"normalmap" edition released! (2006-07-22)

by Aardappel_ on 07/22/2006 23:56, 191 messages, last message: 09/11/2006 07:36, 197555 views, last view: 05/17/2024 07:59

As always, here are the new features, any feedback or bugs specific to this version in this thread, please.

* added support for "dot3 lightmap / radiosity lightmap" mode that works well with normalmaps & per pixel light, various shaders supporting bump/parallax mapping, glow/specmaps etc.
* added lots of normalmapped textures
* many new maps using normalmapping
* extended Fanatic's amazing soundtrack with 8 new tracks!
* added dbghelp.dll to the bin folder that win98 users need to rename...
* clearer color coding in the console: green: player talk, blue: "echo" command, yellow: gameplay messages, red: important errors, white: everything else
* added -z (z-buffer precision), -b (bits per pixel), -a (FSAA), and -f (shader precision) command-line settings (see config.html)
* added "trigger" command for opening/closing doors
* added entity selection by left mouse button.
* added entity copy and paste
* added entity undo / redo support
* added entity support to flip and rotate
* added editmove command
* added replaceents command
* made sure that textures of 'new cubes' are appropriate. Maps need to be remipped for this to fully work.
* added outline mode for showing geom boundaries (toggled by "outline" var)
* added -p (admin password) and -c (maxclients, default 4) command-line options for servers
* added setmaster command
* added voice announcer for certain gameplay events
* quad & boost powerups are now randomized in spawn times, but their spawn is announced 10 seconds before (so everyone will have to fight for it :)
* added showcharacterboundingbox var (useful when creating new models)
* increased rhino bounding box size

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#112: Re: bump mapping bug

by guest57 on 08/04/2006 20:46, refers to #111

Original ts masks were:
r=00ff0000
g=0000ff00
b=000000ff
a=00000000

Anyway, this is the one case where you're creating a surface to then blit on - see man info example at http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man3/sdl_creatergbsurface.3.html

As I said before, the bumpmapping, etc now look fantastic on PPC!

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#113: Re: Mega armour

by PFL on 08/04/2006 21:02, refers to #110

Here's my tuppence worth:

1. Time left in game
2. Score position (ie/ 1st place, 2nd place etc) as you go up and down the board.

That would do me fine :) BTW: would it be possible for you to do an audio cue for chat messages being sent, at all?

Oh, and WAV would be good too!

Cheers, PFL :)

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#114: Re: bump mapping bug

by eihrul on 08/04/2006 21:43, refers to #112

Ah, okay. Well, I committed your fix to CVS. See if the CVSified version works.

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#115: Re: bump mapping bug

by guest57 on 08/04/2006 21:59, refers to #114

Yes it works. Thank you - all your Mac PPC users will be very happy when they see this :-)

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#116: Message censored by administrator

by zodiacsignsastrology on 08/05/2006 11:55

#117: Re: bump mapping bug

by Aardappel_ on 08/07/2006 03:21, refers to #115

nice work... thanks for finding that

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#118: Re: Announcer

by Aardappel_ on 08/07/2006 03:23, refers to #106

I don't feel like adding tons of announcers.. voices tend to get annoying fast. Just, 10 seconds to quad/boost are important gameplay events that need a clear announcement... I don't feel minutes remaining, or ranking are. Same with the armours, that would generate way too many sound events, and they spawn every 20 seconds so you can time them yourself much more easily.

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#119: ..

by makkE on 08/07/2006 19:18

Is it possible to use the "mapmodel" animation to animate a mapmodel (in mp, without triggers, just looping)?

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#120: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 08/07/2006 20:23, refers to #119

that should work, yes. The only issue is that trigger events are not synchronized over the network... this doesn't require any.

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#121: ..

by makkE on 08/07/2006 23:11

Heh, nvm, I found out I had wrong frame numbers. (needed to be "md3anim 0 9" instead of "1 10").

Whooho things move. :D

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#122: Re: Announcer

by CrazyTB on 08/08/2006 03:38, refers to #118

I understand voice announcers could get annoying soon, but some of them could be useful, and some players might like.

Yellow Armour - This is a very important item, which could be announced. But as it respawn very fast and usually there is more than one of it, this will really be annoying. (well, another idea is to use a simple sound like a beep to announce it)

Minutes remaining - I feel it is useful. Maybe not every minute, but when there are 10, 5, 3, 2, 1. Or 10, 7.5, 5, 2.5, 1. Or something like that.

