[Mikko]

eduke32 /xlr&wb.con /glr&wb.grp

Application parameters: /xlr

[Helixhorned]

Then it's simply Windows' command interpreter (cmd.exe) clipping the rest of it, presumably because the "&" character has gained a special meaning since when LRWB was made. Can you try quoting each argument, like this?

eduke32 "/xlr&wb.con" "/glr&wb.grp"

I'm not sure what kind of quotes -- single or double -- is more appropriate, but that should pass each file name to EDuke32 in its entirety.

[Mikko]

Yeah, that works too but doesn't really solve the problem of having to manually edit the batch file. But of course what cmd.exe does is beyond your powers.

[Fox]

I noticed that Polymer display of paralaxed skies seems to be made for textures with height of 300px. It doesn't display correctly the sky of maps like Derelict and others.

On theory, for a correct alignment of the level structure and the sky, you should use a 598px tall texture. However only the Derelict sky is hard-coded on 8bit mode to force it to align properly (since the texture is actually 512px tall the top and bottom are wrapped).

Nevertheless, I believe Polymer should be able to detect 300px or 400px tall pictures and make these exceptions to the 598px rule.

And one more thing, Polymer display the sky as a polygon while it is obvious that it would look much better as a cylinder. However I have no idea if it remotely possible to display a cylinder with a 3D rendered...


Of course Polymer is still far better than the 8bit paralex sky display is very limited and rely completely on hard-coded textures. It bothers me a little that you can do something else in other Build engine games like Shadow Warrior which you don't in Eduke32.

While Eduke32 strecth all pictures to 128px wide, Shadow Warrior force it to 512px. Shadow Warrior also use a must have cylindric effect for the sky. Whatever, we should have the option to display the paralaxed texture we want without it being stretched at all.

And instead of the whole paralaxed sky hard-coded to display the default sky textures (LA, BIGORBIT, etc) it should be the opposite, these should be the exceptions. By default everything should be displayed as a 598px align like Derelict sky, and allow textures of any size. On theory if I wanted to re-create the sides of LA sky, I would simply make a 1024px-wide texture.

[Plagman]

Yeah, sky support is poised to be redone entirely in Polymer, and it's going to be true cylindrical mode for ART skies (like the hidden, better-looking classic mode feature).

[Fox]

By the way, is it possible to activate that cylindrical view in classic mode? I have seen it popping at random in Build editor, but I have never seen it while playing the game.

[Plagman]

You can toggle it in the editor, but it doesn't get saved in the map, so no.

[Fox]

I know (what really was the key?), but isn't there any way so that I can use it in my mod? Or can you implement it (through a structure member for each player, I don't know)?

[MusicallyInspired]

The cylindrical thing always bugged me. Why does it do that?

[Plagman]

What cylindrical thing? What's "it" in this case?

[Fox]

Why the circular paralaxed sky pops randomly in Build editor.

[Plagman]

I think you have to press Ctrl-P for it to toggle parallaxing modes, it shouldn't do it randomly.

[Diaz]

I believe I have asked this before, but is it possible to create Polymer spotlights that don't cast shadows?
Would be quite useful for optimization, or for using the spotlights as texture projectors only. Thanks!

[Plagman]

I think there's already a flag to achieve that internally, the issue is how to specify it using the SE. It was already super hackish to cram all the light members into the SE members like that and I think we're out of space by now. If there's a member that could be used for that then I it would be trivial.

[Danukem]

Plagman, on 16 April 2012 - 02:46 PM, said:

I think there's already a flag to achieve that internally, the issue is how to specify it using the SE. It was already super hackish to cram all the light members into the SE members like that and I think we're out of space by now. If there's a member that could be used for that then I it would be trivial.

AFAIK pal is not used for anything (except in DukePlus), since the light color is determined by xvel/yvel/zvel. I suppose clipdist could be used as well.

[Mblackwell]

Couldn't just use an htflag? Though not sure if those can be set from mapster.

[Diaz]

Pal would be the easiest IMO. It's not used for anything. DukePlus uses pal 1 and 2, but the no shadow flag could be set for pal 3, for example, and it wouldn't break anything.

[Danukem]

Diaz, on 16 April 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Pal would be the easiest IMO. It's not used for anything. DukePlus uses pal 1 and 2, but the no shadow flag could be set for pal 3, for example, and it wouldn't break anything.

Or pal 4, since that would make it visually obvious that there was something different about that SE.

[Jimmy]

I usually use Pal 3 to tag miniboss Battlelords. Other people may as well, it's just a thought.

[Fox]

That's not a good idea, since there is one instances which the CON sets pal 21 to the Battlelord, which is the palette it will return to after it is frozen.

[Danukem]

Are you guys smoking something? We were talking about pal on an SE50, not on battlelords and whatnot.

[Diaz]

Yeah, we'd use a different pal for the SE itself, not for objects we don't want to cast shadows individually

[Plagman]

Sure, I guess; I hate to pile more hacks on top of hacks, but whatever. I'll try to get it hooked up to the pal bit.

[Diaz]

That's awesome! Sure it will be great to be able to project textures and having spot-shaped lights that don't kill performance... thanks a lot

[Helixhorned]

Why not use cstat bit 2⁴ (wall-aligned)? It's one bit we need, after all, so when somebody comes around requesting a property that really needs a scale, pal will be available. It might mildly break existing maps if people wall-aligned their SE50s for some reason (e.g. to make their direction obvious).

[Danukem]

Helixhorned, on 17 April 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

Why not use cstat bit 2⁴ (wall-aligned)? It's one bit we need, after all, so when somebody comes around requesting a property that really needs a scale, pal will be available. It might mildly break existing maps if people wall-aligned their SE50s for some reason (e.g. to make their direction obvious).

People sometimes wall-align sprites by accident, but on SE50 that's probably very rare.

[Hendricks266]

Mblackwell, on 16 April 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

Couldn't just use an htflag? Though not sure if those can be set from mapster.

Nope, hittypes and spriteext are not stored in maps.

Fox, on 16 April 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

That's not a good idea, since there is one instances which the CON sets pal 21 to the Battlelord, which is the palette it will return to after it is frozen.

Pal 3 is perfectly fine. The boss code always does "ifspritepal 0 else" for miniboss checks so pal 3 and pal 21 work equally.

[Fox]

That's for ifspritepal command, but for spritepal it uses a value of 21.

state boss1code

  ifaction ABOSS1FROZEN
  {
    ifcount THAWTIME
    {
      ai AIBOSS1SEEKENEMY
      spritepal 21
    }
    else
      ifcount FROZENDRIPTIME
    {
      ifactioncount 26
      {
        spawn WATERDRIP
        resetactioncount
      }
    }

[Hendricks266]

Yes, but that does not make a difference. Pal 3 will just become pal 21. It is not a reason to avoid using pal 3.

[Jimmy]

Trooper Dan, on 16 April 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

Are you guys smoking something? We were talking about pal on an SE50, not on battlelords and whatnot.

Doh! I somehow misconstrued the conversation. Continue!