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Duke Plus "feedback and general discussion of Duke Plus"

#1531 Posted 12 July 2016 - 04:13 AM

Some warnings and md3 loading issues:

Spoiler

I'm not using the HRP

This post has been edited by Jmoc: 12 July 2016 - 04:14 AM

#1532 Posted 12 July 2016 - 06:25 AM

Jmoc, on 12 July 2016 - 04:13 AM, said:

Some warnings and md3 loading issues:

Make sure to download&install the latest NixFix before reporting issues.

#1533 Posted 12 July 2016 - 10:23 AM

I think the giant invincible cycloid is something from Duke Nukem Eternity that accidentally got put into regular DukePlus at some point. DanM needed it for the finale scene. Well, I think at one point I stuck the DNE code into DukePlus and didn't remember that that one monster flag worked differently.

EDIT: Fixed it. Turns out that the flag for the invincible cycloid was supposed to have been unused prior to my implementing it for DNE. But for some reason it was on the Cycloid in the Dukecide map -- a harmless error until I changed the code. I'm hoping that I will be able to integrate DNE into the next release.

This post has been edited by Trooper Dan: 12 July 2016 - 10:52 AM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1534 Posted 12 July 2016 - 12:13 PM

LeoD, on 12 July 2016 - 03:22 AM, said:

IIRC the cannon in Project Zero has stopped working some years ago, thereby blocking map progress.

Are you referring to the mortar gun near the beginning of the map? It works fine. You have to "pick up" mortar shells before it can work. That's an old Build trick that is used in vanilla maps, too.

Lightning_Hunter

#1535 Posted 12 July 2016 - 03:00 PM

Quote

OK, I have nixfix rolled into DukePlus now and I'm using the Polymer HRP

Just a dumb question, but will your next release of Duke Plus still continue to work in Polymost mode? I use HRP 5.4 with the Polymost override pack, and the Z-Pack by LeoD. I can't use Polymer due to the severe slowdowns I get on my system (which is strange considering I have a Geforce GTX 550 Ti with 1GB of RAM, and an i-5 3.2Ghz quad core processor).

LeoD

Duke4.net topic/3513

#1536 Posted 12 July 2016 - 07:18 PM

Trooper Dan, on 12 July 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

Are you referring to the mortar gun near the beginning of the map? It works fine. You have to "pick up" mortar shells before it can work. That's an old Build trick that is used in vanilla maps, too.

I feel dumb now ... I know this trick but I've never been aware it is used here.

Lightning_Hunter, on 12 July 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

I don't expect that anything will get actually broken for you. There is still no way for DukePlus to determine the used HRP flavour, though, and Polymer surely should be the default. If incompatibilities should show up which need to be dealt with outside of the default DP distribution package, I'll do my best to provide what's necessary, at least in the Z-Pack.

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1537 Posted 12 July 2016 - 07:34 PM

LeoD, on 12 July 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

Right. So here's my current plan. I'm going to work on bug fixes and making renderer neutral improvements to existing features. When I say "improvements" I'm talking mostly about easy stuff, like reducing the number of jibs to help eliminate lag spikes. That's phase 1 and it shouldn't take very long. I will release the results of that as the last "regular" version of DukePlus.

In phase 2, I'm going to make Duke Nukem Eternity an episode you can play in DukePlus -- The DukePlus Eternity Edition (or something like that). That will require putting the DNE fonts and some other assets in DukePlus, thereby eliminating what remains of 8-bit support and making it an HRP mod. That will be the version I will continue to support when PolymerNG is released, and I plan to update it to work well with the new renderer.

TheDragonLiner

#1538 Posted 12 July 2016 - 10:39 PM

I'm exited about implementing DNE as an episode but is DanM okay with this ?
I think I remember DNE ended on a bitter note ...

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1539 Posted 13 July 2016 - 12:26 AM

TheDragonLiner, on 12 July 2016 - 10:39 PM, said:

I'm exited about implementing DNE as an episode but is DanM okay with this ?
I think I remember DNE ended on a bitter note ...

Duke Nukem Eternity has always been an episode made for DukePlus so it contains a fair amount of my own work as well. I just want to present it in the best way possible so that people can continue to enjoy it. DukePlus continues to be a popular add-on used with the HRP; including DanM's episode with it will make that episode far more accessible to a larger audience.

