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MonsterRework Mutator
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 461
Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-05-23 16:36:05    Post subject: MonsterRework Mutator Reply with quote

We've had quite some discussions on this in the ideas&suggestions thread, and by now I think I've reached a state, where I need more input from people actually using this mutator. So I've decided to make a first public release.

Note that this release is NOT intended for server use. It's rather intended as offline beta test release, so you can try it out, see how you like the changes and report back any bugs and problems you have on your system. Of course I won't stop you from putting it on a server, I just don't recommend doing so before having it thorougly tested.

What does this mutator do by now:
-Ranged weapons of all creatures (except Titans and their children) have been replaced with low/no momentum transfer ones.
-Rockets now all have flares and longer lasting smoke trails.
-For the very experiment happy people among you, I included two classes, which do no momentum transfer in melee. You should be able to spawn them by typing "summon INFCOOP_MonsterRework.Krall_COOP" and "summon INFCOOP_MonsterRework.SkaarjWarrior_COOP" in the console; The Skaarj_COOP class is not spawnable IIRC, but needed as base for the SkaarjWarrior. Hope I got the commands and names correct..

Awaiting your feedback.
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Psychomorph



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 392
Location: Europe

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 12:36:17    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work Snakeye.

This is much better now. I think that melee should throw you back a bit less than now, maybe about half the way, but if you get randomly thrown further back you can end up in the "feign death" position (just a note/idea for the future).

Slith and big Manta are unchanged (don't know about small Manta and Fly yet).


Few ideas occured:

The flare is yellow, what about making it slight more orangish, closer to how the original fire model in Unreal is?

Is it possible to make the smoke more grey coloured and more transparent generally? Right now it looks way to flauschig. And maybe you are right about less smoke, I think it has to be less (the longer trail can remain however, since smoke doesn't verflüchtigt sich that fast).
I think the realistic effect in real life is, that particles of smoke puffs actually expand because they lose density, which makes it look like the smoke puff gets bigger and at the same time fades into transparent very fast. That does not mean you have to make that, I am just trying to analyze how it behaves in real live and if you really want you can try to implement it into the game (if can be made to look right).


So, get that mut into final stage and up with it (I hope there won't be online problems).
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Stinkmarder
[JgKdo]


Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 226
Location: Germany

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 14:12:58    Post subject: Reply with quote

Psychomorph wrote:
Right now it looks way to flauschig.

fluffy

Quote:
since smoke doesn't verflüchtigt sich that fast).

vanish

Quote:
I think the realistic effect in real life is, that particles of smoke puffs [...]

Unless it is a pulse jet (which is not the case here), a rocket engine doesn't creates 'puffs' but more a fine trail of smoke.
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Psychomorph



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Posts: 392
Location: Europe

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 15:21:58    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stinkmarder wrote:
Unless it is a pulse jet (which is not the case here), a rocket engine doesn't creates 'puffs' but more a fine trail of smoke.

If a fine trail can be done in Unreal/UT by placing the "puffs" right near eachother, than please, but than the transparency needs to be toyed with to avoid making it look to solid.

My point however was, that smoke loses density and expands, vanishes into nothing.


Right now you have white smoke puffs that have some distance between them, that looks fairly fake, but if you could place the puffs right near eachother, like a contineous chain, make them grey and VERY transparent and make them fading away with expansion (size scales up while disappearing), than it might get a realistic look. Of course eventual technical problems need to be looked at (fps drop if beeing shot at with rockets, for example, etc).

Air to Air messiles have a very dense, big and rather white looking smoke trail, but these are small hand fired rockets in Unreal.

Also, reason for grey smoke even if you might have enough transparency in them is, that looking at an incoming rocket will make the "smoke puffs" beeing overlayed from your perspective and draw them back to solid white, to avoid the whiteness it makes sense to colour the puffs grey.
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 461
Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 17:03:57    Post subject: Reply with quote

Psychomorph wrote:
Nice work Snakeye.

This is much better now. I think that melee should throw you back a bit less than now, maybe about half the way, but if you get randomly thrown further back you can end up in the "feign death" position (just a note/idea for the future).

Slith and big Manta are unchanged (don't know about small Manta and Fly yet).


Uhm, melee is unchanged in this version, primarily due to the fact that the code needed to replace scripted pawns is so ugly and against all programming rules that every reputable programmer probably would start a Search&Destroy mission against me, if he saw it. The Slith Projectile (i.e. slime ball) SHOULD work - it does on my system, if it doesn't on yours then I'd probably need more input about the circumstances.

