I don't even think that's a possibility without the source code. A water/fog plane is really just a definition of where on the Z-axis to start rendering fog.Quote:
Originally Posted by paladin
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I don't even think that's a possibility without the source code. A water/fog plane is really just a definition of where on the Z-axis to start rendering fog.Quote:
Originally Posted by paladin
Some kind of blur/disortation effect on engines and heat. Like is does on most games, and Halo 3. I would of thought it can be done because the game already has disortation coded in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by p0lar_bear
Yeah well somehow tell that shit to stop :P
Remember that recent more accurate Bubbleshield effect achieved by the biped taggage, well maybe play with that 'active camo mirage effect... rigged and animated planes maybe?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter
Already possible:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter
http://www.halotrialmods.org/zteam/i...mmer_time2.gif
Spawns a unit shaped like a sphere with camo that dies almost instantly?Quote:
Originally Posted by Choking Victim
Yea, same principle as my bubbleshield, but applied to an effect. I did the tags that spawn the biped, cad tagged the hammer and effects.Quote:
Originally Posted by p0lar_bear
To get the effect onto a vehicle, attach a biped. Do some fancy things to make the biped change size, etc. to match effects coming off the engines.
I'm going to try the same thing to camo my Draco. Don't know if it'll work out, though.
e: How the hell do I actually give a biped active camo?
oh so it'd be like a UNSC prowlerQuote:
Originally Posted by AdmiralBacon
How about the ability to make certain players in a server invincible, but not everyone? I'd love to have a feature like this for administration purposes, and it'd be nice if melee's to the back didn't kill you. This would have to be a server-side command that only worked though rcon or some such.
I had written most of this at the beginning of the week so I might have missed some things. That and I was looking at both this and the Update thread (where people have been wrongly posting ideas...), so things may be a little out of sync. I've had a busted middle finger since wednesday, so typing (and many other things actually) isn't the easiest thing for me right now. I don't think its broken, but it sure as hell got sprained-the-fuck up.
Lets get a fact straight before I continue:
OS should only be used to extend the game; to re-purpose the features already there. The idea to redefine portions of the engine's functionality isn't the brightest idea. If the source code was readily available, then yes, it would be gloves off in terms of modification. However, the engine continues to be closed source.
Think of the engine and Yelo as Forge. You can use whats already at your disposal to tweak and spice up the underlying foundation, but you can't actually go in and redefine the existing world you're in or the properties of the objects. This is how Yelo should be used in terms of changing the engine.
- Adding new fields or flags to the tag definitions should never have to be done. The only tag whose fields are modified in OS HEK is the scenario tag and thats so that it can reference a project_yellow tag (basically Yelo's scenario tag). Even then, it changed the scenario in a way which wouldn't break existing scenario tags.
- Changing the rendering pipeline should be out of the question. If you really want to go next-gen, then do it with a next-gen engine.
- Going so far as to change actual data structure layouts is out of the question as well. Yelo is designed to be as version complaint as possible (for the build of the game that it targets, ie 1.08).
- So adding new fields to the engine variant files is out of the question (not to mention the technical problems it would introduce in the existing game code).
- Reformatting how the cache files are loaded and stored in the maps directory is just out as well. The UI tag definitions are very crude in terms of adding new UI features, as you can only run with what the engine already exposes via function and event exports. Yes, in theory you could very well go about adding new function and event exports for the widgets, but that would require the changes not only in the Yelo code base, but also in the OS HEK code base (which is closed source) so that the tools are aware of these changes and thus don't fuck up when editing or building. Then you'd actually have to IMPLEMENT those functions. Do any of you have research into how the runtime of the ui works (runtime != tag state)? Don't try changing systems which you have no awareness of how it is implemented.
Dual wielding isn't going to happen in a realistic manner, if ever. It will continue to be a kludge. You're not able to change the actual game state object definitions so you can't do things like adding an extra usable weapon (via the left hand), or add more than two grenade types, or allow more than one driver\gunner. Dual wielding is possible in Halo 2 due to advances in the model code (to allow dynamic mirroring in the model and animation data).
