New batch of screenshots!
- Thread starter Eder
- Start date
KillerWave
Spaceman
Great work, as usual. Its great and impressive to see new improvements to the old engine, the starfields alone are amazing. The adition of blinking lights, ship-specific debries and the afterburner effect, all things that I wished the vision engine had, bring new live to the engine and make it look like far better.
Question: Can you keep theses debries floating around, or they still disapear after a while?
Another long-time wish is that we could have fog, with the animated nebula background, it would look neat...or beam weapons? Id love those...
Damn you! Now I am even more anxious to play it!
Question: Can you keep theses debries floating around, or they still disapear after a while?
Another long-time wish is that we could have fog, with the animated nebula background, it would look neat...or beam weapons? Id love those...
Damn you! Now I am even more anxious to play it!
Eder
Mr. Standoff
Me too! These programmer types are a crazy bunch.
(It wouldn't be a great game without the voiceover actors and character faces, though...
)Unfortunately they only last as long as the original WCP debris. The debris.iff file only controls what meshes and quantities of debris are spawned by each ship code, and the scale, rotation and speed for each individual piece of debris. This is the only debris-related IFF file, and since all the pieces last the same amount of time in original WCP, their duration is probably a global value hard coded somewhere.
Pedro is the man to talk to.
I know he can enable 3dfx fog in openGL mode, not sure about the rest.
Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
Aaaww, poor Academy. I know it didn't offer much new experience but the possibility to build my own missions provided me with hours of fun. Firing Leeches at a Ralatha was extremely fun. And I like the Academy manual better than Aramda...it's less weird. I think I spent more time with Academy than with Armada.
But: too each his own and Armada is a very good WC game, no arguing about that. Lastly, you can't compete with first love.
True, though in Standoff, the Wraith cockpit is only seen in the sim as well, so the prototype may still be in development.
If our Episode 2 is set between Academy and Armada (I don't remember any dates for Academy), then our Wraith might be anything - there might have been other stages of development between the Academy prototype and the Armada production version, I guess. And if our Ep 2 is set before Academy, then it might be an earlier prototype whose cockpit ended up getting re-used later.
You're both right, I didn't think of that. Also I forgot that the Standoff Wraith has Neutron Guns instead of Reaper so it's most certainly not the production model. Maybe even a pre-Academy variant.
Anyway, I like both cockpits.
Pedro
Admiral
Pedro is the man to talk to.
Yup I can do fog easy (I disabled for now as, in Standoff some of the cutscenes have the capships at a great distance, they looked odd fogged out). I can't remember much about fog requests, if its just on/off, still I'm certain that with some creativity it'd be doable to have sector dependent fog yes.
Beam weapons... yes, Pete came up with a nice system of passing additional effect and texture information through the palettes, depending on how hacky the team minds being you can extend that to such effects, it'd take some effort mind you, but its doable on the rendering side. However someone else would need to dll hack it into the engine.
Speaking of hacks I'd like to see: Any chance we could have splash damage from exploding fighters. I miss the fear of flying through the debris of someone you've just shot up.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
It's set between Academy and Armada. By the time episode 2 starts, though, Armada isn't too far off - about two months, IIRC. So, our Wraith is some kind of missing link model.If our Episode 2 is set between Academy and Armada (I don't remember any dates for Academy), then our Wraith might be anything - there might have been other stages of development between the Academy prototype and the Armada production version, I guess. And if our Ep 2 is set before Academy, then it might be an earlier prototype whose cockpit ended up getting re-used later.
I wouldn't say the guns mean anything, though. It may be that the Wraith's special weaponry is also still being tested, and this prototype was built to test the ship itself while the guns are still being tweaked.
eddieb
Vice Admiral
Code:
CHUNK "DOBJ"
{
long 29
long 19
long 5
cstring "vmp_db1"
float 1
float 1
float 45
long 20
cstring "vmp_db2"
float 1
float 1
float 36
long 20
cstring "vmp_db3"
float 1
float 1
float 60
long 20
cstring "vmp_db4"
float 1
float 4
float 60
long 20
cstring "vmp_db5"
float 1
float 5
float 90
long 20
}Oh interesting, I hadn't looked into that file before. I'd be interested if someone knows what the numbers mean.
