[Danukem]

Mark, on 31 January 2019 - 08:23 PM, said:

How would I use that so its active only while the player is in a "lockplayer" mode during a conversation with an enemy?
If it helps any, there are quotes on the top of the screen and sound clips playing during this time.

For that context it would be better to use setp[].weapon_pos -9

That will force the weapon down to the bottom of the screen like you were switching weapons and not allow the player to fire. As soon as you stop setting it to -9, it will smoothly come back up.

Now let's say that quotes 150 to 155 are used for the conversation (just picking numbers at random), and are not used for other purposes. Then the following code would work in the APLAYER actor:

ifg player[].fta 0 ifge player[].ftq 150 ifle player[].ftq 155 setp[].weapon_pos -9

But it would be better to do it in the same block of code that is locking the player.

[Mark]

I know next to nothing about using member structs so instead of just copy/pasting your code I looked up the parts of it to understand it.
I see a potential problem. Hopefully I'm wrong. Right now the quotes in the conversation are part of the enemy actor's code and are different lengths and synced with the sound clips using ifcount for timing. The fta according to the wiki is a countdown timer for how long to display a quote. Am I going to break my existing timings by using fta?

[Mark]

It worked fine in the APLAYER code even though the lockplayer comes from the enemy code. The gun popped up for a second in the middle. Probably just some ifcount timing I have to tighten up a bit.
I need this for at least 3-4 other places. I'm assuming I can reuse this line multiple times with the proper quote numbers.
Thanks again Buddy.

[F!re-Fly]

And thank you for the function EVENT_FIRE.

[F!re-Fly]

If I understood correctly, EVENT_FIRE can be used to prevent a monster from shooting in a vacuum?

[Danukem]

 Mark, on 01 February 2019 - 08:43 AM, said:

It worked fine in the APLAYER code even though the lockplayer comes from the enemy code. The gun popped up for a second in the middle. Probably just some ifcount timing I have to tighten up a bit.
I need this for at least 3-4 other places. I'm assuming I can reuse this line multiple times with the proper quote numbers.
Thanks again Buddy.

My advice is to try to organize the code better before it gets out of hand. Write a state that can be used by different enemies, which has all of the necessary code in it (none of it needs to be in the player actor). For things that change from one enemy to another, you can set one or more vars before the state is called.

[Mark]

I fully agree but too late. I considered it out of hand before I started. Lack of continuity has been a hurdle for me. IIRC I am the 3rd coder to get his hands dirty in this project plus some of the previous code was gathered from even earlier code from the early 2000's. Coding styles for different actors varies. There is so much organized and disorganized stuff spread around I surprised myself for getting as far as I have. Also I did not have much pre-planning at all and as I think of new fun features I add them in ( feature creep ). There is also so much undocumented or unused code blocks that I find as I cruise thru the code and then decide on a whim to try and use them. I'm going at this in a very haphazard way.

[Danukem]

I'm not saying that you need to go through the entire codebase line by line and organize it, but if there are effects that you are changing yourself, then it seems reasonable to tidy them up since it will save you grief later on.

[Mark]

Some actors are clean with most all code in states and almost nothing loose. Then there are others with no states, all loose code. Gamevars spread all around. It felt like so much work already just doing what I have let alone attempting to figure out someone else's code and format it similar to mine without creating another load of errors.

But...somehow "I get by with a little help from my friends". ( a Beatles song for you youngsters )

[F!re-Fly]

As I managed to correct the problems of my monsters, I have another question to ask. What is the name that unlocks an actor? When an actor is active, he remains stuck on the spot and I would like him to move normally.

Is it good the value "moveflags seekplayer"?

Thanks

[Mark]

I've seen the spriteshadow con command for a long time but never tried using it until this morning. I used it on a 3d model but the shadow doesn't show up. Could it be because that tile number uses dummytile which places an empty black box instead of a regular texture? Or is there something else I'm forgetting.

Oops, forgot to mention that model is a useractor.

[Danukem]

Shadows don't work in Polymer. In Polymost, they sort of work on models, but not well. If you look carefully you can see a squiggly grey shape under the model. With work you can make your own shadow using tricks and EVENT_ANIMATESPRITES but it's not fun.

[Mark]

No showview, single skybox and now no shadows. What's next?