FistMarine

#1540 Posted 13 July 2016 - 10:07 AM

I like the idea of integrating DNE into an official release of DukePlus. Do you think you can integrate Imperium episode as well? It would be nice to have all the DukePlus episodes included in the next official release.

Speaking of DNE, I've had some serious issues with that mod last year when I played it last time. I remember I had many crashes because my PC wasn't good enough for playing the mod, so I had to turn on 8-bit mode sometimes to make some maps load after loading the game. I also found annoying how when I saved and reloaded a game that had an active or a dead super trooper, the game crashed to desktop because of failing to load the model. So I had to gib its body before saving to prevent that of happening. I've also had crashes when the next level was loading, so I had to save at end of each level, exit, then enable 8-bit mode, exit level and let next one load, then turn back 32-bit mode.

However I've also had a game breaking bug. At end of level 4 (I think), when you are supposed to activate the bridge to be able to exit the map, I got stuck in that room that activates the bridge, with no way out. I somehow got locked inside and couldn't get out without using DNCLIP, there seemed to be an invisible wall blocking the way. I mean I could enter that room but once I entered, no way out unless I cheated. So if I wanted to complete the map without cheating, I had to use steroids to cross the pit, which worked but still left me dissatisfied because of that bug. The bug didn't happen in the old 1.3d version of the mod, it only seems to happen in latest 2.0 version. I also want to point out that all of these things I've reported, happened in latest 2.0 version. The old 1.3d version was better optimized, in my opinion. It ran flawless and I didn't encounter that bug. But the latest 2.0 version is poorly optimized. Thankfully in past 2 months, I've got a new graphics card, so I might be able to properly play DNE this time.

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1541 Posted 13 July 2016 - 10:17 AM

Would you like to be a beta tester? If you do, I'll send you a PM when I start working on the DNE integration.

As for Imperium: that's a good idea, but it may actually be more difficult to do. They were working on Imperium for a long time before they decided to use DukePlus with it, and it has custom art which may cause tile number conflicts. I'll look into it.

FistMarine

#1542 Posted 13 July 2016 - 10:33 AM

Yes I would like to be a beta tester. Thanks for the offer!

About Imperium: I completely forgot that the episode used custom art. I hope you are able to find a way to integrate the episode without art conflict.

Fantinaikos

#1543 Posted 13 July 2016 - 10:53 AM

Eternity will still a Polymer only episode? Performance and compatibility always been the major problems reported.

Maybe even the 8-bit art can be updated at this point, one thing that you could do is utilize the EDF soldier from DNF 2013 for the EDF soldiers in the episode.

This post has been edited by Fantinaikos: 13 July 2016 - 11:01 AM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1544 Posted 13 July 2016 - 07:11 PM

Fantinaikos, on 13 July 2016 - 10:53 AM, said:

That would be a lot of work and probably wouldn't help. The EDF soldiers in DNE are just my Dukebots with modified skins. Aside from the fact that the skins were made by DanM specifically for that purpose, I wouldn't want to change them to 8-bit art because the art would not have the identical animations that are tied to all the ai code. I don't think it would do much for performance anyway -- The Dukebots are an infrequent and tiny hit on performance compared with level geometry, lighting, and other factors.

So, does anyone remember any general DukePlus bugs that haven't been mentioned so far? I don't want to spend much time on the maintenance update. I know that DNE integration and fixes will probably be a lot of work and I want to get to that ASAP.

Forge

Speaker of the Outhouse

#1545 Posted 13 July 2016 - 08:03 PM

Who's going to fix the DNE maps?
I remember beta-testing the 1.3 version and DanM getting all butt-hurt over the amount of things I found. He fixed a majority of the level breakers, but his ego over his work got in the way and he snubbed me.

Like 1stmarine noticed; there are still some messed up walls that are either blocking and shouldn't be - or are not blocking and should be (-among other things-)

This post has been edited by Forge: 13 July 2016 - 08:06 PM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1546 Posted 13 July 2016 - 09:16 PM

Forge, on 13 July 2016 - 08:03 PM, said:

As far as I know, the maps aren't broken, aside from a few trivial and easy to fix problems which won't involve altering his vision in any way. In other words, anyone could do it, and it shouldn't be any more controversial than when someone makes similarly trivial changes to include an episode in the Add-On Compilation. Heck, maybe he'll want to do it himself. I'll bring it up to him when I actually have something to show. My focus will be mainly on the code side of things (both scripting and content definition). I'm not going to even think about touching the maps until I have the episode running and I have finished my end of it.

