Tuesday 30 November 2010

Getting Back Into Models

I Have Forgot Most Of It

As usual my brain has leaked out knowledge and information I haven't needed in a while so I seem to have lost most of my Blender 3D knowledge.  Great, that was a lot of useful stuff about modelling.

I now need to do some research and read some tutorials on how it works again so I can start on my modelling posts.  My plan is to take the basic player model and make ones with big heads and helmets - cartoon-ish.  It would be funny to see in the game and even more fun to see if the game server would register a headshot with the new model.

As I re-learn Blender I will make posts when appropriate to explain what I have done and allow anyone else to have a go themselves.

Blender 3D is a free modelling program.  I have it installed with my Liberkey portable apps, which is a great piece of kit if you hate installing software.

Monday 29 November 2010

Day Of Defeat Source : Tutorial 3 - Making Bright Colour Player Models

It's Like The Toy Soldiers I Had As A Kid

In this tutorial we will see how easy it is to change the colour of the game player models for allies and axis easily.  This will mean when you play you can see bright players running around the maps, making it easier to spot them.  You can also apply the same idea to grenades that are thrown.  This will work on most servers, but some have sv_pure set on the server to dis-allow custom models and textures.

  1. Download GCFSCAPE. It is here
  2. Download PAINT.NET. It is here.
  3. Download VTF PLUGIN FOR PAINT.NET. It is here
  4. Install GCFSCAPE, PAINT.NET and the VTF PLUGIN (comes with instructions).
  5. Run GCFSCAPE.
  6. Select Open. Go to C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps.
  7. Select Day Of Defeat Source.gcf - which contains all of the game materials.
  8. Navigate to root/dod/materials/models/player.
  9. Drag that folder to your location C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\USERNAME\Day Of Defeat Source\Dod\Materials\Models\Player - this puts the game player models in your game folder.
  10. Run PAINT.NET and open one of the files in the American or German folder
    the best ones are the ones that contain the player faces.
  11. Edit the file in PAINT.NET to make your own skin colour. I suggest you simply
    make a filled rectangle to completely cover the entire image e.g. bright green
    rectangle
  12. Save the file.
  13. Run Steam and DOD Source, when playing the team will all be that colour.


You now have an effective bright coloured model to help you if you have bad eyesight or just want an advantage.  Below is a sample screenshot of the game with colour models.  I have left a sample of the American player in green here, and the German player in red here.




Enjoy the fix from me [adct]Glassjaw

Day Of Defeat Source : Tutorial 2 - Making A Custom Crosshair

It's All About The Little Red Dot

You can have found when playing DOD source that the seven game crosshairs provided are just not good enough.  I find them to be quite small so always make one that suits me.  I also like to make them multi-coloured so I can see them better in all maps.

This is a reasonably easy process if the steps are followed well.

  1. Download GCFSCAPE. It is here
  2.  Download PAINT.NET. It is here.
  3. Download VTF PLUGIN FOR PAINT.NET. It is here.
  4. Install GCFSCAPE, PAINT.NET and the VTF PLUGIN (comes with instructions).
  5. Run GCFSCAPE.
  6. Select Open. Go to C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps.
  7. Select Day Of Defeat Source.gcf - which contains all of the game materials.
  8. Navigate to root/dod/materials/vgui/crosshairs in GCFSCAPE.
  9. Drag that folder to your location C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\USERNAME\Day Of Defeat Source\Dod\Materials\vgui - this puts the game crosshairs in your game folder.
  10. Run PAINT.NET and open one of the files in the Crosshairs folder e.g. crosshair7.vtf
  11. Edit the file in PAINT.NET to make your own crosshair.  The design is up to you.
  12. Save the crosshair file.
  13. Run Steam and DOD Source, go to options menu in game and select the crosshair.

     
You now have an effective custom crosshair in your game - this makes aiming better if the crosshair works well with you..  Here is a sample of a crosshair I like to use.  It is much larger than the ones provided by the game.  I have left a sample of crosshair7 online here.




Enjoy the fix from me [adct]Glassjaw

Day Of Defeat Source : Tutorial 1 - Making The Game Quiet

Stop Sound In DOD Source Game


This will be a quick game fix that works on all servers because it is a client side fix i.e. on your computer.  The method was thought up by me as far as I know but as always great minds think alike so someone may have also paralleled this method, and if they well done :-)!


  1. Copy your Ambient folder as a backup in case you mess this up.  It is in C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\USERNAME\Day Of Defeat Source\Dod\Sound\Ambient.   If you cannot find this folder in that location you may not have played DOD Source yet.  This folder will have the default game sounds that play during the basic maps that were made for the game, but can also have some extra sounds that you pick up as you play other maps on servers, custom sounds for home made maps.
  2. Run Windows Sound Recorder (Start->Accessories->Entertainment->Sound Recorder).
  3. Click Record button and then stop at about 3 seconds, we are recording silence.
  4. Save the file in the Ambient folder as silence.wav
  5. Copy and Paste the silence.wav file many times, this will make many copies with
     similar names.
  6. Double click on one of the sounds in the Ambient folder such as thunder2.wav.  This will play the sound in your default sound player.  Decide if you hate it - if you do delete it! If you did delete it then
    rename one of the silence.wav files to that name thunder2.wav

    NOTE:: This means that the game will still play the thunder2.wav file for that
    sound effect but it will be simply silence.

     
  7. Repeat step 6 again and again until all of the annoying sounds are gone.

You now have an effective stop sound working on your game with less background sounds.. When you play the game you will find that many maps a less noisy and your ability to hear player footsteps nearby increases, as well as identifying gun fire in the distance.

I have left a sample of silence.wav here, and silence.mp3 here.

An additional method that I was given by Ninja Ski from =FFC=Clan  was to use some game commands that also stop the noises from the game that can be played ad-hoc by other players and server admins.  These are usually funny sound effects and music.  I have always found this annoying so 'bind' the commands to a key.

The commands are::

play test.mp3;snd_mixvol ambient 0

You could bind this to the Z key with: bind "z" "play test.mp3;snd_mixvol ambient 0" 

This is done by editing the file config.cfg  located at C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\USERNAME\Day Of Defeat Source\Dod\Cfg\

 I will discuss binds in a later post as I find useful ones.  I use this nice little sound stopper with my w key (walk forward) and the left mouse button (fire weapon) as well as right mouse button (weapon option).  Here are my binds:

bind "w" "+forward;play test.mp3;snd_mixvol ambient 0"
bind "MOUSE1" "+attack;play test.mp3;snd_mixvol ambient 0" 
bind "MOUSE2" "+attack2;play test.mp3;snd_mixvol ambient 0"

 This means when I walk around or use by weapon I will stop the annoying sounds that players and adimins use.

The game it is achanging

The Game It Is Achanging

 

I have spent the last few weeks playing Day Of Defeat : Source.  It looks like I am going to stop playing old DOD and stick with this one instead.

Why?  Game play on source is better now for some reason.  There are a reasonable amount of servers, excellent maps and a sort of gaming community in operation.  I have done some game editing/tweaks to make the game play better for me and I will put together some nice little tutorials on what I have done and why.