Messages

1231

Bugs prior to release 2.3 / ufoai-2.3-dev-28684 - Not possible to climb stairs once again...

« on: February 24, 2010, 12:13:26 pm »

Hey !
Unfortunately it is not possible to get upstairs once again.
I experienced this bug in different maps, wanted to make a screenshot, but I do not where or if it is saved when I press F12 ?!
Also I cannot activate First-Person-View or is this feature disabled ?!

1232

Artwork / Re: Redo of Soldier Body model

« on: February 24, 2010, 01:12:45 am »

Hey !
Just wanted to point out that there is a lot going forward with MakeHuman.
Tried the latest alpha & the latest nightly build & they seem to work really great 
The latest nightly build could even generate models with hair & different cuts 
The models generated really look great !!!

Check it out:

http://makehuman.blogspot.com/

1233

Artwork / Re: New models

« on: February 22, 2010, 05:14:59 pm »

UFORadiant shows only the wireframes with some red color where the textures should be when I use any of the prefabs ?! 
But when I load a *.map all the textures are displayed...
When starting UFORadiant it complains about libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll missing, but then it starts & seems to work okay. Maybe the 2 problems are somehow connected ?!

1234

Artwork / Re: New models

« on: February 22, 2010, 04:15:51 pm »

Okay, I think I've got it. 
First I have to check out that the *.obj file has its texture in *.jpg, *.tga or *.png.
Then I have to copy the files into the ufoaisrc folder under base/models.
Then I have to open UFORadiant.
There I have to go to entities & doubleclick misc_model & wait.
Now I can choose my new model, which should be displayed with the correct texture.
After clicking ok, I have the new model in UFORadiant.
Now I can save the new model as *.map & can copy this *.map file into UFORadiant-1.5/prefabs.
After Relaunching UFORadiant I have a new prefab 

Some problems still remain:

1. How can I check if the prefab has the correct texture in UFORadiant, the preview window only shows the wireframe ?

2. Some objects seem to get holes here & there when applying the texture in misc_model !?
If I have a model as *.md2 & *.obj with a texture in *.jpg or *.tga, in misc_model only the *.obj will get textured, but sometimes with errors (holes), but the *.md2 will be displayed correctly, but without the texture ?! How can I correct this or what is my error ?

3. Which is the quickest way to generate the 128x100 preview pictures of the prefabs ?

Thanks for your patience with me !

1235

Artwork / Re: New models

« on: February 22, 2010, 01:31:22 pm »

Thanks for the tutorial. I've already read this.
But how do I get a *.map file, when I have a *.md2 or *.obj file, with the texture in a *.bmp file with the same name !?

1236

Artwork / Re: New models

« on: February 22, 2010, 11:28:29 am »

sitters, thanks for helping here, your models are great !!! 

To the developers: I think sitters is allowing the UFO: AI project to use all of his models ( http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/ ) 
I think it would be a great idea to integrate many of them into UFORadiant (prefabs). I would do it, but I do not know how 
I think sitters' models would be a valuable addition to the prefabs of UFORadiant & very helpful for the mapbuilders...
If someone could give me a detailed step-by-step instruction how to update UFORadiant with the models I would be glad to do it...

1237

Feature Requests / Re: Medals for soldiers, make more use of the 3d-engine

« on: February 21, 2010, 09:49:29 pm »

More 3-D Usage: I think this is eye-candy and consequently it's not necessary at the stage of the game right now. Of course your suggested visualisations would be great but most probably there is a lot of stuff to do that is far more urgent.

Probably you are 100% right on this one unfortunately...

Decorations: I like the basic idea but I don't like the requirements you listed. UFO AI is not Unreal Tournament where you can get your "Awesom Masterkill", etc. Your medals seem to be imitating this concept. Since UFO AI tries to work with quite realistic military units, I think decorations should be awarded if realistic prerequisites are met.