Also my current plan as to melee looks like this:

-slashing, piercing, stinging and the like will not produce any momentum transfer - you're not thrown back when someone sticks a knife into you or your throat is slit open.

-Punch damage will result in a small momentum transfer, depending on the creature - after all a boxer doesn't get pushed back by a few meters if his opponent hits him.

-Throw actions (yeah, some creatures actually throw you) will result in (reduced?) momentum transfer, depending on the size of the creature - a titan or stone titan WILL be able to throw you back a few dozen meters I guess.

Psychomorph wrote:
Few ideas occured:

The flare is yellow, what about making it slight more orangish, closer to how the original fire model in Unreal is?

Is it possible to make the smoke more grey coloured and more transparent generally? Right now it looks way to flauschig. And maybe you are right about less smoke, I think it has to be less (the longer trail can remain however, since smoke doesn't verflüchtigt sich that fast).
I think the realistic effect in real life is, that particles of smoke puffs actually expand because they lose density, which makes it look like the smoke puff gets bigger and at the same time fades into transparent very fast. That does not mean you have to make that, I am just trying to analyze how it behaves in real live and if you really want you can try to implement it into the game (if can be made to look right).

As for the flare effect I'm not sure how to actually change its color, but I guess a texture rework would be needed - same as for the cloud puff - and that's beyond my abilities at the moment. I can easily change the size of a texture, since it can be scaled as object, but transparency and color are in the texture itself, IIRC.

Also don't expect too much to happen until weekend, since it's work-week again Sad. Will try to do some smaller things though..
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Carpetsmoker



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 381
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 17:36:45    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Uhm, melee is unchanged in this version, primarily due to the fact that the code needed to replace scripted pawns is so ugly and against all programming rules that every reputable programmer probably would start a Search&Destroy mission against me, if he saw it.


And this is different from the rest of Infiltration how?
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 461
Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-05-26 18:11:44    Post subject: Reply with quote

Carpetsmoker wrote:
And this is different from the rest of Infiltration how?

The primary difference is, that Infiltration was coded by people with a decent ammount of experience in the field of coding. Also I didn't say I wouldn't make it the way it works (epecially since I don't know any better). I just want some more time trying it on my rig before unleashing it onto the world.

Also here's a pic with 25% sized smoke trail but much more "puffs" - so much more it might actually affect performance I guess..

..and yes, the rocket in the middle got the better of me Mr. Green
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 461
Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-05-31 11:07:08    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, it's weekend and time for the second beta of the MonsterRework mutator.

You'll notice that this does change considerably more than the first one, since it now applies to BOTH ranged and melee attacks. Note that this is the first try at melee so there might be still bugs and unbalanced elements in the release.

Also I did change the replacement of the various classes from the usual "isA" method, which returns true for base classes and all their children, to a String comparison of their class, which consists of PackackeName and Classname (e.g. Brute class in String is: "Unreali.Brute"). This has several implications, the most important being, that the replacment function is "safer" than before, since it only replaces the specified class. The downside of this is, that any custom class on a mappack will NOT be replaced. I'll have to check on actual mappacks what this means exactly, but ATM only Unreal and RtNP should be (completely) affected by this mutator.

As for visuals I made rocket trails smaller - check how you like it for different rocket types, since I didn't change the trail puff frequency. Brute projectiles should have larger intervals while rockets have shorter ones. Just tell me which you like better and I'll probably make all rocket trails the same (or more similar) for a later release.

As we're speaking of rockets this release also contains a little surprise - I actually only got it running about three hours ago - for the Eightball projectiles (Rocket, SeekingRocket and Grenade). If you're within ~87.5% of the blast radius, you'll end up being feigned Twisted Evil. Please not that this implementation is a first try to even see if it's possible, so it's still a bit unpolished. As far as I could see if you move you might not (or only very shortly) be in the feign death state, since hitting a movement key makes you quit feign death. I'll have to take a closer look if having a certain "delay" until you can get back up (I'm thinking about 1s -1.5s or so) is even possible and if it is, how to implement it properly.

And as the first release, this one is intended as offline only, though if it doesn't fuck up anyones PC I'd suggest to have a short trial on COOP1 too, to see if all this stuff actually works online.

Have fun! I'll await your feedback.

EDIT: Attachment removed due to presence of game-breaking bug!
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 461
Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-06-07 08:54:38    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bad news everyone.

