[Polunka]

NightFright, on 21 August 2016 - 11:01 PM, said:

Map 5 doesn't have any enemies or pickups

Not to mention it was meant to be a dm level. (am I right?)

Btw, about the "more-tracks-than-necessary" - isn't such a feature (dynamic music) available through additional coding? It looks like you're surprised, but I don't think it's all that complicated once you know which lines you need to add to the con files. (tho I have no idea about con coding, so I might be wrong) Moreover, even if the original DOS version didn't allow this, doesn't eduke32 make it possible? I mean, for example, look at Knee-Deep in ZDoom for Doom 1. It allowed to change the music upon stepping into a different sector, and I think they achieved that by using ZDoom instead of some older source ports or maybe even the original Doom engine. Once again, I might be completely wrong.

[FistMarine]

NightFright, on 21 August 2016 - 11:01 PM, said:

Have you even taken a look at those? Map 5 doesn't have any enemies or pickups, it's just an empty forest arena - and it's not big, either. Map 9 is super short and it's obvious to see that massive portions of the level are just missing, it ends pretty much right after it just began. Integrating those placeholders into the episode would feel disturbing and quite out of place.

Yes I did. Map 5 is a DM level anyway, I never said to put this one into SP episode, it's meant for DM episode. Map 9 is the last map of the pack, so it makes a bit of sense to be added as last SP level if gets fixed to include an ending. Though I agree the maps feel out of place and the problem is if the SP map was to be added, it would make the ending of the episode a bit anticlimactic. So disregard my suggestion, these maps shouldn't be added into main episodes.

[TheDragonLiner]

Speaking of Oblivion there is one last thing that bugs me and that was already problematic in the 2004 version >> Episode 5 when accessed via the menu isn't completable, Because the second level (Area51B) has 2 different versions with different doors locked/unlocked and the one in Ep5 from the menu is the same as the one from Ep1 (the version where the core shutdown switch fails) and so we so we come back to Ep1 instead of reaching the excape sequence.

Any idea if this is fixable ? Must be tough work because the map has 2 versions in 1 file, and the version depends on if you've got the Cube in Ep4 or found the special tree in Ep1. Would be nice to make it so that using Ep5 from menu takes you to the version from the Cube.

BTW Polunka thanks for checking out about Military Station's alternate route, I've played it extensively ever since I found the original version years ago and I never ever found it ^^

[Polunka]

TheDragonLiner, on 22 August 2016 - 12:35 AM, said:

Speaking of Oblivion there is one last thing that bugs me and that was already problematic in the 2004 version >> Episode 5 when accessed via the menu isn't completable, Because the second level (Area51B) has 2 different versions with different doors locked/unlocked and the one in Ep5 from the menu is the same as the one from Ep1 (the version where the core shutdown switch fails) and so we so we come back to Ep1 instead of reaching the excape sequence.

Well, I think that's why Zaxtor made the name of the episode empty, probably to discourage people from playing it straight from the menu, or simply in an attempt to hide it (a pointless attempt, tho).

Quote

BTW Polunka thanks for checking out about Military Station's alternate route, I've played it extensively ever since I found the original version years ago and I never ever found it ^^

Well, I've not ever found it as well, I just said I will try to find it once again after checking every other music change sequence to ensure they don't malfunction any more.

[Polunka]

So I've checked Ep3, everything appears to function except OBLVN303 (Temple of Illusions pt. 2). Teleporting into the sector with the underwater face boss doesn't trigger the musis track that it has to (ASTERIDA.MID). I've also checked this level from the original oblivionfinal.zip, it works on that version (that's actually how I know which track must be played).

P.S.: OBLVN206 also works perfectly fine.

P.P.S.: Ep4 will be checked later since it has a real lot of bosses.

[NightFright]

@ Polunka / Music problem with boss in Oblivion E3L3:
I compared the definitions with original user.con of the mod and cannot find any mistake this time. Please play this part again, exit the game and check eduke32.log for error messages that may indicate whether a file is missing or cannot be played. I can exclude having named asterida.mid incorrectly or not having defined it at all/at the wrong place.

