[Hendricks266]

I don't know why Helix made that a command-line parameter, but it's deprecated now. Use the cvar r_rotatespritenowidescreen instead.

Wouldn't ORing orientation by 1024 everywhere also fix it?

When I was working with system gamearrays, I tried fixing readarrayfromfile on 64-bit but the code was a mess of pointers. Helix made it not broken, yet still using intptr_t for the 32-bit variables even on 64-bit, which I should take another look at.

I'm glad my menu touch-ups are working well with your art. Keep in mind there is more to come: A cursor will appear if you move the mouse, for which I currently plan to use the crosshair, like Raptor. The options like on/off and yes/no will need left and right arrows to the sides so the mouse can go left or right, but I don't have a firm plan on those yet.

[Jan Satcitananda]

Hendricks266, on 03 July 2014 - 07:20 AM, said:

Wouldn't ORing orientation by 1024 everywhere also fix it?

Yup, now I define orientation values as named constants for my drawing code (like the palettes).

Quote

I'm glad my menu touch-ups are working well with your art. Keep in mind there is more to come: A cursor will appear if you move the mouse, for which I currently plan to use the crosshair, like Raptor. The options like on/off and yes/no will need left and right arrows to the sides so the mouse can go left or right, but I don't have a firm plan on those yet.

Actually I had to redraw those arrows to match the style of the font, since there was the original tile being rendered with a wrong palette. Having a mouse pointer would be good indeed. I hope you won't do any dramatic changes to the menus with introducing other game textures... =) Also no need for arrows when you have just two possible settings (on/off), as one could simply click on the menu item to toggle the parameter.

[Hendricks266]

CraigFatman, on 03 July 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

I hope you won't do any dramatic changes to the menus with introducing other game textures... =)

No guarantees. Using '<' and '>' for the bluefont and minifont is possibly viable, perhaps with an alternate palette, but the redfont is missing these characters and it might work better to have something not in the font set.

I might just rotate the scrolling arrows a quarter turn and use them. The only other thing I can think of would be the yellow and green spinning nuke icons but those don't make much sense from a usability standpoint.

CraigFatman, on 03 July 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

Also no need for arrows when you have just two possible settings (on/off), as one could simply click on the menu item to toggle the parameter.

We think alike: I accounted for this in my code but it did not come to mind when writing my post.

menus.h:

typedef struct MenuOptionSet_t
{
    uint8_t features; // bit 1 = disable left/right arrows, bit 2 = disable list

[Jan Satcitananda]

The interactive HUD is an important mod feature. One can simply press Tab key (the key dedicated to map view in classic Duke) to show the mouse pointer and navigate through the menus on the screen and other objects (and later even the game objects). Now I'm coding the side menu interaction; I've just done the radar interactivity as well. So, now you can simply click on targets within the radar range to capture them and continuously see their position, size and hit points left without seeing the actual enemy. I suppose that the use key could be also used to capture targets in view.





Also I've added the glow map support for freeze ammo. As you can see, now their blue content and the arc are glowing in the dark owing to my multiactor support and custom palettes separating the blue hue from the rest of the sprite. This seems to be a good replacement for those 15 'self-illuminated' colors which are obviously absent in LNGA palette.



The good news is that the upcoming release (LNGA v0.3) is almost ready and very soon I'll be happy to present it to you, lol. Jeez, I continue blaming myself that there's too little progress made after three years (since 2011), but hey, nobody should work on the same shitpile all the time. =) I think that releasing playable stuff is better than uploading videos, even if many things are still unfinished. Also this version will be fully compatible with the current EDuke32 snapshot, so stay tuned... when it's done =P

[Jan Satcitananda]

Damn, I sit here! © Sanek

One more note about room-over-room stuff. Seeing the significant progress of the built-in room-over-room feature, now I support both TROR and my staged rendering system at once, the latter probably being used for advanced lighting effects which can't be reproduced by standard TROR technique.

I should recode my wall-over-wall routine a bit to make it work correctly with non-convex shapes and handle sector islands in the middle as well. Now the game is trying to render each shape in a single pass, what is possible only for convex shapes (such as a rectangle without any holes). EDuke32 TROR does non-convex cases well and is pretty fast (a lot faster than CON-coded LNGA CPC system), but lacks support of changing camera position and altering map lighting/geometry between the passes.