Forge

Speaker of the Outhouse

#1547 Posted 14 July 2016 - 04:18 AM

Trooper Dan, on 13 July 2016 - 09:16 PM, said:

As far as I know, the maps aren't broken, aside from a few trivial and easy to fix problems

I don't recall if I played the 2.0 version, so I can't say if the issues got fixed or not.
I also wouldn't say the maps are "broken" as they are playable, but If they didn't get "repaired" there are some places where portions of maps can be skipped, and some background scenery areas can be gotten into to.

also that was rude of me to say his ego got butthurt. The initial relationship started out fine; I'd report my findings and he would respond with, "good catch, fixed". It degraded over a couple weeks to where he'd say, "I don't care about that", and finally to the point where he stopped replying entirely. Then he released it without a word to me while I was still beta-testing. I don't know what was going on in his life at the time and maybe he was having personal problems. Also I don't care that he didn't give me any credit, but I put a lot of hours in to help him out and I didn't even get a simple "Thanks". Maybe I'm the one butthurt.

This post has been edited by Forge: 14 July 2016 - 04:37 AM

LeoD

Duke4.net topic/3513

#1548 Posted 15 July 2016 - 12:49 AM

Trooper Dan, on 12 July 2016 - 07:34 PM, said:

Right. So here's my current plan. I'm going to work on bug fixes and making renderer neutral improvements to existing features. When I say "improvements" I'm talking mostly about easy stuff, like reducing the number of jibs to help eliminate lag spikes. That's phase 1 and it shouldn't take very long. I will release the results of that as the last "regular" version of DukePlus.
In phase 2, I'm going to make Duke Nukem Eternity an episode you can play in DukePlus -- The DukePlus Eternity Edition (or something like that). That will require putting the DNE fonts and some other assets in DukePlus, thereby eliminating what remains of 8-bit support and making it an HRP mod. That will be the version I will continue to support when PolymerNG is released, and I plan to update it to work well with the new renderer.

~~Ten~~Twenty upvotes from me if only I could...

Trooper Dan, on 13 July 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

As for Imperium: that's a good idea, but it may actually be more difficult to do. They were working on Imperium for a long time before they decided to use DukePlus with it, and it has custom art which may cause tile number conflicts. I'll look into it.

Please consider Overkill Beta as well. Its custom ART could easily dealt with using the ART-per-map feature. OK1-OK3 are like release-ready IMO, besides one of the nuke buttons being too hard to use. OK4 desperately needs more ammo in the first section, though.

Trooper Dan, on 13 July 2016 - 07:11 PM, said:

So, does anyone remember any general DukePlus bugs that haven't been mentioned so far?

Sometimes when you encounter a group of troopers, one or two of them become invisible and can only be killed by explosives. I think only the red ones are affected and maybe only if spawned instead of pre-placed. Happened to me twice when playing Sanek's DoomBOX, but it's not exactly reproducible.

This post has been edited by LeoD: 15 July 2016 - 12:50 AM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1549 Posted 15 July 2016 - 01:09 AM

LeoD, on 15 July 2016 - 12:49 AM, said:

Damn, I had forgotten about that. I think it has to do with troopers cloaking, and then resuming their regular behavior without uncloaking. There is some code in the "advanced AI" block which all enemies can use, and it can change behavior -- I probably allow that to happen without checking for cstat. At least that's my theory; I definitely want to fix it.