@TheDragonLiner/ Oblivion E5L2 issue:
No idea if that can be fixed. I don't even know how switching within maps happens on a technical level. With "accessible via menu", you mean when played from within the episode or when selected via "User Map" separately?

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 03:36 AM, said:

@ Polunka / Music problem with boss in Oblivion E3L3:
I compared the definitions with original user.con of the mod and cannot find any mistake this time. Please play this part again, exit the game and check eduke32.log for error messages that may indicate whether a file is missing or cannot be played. I can exclude having named asterida.mid incorrectly or not having defined it at all/at the wrong place.

Sending the whole log file as a quote:

Quote

EDuke32 2.0.0devel r5811 (64-bit) C++ build
Compiled Jul 4 2016 07:23:00
Using C:/My Games/Duke Nukem 3D/ for game data
Application parameters: -joblivion
Using C:/My Games/Duke Nukem 3D/ for game data
Using oblivion/ for game data
Running on Windows 8.1 (build 6.3.9600)
Initializing SDL 2.0.4
Searching for game data...
Using "oblivion.grp" as main game data file.
Could not find file "widescreen.dat".
Compiling: oblivion.con (637670 bytes)
Including: OBLVDEFS.CON (89276 bytes)
Including: OBLVUSER.CON (72075 bytes)
Script compiled in 69ms, 610256 bytes
Initialized 24.0M cache
Loading "loadhud.def"
Warning: Failed including oblivion.def on line loadhud.def:2

Definitions file "loadhud.def" loaded in 7 ms.
Using RTS file "DUKE.RTS".
Initializing OSD...
0 joystick(s) found
Executing "settings.cfg"
Setting video mode 1366x768 (8-bpp fullscreen)
Refresh rate: 60Hz
Trying SDL_Renderer "direct3d"
Initializing music...
Initializing sound... 32 voices, 2 channels, 16-bit 48000 Hz
Cache time: 240ms
E3L3: TEMPLE OF ILLUSIONS II
COWARD MODE: ON
GOT ALL WEAPONS/AMMO
SHOW MAP: ON
GHOST: ON
AMMO FOR SHOTGUN
ATOMIC HEALTH!
PORTABLE MEDKIT
ARMOR
ATOMIC HEALTH!
SCUBA GEAR
ATOMIC HEALTH!
UNLOCKED
SCUBA GEAR ON
Line 14784, starttrack: invalid level 33 or null music for volume 2 level 33
LOCKED
AMMO FOR CHAINGUN CANNON!
AMMO FOR SONIC LASER DEVASTATOR
/otherwrd.mid. Use SHIFT-F5 to change.
SONIC LASER DEVASTATOR WEAPON
ARMOR
ATOMIC HEALTH!
Cache time: 153ms
E3L4: TEMPLE OF ILLUSIONS III
Wrote eduke32.cfg
Wrote settings.cfg
Game Saved

Wrote eduke32.cfg
Wrote settings.cfg

Quote

Line 14784, starttrack: invalid level 33 or null music for volume 2 level 33

I guess this is the error message.

Btw,

Quote

@TheDragonLiner/ Oblivion E5L2 issue:
No idea if that can be fixed. I don't even know how switching within maps happens on a technical level. With "accessible via menu", you mean when played from within the episode or when selected via "User Map" separately?

I guess he's talking about selecting the epiosode from the menu. If you have no idea how to fix that, I think you should either make episode's name empty like Zaxtor did or write some kind of a warning in the addons_readme.txt so that people don't play that episode in that way.

[NightFright]

Excellent! That helped a lot. It seems it refers to a line in oblivion.con (formerly game.con) which contains this:

useractor notenemy BOSSMUSICSTARTER 0
cstat 32768
ifcansee 
{
[...]
ifspritepal 25
 {
 getactor[THISACTOR].sectnum temp
 getplayer[THISACTOR].cursectnum temp2
 ifvarvare temp temp2 { starttrack 33 killit }
 }
[...]