Cosmetic changes such as models and achievements should be fine, as these would typically only require engine modifications and not actual new tag definitions. Depending on how you want to implement it, you may want to allow a special tag group to define specifics (ie, how many kills for X medal) which other scenario producers can configure. The server should communicate with an outside database however, when it wants to persist such data. There is something that may be included in U#2 which could aid in that last bit.
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...0&postcount=75
"Section Three"
* I'm not going to modify the tag definition
* NFWOS
* NFWOS
* Ummm, I could have sworn you can already re-map all of those keys...
* NFWOS
* I believe we had this going in H2 Zanzibar (for the BR) back in the H2CE days, so its possible with whats already in the tags.
* I'm not doing this, nor do I recommend anyone do this until they actually know the UI internals.
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...6&postcount=82
* BIK videos played via the bink script functions (the internals anyway) play at full screen. You'd have to configure bink to play back at those demensions plus at the locations defined in the widget tag. While I have documentation on the Bink SDK (albeit a newer build) I'm not performing any graphical upgrades (which this falls under).
* It is too late in this development phase for me to be looking at recorded animations again...but I'll see what I can do about including the existing documentation I have.
* I'm not entirely sure why objects don't animate while loaded in the UI. Isn't the Halo ring animated though?
* The double melee glitch: yeah, it should be possible, but I think it would be rather annoying to implement without source.
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...6&postcount=85
* scripts_compile should be OK, I'll look into it
* I really don't understand what you're asking for that "plugin support". Please don't turn me into the Tasmanian Devil due to people not taking heed to what I said about EXPLAINING and DETAILING their ideas.
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...2&postcount=33
No
http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...6&postcount=35
Heheheh, yeah I remember that. Looking back though, I see that I really didn't answer the actual questions. However, I believe Nitro was the one who came up with the questions (or maybe they had just sent him that list to ask the team, I'll have to check the convo log). I think I really couldn't apply my position to some of those questions, I was always more of a "behind the scenes" guy. Good to see they have that up still; I have it archived as well.
Thanks for the kind words guys. I hope the future pans out nicely too, life would be great and productive if I got to make tools like these at work and at home. Plus you know, get paid for it, which would probably just make work my home then heh. Looking forward to separating myself (9ish months left!) from my fucking unit and the Army. Its sad to see a lot of these blokes live from paycheck to paycheck. You can't safely get out unless you're financially prepared (among other things).
e: Like the new avatar there pedo bear lol
That's an animated shader. For some reason model_animations just don't work in the UI.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
>:PQuote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
Yeh basically break all of the limits to modding the UI :P Higher Res please
Thanks for taking a look at my ideas, however I am unsure which of your comments relate to which of my ideas, so I don't know which are NFWOS. I think this is because, as you have said: you had written most of this at the beginning of the week so might have missed some things, and I have been adding many ideas for a while. I would also like some comments on sections 1&2 if you can spare the time, so could you take another look at the whole post and comment on each item like I have in section one or using some other method to connect your comment with each of my points please. I can go through myself first and edit the post to add numbering for everything if you would perfer that and/or it would help.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
Could playing .bik files (in Full-Screen the same manner as the current ones) by a script command still be possible though?Quote:
BIK videos played via the bink script functions (the internals anyway) play at full screen. You'd have to configure bink to play back at those demensions plus at the locations defined in the widget tag.
I'm just going throw this out here, I have no idea if it's possible, but I want to make sure it's noted: I want to be able to attach devices and vehicles to another vehicle such that they:
1. Stay still (ie, are actually attached, like the warthog to the Pelican in campaign) and
2. Can still be utilized.
Basically, something along the lines of how Halo 2 does a number of things.
Again, absolutely no idea of how feasible this is, but if it can be done, it will save me a significant amount of work (and allow me to equip my ship with extra turrets)
so like a 'node' represents another vehicle?
