 1.19 for the mission so there's no reason not to make use of the new particle stuff.
I just discovered something amazing about ambient light in 1.19. I've been exploring the multiple ambient light settings and fog zones tonight and love it, maybe I'll write a tut for this thread on them eventually if no one beats me to it. But I wanted to report that ambient light is now truly granular over [0,255]. I discovered some time ago in 1.18 that taking any of the ambient RGB values below 8 actually drops it down to 0; effectively it rounded down to the next lower multiple of 8. So you couldn't have a really dark mission unless you wanted it pitch dark (ambient light set to (0,0,0)).
But 1.19 appears to honor all discrete values over the [0,255] interval without any rounding down (as you would expect in a higher res light map I guess). I just set ambient light to (3,1,7) in one area of Codex and it's beautifully dark and bluish, just as I wanted. A mission designed and built (or at least roombrushed) from scratch with this in mind will allow you to really control ambient light level between outdoor, indoor and underground areas and really heighten the atmosphere. Your tunnels and sewers can be really dark even if it's a daylight mission outside, for example. Rooms with windows can have higher ambient light than those without, as another example. But you gotta plan it all out before you start roombrushing or it's a lot of tedious rework. I'm moving Codex to 1.19 but I'm probably not going to do much in this area on it other than lowering ambient light in a couple of key underground areas which already have concrete roombrushes.