Info about starttrack command

According to this, the game is supposed to play track no. 33 of the current episode (ep.3 in this case) when you encounter a boss with palette value 25.
The thing is: There is no such thing as a track #33 in episode 3 - neither in game.con of the original Oblivion groupfile nor in my edited oblivion.con. In fact, none of the episodes has 33 tracks:
- Ep.1: 24 tracks (11 regular + 13 bonus) --> internal counting: #0-23
- Ep.2: 12 tracks (11 regular + 1 bonus) --> internal counting: #0-11
- Ep.3: 22 tracks (11 regular + 11 bonus) --> internal counting: #0-21
- Ep.4: 25 tracks (11 regular + 14 bonus) --> internal counting: #0-24
- Ep.5: 19 tracks (9 regular + 10 bonus) --> internal counting: #0-18.

Conclusion: Any starttrack number above 24 must be invalid. This makes me wonder how it could possibly work at all in any case.

Trying to fix this by replacing "33" with "13" in the code above (which points to asterida.mid within episode 3). Please copy this updated oblivion.con into your Oblivion test folder. It will override oblivion.con inside of the groupfile. Then run the game again and check if the issue is fixed, please:

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 05:08 AM, said:

Please copy this updated oblivion.con into your Oblivion test folder. It will override oblivion.con inside of the groupfile. Then run the game again and check if the issue is fixed, please:

Generally speaking, it works now, but this time it plays BAK2ERTH.MID instead of ASTERIDA.MID

Btw,

Quote

Info about starttrack command

That's what I was talking about, an eduke32 feature allowing dynamic music!

[NightFright]

Hmm, odd... I made sure I counted correctly. Asterida.mid is #13 in the list, bak2erth.mid is #14. EDuke32 apparently starts counting tracks at 0, similar to episode volumes. But we are getting there!

Anyway, try this version, then. I changed it to #12, which is one track before bak2erth.mid. Normally, that should do it.

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 06:43 AM, said:

Anyway, try this version, then. I changed it to #12, which is one track before bak2erth.mid. Normally, that should do it.

It works! Congrats on finally dealing with this

[NightFright]

No prob. Finally I understood how Zaxtor pulled it off with music changes and how the command works internally. I also assume this change won't screw up any other boss fights since it simply wouldn't work in any other case with value 33, either (see here again why).

I will try to locate the issue with OBLVN502 as well, but in order to do that, it would help to know
- how the map is supposed to behave
- how it actually behaves if you play it from within the episode (i.e. playing OBLVN501 first)
- what happens (and optionally: why) if you load the map via "User Map" or access it from within the episode via DNSCOTTY cheat (which should be the same, actually)
- in which ways you can access this map (according to this Youtube video, it's somewhere in episode 1 and 4)

What I am not getting is how the mod manages to put you into different parts of the same (?) level depending on having certain items in your posession (or having done certain things before). Is it done via map? Code? Both? That's stuff I need to figure out before I can even think about checking this...

The biggest question is actually: Are you even supposed to play episode 5 as a standalone or is it rather a pool of levels you can access from earlier episodes? In that case, it would be wise to just undefine the episode.

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 07:06 AM, said:

What I am not getting is how the mod manages to put you into different parts of the same (?) level depending on having certain items in your posession (or having done certain things before). Is it done via map? Code? Both? That's stuff I need to figure out before I can even think about checking this...

I'd still insist that you discuss this with Zaxtor. If anyone can fully explain that, this is him (well, in case he still remembers the shit himself; tho given he's been working on another mod that will surely include magic like that for nearly 6 years now, theres a high chance that he will help). On the other hand, he must be a busy man himself.

On the *distantly* other hand, btw, you might just do either of the things I've suggested to do about Arch Episode and subsequently not give a crap anymore.

[Polunka]

Double btw, about the ways you access e5l2: the first route - the short one, which is shown in the video - is granted by using the portal in one of the secrets of e1l3 (The Dry Forest). The second one is the route embracing the whole level (with minor exceptions) and is played as part of the ep 5, which in turn is *propetly* accessible through finding a strange cube-like object in Rainforest Fires I, then you simply get to some point of the level and the object "absorbs" you (this is pretyy much why e5l1 is a cube-like structure; btw, the whole level is a reference to "The Cube" movie or maybe even the whole movie franchise; quadruple btw, Zaxtor had previously done a map that was a reference to the movie, I think this should be an extended and/or improved version of it).