Yes. The best example is actually straight from H2: There is only one Warthog, and then there are two turrets. The final product is generated by attaching the turret to the warthog at the back. I want to be able to do this, not only with vehicles (ie, drop pods and warthogs and wasps), but proximity doors. The issue right now is that, with the way things are attached, they don't "activate": you can't use them. Ex: In SP when the hog is attached to the pelican, you can't get in it. I've also attached doors to the Draco, they don't open - obviously, I'd like them to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloy
ha ha proximity doors on vehicles, you're living in fantasy land :P.
but yeh fukin awsome revolutionary idea... just need a coding genious to verify whether its able :P
Id be happy with a weapon spawn on a vehicle, or shit even spawn points like Halo 3 Elephant.
hmmm, If open sauce is how i have skim read it to be, would it be possible to create a 'gubbin' tag type, but in the tag editor have a scroll box to deter what sort of 'gubbin' the attachment is (vehicle, Spawn point, weapon, machine..etc) then for the tag editing options to be made available upon the choice. So you open up the 'gubbin' tag and choose 'vehicle', then in the browse box select 'warthog.vehicle' and tada it loads the data for the vehicle to the attachment node?
somethig like that would blow my pants off.
I still think a HEADSHOT! announcer would be bad ass guyzzz
Shouldnt be a high piority. Still, more feilds on tags, like a checkbox to allow walking on vehicles in the .vehicle tag would revolutionise the game. The amount of possiblities is imense.Quote:
Originally Posted by t3h m00kz
And the would be a more enjoyable experience. But Korn said that he cannot add more feilds intags or new tags.
Is it because it takes a long time to research ect..? Or it just can't be done?
object_cannot_take_damageQuote:
Originally Posted by Freelancer
@freelancer: theres a flag in the biped tag if i remember correctly that does exactly that.
Kornman, would it be possible to make the light from the sun a dynamic light? because if i remember correctly the bumpmapping in halo only works with dynamic lightning and radiosity is not dynamic.
A new shader_environment shader that can use blend maps to blend between 3 detail maps. This is used in H3 and here's an example that they showed in one of their publications.
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/1034/blendmaps.jpg
As you can see they blend between RGB values. Could you take away Alpha channels from the original and add in a place to add a blend map bitmap. From there I guess it would take reworking on how detail maps are blended with eachother. Is this possible to do?
actually, it can blend between 4 different channels.
Blend maps, take me in your arms.
oh god yes
I was thinking about something like this the other day but with vertex colors.
What does it use for the 4th detail map? White?Quote:
Originally Posted by CtrlAltDestroy
Probably grayscale colors.
Alpha.
so halo can do animated textures right?
So why not make the "water" part of the map that you can walk through, like foliage, and have an animated texture handle the water effects?
Brents doing that for Quo, one water plane is jsut gonna be a really nice texture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Heathen
Bump maps on scenery?
Would this be used in the same format as a kill script?Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisk123999
A la:
"object_cannot_take_damage (unit (list_get (players) <playerindex>))"
E: Tried the above, it works but seems to randomly switch the invincible person if the person selected to be invincible leaves or gets unit_kill'd. Need something that works on a single person.
so I was right? Damn!Quote:
Originally Posted by paladin
In regard to this post I have decided to go through and edit my main ideas post (this one) to add some numbering to make it easier to comment on everything there. I also decided to try to suggest some alternatives, based on prior comments. Also before passing judgement on the feasibility of the ideas (particularlly .bik and animated.bitmaps) please see the debate between me and Polar Bear (on pages 9 and 10 I think.)
EDIT:
Just a quick question which might not be Open Sauce related at all. If you use an XBOX controler (probablly would happen with 360 controllers too) the prompts say "Press button1 to Pick Up Flamethrower" instead of showing which button like this "Press X to Pick Up Flamethrower" or "Press D-Pad up to activate Flashlight". What are the .input_device_default tags and what do they do? could they fix this problem? Just having text like I have would be sufficent, the actuall bitmaps for each button (found in the pickup icons bitmap) are not so important, but if we could use those it would be even better. So, can you do this with .input_device_default tags? or if not can you do it with Open Sauce?