Getting the "Frag-O-Maniac-Multikill"-medal doesn't fit into the game's logic, I find.

I did not suggest the "Frag-O-Maniac-Multikill"-medal - That are your words
But for me a soldier killing 4 aliens in 1 turn is a **cking hero & should be awarded for his heroic action   

Since I like the idea of decorations, I would suggest using medals something like this:

> Medal for 1st serious injury (like today's Purple Heart) => condition: awarded for 1st injury < 10% of hitpoints remaining
> Medal for courage / bravery (bronze, silver, gold): => condition 1: minimum of 20 successful missions + condition 2: average kill-ratio of 0,5-0,75 aliens per mission (= Bronze),  0,75-1 kills / mission (= silver), > 1 kill / mission (= gold).
> Medals for Outstanding Service (e.g. bronze, silver, gold): After a soldier took part in many missions, like 30, 50, 100....

Great suggestions, developing ideas further...

1238

Artwork / Re: tutorial for creating vegetation models (blender + gimp + ngplant)

« on: February 21, 2010, 07:50:24 pm »

Hey !

I found a freeware tool for creating 3d plant-models !!!
Tried it & it looks very promising, is very-easy to use & generates excelent results.
It can export to many different formats like *.3ds *.lwo *.obj *.dxf *.vrml & others. Unfortunately couldn't find *.md2, but I am quite sure that it should be no problem converting it somehow...
For experimental reasons I exported a plant using *.obj format & had no problem loading the plant into blender !
Rendering it the plant even had the correct colors.
Unfortunately PlantStudio does not texture the files, so I think this has to be done using some other tool 

Please take a look at it, could really be useful:

http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/PlantStudio210.zip

Note: To get PlantStudio to stop asking you to register it, paste this registration name and code into the program's registration window:

    Registration Name: PlantStudio is now free
    Registration Code: 574 127 4255

This is the download page: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/download_new.html ...with the license info
This is the homepage: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/summary_plantstudio.html

Hope this helps with the vegetation problems in UFO AI !!! 

1239

Sounds and Music / Re: [WANTED] Soldiers and civilians death sounds needed.

« on: February 20, 2010, 02:16:23 pm »

I will start to work on it.
Expect some first results & uploads next week !
I think WTFPL Licence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL#Text_of_the_license ) will be okay for me.

1240

Feature Requests / Re: Medals for soldiers, make more use of the 3d-engine

« on: February 20, 2010, 01:07:56 pm »

Thanx for the fast answer. What do you think about my other questions & suggestions ?

1241

Feature Requests / Re: Medals for soldiers, make more use of the 3d-engine

« on: February 20, 2010, 12:54:13 pm »

I checked the *.ufo files in base/ufos & found the file medals.ufo where all the ranks are defined. There is also something like this  :

medal cross
{
   name      "_Cross"
   image      ""
}

medal coin
{
   name      "_Coin"
   image      ""
}

It looks like a not really finished definition to me, but I am happy to see that some kind of medals seem to be planned ?!

Another question: scanning through the ranks of the soldiers I noticed that till the rank of warrant there is the definition of

killed_others   2

but in the following ranks nothing is defined for killed_others. Does this not mean that for the higher ranks it is not important anymore how many civilians or own soldiers have been killed by the soldier. I do not know much about the code yet, but in my opinion there should be the statement added:

killed_others   0

for all the higher ranks. Is this not what was intended by the author, that to get promoted to higher ranks no civilians or own soldiers are allowed to be killed by the promoted soldier ?
& One other question: What is happening to a warrant for example who kills 3 civilians during a combat - Does he get degraded to sergeant ?

Sorry for all this questions, but I am really motivated to get into this project & help you to get things working...

1242

Sounds and Music / Re: [WANTED] Ambient sounds like fire

« on: February 20, 2010, 12:34:49 pm »

Hey developers !

Do you still need additional ambient sounds ?

I'm thinking of things like a howling dog in the background or the clittering of crickets !