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 07:06 AM, said:

The biggest question is actually: Are you even supposed to play episode 5 as a standalone or is it rather a pool of levels you can access from earlier episodes? In that case, it would be wise to just undefine the episode.

Oh, I forgot you can actually just leave episodes undefined. Well, then I guess you gotta do that (look into my previous posts - ep 5 is supposed to be a secret one thus not available from the episode selection menu, tho I dont know why zaxtor simply gave it an empty name instead of undefining it).

[NightFright]

Would explain why Zax didn't give a name to the fifth episode, I guess. You weren't supposed to launch it. You guys are 100% sure no levels are skipped if ep.5 is undefined?

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 10:23 AM, said:

Would explain why Zax didn't give a name to the fifth episode, I guess. You weren't supposed to launch it. You guys are 100% sure no levels are skipped if ep.5 is undefined?

Well, if you access it from e4l3 (as supposed), you go through every level all the way to Kinhtron, than you escape Kinhtron's base after defeating him, and get back to e4l3, but this time with some badass additions to your weaponry).

[NightFright]

And I guess this way, the game knows which items you carry. Alright then, ep.5 will disappear (only the episode, not the actual levels). Easy solution!

*EDIT Aug 23*
Final call! Please put attached oblvuser.con into your Oblivion test folder and see if everything works as intended still now (i.e., try to access ep.5 levels through ep.1/4). I have basically only removed "The Arch" from the episode selection menu while keeping levels and music defined.

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 22 August 2016 - 11:25 AM, said:

*EDIT Aug 23*
Final call! Please put attached oblvuser.con into your Oblivion test folder and see if everything works as intended still now (i.e., try to access ep.5 levels through ep.1/4). I have basically only removed "The Arch" from the episode selection menu while keeping levels and music defined.

Everything seems to work fine, the episode is still accessible from ep4 and Area-51B can be reached from e1l3.

[NightFright]

Very well then! Just wonder why Zax didn't do it like that from the beginning to prevent people from making this mistake. On the other hand, I should have also wondered why the episode never had any name... it wasn't like this is something that could have been forgotten.

So hopefully, this was the last fix needed for Oblivion! \o/

[FistMarine]

Congrats NF (and Polunka for help)! Now we finally have a proper working version of Oblivion included in the compilation pack.

Anyway I have something to bring up from what you said 2 weeks ago:

NightFright, on 10 August 2016 - 04:35 AM, said:

For the record, here is a list with addons currently being part of the compilation which are just collections of maps, no continuous episodes or series of maps:
- C3PO Pack
- Cerovsky Pack
- Glavic Pack
- Kucera Pack
- Pinxten Pack
- Quakis Pack
- Space Map Pack
- Taivo Pack
- Urban Map Pack

Since quite an amount of high-quality content is affected and considerable effort went into restauration/fixing of these maps, it'd be a pity if they just got removed. Maybe they can be extracted and released separately as some kind of bonus content, with the definitions maybe even remaining in the groupinfo file - or, alternatively, in a new folder with its own groupfile that needs to be loaded separately (e.g. with -jaddons2). On the other hand, this makes things more complicated again and may not be the preferred approach for "noobish" players who simply want to play everything as easily as possible. In general, I strongly dislike removing content since that's something that really doesn't look nice in a changelog.

Since removing these is not a solution (and I can see that you put considerable effort into these map packs), I would like if possible in the upcoming update, to move these packs into a separate Map Compilation Pack. That way you not only save space and make people choose if they want to download the packs or not but also because there are exactly 9 packs and there are 109 addons included in total, then you will be left with 100 addons in main Addon Compilation Pack. Ain't that nice?

[NightFright]

You can do that easily by yourself, you know.

1) Create a custom folder in the EDuke32 dir with any name, e.g. "addons2".
2) Copy the groupfiles you want to isolate and addons.grpinfo file into that folder.
3) Launch EDuke32 with -j<foldername> parameter, e.g. eduke32.exe -jaddons2.

It's really that easy. This being said, I have decided against splitting the addon compilation into two packs. It's not the way I want to go. On the other hand, I will also not add any further map collections, only complete episodes.

[FistMarine]

Well OK then, I guess I will do that instead.