Here is what I have done so far:

DukePlus version 2.40 update

Maintenance fixes: These are things that used to work and got broken over time
-includes "NixFix" pack from LeoD (various fixes, mostly relating to model defs from changed HRP assets)
-fixed the next/prev weapon switching bug when player had expander
-Cycloid at the end of Dukecide map is now killable again
-Gore chunks are now the correct pal again (this means, for example, that frozen enemies spawn frozen chunks)
-Decals (rocket scorches, bullet decals) will now spawn slightly away from surface to prevent flickering
-Shell casings will stop spinning a few seconds after hitting the ground

Other changes:
-Removed hiss from step sounds
-Reduced number of gore chunks (still plenty though!)
-Increased reloading speed on mp5, and startup of reload on cruizer shotgun
-Duke's jump grunts are much less frequent
-Added game speed adjuster to the Environment submenu (rename of weather menu)
-Secondary fire on FreezerPlus shoots only 2 ice shards instead of 3, but they do slightly more damage; this makes the primary fire more attractive, as it should be
-Fixed HUD position and related text position for the MonCapsules (the optional tripbomb replacement that allows capture and release of monsters, pokemon style)

TheDragonLiner

#1550 Posted 15 July 2016 - 01:24 AM

Nice !
Can't wait to see the release ^^

BTW the prev/next weapon bug you mention is also present in Attrition but it affects weapons 7 to 0 IIRC.

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1551 Posted 15 July 2016 - 02:08 AM

TheDragonLiner, on 15 July 2016 - 01:24 AM, said:

Nice !
Can't wait to see the release ^^

BTW the prev/next weapon bug you mention is also present in Attrition but it affects weapons 7 to 0 IIRC.

The bug is caused by code that makes the player switch to weapon 0 so that the player will switch to the laser pistol (which has the mighty boot slot, normally skipped). At some point EDuke32 weapon switching was improved to go from shrinker to expander and then up to devastator etc., instead of only passing through either shrinker OR expander. But internally, this is non-sequential since the shrinker is weapon 6 and the expander is weapon 11. That improvement in EDuke32 actually broke my code. Anyway, yeah, it's exactly the same bug.

LeoD

Duke4.net topic/3513

#1552 Posted 15 July 2016 - 04:00 AM

- Normal / roundhouse kicks show different pants.
- Checkpoint save entries show up slightly displaced in the map load menu (could be an EDuke32 issue, though)
- One issue described via PM
- Finally, I dug up an old post of mine...

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1553 Posted 15 July 2016 - 12:33 PM

LeoD, on 15 July 2016 - 04:00 AM, said:

I checked out the old posts and made a few changes. It's hard to tell whether I actually fixed anything. As for the kicks: the HRP front kick is never going to look the same as the sidekick animation I made. Ideally, I would remake the sidekick AND the front kick so that they match, and override the HRP front kick (which has never looked very good, although it looks better than it used to).

I have updated Fissile Materials with a download of DukePlus 2.40 beta: http://fissile.duke4...e_dukeplus.html

I fully expect that there are more bugs, but I would like to give everyone access to the mod in its current state. Also, I realized that I will probably find more general things that I want to change when I get around to working on DNE inclusion. So, I'm not going to make the release of 2.40 official until both versions are ready.

Lightning_Hunter

#1554 Posted 15 July 2016 - 10:00 PM

Thanks for getting this out so fast! I played a bit tonight, and most of the bugs seem to have been addressed. However, something strange I noticed is that I will sometimes randomly get electrocuted while playing. For example, I will be walking through a door or under a light (or just anywhere at all), and my screen will light up as if I'm walking on a subway track, and my health will reduce a bit. Any idea what this is all about? Is there a new attack by a certain monster that causes this? If so, I have no clue how to avoid it, or what monster is carrying out this attack.

Edit: Nevermind, I guess it is some kind of new flash grenade that the pig cops fire? How do you avoid them?

This post has been edited by Lightning_Hunter: 15 July 2016 - 10:21 PM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1555 Posted 15 July 2016 - 10:23 PM

Lightning_Hunter, on 15 July 2016 - 10:00 PM, said:

That's not new -- it's part of the "advanced AI" option and has been around for a long time. You can disable that option in the Enemies menu. They don't throw the grenades very often.

Lightning_Hunter

#1556 Posted 15 July 2016 - 10:43 PM

Trooper Dan, on 15 July 2016 - 10:23 PM, said:

That's not new -- it's part of the "advanced AI" option and has been around for a long time. You can disable that option in the Enemies menu. They don't throw the grenades very often.

Well, it is new to me because I don't think this feature was in Duke Plus when I last played it. Either that, or I didn't have it enabled back then. I think the last version I downloaded was sometime in 2008 or 2009. Anyway, I am just getting used to the Smart AI.