[Mark]

Another odd problem. I cut and pasted the properly working code for a dog from my GraveyardTC project into my new project.

When run I get the error... SUBURBS.CON: In actor `DOG':
SUBURBS.CON:11559: error: `enda' not at top level within script.

I have enda at the end of this actor code just like every other actor I've ever done. Any hints what I should look for?

[Danukem]

It sounds like you pasted the code into the middle of a state or event or something. See what happens if you remove the actor, then paste it in at the absolute bottom of the SUBURBS.CON file.

[Mark]

Thats where it is now. After the enda of the previous actor. I triple checked to make sure there wasn't an extra enda somewhere in the middle of the dog code. There wasn't. And this dog code works fine in Graveyard. There has to be a simple explanation of something I did wrong elsewhere to cause this seemingly impossible problem.

[Danukem]

Try putting an extra carriage return at the end of the file. Maybe what the error is saying is that it could not find the "enda" for the actor, and maybe it's not reading the last line for some reason.

[Mark]

I just found the problem. The only thing I did when transferring the code to Suburbs was comment out an attack sound that isn't in the assets folder yet. The damn sound line had a brace after the sound command. Silly me.

[Mark]

I had a laugh when I uncommented that sound in the dog code. Instead of a dog bite sound the dog was saying "eat lead", one of the lines from the thugs in the game when they shoot.

[F!re-Fly]

 Mark, on 09 February 2019 - 10:24 AM, said:

I had a laugh when I uncommented that sound in the dog code. Instead of a dog bite sound the dog was saying "eat lead", one of the lines from the thugs in the game when they shoot.

Eat lead ? OUAF OUAF !!!

[Zaxtor]

Is there a code to reduce a little bit how how far the player can look up or down.?

Like changing the limit a bit (depending how you set it)

Default is

299 is looking all the way up and -99 way down.

But making example a new limit in the horiz thing

[Salvation]

I'm having a problem with getting reload -button work with Chaingun. By using eduke32 wiki i was able to code succesfully manual reload for the pistol. However my next plan was to code manual reload for chaingun cannon (weapon nr. 3).

It wont work: Each time i select weapon 3 it starts automatically shooting, making impossible to switch weapon or do anything... it just shoots until there is no ammunition left. The everything related to M4 is actually chaingun cannon on the code that i pasted down there. The pistol and its manual reload function works properly, however, chaingun doesn't.


Here is the code for M4

gamevars:

// M4 RELOAD
gamevar M4AMMO 0 1
gamevar KICKBACK 0 1
gamevar M4WEAPON 0 1
gamevar M4MAGAZINE 0 1
gamevar PERPLAYER2 0 1

gamevar WEAPON3_CLIP 0 GAMEVAR_PERPLAYER

Here is for the GAME.CON:

actor APLAYER MAXPLAYERHEALTH PSTAND 0 0

getplayer[THISACTOR].ammo_amount PWEAPON M4AMMO // the player's pistol ammo

ifvare PWEAPON 3 // if the player has the pistol selected...
  {
    ifvarl M4MAGAZINE 1 // and his magazine count is at zero...
    {
      getplayer[THISACTOR].weapon_pos PERPLAYER2
      
      ifvarn PERPLAYER2 0
        break // if he has a weapon that's lowering off screen, break
      else ifvarl M4AMMO 1
        break
      else // otherwise, if he has ammo for the pistol, start the reloading anim
      {
        setplayer[THISACTOR].reloading 1
        setplayer[THISACTOR].kickback_pic 4
      }
    }
      
    ifvare KICKBACK 5 // if the reloading animation is on its second frame...
    {
      ifvarg M4AMMO 29 // if the player has at least twelve pistol rounds left,
        setvar M4MAGAZINE 30 // then set his magazine counter to a full magazine
      else
        setvarvar M4MAGAZINE M4AMMO // otherwise set the magazine counter equal to his remaining ammo
    }
  }


onevent EVENT_LOOKLEFT 

  setvar RETURN -1 // disable the event
  ifvare PWEAPON 3 // if the player has the pistol armed
  {
    ifvare M4MAGAZINE 30 // and his magazine is full, break
      break
    else ifvarvare M4MAGAZINE M4AMMO // if his magazine is equal to his pistol ammo, break
      break
    else // otherwise, start the reloading sequence
    {
      setplayer[THISACTOR].reloading 1
      setplayer[THISACTOR].kickback_pic 4
    }
  }

endevent

onevent EVENT_PRESSEDFIRE // when the player presses the fire button...