Just a heads up, you have #6 twice (but two different suggestions.)
This has been suggested, but widescreen resolutions?
Is it possible to use Open Sauce to make a built in version changer? That way there is no reason not to use Open Sauce for SPV2...
quotin dis.Quote:
Originally Posted by =sw=warlord
Dynamic lights don't cast shadows, not to mention they're not exactly performance friendly. You'd be stuck with a fullbright, laggy level.Quote:
Originally Posted by =sw=warlord
High Res UI graphics please, Also the gubbin attachment idea.
Yeah, the ability to increase the visible bounds of widgets from 640x480 up to anything would be awesome. Well, especially if you can have it scale the higher res bitmaps down from a large one. That way, you could have a widescreen UI starting at 1920x1080 that downscales to all other widescreen resolutions, and another for standard aspect ratios.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloy
Then i'd 'Jizz in my pants'
Don't forget about 1920x1200! I guess minor stretching wouldn't hurt, but if you can get 1920x1080, why not 1920x1200?Quote:
Originally Posted by Timo
Why not 2560x1600?! It was just an example of a large res ;)
Touché. But I'm selfish and don't have a 30" so who cares about them!
I'm lost as to the question if that's feasible or not.
I need a function to teleport objects to points on other objects. Sort of like objects_attach, but without the attaching. I've tested changing the coordinates of a device machine manually and it seems the biped will stay on, I want to use this in the DRC-II by "teleporting" an invisible device machine around with the ship, but there are no functions to do that, I can only teleport to a cutscene_flag.
e: Technically, I'm looking for an object_teleport with the format of objects_attach:
object_teleport object string object string
"Teleports the second object to the first object, both strings may be left blank"
You could always just attach/detach.Quote:
Originally Posted by AdmiralBacon
Doesn't work. I do that all the time, but it won't work with the device_machine/biped combo. I need to quite literally, and in one game tick, change the position coordinates of the device_machine, as well as (ideally) its rotation to that of a point on another object in world space. So far, experiments show that this could yield walkable vehicles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Choking Victim
e: And yes, I'd probably replace all of my attach/detach's with this, 'cause it would take less game ticks and therefore yield better syncing if I did it with a vehicle in the back... Which means less lag.
could we attach trigger volumes to objects?
then we could have moveable teleporters, like halo 3 forge does
If you're just aiming at walkable vehicles, then wouldn't my suggestion of allowing more object types in the attatchments box (much like the warthog antena) be preferable? If that is possible of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by AdmiralBacon
I'm not sure if it'll work. I think attachments work pretty much the same objects_attach does in effect, so it doesn't yield the right results. If it does work, yes, but I still want this function because it's "super easy" to implement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhydgaled
e: Though, yes, that would be preferable. It would also be really nice if an attached proximity door still detected a biped presence... then I could just add more doors as attachments with no extra scripting...
you can already do recorded animations. May not be as simple and such, and you have to use a different method. But you can "imitate" it. Also +1 on the ai syncing.
(PS. Not sure if that was said already, since i only read the 1st page)
You cant do recorded animations. Just animations.
Notice how Sync ai has a strike through it.Quote:
Originally Posted by H4X0R
Dwood, do you mind going through and consolidating any new ideas that have been posted (into your OP like you were doing)? If they aren't following the rules which I set out earlier, feel free to ignore their posts like I do :downs:
+rep :poke:
EDIT: thanks :-D
Yeah I'll go through and add new ideas that were posted. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
You know, for starting this thread and getting everyone back to earth, this has been fairly rep-less xP.
Anyways: Bump, I finished the edit. Check out my new, messed-up OP and behold the awesomeness. :D
NOTE: Unless it was blatantly obvious that it was not possible I posted the idea.
A sticky would be nice, too.
I have no idea what this is, I'm assuming its a mod you're developing which will be open source, and an improvement to the game. In which case I have a few features to suggest:
Some of these features are seen in other games, and in my personal opinion gearbox did a crappy job making halo 1 for the PC, putting in only the most basic effort in making it MP playable over the internet.