Here's a quick comparison between current behavior of both systems:



[below there's space for another generic compliment, lol]

[Micky C]

Good work

[The Commander]

CraigFatman, on 26 September 2014 - 08:09 PM, said:

Damn, I sit here! © Sanek

http://www.amcwebfor...hp?topic=7409.0

[Jan Satcitananda]

The Angry Kiwi, on 27 September 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

http://www.amcwebfor...hp?topic=7409.0

Sanek has just made a decent release, and you're digging into that seven years old smysle, lol. Since then, he has taught a lot of English! =P

[Gambini]

He´s a rehabilitated citizen. I don´t think that shit is doing any good to him.

@Lezing: I always follow your updates. I think the lack of replies comes from the complex nature of your writtings. You talk about very complex things that hardly anyone here understands. Next time try with my real good mod.

[Jan Satcitananda]

Gambini, on 28 September 2014 - 01:08 AM, said:

I always follow your updates. I think the lack of replies comes from the complex nature of your writtings. You talk about very complex things that hardly anyone here understands. Next time try with my real good mod.

Yup, pretty much it does. I might expect a comment from Helixhorned on the TROR stuff, but he's seemingly away for a while (last active on Sep 11). Anyway, I'm doing this project not to gain attention; it's mostly a spiritual practice that helps me get to know myself and the world I'm living in. That's why there's "Art" in the name of the mod. Tbh, most hobbyists have a similar motivation.

[The Commander]

CraigFatman, on 28 September 2014 - 12:26 AM, said:

Sanek has just made a decent release, and you're digging into that seven years old smysle, lol. Since then, he has taught a lot of English! =P

You must have came across that thread recently when you quoted it in your previous post.
That is how I was reminded of that thread.

shit
:-(

[The Commander]

has anyone here?

[Jan Satcitananda]

has

Hey men, in two weeks I give you my real good mod, which I made ONE!!11111oneone

[Gambini]

CraigFatman, on 28 September 2014 - 01:37 AM, said:

Yup, pretty much it does. I might expect a comment from Helixhorned on the TROR stuff, but he's seemingly away for a while (last active on Sep 11). Anyway, I'm doing this project not to gain attention; it's mostly a spiritual practice that helps me get to know myself and the world I'm living in. That's why there's "Art" in the name of the mod. Tbh, most hobbyists have a similar motivation.

I know that motivation too. It´s not the only one I have, but it´s for sure the one that prevails when the others falter. At the end of the day, the most epic combats we face are against ourselves, and I´m just too tough to be beaten, even by myself

[Player Lin]

I'm speechless, but...


Always bet on CraigFatman for awesomeness-1337-engine-modifications on eduke32.

[Danukem]

Gambini, on 28 September 2014 - 01:08 AM, said:

@Lezing: I always follow your updates. I think the lack of replies comes from the complex nature of your writtings. You talk about very complex things that hardly anyone here understands. Next time try with my real good mod.

That's true, but it's more than just the complexity. The people who should be interested in these updates are mappers. But consider the types of mappers who are left: There are the die-hard classic mappers, like MetH, who would never use the features anyway. Then there are guys with their own mods, like James, who probably wouldn't use it because they are happy with the features they already have. Then there are the new mappers learning to use build...they are unlikely to want to use it either, since it would intimidate them. So even though he is adding awesome features, there's hardly anyone who would take advantage of them.

[MetHy]

Trooper Dan, on 06 October 2014 - 11:46 AM, said:

There are the die-hard classic mappers, like MetH, who would never use the features anyway.

Nothing is set in stone, I actually I find this interesting, in fact once I'm done with the maps I'm doing for other games, I plan to make a small mod/episode for DN3D using new code and probably even TROR. Though I still love playing vanilla and classic style for than anything, as far as mapping goes I think I did an overdose of vanilla/classic-like maps after making 3 maps in a row in such a short time for Duke Hard.

[Jan Satcitananda]

I'd say it's just too early for any team work, the features in the works still require a lot of troubleshooting, as well as being sufficiently documented for use by team members. There are a lot of potential mappers and artists who might be interested in participating this project, I'm just yet to put the new stuff to some use in a real game, not a technical demo. Oh, fuck it, the QQ episode is a one-man project anyway... but of course everyone is welcome to make more addons later.

[Micky C]

I remember looking into the release snapshot in mapster a few years ago and having absolutely no idea what's going on. It was some real funky stuff. I swear there was some kind of documentation at the time but I can't find it now.
Definitely interesting to see what's possible though.