Since I more or less finished the main work on the next release of the M4 projects I decided to combine the in-game testing with the one of the MonsterRework and stumbled upon a pretty nasty bug (in the MonsterRework, that is). Apparently monsters spawned during gameplay (not at the start of the map, but event triggered) do get replaced, but somehow the game thinks they're gone (well, technically they ARE gone) and respawns them; since my replacements remain this results in an endless flood of monsters spawning Sad.

Due to this I removed the 0.8 release zip and would kindly ask the two persons, who downloaded it, NOT to place it on a server, ever. Guess it's back to work to check what exactly happens here. I just hope I'll find a way to fix this..
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
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Location: Graz, Styria, Austria

PostPosted: 2008-06-07 16:24:10    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good news and bad news everyone - guess that makes it moderate news overall.

I found out what caused the endless spawning monsters - apparently a little Object called CreatureFactory - and was able to "convince" it to produce my monsters instead of the old, ugly ones. I'm doing a bit more of testing to see what other unpleasant effects show up, but if none do I'll probably upload a new version tomorrow.

So what's the bad news then? Uhm, I do not really like to say it, but MoreMonster mutator has a similar effect as the CreatureFactories (the results of which can be observed in the picture attached Very Happy).

On a sidenote: is there still interest in this mutator? The feedback on the last version was rather low - even by Inf message board standards - and I was wondering if you guys just spend too much time outside due to nice weather or just like to play as is. Not that it would affect my work on the mutator - "programming" and testing things is 95% of the joy for me Mr. Green.
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Psychomorph



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: 2008-06-07 21:34:51    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now that weekend is there I intended to try it today, but you took the 0.8 build off.

Hey what's wrong with this picture, it is just like I like it. Very Happy

At the smoke, I think maybe the original Unreal smoke has to remain at the end. As said, I think the smoke of a rocket has to be a constant trail (see the redeemer rocket in UT2004), but in case of those hand held rocketlaunchers it has to be very transparent and dissapear in expansion. If that can not be made than those tinny smalll puffs do not any better than the original Unreal rocket smoke.
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: 2008-06-08 09:45:47    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, since it did seem to work with the Unreal1 maps I tested it, here is 0.85 - basically the same as the release before, but with a reassignment of the prototype class for the creature factories.

Note that:
a.) I only tested it with Unreal1 maps and using it with any mappack (including RtNP) may yield unexpected results - especially if they contain unsupported creature factories.
b.) MoreMonsters is INCOMPATIBLE with this mutator (or vice versa Very Happy). I think I already found out why that is, but a sollution may take a while.

As usual this is BETA, so don't stick it on any server - though, as before, I'd recommend a limited time trial on COOP1, to see if any adverse effects occur online - just try to stay on the original Unreal1 maps Wink.

As for the rocket trails, I didn't say making the smoke the way it should be is impossible. But the main purpose of the mutator ATM is to change the momentum behavior and slightly alter the rocket optics. That's why I left different settings for the types of rockets in the game - so I would get feedback which one looks most realistic to you guys (i.e. smaller or larger, higher or lower intervalls etc.). In a later version I then could try to get "enlarging" smoke puffs (should be doable as far as I checked the code) and perhaps even more transparent ones (by now no idea if this is possible).

So get it, test it and report back any bugs.
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Psychomorph



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: 2008-08-03 12:30:40    Post subject: Reply with quote

By the way, I think it works fine and we should test it online (as you suggested on co-op1).

Since you made the UT rocket flare, why actually not to use also the UT rocket explosion?
Of course the melee attacks need to be improved later too.
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Snakeye



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: 2008-08-03 17:52:03    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, feedback. I nearly thought that Mutie would pass away silently Smile.

Technically I think I even did a newer one which also replaces the RtNP creatures (spinner, predator and whatchacallit), so this should actually be safe for all COOP1 maps.

Also what's wrong with melee?

Edit: Just saw your server request thread; MoreMonsters is, as far as I could judge, primarily incompatible, since it asks if the spawn was successful, and if not tries to spawn again. My mutator replaces the creature and destroys the original one (necessary procedure) and hence returns the spawn was not successful, which causes MoreMonsters to endless spawn monsters (as did the factories btw).

I guess simply disabling the request if spawning was successful should be a possible sollution - although it would make MoreMonsters a "best effort delivery" mutator, meaning that a unsuccessful spawn for different reasons would reduce the ammount of monsters added.
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Psychomorph



Joined: 21 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: 2008-08-04 17:18:27    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, no server testing?
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