Topics

1

Newbie Coding / Calling msysgit with parameters

« on: October 30, 2015, 09:59:26 am »

Still fiddling with my home project (which btw now really works, see pic), I would like to find a way renaming/moving project files out of a Python script in Windows. Right now I have to manually start msysgit.bat, change the project by typing ufoai, then type e.g. git mv /e/buildUFOAI/ufoai/base/maps/city_industry.map /e/buildUFOAI/ufoai/base/maps/industrial/ind_city_industry.map. Afterwards I have to alter this line for every single file, which is time consuming and boring.

I already managed to do something similar by calling the win cmd and using ufo2map for compiling maps and stuff. I have all the basics in place, but cannot find out how to do the last line. If I am not mistaken, msysgit.bat will not take nor pass any parameters, so how to?

2

Newbie Coding / computing surface- and contentflags

« on: December 20, 2014, 10:31:50 am »

What should be my general approach when I try to find out if a certain flag is set, based on the number given in the .map file?

So, if the value for surfaceflags given in the .map file is 24059. How do I know whether the flag for 'light' (1) is set or not?

Right now I am using a quite excessive method:subtract the highest value and check the result, next value, ... for each single value down from high to low. Somehow I have the feeling there should be an easier way.

3

Newbie Coding / extracting surface parameters from .map files

« on: March 09, 2014, 03:57:23 pm »

In order to bring the material files up-to-date, I have some script to find out what textures are used in the maps. But of course some textures are rarely used and not worth an entry in the material file, while others are very important. So I want to compute on how many 'square units' each texture is used.
In the map files a brush is defined like that:

// brush 0
{
( 128 192 4 ) ( 128 0 4 ) ( 0 192 4 ) tex_nature/desert001 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
( 128 192 128 ) ( 0 192 128 ) ( 128 192 0 ) tex_nature/flower 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
( 128 192 128 ) ( 128 192 0 ) ( 128 0 128 ) tex_nature/dirt_se01 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
( 0 0 0 ) ( 128 0 0 ) ( 0 192 0 ) tex_common/nodraw 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
( 0 0 0 ) ( 0 0 128 ) ( 128 0 0 ) tex_nature/dirt002 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
( 0 0 0 ) ( 0 192 0 ) ( 0 0 128 ) tex_nature/desert009 0 0 0 0.25 0.25 65280 0 0
}

I have no problems to extract the coords, texture IDs and the properties from that. But I am lost on computing the info I want from the given vertices. Why there are only three coordinates, even if the face has four or even more? Maybe someone can explain this to me?

4

Discussion / Kerrblades missing in 2.5?

« on: February 03, 2014, 06:13:08 pm »

It was mentioned by some players around. Can somebody confirm this problem?

5

Mapping / "terrain" contentflag?

« on: December 02, 2012, 10:55:23 am »

The "terrain" contentflag is not described in the wiki. Anybody knows what it is for?

6

Mapping / +africa RMA

« on: July 28, 2012, 10:44:56 am »

On the way on our quest to improve and expand the existing RMAs I recently did some work on the +africa theme. This is not completely done yet, but I wouldn´t mind to hear some opinions, especially about the map size. Of course comments about all the other stuff are also welcome.

Some pics regarding the "Who´s greenest" contest.

Not very spectacular. Harvester UFO vs. Firebird dropship.



Crashed Fighter UFO vs. Herakles.



And finally Gunboat vs. Raptor.



During the contest this guy tried to fool his teammates with the good ol´ "Hellboy" joke. Unortunately they did not recognise it was him. Doctors still not sure if he will ever be back on duty.



And on the end some thought that comes to my mind quite often when working on stuff like this.

7

Discussion / 2.5-dev play through

« on: May 18, 2012, 10:46:44 pm »

I was following the 'Let´s play' about UFO: AI that Trashman made over in the HLP forums. Also the guys there made a really great LP for the original X-COM and actually for TFTD. Really great stuff. 

As I finished my 2.4 campaign and will now start playing 2.5-dev anyway, I will try and do something similar. Simply play, share some pics and have fun. My spare time is somewhat limited these days, so I don´t expect this to go fast forward, though.

If somebody wants to share his opinion, please feel free to do so.  And, if somebody wants to see his name on the duty roster, just tell me and I will add him there.

Full campaign, Standard difficulty. For the start, I placed the base.



The first base. In case of an alien attack this layout is a pain.



I added a small hangar, so we can buy a second Stiletto Interceptor soon. The Stiletto I in the base gets a Targeting computer and a ECM device.
The soldiers suck. I am not sure about the new weapon attributes yet, but if I remember correctly, Heavy skill is not needed anymore. I will just equip them equal to their best skill for now. Hopefully the new month will bring better cannonfodder than that.
For now we have one guy with a Flame thrower (Close), one with a shotgun (Close), two Assault Rifle (Assault), one HMG (Assault), two Grenade Launcher (Explosive) and a Sniper. Everybody gets a Combat Armour, IR-googles, a medikit, ammo, grenades of all kind and a second weapon.

Scientists start to research 'Continuous Wave Laser Operation'. According to rule #7 they give no ETA for results.

We have plenty of money left after building a UFO-yard next to the HQ and buying all the stuff that is needed for the second interceptor. A second base should be placed immediately.
America North will take some serious time to get into business. Quarters next to the entrance first. Five days to go.