Features:
Spectating(following) for all players.
Spectating (in game MP), by moving a camera about the map the way a Dev mode camera would (or something similar) in Halo CE dev mode.
Vote kick system, (KICK only, banning is too powerful).
Admin implementable punishments, like slowing a player, killing a player, get creative.
I saw the idea for more FP animations, not sure what that means, but I would like to see the ability for Dual Wielding done right.
Fix the problem with the game, where in Multi Player if you minimize the game in any way (using Alt Tab or the Windows key), upon maximizing it again you cannot see in game text like who killed who and what people have said in chat. I swear I'm the only one who knows about this, has anyone else noticed this problem before?
Quote:
Originally Posted by il Duce Primo
THIS and higher res images for UI!!!!!
Your kidding right?Quote:
Originally Posted by FreedomFighter7
Text lag has been a known issue since HaloPC was released...
Can we get a sort of "campaign scoring" system like in Halo 3? Or at the very least some way to easily trigger something when a kill is made in a campaign. Rob Oplawar wanted Cerebrum-Synapse to track his Bridge campaign, and I don't see much point unless we can do scoring.
I would just need a test campaign map made for CE that I can use to develop campaign scoring routines.
I would just like to reiterate something. Developing a feature with OS requires actual work. That is, you have to actual research (basically reverse engineer) what it takes to do what you're wanting to do. Even then, research only gets you half way. You then have to implement that research into something tangible.
Take for instance campaign extending. I had to first research the systems which worked with campaign case code. This included some UI code and some general game code. Once I knew the systems, I had to narrow my focus in the how. Once I knew how the systems interfaced with what they were doing with campaign cases (as Halo 1 had campaign related data all hard coded), I was able to figure out how to inject and overwrite existing game code and data with code I compiled into OS.
The engine isn't open source. The only way you can extend it is by rewiring the actual "hardware" (ie, the machine code). I guess one way to compare it is with cracking the iPhone or 360. In order to actually get to the software and make it do what you want, you first have to hurdle over the hardware factor which is there blocking communication with the operating system from an outside source. The software in this case is how the game works. Parts of the game can't be changed without pretty much taking one peice of hardware out and replacing it with a totally new part.
Take for instance increasing the profile name length. In some cases as this, the hardware is spread out like cancer so that it isn't fessible to make the change.
To top it off, the game was compiled for optimization and release, so code was inlined and mutilated from its original source.
So really...try thinking about what you're suggesting...and for christ-cracker sakes listen to what I said for submitting ideas and actually explain them and provide information on how they could possibly be done. Stop just throwing stuff out there thinking I'm a fucking mind reader or something, thats not how game development goes :|
You've been around long enough for us all to know you're > human. Don't pull that "I can't read minds" bullshit, we know better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
<3
This is why I narrowed my original request down to something specific and simple. Hopefully I don't need to elaborate on campaign scoring: you increment some counters for points and kills when an ai unit dies and the fatal shot came from the player.
Quote:
Originally Posted by il Duce Primo
Well for these bad boys which would make maps look totally freakin delicious, I guess you could investigate how the detail map alpha channels seperate the detail maps in the environment_shader, then do your coding wizardry to the values of RBG(each value a seperate detail map) ?, no idea i cant code for shit but theres a suggestion.
Um also higher res images for UI, No idea again, but look at origional UI system and see if theres anyways to maybe unlock the bitmap resolution filtering ? lol im probably no help at all, but those two features would kickass.
RGBA, I believe it was already mentioned that shader extensions were near impossible, and please stop quoting that image.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloy
Ha sorry :(. one can only dream.
Sorry, I assumed you had played most modern games (I think you're talking to me). Spectating/following is where you see a team mates point of view, including their HUD, weapon, etc. Its very much like sight jacking. This can be done for teams only, and for spectators (people not playing but watching the game). People not playing, but watching would be able to cycle through players and follow them on either team. These are common features in modern games like COD 4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kornman00
Spectating without following, is where you can move about the map with a camera and go virtually anywhere. This can be allowed on teams or on non playing spectators. Teams can be a bit unfair, its like screen cheating (looking at other players on your local Xbox's screen to gain an advantage) on an Xbox.