Eder
Mr. Standoff
Here are my notes:
I'm unsure about speed, since it seems a higher rotation makes parts fly off *and* spin faster... Also now that I look at it, I think speed and scale might be switched.
Code:
CHUNK "DOBJ" // WRAITH
{
//long 29 SHIP ID Number of debris
long 29 long 44 long 5
//debris meshes speed(?)/scale/rotation(?) explosion type (explos.iff)
cstring "wra_db1" float[3] 1.0 1.0 45.0 long 20
cstring "wra_db2" float[3] 1.0 1.0 36.0 long 20
cstring "wra_db3" float[3] 1.0 1.0 36.0 long 20
cstring "wra_db1" float[3] 1.0 1.0 22.0 long 20
cstring "wra_db2" float[3] 1.0 1.0 60.0 long 20
}I'm unsure about speed, since it seems a higher rotation makes parts fly off *and* spin faster... Also now that I look at it, I think speed and scale might be switched.
Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Oh yeah, definitely.Granted. But it's most certainly not the Armada production model.
KillerWave
Spaceman
I figured that about the debries.iff a while ago. Never touched that, cause I imagined it would be too much work to get new debries, lazy me.
dll hacking is not my thing, but I would gladly help with texturing if you do this. I'm no expert, but I could get some textures if needed to.
That would be nice, specialy if found a way to keep the debries around.
As long as we are talking about hacks we like to see, a little bright particle dust flying out of hardpoints (like explosions do) when ships are damaged would be cool to see. It kinda bugs me a bit that no matter how damaged ships are, aside from capship destroyed components, they always look brand new.
Eder
Mr. Standoff
Do you mean fighters or capships? Because I've already figured out how you can edit the green/blue "sparks" that come out of damaged fighters. Here's my (messy) code:
Standard WCP ships have exactly three DATA chunks per emitter (this is not a requirement, though), but only a few parameters change. Here are the two other chunks for the same example emitter shown above, I've left comments only on the lines that do change. The Scale and the last two unknown parameters are what makes sparks larger and more frequent in higher damage levels, while the first two values specify what the damage ranges are.
As you can see, these are not restricted to hardpoints either, you can place the spark emitters wherever you want, and you can have as many of them as you want. And you can have different sets of sparks that will be displayed depending on how damaged a ship is, using any mat you desire for each specific data chunk (works with animated mats too). And you can have as many data chunks as you wish inside the SPRK form. In short, this thing gives you a lot of freedom.
All Standoff ships now have fiery sparks coming out of them when damaged (WC2 style) instead of the green/blue sparks from stock WCP (and previous Standoff Episodes)... this has been in the screenshots for a while.
Code:
FORM "EXPL"
{
CHUNK "TYPE"
{
long 21 // usually 21=trailing fire 0=no trailing fire (explosion types)
long 9 // usually 3=big boom 9=small boom (explosion types? sound?)
long 15 // usually 16 or 15 = ?
}
}
FORM "SPRK"
{
CHUNK "DATA"
{ // (HEAVY DAMAGE STAGE)
long 0 // min hull % to show this spark
float 25.0 // max hull % to show this spark
long 0 // emitter X
float -0.3 // emitter Y
float -6.0 // emitter Z
float 0.1 // spreads emissions over a
float 2.0 // circular area (value=radius?)
long 6000 // Texture? but this uses texture 6001 ?!
float 4.0 // scale X?
float 6.0 // scale Y?
float 0.3 // scale Z?
float 0.5 // same values
float 0.1 // for all sparks
float 0.4 // and all ships?
float 0.01 // another length/density setting?
float 0.05 // another length/density setting?
}
Code:
CHUNK "DATA"
{ // MEDIUM DAMAGE STAGE
float 26.0 // min hull % to show this spark
float 50.0 // max hull % to show this spark
long 0
float -0.3
float -6.0
float 0.1
float 2.0
long 6000
float 2.0 // scale X?
float 4.0 // scale Y?
float 0.1 // scale Z?
float 0.5
float 0.1
float 0.4
float 0.05 // another length/density setting?
float 0.1 // another length/density setting?