If the answer is yes, I could contribute...

1243

Sounds and Music / Re: [WANTED] Soldiers and civilians death sounds needed.

« on: February 20, 2010, 12:25:49 pm »

Hey !

I noticed that in base/sound/soldiers there are 4 female & 5 male deathsounds & only 1 hurtsound per gender ?!
I noticed that in base/sound/civilians there are even less sounds available ?!

My questions:

Are you still needing additional sounds ?
If not, don't you also think that a little bit more variation would be nice ?
If you do, I could sample some more of them & upload them here ?!
Should be fun to record the screaming & yelling of some of my friends 
Is hurtsound implemented yet ?

Thanx for answering ! I really would like to contribute to this great project & this is a task possible to do for me !

1244

Feature Requests / Medals for soldiers, make more use of the 3d-engine

« on: February 18, 2010, 08:17:52 pm »

Hey Folks !

First I want to congratulate all the developers to this great remake/re-invention of one of the best game-ideas ever developed !!!

I personally stumbled over the 2.2.1 version of this game over a year ago & played it till there was nothing left to play 
Currently I'm playing the most actual version, thanks to Muton & his great 'All in one win32 build script': http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3843.0
Thanx a lot for that one !!!

The progress you are making is great & very visible when comparing 2.2.1 to 2.3dev. There are a few things however which IMHO should also be implemented:


The First Request:

I think when you Buy/Sell things, there should be not only a still picture of the equipment displayed, but rather a nice 3d animation where for instance the gun or ship is rotating in the preview window...
I think almost all of the equipment is available as 3d model, so this should be used !
In the UFOPedia it should be the same. There you can rotate almost every item by clicking on it, holding the mousebutton & moving the mouse, it would look better if every item would rotate without clicking & would be stopped on click, then the player should be able to take control of the viewpoint. This would add much atmosphere to the game & would show some of the new possibilities with 3d !


The Second Request:

I think one of the big motivation-pushing factors of UFO AI is the development of the soldiers. It is great to see the promotions & growing abilities of each member of the team & I think this should be expanded, so I am requesting to implement a medal-system for the soldiers.
Medals could be given to each soldier for things like this:

Medal for killing all the aliens in a mission with 1 soldier !
Medal for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' with 1 soldier in 1 turn !
Medal for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' with 1 soldier in 1 mission !
Medal for the catching of the 1. alien of a race alive (Distributed only once per race) !
Medal for 25, 50 & 100 missions with a soldier !
Medal for surviving a mission lionhearted (with less than 10 health for example) !

This should be combinated with gaining experience when being awarded a medal. Every medal should result in a boost of morale & other statistics, like gaining accuracy & speed for a 'DoubleKill, Triplekill, Quadruplekill' for example...
I think this would boost motivation for the player not only in terms of not sacrifcing brave, well decorated soldiers, but will also push different tactics to award medals with all the soldiers !!!
From the implemantation side this should be not to difficult, because I think all the statistics for the individual soldiers already exist & could just be a little expanded...
Not yet awarded medals should be shown in the statistics of each soldier greyed out & on mouseover there should be a short explanation how to get that medal, for example: 'Kill 4 Aliens in 1 Turn'


The Third Request:

That is not a request, but rather a question. What is this stuff with the reaction-fire all about
IMHO that was perfectly integrated in v2.2.1 & now it is getting much more complicated in each version ?!
I think there should be only one button for reaction fire & there also the firemode should be selected. The TUs should be reserved from the current turn & used up (or not) when it's the aliens turn. In your next turn you should start with full TUs !
Just to throw my ketchup into this discussion 


Okay, I think that's it for the moment.
Please consider my thoughts on your project, developers & don't be too harsh on me, 'cause this is my first post & I really do not want to be a mere critic, but really help you to with this great project, which in this state is already far better that the innovative original & more 3d 

P.S.: I swear I won't ask you about the implementation of destructible terrain