  ifvare PWEAPON 3 // and he has the pistol armed...
    ifvarl M4MAGAZINE 1
      setvar RETURN -1 // if his magazine is at zero, disable the firing key

endevent

onevent EVENT_DISPLAYREST
ifvare player[THISACTOR].curr_weapon 3
{
 digitalnumberz 2930 280 175 M4MAGAZINE 0 0 0 0 0 xdim ydim 50000 // display the magazine count at a slightly smaller size (50000) next to the ammo
}
endevent

onevent EVENT_DOFIRE 

  ifvare PWEAPON 3 // if the player has the pistol selected when he fires a projectile...
    ifvarg M4MAGAZINE 0
      subvar M4MAGAZINE 1 // subtract 1 from the magazine count, unless it's already at zero

endevent

Should i also paste the pistol manual reload -code?

[Danukem]

Quote

ifvarl M4MAGAZINE 1 // and his magazine count is at zero...
{
getplayer[THISACTOR].weapon_pos PERPLAYER2

ifvarn PERPLAYER2 0
break // if he has a weapon that's lowering off screen, break
else ifvarl M4AMMO 1
break
else // otherwise, if he has ammo for the pistol, start the reloading anim

{
setplayer[THISACTOR].reloading 1
setplayer[THISACTOR].kickback_pic 4
}

}

Looking at the block I highlighted above: It doesn't do anything to change the conditions leading up to it, so won't it just keep setting kickback_pic to 4 every tic? You probably need to make your own variable to count out your reload sequence, or at least check whether reloading is already non zero before telling it to start a reload.

[Perro Seco]

I managed to create an actor that attacks another thanks to this tutorial, but I have a question: how can I check if one is in sight of the other? I mean, check if there's a wall between them, for example.

[Danukem]

For visibility checks, you can use canseespr


The downside is that visibility doesn't always mean accessibility -- for example, if one actor sees another through an unbreakable window. So I use hitscan with an appropriate clipmask instead (although that is much harder to set up).

[Perro Seco]

Thanks a lot! Fortunately, there are no unbreakable windows in the areas these actors are.

I'm using all Tekwar civilians to bring some life to the urban levels of my TC. One of them includes a shooting animation, so I used it to make her defend against any player attacks, and if you change the sprite palette to 3, she will also attack other civilians randomly. Ideal behaviour for chaotic city levels.

[Perro Seco]

 Trooper Dan, on 19 November 2018 - 06:22 PM, said:

You could always use startlevel after the bonus screen, right as the game is about to load the next regular level.

Late as always, but I managed to create my own secret level button. This is what I got right now inside its code:

ifpdistl 1024 ifhitspace ifp palive ifp pfacing ifcansee ifvare SECLV 0
{
  lockplayer 12 setplayer[THISACTOR].timebeforeexit 8
  ifvare VOLUME 0 setvar SECLV 5 else ifvare VOLUME 1 setvar SECLV 6 else setvar SECLV 7
}

And inside EVENT_DISPLAYBONUSSCREEN I placed this line:

ifvarn SECLV 0 { setuserdef[THISACTOR].level_number SECLV setvar SECLV 0 }

SECLV is a gamevar that holds the secret level's number. I tried with startlevel after the bonus screen as you suggested, but it didn't work; the level name was correctly shown in the loading screen, but then the loaded level was another different.

[Mark]

When you press the escape key to exit a map and bring up the menu, a different sound plays each time. How would I define it to only one sound of my choosing? Also, what sound is being used when you scroll thru menu selections? I want to sub a new one for that too.

[Danukem]

It's hardcoded to randomly play one of certain sound numbers. You can either code a hack which will involve intervening in EVENT_SOUND when one of the escape sounds starts to play and that particular menu is up, OR you can simply replace all of the sound numbers that can play during escape with the one sound you want. Then re-assign any "lost" sounds to other sound numbers.

[Mark]

I found 2 little snippets of code in my "con tricks" folder. One or both should get me what I need. One is detecting if a certain menu is open and the other is an example of how to use event_sound. Sometimes I forget I have that folder. Your post steered me in the right direction. Thanks.