Another feature I would like is private messaging, where you press T to open the chat box, press the Up button and for each time the Up button is pressed the words: "To: Player 1" appear, with an empty text box after it. As you continue to press either the Up or Down keys, the box cycles through the players. When you have a player selected simply continue typing and press enter, sending the message to the selected player. Also have an option to lock on to that player, so you don't have to cycle through the players again to continue talking with that person. Like pressing the Tilda key (~,`) locks on to the player. One of the options in the cycle is global chat.
What are you calling Text lag? If by text lag you mean the chat not appearing after being typed that is not what I mean. What I mean is when you Alt Tab out of the game, Alt tab back in, and chat, and server messages don't appear on the screen anymore. The text may flicker on or off but it doesn't stop until you restart the game.Quote:
Text lag has been a known issue since HaloPC was released...
^You're a dick. If you werent trying to patronising, then I apologise.
Can we get biped permutations to sync over the network as an added packet? This, combined with some further UI/player profile changes could allow for things like armor permutations to be used, as well as solving half of the "play as an elite" dilemma (though I more see it being used with the Halo 3 permutation sets I've been seeing).
I figure, it'd be a matter of appending the permutation name to some join data and syncing that back over to the client. I definitely think it could be done from a third party app, so I think it should also be possible in Open Sauce.
I've only had time so far to skim recent posts, but I wasn't targeting just one specific person, but just in general. Yes, I got what he was saying with campaign scoring. FF7: I got the gist of what you were saying earlier, but including what all is to be included in the spectating (ie, their HUD) is what I meant by detailing the idea. I don't want to be the one to nail out the specifics of the ideas as they're not mine.
However, I should note that having more than 16 players on a server, playing or not, isn't going to happen. Spectators could possibly be hacked in, by making them players that never actually spawn, but it wouldn't be one of the more simpiler hacks I don't think.
I'll try to get to the rest of your posts (in detail) later today (errr, tomorrow for you Westerners)
uh yea, that would be "text lag"Quote:
Originally Posted by FreedomFighter7
It's been a known issue..your not the only one who's noticed it..
It happens to everyone..
I got another idea, different colored text chat for teams. A blue person talking in global, or team chat has a blue color to their text. Kills made by a blue person, shows a blue name in the kill message, and a red one for the red he killed. Also, it would be nice if different messages were added for kills with different weapons.For example, if Blue One killed Red One with a sniper rifle, it says: "Blue one sniped Red One" Maybe even a picture of the weapon instead of: "Player 1 killed Player 2". Instead, if P1 killed P2: "Player 1 (insert picture of pistol here, pointing towards the player who was killed) Player 2.".
Thx killa :D
I'm chock full of ideas!
so all the corssed off ones your not going to do/ not possible in ce?
Basically just the not possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by halopro77
oh, and ftfy.
Think you mean fog planes. You can have multiple water planes wherever you want. You can have multiple fog planes in a level, but they must not intersect in a portal. Even then, the fog is glitched. For instance, I made a fog tester map with 4 rooms, each with their own portal and fog planes. In sapien, i could not apply a different fog to each room. It would let me, but then it would change the fog used in another oom, as if only 2 or 3 types of fog can be used in a level at one time.Quote:
Originally Posted by paladin
As self-designated Fog Lord, I suggest an update to the fog system, allowing multiple fog planes and fog types in a level (not in a portal, just in a bsp) at different orientations. No idea how to do it, but i would look into it when i start learning c++ next year. : )
Small idea, what about a landing/damage FP animation? Something Halo lacked?
or a weapon put away anim or the flashlight anim
That's what I was gonna suggest next, weapon Put Away animations
What about an expansion on these ideas and ask if it's possible for more optional FP anims?