8

Mapping / How does the game decide wich map to use for a mission?

« on: April 20, 2012, 11:00:59 am »

My questions are about campaign.

My understanding of this is like that. If a mission is created, the game uses the pixel map to check wich maps do fit. It checks culture/terrain/population/type of UFO. If there is no map for this, the mission gets canceled. This happens before the mission/UFO actually appears to the player. Is this correct? If there is more than one map, how does the game decide wich one to choose?

How do the dropships affect this? Is there a check, what dropships are available to the player? Or does the game assume each map supports every dropship? There is a statement in the wiki each map should support all dropships. What if the map does not? Is this map not supported by the campaign?

9

Mapping / city2 map

« on: March 15, 2012, 12:58:44 pm »

It was often requested to have some city high rise map, there was even an earlier attempt to make it. This city2 map is what I made about it.

The troops land their dropship at the roof of the building and have to clear 3 levels downwards.

There is a drawback in using the dropships, as it makes the map rma, resulting in some additional time needed for rerouting before loading the map. Thus the total loading time is longer than I would like to have it. The pathfinding simply was not made for dealing with vertical stacking. Hopefully Duke will be able to improve this somehow.


Level 1


Level 2


Level 3 night version

The map is mostly done and available in single player skirmish mode in 2.5-dev. It could go into 2.4 release, but needs some testing before. So, as usual, everybody is invited to play and tell me about everything regarding the map here.

Also, if somebody wants to provide some textures, the map could use floor numbers significantly higher than 1 - 4, wich is somewhat low for the top of a city high rise  . If somebody wants to take a shot, there might be usefull advice in the artwork section of our wiki.

Enjoy.

PS : Balasar again was first in (even before I managed to make this thread  ), reporting about the missing floor numbers on level "4".

Edit: Level numbers added

10

Mapping / map +beach

« on: February 21, 2012, 06:03:05 pm »

Despite their vessel being smashed down to ground by our glorious air forces, some aliens managed to survive, awaiting the final battle :



Once it will be a complete crash theme, but for now it is only available in single player skirmish mode, as it only contains the crashed scout ufo along with a few tiles atm.

11

Bugs prior to release 2.4 / func_door catches actor in stair

« on: February 08, 2012, 01:30:47 pm »

Related bugreport : https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3485712&group_id=157793&atid=805242
taken from mansion_poolhouse

If the actor walks down the stair he seems to fall through it and gets stuck. If I remove the door from the map everything is fine.




I had the same problem at an early stage of this map and also on mansion_main, wich I solved be moving the doors. From this experience to me it looks like this happens, if the actor is able to 'use' the door from there (from the place where he gets stuck).

This was first reported from 'accumulator' on irc using ubuntu/amd64/ufoai-git-master, opposed to my winXP.

I added the example .map file from the picture, taken out of mansion_poolhouse.map.

This might be related : http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php/topic,6373.msg50457.html#msg50457

12

Bugs prior to release 2.4 / 'transparent covering' in corrupter and bomber

« on: February 04, 2012, 03:52:37 pm »

This is related to the `transparent covering` balasar mentioned here https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3477710&group_id=157793&atid=805242 for for the corrupter and here https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3477689&group_id=157793&atid=805242 for the bomber.

My pictures are from the cockpit of the corrupter. The problem :



If I compile it with -nobackclip parameter (forcing ufo2map to also draw downward faces) it looks fine :



It looks like the mapcompiler puts nodraw onto those faces, despite the fact they are visible in game.
If I run -fix, those faces are not changed.

13

Mapping / brushes "stretched" in game

« on: January 31, 2012, 03:35:55 pm »

After spending countless hours I still was not able to solve this problem. I am somewhat lost now and have to ask for help.

Problem is, brushes that are pretty simple in radiant, get stretched in game. This most happens in poolhouse (bars build in corners and windows, but also on some of the coast tiles. As poolhouse.map is where I started at it may contain bad brushwork and worse, wich may be a reason for this. I had similar problems in this map in early stages, wich I solved by simply 'trial and error'. Removing a model once and a small brush the other time solved those problems. But now the map is much bigger. For that reason my example is mansion_coast_south_d.map.

From the start. I used ufo2map -check and -fix to prove the map is clean. It also compiles without problems.
This is how it looks in radiant:



Now the problem ingame. It shows the brush stretched to the left.



By removing the wall below this brush I can show how it 'should' look like. This also works if I remove all levelflags from the brush.



I build a new wall below - brush becomes stretched
I rebuild the brush up from scratch - stretched
I remove the cliff to the left - brush becomes stretched to the right
I replace the cliff on the right by a simple brush (build up from scratch of course) - still stretched
I remove everything in the map, leaving only 3 brushes (also info_human_start and _alien_start is needed to load the map) in the entity list, each one build up from scratch :



still stretched.
 

14

Mapping / thinking about what to do next

« on: January 26, 2012, 05:12:54 pm »

My next project should be something that is either most wanted (by the players) or considered most needed for the game (by the dev team).

So If somebody has an idea what it should be - please write it down here.

Note : I am lacking any other skills than mapping, so the project needs to fit into this category.

15

Bugs prior to release 2.4 / actor opens door through wall

« on: January 18, 2012, 02:23:58 pm »

map +mansion, main building

The picture shows the door highlighted, despite there is a massive wall between. By using <backspace> the actor is able to open it.



Can somebody confirm this?