[Danukem]

 Jblade, on 26 January 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:

Yeah I suspected as much, as I said it's not really a problem just something I found interesting.

I've already found a solution where at the firing frame the player spawns an actor in front of them that plays the desired sound and then is removed instantly. This works perfectly and means machineguns and stuff have a roaring crescendo of sound rather than the kinda unnatural stuttering they had before. This only works with sound though and not globalsound, so I had to put the sprite in front of the player so it appears to come from the right direction.

Here's a video demonstrating what I was banging on about

That's a good demonstration of the difference, and I'm glad you have it working the way you want it. Personally, I think the normal system is fine. I like being able to hear each individual shot clearly -- on your system, the sound gets kind of muddled. Maybe that's because in the sound itself, the part after the initial bang is too loud and doesn't drop off quickly enough. I dunno.

[Jblade]

Yeah I can appreciate that - personally I favour more choatic gunfire sounds like in Heat or games like Insurgency - I do agree that some sounds will need tweaking a bit so they work better though.

[Hendricks266]

Has that property of sounds always existed in Duke? I need to know whether the situation means I have a bug to fix or a new feature to implement.

[Danukem]

 Hendricks266, on 26 January 2016 - 10:39 AM, said:

Has that property of sounds always existed in Duke? I need to know whether the situation means I have a bug to fix or a new feature to implement.

It was certainly like that when I started modding in 2006. I don't see any reason why the sound system would have been downgraded to its current state if it used to be able to handle multiple instances of a sound per actor.

[Fox]

It's more of a limitation than a bug. But it wouldn't hurt to change it.

 Trooper Dan, on 25 January 2016 - 09:41 PM, said:

Changing that would be major, and would break the ifactorsound command and probably other stuff.

I don't see any problem that could result of it. Soundonce or ifactorsound would check for any instance of the sound playing within the actor.

[Danukem]

 Fox, on 26 January 2016 - 05:55 PM, said:

It's more of a limitation than a bug. But it wouldn't hurt to change it.


I don't see any problem that could result of it. Soundonce or ifactorsound would check for any instance of the sound playing within the actor.

I guess it could be made to work in a way that doesn't break the current commands. ifactorsound should be true if there are any instances of the sound being played by the actor, and stopactorsound should stop all instances of the sound being played by that actor (if it doesn't stop all instances, then it definitely will break my mods)

However, given that it has always worked the other way, I would err on the side of caution. It's very frustrating when your mod gets broken by changes if you don''t want to be trapped in a perpetual cycle of mod maintenance. Here's an example of how the change could brake a lot of mods: some sounds may be played frequently, often before a previous instance is finished (e.g. enemies using machine guns). But there is a limited number of voices that can play at once. If multiple instances per actor are now allowed, other sounds may be forced out, leaving moments where only machine gun fire can be heard, whereas before other important sounds were still played.

Finally, considering that there are serious bugs in the current build (apparently including sector lotag manipulation being broken), changing the sound system and possibly adding more bugs should be the lowest priority.

[Tea Monster]

Does anyone remember how to add gloss maps to Polymer materials?

[Kyanos]

 Tea Monster, on 30 January 2016 - 01:46 PM, said:

Does anyone remember how to add gloss maps to Polymer materials?

   pal 0 { file "texture.png" specpower 25 specfactor 2 }
   specular { file "gloss.png" }

Is this what you're after?? I don't think we have true gloss maps per say, as in per pixel spec power gloss maps.

[Tea Monster]

I thought we did, and it was an alpha in one of the other maps.

[Kyanos]

Yes you're right, alpha channel on the normal map will modulate specfactor.

I read here.. https://forums.duke4...dpost__p__17998

[Mark]

Also in that thread Parkar said: " The height map is the alpha channel of the normal map. " and that gloss info can be stored in a greyscale layer in each of the RGB texture?? or something like that.

After all this time I'm still confused over the language and application of the various texture maps. Between conflicting statements and my lack of technical knowledge I've never been able to create the exact results I want. I've had limited success here and there but never the eye-popping, Mark you're great, standout textures I want.

[Tea Monster]

Normally (pun not intended), it's the height map that goes into the normal map alpha, to get parallax mapping.

[Mark]

So there is my issue. We have conflicting statements on what goes in the alpha channel.

[Tea Monster]

From Plagman - the gloss map goes into the alpha of the spec map.

[Jblade]

Quote

Pause and resume sounds instead of just stopping them when opening menus or pausing the game.

Just saw this in the synthesis, fucking amazing! Just tested it ingame and it works great.

[Mblackwell]

Should save you a few thousand sound files eh?

[Jblade]

I've already gone through most of the cutscenes and condensed sound files into one longer one, so sadly not this is still really useful though, even from just making playing in general more pleasent. Having to pause whilst a long sound is playing and then having it silent always sucked but I thought it just one of those things.

[Danukem]

Speaking of the new sound pausing feature: would it be possible to add a flag for sound definitions so that sounds work the same way when stopping/starting for reasons other than pausing or menu access? Here is my use case: I have the star wars cantina song replacing the bar music, and the replacement is about 2 minutes long. If the player steps outside the range of the sound, and then steps back into range, the sound stops and then starts over from the beginning. It would be better if it resumed from the last point (maybe better still if it resumed from the place it _would_ have been if it had been playing the whole time, but I have a feeling that is asking too much).

[Hendricks266]

Trooper Dan, on 02 February 2016 - 11:03 AM, said:

(maybe better still if it resumed from the place it _would_ have been if it had been playing the whole time, but I have a feeling that is asking too much).