Animations like holster (played when weapon is put away), stealth-melee (special animation played when the melee attack that's thrown will be instant kill, like a Spy backstab), light-on/off, fall-damage, melee combo animations (a la E3 Halo 2, named melee-1/2/3), and such. And these special case animations would inhibit any player actions until they finish; doesn't make sense to be firing off a weapon when the MC's hands are yanked off-screen to support his weight when he fell. And if these animations do not exist in the tag, they aren't called and things continue as normal (if there's no stealth-melee or melee combo animations, the normal melee attack is played in all circumstances)
Also, would it be too much to ask for FP animation permutation support and the ability to use glow tags on FP weapons?
glow tags dont work on fp weapons? fuck
Seconded. So many possibilities for FP animations that have gone untouched. E3 2003 Halo 2 melee was bad assQuote:
Originally Posted by p0lar_bear
*WHACK* *SMACK*
Some of p0lar's ideas were shown in the betas of Halo 1, it'd be cool to see them return to the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by p0lar_bear
I have a few suggestions for you, Kornman. This is going to be lengthy, but I have explanations.
For starters, please implement the feature to have more than 16 BSPs or a way to have animated lightmaps or improved dynamic lighting. This is because I am working on a map (Blood Creek RC3) and it uses a highly complex day-night system that involves a lot of bipeds and BSP's. If we could instead, have animated lightmaps for ONE BSP, this would cut down the filesize exponentially, or at best, the support for up to 128 BSPs (theoretical) or even more like 256. I know I sound like a crazed man begging for drugs asking for this, but please, for the sake of Blood Creek and other maps that wish to use dynamic time, consider this idea.
Also, syncing BSPs and, in general, client with server, would be greatly appreciated. If we synched BSPs, Devices, and other objects as a whole, there would be no need for the syncbips so commonly used in Blood Creek release candidates I've released and the one I'm working on now. The less "stuff" we get on the map, the smoother it runs. Syncbips are no exception. I am using syncbips to sync devices and the day-night system right now and it's uber-combersome and sloppy. To do away withy it would be a dream come true.
Also, another idea involves sound. First off, please fix the bug with OGGVorbis, where sounds that are of inappropriate length will crash the engine with an Exception. I am forced to use XBOX ADPCM for my bird sounds and other nature sounds, and it's taking up additional space that shouldn't be necessarily taken up by this sort of thing, not to mention the reduction in overall sound quality.
Second, about the sound engine itself. I am an in-training Pro-Audio Engineer (and have been for as long as you've been working on the CE engine itself trying to improve it for us). I understand the way sound works and how it has an effect on the environment and aesthetic nature of things for the end-user.
Please, make the engine allow sounds to not have cut-and-dry minimum and maximum distances, but instead, incorporate dynamic volume attenuation. What I mean is, imagine hearing a gunshot up close. It's deafening and loud andwith very little "roll-off" or reverb to the listener. The further away from the source of the sound, the more echoey it should sound with reverb to it that matches the environment. Also, it should dull the further away you get from the source because the waves have room to spread out. Also, a "dopper effect" on passing objects would be nice.
Think of the potentials for realism, Kornman. You have birds in a forest with real-time shadows and day-night lighting. You hear a Black Capped Chicketty in the distance, followed by a Redwing Black Bird up close, followed by a Robin or two at intermediate distances. The trees would provide acoustic noise cancellation as well as sound deadening, which would dynamically change the overall reverb settings of the sound environment. A lot of "hard surfaces" would produce more reverb in an otherwise quiet environment, whereas "soft" surfaces would produce deadening to the sound. These "densities" of surfaces could be determined in the physics section of a tag for an object, such as the material effects in a shader determines how an object sounds when walked upon.
Imagine the beautiful works of art that could come out of this in the realm of Machinima, Kornman. I, myself, am with a team putting together a nice movie, and I would love to see stuff like this implemented into the game's engine so we can use it in our movies and maps.