Btw Leezing, speaking of fancy effects, a while ago you said it might be possible to have lightmaps in the classic renderer using multiplicative blending. Did you ever get anywhere with that if I may ask?

[Jan Satcitananda]

Micky C, on 07 October 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

I remember looking into the release snapshot in mapster a few years ago and having absolutely no idea what's going on. It was some real funky stuff. I swear there was some kind of documentation at the time but I can't find it now.
Definitely interesting to see what's possible though.

Btw Leezing, speaking of fancy effects, a while ago you said it might be possible to have lightmaps in the classic renderer using multiplicative blending. Did you ever get anywhere with that if I may ask?

Of course you may ask, and even get a reply (even a bit comprehensible) =P

There's a lot of ways to simulate lightmaps in 8-bit mode, ranging from simple pre-lit textures (which are present in classic Duke3D) to sophisticated multi-layer postprocessing. The main drawback of multiplicative blending is that it doesn't couple well with high dynamic range rendering: areas which are clamped to white and then subject to such kind of blending will come to some ugly shade of gray leading to loss of detail in highlights. Fortunately, there's division which is just the opposite to multiplication. Btw, the "divide" blend mode (as well as the "subtract" one) has appeared in Photoshop only in CS5 to comply with growing demands of HDR photographers.

So, recently I've added one more blend table based on color division to try new lighting techniques and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. Here's a comparison of various 'soft lighting' methods:



This wall has four rows containing the same gradient lighting sample. The standard LNGA shading with prominent banding can be seen in the second row. The first row features my old deprecated 'sub-shade' technique. It uses a duplicate texture which is only 'half a shade' darker than the main tile. Interleaved with the main texture as it gradually becomes darker, it's capable to reduce the banding by a factor of two. But also it requres twice more walls/sectors and duplicate tiles, so it may be unpractical for complex lighting.

The third row deals with the banding using the "multiply" blend mode and a lightmap with a two-color noise-dithered linear gradient. Finally, the fourth row uses the "divide" blend mode, which brightens the left part of underlying texture (instead of darkening its right part). Both modes are nearly seamless, but there's noticeable highlight color clipping in "multiply" mode. In turn, division gives only subtle color distortion in the shadows. Note that these two gradients have a 'crispy' look because lightmap's dither interferes with dither of the texture itself. And here's a sample with some real sprite lightmaps:



The left part is the technique used in COAST.MAP; after filtering out the bright 'sunny' part using multiplicative blend, the shady bluish part is rendered over it using simple additive blend. In most cases, the color clipping is effectively masked, but this method can't handle really soft shadows well.

The right part is my new division blend test. Note how the dark spots in the lightmap itself (shown just beside) give bright spots on the texture being lit. Perhaps, later I'm gonna add some special shade values inverting the colors so any tile could be used as a lightmap.

As for documentation on the effects, the only thing I posted here was a small introduction into my multi-pass rendering effectors... here it is, take a look:
http://forums.duke4....dpost__p__83620

[Micky C]

Could have sworn there was some documentation somewhere about what different pals do to sprites or something like that?

Could you go into detail about how you got soft shadows? I remember you saying something about using multiple view aligned sprites to get soft shading on a slope. What about having something like a floor-alligned sprite with a shade gradient starting at transparent at the edges and becoming darker as you go to the centre?

[Jan Satcitananda]

Micky C, on 08 October 2014 - 03:06 AM, said:

Could have sworn there was some documentation somewhere about what different pals do to sprites or something like that?

Could you go into detail about how you got soft shadows? I remember you saying something about using multiple view aligned sprites to get soft shading on a slope. What about having something like a floor-alligned sprite with a shade gradient starting at transparent at the edges and becoming darker as you go to the centre?

What only comes to my mind is the list of colors from here... http://lzg.duke4.net/idx8.htm
The palettes themselves are defined in LNGADEFS.CON as named constants, but without additional explanation.

For actor shadows, multiplicative blend is the only choice (now it can be done with a single sprite owing to custom blend table support). You're right, on level surfaces I'm using conventional floor-aligned sprite shadows; that's only slanted surfaces which require that pseudo-3D trick. Also most pickups now cast similar shadows as well.

Now I'm using a series of 256x256 shadow sprites of varying density (0.5 to 2.5 f-stops max):

[Micky C]

Hmm that's not it. I have no idea what I remember looking at then. Perhaps I'm getting confused with a bit of trial and error I did.