This way makes much more sense, and it sounds feasible. We would just need to internally setmusicposition based on totalclock when the sound comes in range. Effectively, it would be like the sound starts when the level starts and keeps playing/looping silently for the duration of the map.

[Danukem]

Hendricks266, on 02 February 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Effectively, it would be like the sound starts when the level starts and keeps playing/looping silently for the duration of the map.

I suppose that would be fine, although there is a case to be made that the sound should remain at time 0 until the player is in range for the first time. Imagine that the sound is a looping announcement over an intercom. It might be important that the player hears the first part of it when entering the airport terminal (or whatever) but after that point it's fine if it just keeps looping.

[Hendricks266]

I suppose there are use cases for both ways of playing a sound. I don't see why we can't expand the flags part of definesound and start adding more bits.

[Danukem]

Hendricks266, on 02 February 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

I suppose there are use cases for both ways of playing a sound. I don't see why we can't expand the flags part of definesound and start adding more bits.

Yes, our options for sound manipulation are very basic and limited compared with our options for other aspects of the game.

[Jblade]

Yeah it would be nice for better support for stuff like echo and reverb effects as well (current one is kinda limited)

EDIT: also an aside, just checked DAMAGEHPLANE and it's very useful although setting RETURN to 131072 doesn't seem to do anything despite the wiki saying this should spawn glass and the glass breaking sound.

[Micky C]

Any chance of getting flipping, floor alligning and pitching working for voxels in the classic renderer through some kind of coordinate transformation?

[Micky C]

I have some complaints I've been meaning to make for a while about the 'new' features to use left and middle mouse buttons to select things without holding anything on the keyboard.

1. There have been many times where I went to click and drag a wall, however the cursor was just far enough from the point that it creates a brand new selection box as I drag, therefore losing my selection.
2. The middle mouse button actually already had a use: When you held it in isometric view mode it allowed you to shift the z coordinate of the player which was very useful for greying out various layers in TROR. Yes there's still page up/down for that but it's much more discrete and often misses the mark.

IMO unless good work-arounds for the above points can be implemented, it's entirely feasible to revert to the old behaviour. IMO the new features haven't been explicitly documented yet (and if they have then they weren't advertised at all), and I'd bet good money that 95% of mappers out there are still using shift and alt for these functions anyway. I know I am.

[Mike Norvak]

Some of the new features in mapster 2d mode that really are bugging me are: colored sprites by pixel color of the sprite instead of sprite type, (so many colors are confusing and dark sprites can be missed), flashing selected sprites (you can miss the sprite if is flashing) and finally purple walls are gone, green walls aren't light green anymore ( you can't tell if a wall is blocking, and the new green can be missed)...

-----------------------------------

On another topic:

I already ask this in another thread so I quote my self:

"Concerning EDuke32 how viable is to make a mod that can be played inside another mod. For example there's a map in a mod where you find a huge screen where you can actually play another map of this same mod without leaving the first iteration, once you leave or finish the map you can continue through the original one.

Is it possible or too complex? Does it really worth to code something like that if the game plot is actually exploiting this feature?

EDIT:

What about playing exactly the same mod you are playing and even use the menu to continue playing from any specific saved file? it would be really hilarious if for example you find your self playing the mod in that screen, and even you can kill your self!!!! Please somebody tell me this is possible in EDuke!!!!! "

Thanks.

[Danukem]

Mike Norvak, on 10 March 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

"Concerning EDuke32 how viable is to make a mod that can be played inside another mod. For example there's a map in a mod where you find a huge screen where you can actually play another map of this same mod without leaving the first iteration, once you leave or finish the map you can continue through the original one."

It's possible but not exactly as described. The other map would have to be loaded, so you would be leaving the first iteration. However, you could create the illusion that you had never left by using the map caching feature, so that when you step away from the screen, the original map is reloaded and everything is back the way it was. As for difficulty: in any mod that allows map caching (there are a few), you should already be able to do pretty much what you are describing. If you want an image of the"destination map to appear on the view screen, though, you would have to duplicate a small part of the map and set up a camera.

Mike Norvak, on 10 March 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

What about playing exactly the same mod you are playing and even use the menu to continue playing from any specific saved file? it would be really hilarious if for example you find your self playing the mod in that screen, and even you can kill your self!!!! Please somebody tell me this is possible in EDuke!!!!! "

No. Well...I suppose with a lot of work you could kind of fake something like that, but not using actual saved files.

[Mike Norvak]

Trooper Dan, on 11 March 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

No. Well...I suppose with a lot of work you could kind of fake something like that, but not using actual saved files.

It was almost a philosophical question and about what the engine is capable to do more than actually a CON coding question.

Trooper Dan, on 11 March 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

It's possible but not exactly as described. The other map would have to be loaded, so you would be leaving the first iteration. However, you could create the illusion that you had never left by using the map caching feature, so that when you step away from the screen, the original map is reloaded and everything is back the way it was. As for difficulty: in any mod that allows map caching (there are a few), you should already be able to do pretty much what you are describing. If you want an image of the"destination map to appear on the view screen, though, you would have to duplicate a small part of the map and set up a camera.

This answer is already all that is needed to practical purposes

Anyway as mere curiosity: I was testing opening multiple iterations of EDuke32 and the saved files work on the other running engines obviously as far as you open the saved file in a new iteration, so you can keep playing it on the next iteration and so on, if the initial applications are closed this works flawlessly.

Concerning EDuke32 possibilities and as a technical fact, my question is if the engine is capable to call a .bat file through an action in game without taking in account visual effects.

[Jblade]

Is there a limit to the number of voxels that can be defined? I'm having some problems where the last voxels to be loaded instead load up the first voxels to be defined.

[TerminX]

There is, but it's 4096 and I doubt you're hitting it.