[Polunka]

FistMarine, on 23 August 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

Congrats NF (and Polunka for help)! Now we finally have a proper working version of Oblivion included in the compilation pack.

Well, I've not checked every music change sequence, so it's not over yet. On the other hand, the major problems are solved now, so we can finally sigh with relief

[NightFright]

I should have provided a test version of Oblivion a long time ago, especially since it has always been too huge for me to test by myself. That way, I would have never found all the potential issues alone. Thanks to all of you who dared to go through Zaxtor's massive maps which are quite hard to figure out!

If you guys want to test more addons before August 31, it's not a problem to delay the release a bit, btw.

[FistMarine]

Still it's a good thing that most problems have been solved in Oblivion.

Also for Platoon TC, I noticed there is a map BODYPART (full name is Body Parts) that is not defined in any episode. I think it comes with Tour of Duty 3 addon because yesterday I went to DukeWorld Platoon page to check the addon and the maps that are included in "Bonus Missions" episode. I downloaded TOD3 addon and checked the maps that come with it. It seems that there was this map that was defined as ninth map in main Platoon episode for some reason. It was probably meant to be part of the TOD3 episode but it was cut out. I just tested it few minutes ago and it's playable (I used God Mode and No Clip cheats to check it and it had lots of enemies and exit). So I went ahead and re-added it in addon compilation version and to save you some time of doing that, here is code with Body Parts added in TOD3 episode:

definelevelname 4 0 1ifbylan.map 00:00 00:00 ONE IF BY LAND
definelevelname 4 1 toast.map 00:00 00:00 YER TOAST
definelevelname 4 2 iel.map 00:00 00:00 IN ENEMY LAND
definelevelname 4 3 village2.map 00:00 00:00 THE VILLAGE
definelevelname 4 4 th2.map 00:00 00:00 INTO HELL
definelevelname 4 5 toofar.map 00:00 00:00 AN AIRPORT TOO FAR
definelevelname 4 6 v2akill.map 00:00 00:00 A VIEW TO A KILL
definelevelname 4 7 hq.map 00:00 00:00 HQ CITY
definelevelname 4 8 bodypart.map 00:00 00:00 BODY PARTS

And for Bonus Missions episode, wouldn't be better if inventory was reset between each map? Doesn't make much sense to keep inventory between levels that aren't connected to each other.

EDIT:

NightFright, on 23 August 2016 - 02:50 AM, said:

I should have provided a test version of Oblivion a long time ago, especially since it has always been too huge for me to test by myself. That way, I would have never found all the potential issues alone. Thanks to all of you who dared to go through Zaxtor's massive maps which are quite hard to figure out!

If you guys want to test more addons before August 31, it's not a problem to delay the release a bit, btw.

I wouldn't mind to test few more addons these days, even though I'm still sick.

[Polunka]

NightFright, on 23 August 2016 - 02:50 AM, said:

If you guys want to test more addons before August 31, it's not a problem to delay the release a bit, btw.

Does that mean you won't execute any repair work on the addons after releasing this bugfix but just bring new addons to the compilation?

[NightFright]

No, I can still fix addons afterwards. But since 3.1 is supposed to be a maintenance release...

[FistMarine]

Is there a way to make bosses end the level instead of episode? This change could benefit some of the addons from the compilation, for example in the packs of maps that have more than 7 levels and contain a boss fight, instead of having them listed as a one-level episode (because EDuke32 allows only a maximum of 7 episodes defined), they could be made into a single episode with all the levels.

EDIT: Typo fixes.

[Hendricks266]

I wrote some code for Daedolon to add to the Duke Hard level randomizer that did exactly that.

defstate end_of_episode_condition
    if /* some condition for when you actually want to end the episode */
        setuserdef .eog 1
ends

appendevent EVENT_WORLD
    setuserdef .eog 0
    state end_of_episode_condition
endevent

appendevent EVENT_DISPLAYBONUSSCREEN
    state end_of_episode_condition
endevent

For the if condition, it sounds like "ifvare LEVEL [whichever level ends the episode]" would work. Let me know if this code doesn't work, I just made modifications so it's more efficient and I haven't tested it.