Btw, you talk a lot about the technical side of your mod, but what about the actual gameplay/story side of what you've got planned?

[Jan Satcitananda]

Micky C, on 08 October 2014 - 05:42 AM, said:

Btw, you talk a lot about the technical side of your mod, but what about the actual gameplay/story side of what you've got planned?

You'll see =P

Actually I have a vague plan for the QQ episode plot. It's deemed to be a non-linear sci-fi sandbox-like action game. In short, it takes place in 2040, the bosses from original Duke episodes are down and remaining aliens have been assimilated on Earth living in peace and spreading their culture, but... once scientists and amateurs around the world began receiving signals originating from an unknown source in a nearby stellar system. Containing various top secret compromising information, these signals were of great concern for all nations. It was clear that somebody really far away was spying what's going on here on Earth and attempting to disrupt the usual order of things. Despite numerous civil protests, Duke Nukem was sent on a long interstellar mission funded by the concerned governments to investigate the source of the signals and cut them off at any cost. Since the spaceship they've built can carry only a single person, Duke must complete the mission by his own and (if possible) safely return back. The episode is very philosophical and will have several different endings depending on player actions. So, that's it... might sound a bit inconsistent so far, still I'm curious if this reminds anybody of similar games.

[Jan Satcitananda]

Yay, it's finally ready to play =P
There are some little changes on gameplay balance, so most levels now may be a bit too easy (until you meet a commander, lol). Try some original levels or vanilla-style usermaps, wanna know what do you think about it.

The link is in my sig. The devastator is now a flamethrower.

[zykov eddy]

Awesome, can't wait to try it out!

[Micky C]

I'm sorry, I couldn't focus on the gameplay, the thing is just too darn good to look at! A feast for the visual senses. An orgy of aesthetics. So much stuff going on all the time. I did notice a few gameplay changes though such as altered weapon mechanics, and several small things. IMO they're an improvement, although the shotgun may be a bit overpowered now considering it's rate of fire and large magazine?

Some textures and things didn't look so good with the HDR, like the big yellow sign outside the cinema entrance.

I'm not even sure it's possible to create levels that actually do the rest of the mod any justice.

Edit: I'd actually recommend for people NOT to check this out because afterwards vanilla Duke will look extremely dull.

[Mike Norvak]

Sorry for my noobery but how I install this?, I followed the instructions on the txt file, but when I run the .bat the Lookup tables seems to fail, and the game palette looks all fucked up Need to play this!!!!!

Nevermind, it was an older version of EDuke!!!! Now it works, gonna check it!!!!

[Jan Satcitananda]

Micky C, on 13 October 2014 - 05:23 AM, said:

I'm sorry, I couldn't focus on the gameplay, the thing is just too darn good to look at! A feast for the visual senses. An orgy of aesthetics. So much stuff going on all the time. I did notice a few gameplay changes though such as altered weapon mechanics, and several small things. IMO they're an improvement, although the shotgun may be a bit overpowered now considering it's rate of fire and large magazine?

Some textures and things didn't look so good with the HDR, like the big yellow sign outside the cinema entrance.

I'm not even sure it's possible to create levels that actually do the rest of the mod any justice.

Edit: I'd actually recommend for people NOT to check this out because afterwards vanilla Duke will look extremely dull.

Nice try to discourage ppl from downloading the mod =P

The shotgun will be an automatic shotgun with a 22-round drum magazine. Of course, the difficulty is yet to be balanced, but imo it's better for it to be overpowered than underpowered.

Also you may know that the textures were not even tested by the original authors with HDR lighting... =D though I've made some little changes to my palette conversions brightening the extreme shadows a bit (can be seen in Raw Meat level dark windows).

[Mike Norvak]

CraigFatman, on 13 October 2014 - 12:16 PM, said:

Nice try to discourage ppl from downloading the mod =P

The shotgun will be an automatic shotgun with a 22-round drum magazine. Of course, the difficulty is yet to be balanced, but imo it's better for it to be overpowered than underpowered.

Also you may know that the textures were not even tested by the original authors with HDR lighting... =D though I've made some little changes to my palette conversions brightening the extreme shadows a bit (can be seen in Raw Meat level dark windows).

Damn this is fucking epic!! We really need some new maps, art, enemies, and stuff to make this mod justice!