}
CHUNK "DATA"
{ // LIGHT DAMAGE STAGE
float 51.0 // min hull % to show this spark
float 90.0 // max hull % to show this spark
long 0
float -0.3
float -6.0
float 0.1
float 2.0
long 6000
float 1.0 // scale X?
float 2.0 // scale Y?
float 0.1 // scale Z
float 0.5
float 0.1
float 0.4
float 0.05 // another length/density setting?
float 0.2 // another length/density setting?
}As you can see, these are not restricted to hardpoints either, you can place the spark emitters wherever you want, and you can have as many of them as you want. And you can have different sets of sparks that will be displayed depending on how damaged a ship is, using any mat you desire for each specific data chunk (works with animated mats too). And you can have as many data chunks as you wish inside the SPRK form. In short, this thing gives you a lot of freedom.
All Standoff ships now have fiery sparks coming out of them when damaged (WC2 style) instead of the green/blue sparks from stock WCP (and previous Standoff Episodes)... this has been in the screenshots for a while.
By the way, eddieb, do you have any info on any of these more obscure IFFs? The explosion types, afterburner cones/MRPH chunks, the asteroid field manager, or anything else that's not been documented by Thomas or HCl?
KillerWave
Spaceman
Nice, any screenshots of those available?
And those would be restricted to fighters, I believe?
Eder
Mr. Standoff
I think so... Well, fighters and corvettes.
The capship equivalent of these chunks is a list of component ID numbers followed by the explosion number to use for each (most stock WCP Confed ships use explosions 10-12 depending on the component). You can use this to make some component types give a bigger bang than others, or to make certain components not give any bang at all when destroyed, but that's about it.
As for the screenshots, looks like I was mistaken... none of the shots we've actually uploaded show our fiery spark effect, despite it being in the game for a few weeks now.
The capship equivalent of these chunks is a list of component ID numbers followed by the explosion number to use for each (most stock WCP Confed ships use explosions 10-12 depending on the component). You can use this to make some component types give a bigger bang than others, or to make certain components not give any bang at all when destroyed, but that's about it.
As for the screenshots, looks like I was mistaken... none of the shots we've actually uploaded show our fiery spark effect, despite it being in the game for a few weeks now.
eddieb
Vice Admiral
Hmm, never did figure out the asteroid files, except the obvious meshes.
I found my notes from when I was looking at explosion. You've got much more details, but this might help:
I figured this out by looking at the mats.
Code:
At the end of the file
FORM "MAT "
{
CHUNK "ID " // medium red and medium green
{
long 10
long 17
}
CHUNK "ID " // debris pictures
{
long 18
long 38
}
CHUNK "ID " // tiny green
{
long 51
long 54
}
CHUNK "ID " // big red explosion
{
long 69
long 88
}
CHUNK "ID " // big red explosion
{
long 148
long 167
}
}As far as other stuff, I think you already know... I have some idea of what turrets do, and which mat files as used by a
sector mission file.
I do have a way of extracting gameflow menu movies now.
Sirs,
For those of us like myself who have zero skill at programming or game design, this thread has been a really fascinating insight into the inner workings of the Standoff mod. I've actually really enjoyed seeing you discuss the technical detail.
I got to wondering, would you consider doing a podcast interview, a "making of Standoff" video, or something similar in time for the final release of Ep5? It would be great to hear the voices and your ideas as you talk us through how you came up with the ideas / problems / solutions. Would you be interested in including this in that release?
KvK
For those of us like myself who have zero skill at programming or game design, this thread has been a really fascinating insight into the inner workings of the Standoff mod. I've actually really enjoyed seeing you discuss the technical detail.
I got to wondering, would you consider doing a podcast interview, a "making of Standoff" video, or something similar in time for the final release of Ep5? It would be great to hear the voices and your ideas as you talk us through how you came up with the ideas / problems / solutions. Would you be interested in including this in that release?
KvK
Dundradal
Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Well I'd certainly hope they'd consider it *after* Ep5 was done
But not a second before. As for this thread it was interesting to see but once the code started to get posted I might as well have been trying to read Kilrathi for all the sense it made to me
Drizzt Do Urden
Spaceman
is there anyone who can read Kilrathi?