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#123: Lots of small suggestions that helps a lot new users

by CrazyTB on 08/08/2006 03:49

I know you probably are most busy working on core engine, but I think you should look a little more at "details" and user interface. My suggestions (most of them should be easy to implement, and should enhance a lot the "feel" of new users):

- All shortcuts should be documented, and should be documented inside the game.
I know sauer is a work-in-progress, but it will help a lot the (new) users when editing maps. For example, there is a "B" shortcut to "extend selection" (damn useful!), and it is not documented anywhere.
I've posted here, a few months ago, some little improvements to menu, adding all "hidden" shortcuts I found. Looks like this post has been forgotten.

- Scores table could display more information about current game: game mode, map and remaining time (maybe truncated or rounded to minutes).
Most of this info is not available anywhere during the game (or available when you are not looking: game time).

- A $current_map alias could be useful for using in scripts.

- A way to save current map with current name could be useful while editing.

- On windows, I tried to change screen resolution using menu. A message saying this was not supported in this platform was printed. Hey! Why not? All other games support this. This "limitation" causes a very bad impression for new users.

- Add "nextweapon" and "prevweapon" actions (or maybe "weapon +1" and "weapon -1"). All other games allow changing weapons by selecting the next/previous one. For a new user (or even an old user like me), curren weapon change is confusing and counter-intuitive.

- Showing current coordinates at HUD while at editmode could be useful to do more precise entity positioning (specially lights).

- Please remove the binding to edit mode with E key. This key is very easy to hit by mistake when playing. I suggest F5 or F3 (or any F[1-9] key).


Sometimes I want to show sauerbraten to my friends, but they are used to "high-quality commercial games" and I know some of them will not like sauer because it is not as easy to use or as intuitive as other games, even though sauer is high quality too, but less polished.
For example, I don't want to explain them that wheel won't switch weapons like they think it should.
I think above suggestions should help to make sauer more (new-)user-friendly.

Thanks.
CrazyTB - an old Cube player...

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#124: ..

by makkE on 08/08/2006 09:17

Try /entdrop 2 for more precise entity placement.

Try "savecurrentmap" too. ;)

I agree on the other points, however the most important of those is the weapon switching.
Being able to cylce, or explicitly binding them to keys is something I´ve been missing since cube.
Especially now with +2 guns, the way to select them is highly uncomfortable and confusing to new users.

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#125: Re: ..

by Aardappel_ on 08/08/2006 09:25, refers to #124

I don't agree. It has always been my philosophy to prefer superior solutions above familiar ones. Just because someone will need to learn something new is no reason to stick with an old method... that way you never make progress.

Weapon switching by cycling is unusable in a fast paced game. The current system allows you to reach more weapons faster and more deterministically.

As to documentation... yes, we need more of that. You can help by adding to the wiki.

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#126: Re: ..

by Pxtl on 08/08/2006 19:47, refers to #119

Animated mapmodels would be nice - spinning rotors in cages, trees blowing in the wind, etc.

A variable on this that might be nice would be "ontouch" mapmodels. That is, a map model that runs through it's animation when any player touches it. Since it is graphical-only and works on any player, it could be done all-client-side. Then you could have bushes that crush when stepped on, sensors that open up when somebody runs by, etc.

Could be neato.

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#127: Re: ..

by shadow,516 on 08/08/2006 19:49, refers to #125

Ive been playing sauer/cube for years, and I STILL have trouble with the weapon switching. Its just not intuitive... especially not being able to select the pistol when you have two other weapons. Imagine this scenario: you are in a tight alley with 10 rockets, 15 grenades, and 40 pistol rounds. All of a sudden, someone is on top of you, what do you do?

You either get fragged, or suicide and hope it takes the other person out too. There is no other choice. Even though you HAVE an appropriate weapon, you just cant get at it.

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#128: Re: ..

by Pxtl on 08/08/2006 19:53, refers to #127

The default controls are unfortunate to say the least. While "one key per weapon" works well in Sauer since it has such a short weaponlist (only 7 weapons), the default number keys aren't really sensible. Because of (very useful) cyclic functionality, I've never actually gotten an intuitive memory of which default keys correspond to which weapon - as a result I'm always fiddling with the keybindings.

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#129: Re: ..

by PFL on 08/08/2006 21:07, refers to #128

Is it possible to leave the mouse wheel binding as is but set the number keys to individual weapons, at all? I've tried messing with the bindings but the weapon allocations seem to stay the same. I'm happy enough to stick with the mouse wheel setup but like you say it would be nice to occasionally pick a specific weapon. :)

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#130: ..

by apflstrudl on 08/08/2006 21:28

What about walljumps?
I love them, but i miss them in Sauerbraten

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#131: Re: ..

by MeatROme on 08/08/2006 22:51, refers to #126

animating models is already possible!
Look at "md3anim" command!
You can use the new trigger-mapmodel paradigm to create almost everything you wrote (as far as I could make out).

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