This post has been edited by Lightning_Hunter: 15 July 2016 - 10:44 PM

LeoD

Duke4.net topic/3513

#1557 Posted 16 July 2016 - 03:05 AM

[nitpick]pre-release to-do list:
- remove all Thumbs.db
- dukeplus.def : echo correct DP version
- DUKEPLUS.CON/setgamename : insert correct DP version
[/nitpick]

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1558 Posted 16 July 2016 - 05:09 AM

LeoD, on 16 July 2016 - 03:05 AM, said:

- remove all Thumbs.db

Where? I can't find any.

EDIT: Also, I plan to remove the reference to "NixFix" from the cons/defs. You are of course welcome to add them back in if future versions of NixFix are needed, but in the mean time I feel it is potentially confusing. I'll add you to the DukePlus credits, though.

EDIT2: I have DNE 2.0 integrated into DukePlus now (it was pretty easy actually), but I'm getting 10-20 fps on the first map, and that's with only 2 lights per surface. I'm trying to decide what to do about this. I don't believe that optimizing my code is going to help much. Maybe I should wait until PolymerNG is released before spending any more time on this.

This post has been edited by Trooper Dan: 16 July 2016 - 06:37 AM

LeoD

Duke4.net topic/3513

#1559 Posted 16 July 2016 - 03:20 PM

Trooper Dan, on 16 July 2016 - 05:09 AM, said:

Where? I can't find any

Try dir "DukePlus 240" /S /A:H from the command line. Those file have the hidden and system attributes set and get in the way when moving or deleting the DukePlus folder. I assume some file browsing or image viewing programs create them in the background. In an MSYS2 shell, find "DukePlus 240" | grep Thumbs.db gives:

Spoiler

Trooper Dan, on 16 July 2016 - 05:09 AM, said:

EDIT: Also, I plan to remove the reference to "NixFix" from the cons/defs.

Of course - that's what I meant when asking for 'correct' versions, besides incrementing to 2.4x. I put that in to remind users they aren't running the official release. Btw, a maybe useless reminder - there is a line in USERPLUS.CON which appears to reference to the version number as well (no idea if actually used) :

definequote 1013       ^7DP 231

Trooper Dan, on 16 July 2016 - 05:09 AM, said:

EDIT2: I have DNE 2.0 integrated into DukePlus now (it was pretty easy actually), but I'm getting 10-20 fps on the first map, and that's with only 2 lights per surface. I'm trying to decide what to do about this. I don't believe that optimizing my code is going to help much. Maybe I should wait until PolymerNG is released before spending any more time on this.

Agreed. (Gives me time for another look at my half-baked Eternity NixFix from last year.)

One more thing to consider for all maps made for the HRP/DukePlus: in 2013 the HRP representations of tiles #1275 and #1276 were switched. So all #1275/#1276 occurrences in maps designed with/for the HRP prior to 2013 should be switched as well.

This post has been edited by LeoD: 16 July 2016 - 04:04 PM

Danukem

Duke Plus Developer

#1560 Posted 16 July 2016 - 04:42 PM

LeoD, on 16 July 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

Try dir "DukePlus 240" /S /A:H from the command line. Those file have the hidden and system attributes set

*facepalm*

Found and removed! Thanks.

LeoD, on 16 July 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

definequote 1013       ^7DP 231

That displays on the screen for a few seconds after starting a game. I updated it to 240.

***

In other news, I'm pretty sure that I will wait on releasing an Eternity edition until I can use PolymerNG. Below I discuss the performance issue so it's clear why that makes sense.

I am by no means anti-Polymer and it runs fine for me on some projects. But on DNE it is atrocious, and since DNE is designed for Polymer that is a deal breaker. I tried using it and the only thing that made any significant difference was the presence of dynamic lights. I played around with changing screen resolution, the presence of models, CON code, number of lights per surface, 8-bit versus HD textures, and a few other things, and nothing really made much of a difference.

My system specs are CPU i5-4200M at 2.5ghz (2 cores), GPU Geforce GT 750 (x2 with SLI). So my CPU is weak compared with GPU, which is a problem because Polymer is very CPU intensive and leaves the GPU idling a lot. This is on a lenovo laptap, which I don't use for gaming much aside from older games (I have a PS4 for newer stuff).

Anyway, for comparison here is what I get from a certain spot in Lights Camera Action (first level of DNE) using Polymer with lights on:

Posted Image