I know I'm asking for a lot, but I have high expectations for the future of CE gaming. People say it's a dead engine, or dying at best. I don't believe it. I feel as though we can breathe life back into this baby with some new content-generating content.
You're the man to do it. Good luck and thank you for reading (and possibly considering) my ideas.
Sincerely,
~Rambo
I like rambo's ideas ^.
more then 16 bsps would be a VERY large map. And very wasteful if the only difference is the light map. Animated light maps would be much better. Even something to scale the light map away from the direction of light sources would be enough. Good thing we already have animated skys.
I also like the sounds ideas. Halos sound engine was supposedly really good for its time. But you mentioned a way to choose the way sound works with certain parts of the map. In one area the surfaces might be hard while in another they might be soft. Don't sound environments sort of act like what your talking about? In any given portal area you can choose the way sound behaves. I don't know how much effect they have though. i can't hear any difference between a "sewer pipe" sound environment and a 'stadium'. Maybe we would only need to improove the functionality of sound envronments.
That's not what I was saying. What I meant was this.
Imagine someone's in the bathroom and they slam the toilet seat down. You're outside of the "cluster portal". You still hear the echo from within the bathroom after the guy finished doing what he had to do and heard the echo BECAUSE the environment in there was "hard", as in it had hard surfaces. You were in a carpeted room, like a sound booth, listening from a distance. All hypothetical, I know, but the idea is this.
Cluster portals only create reverb while you're in them. However, actual sound reverb settings will have an effect on the entire environment.
hink about it.
Some chick is walking across marble tile. When her footsteps hit the hard marble, do they not make a different sound than when she walks on carpet? Halo does support this function. Why can't it support individualized reverb settings via EAX and a little "shader magic"?
*sigh*, for the last time, I'm not IMPLEMENTING the ideas discussed here. I just said that I would look into ways to go about ideas and how feesible they are. I've already set a deadline for OS. No new features than what I already had planned are being added.
I'm not fucking with the game's rendering code. If you want dynamic lightmaps, move on to some next-gen engine, not one which is eight years old.
The same goes for the sound system.
Ideas like the ones stated above should be for games which actually have source which you can modify. If I had the Halo 1 source it would be a different case. However, I don't, so I'm not even going to consider such changes like totally redefining the lightmap system. Redefining systems require reverse engineering of both the data structures (don't even get me started on adding new fields to those structures) and code which uses it. To top things off, the game code is compiled for release and optimization thus making the assembly not so easily manipulated.
You're wanting to turn the Halo engine into something that isn't The Halo Engine. I've said it time and time before: OS should only be used to EXTEND the features already present without breaking compatibility.
Not breaking compatibility is part of the reason why I made the standard license for OS's source code GPL. This way changes that people make will be open to the public not only for their education but also to make sure that there aren't multiple versions of OS floating around which cause the game to crash when used on someone else's OS developed scenario. Of course you won't be able to squash all instances of this, but such issues will be a lot smaller than if people were just free to roam.
Then can you at least add support for more than sixteen BSPs per scenario, or is that not possible either?
If anything, the max I can raise it to is about 32 I believe. The max bsp count is tied to a static bitvector which I forget if it consumes only 16 or 32bits.
Well then, could you please try and raise it to 32? I know I'm asking for a lot, but I'd like my map, Blood Creek RC3, to be the best it can be, even if it's a very large map.
Yeah, I can try raising it. I think I may have been thinking of Halo 2, I don't think halo 1 has the bitvector issue.
Also, an optimization idea I've been developing may benefit maps of your type, assuming its included in Update 2.
Has a "Shield Depleted" effect been mentioned yet? Like, the sparks when you're no-shield in H2 and 3
Can't check since I'm not on my HEK PC, but isn't there a field in the biped tag for a shield depleted effect already? Could have sworn I saw one...Quote:
Originally Posted by t3h m00kz
There's one for when it depletes, IE the shield flash, there's not one for while it's depleted, IE the constant sparks while your shield is down.
That can already be done with a bit of clever tagging.
Oh? Can I get some info on how? I may implement it.
an effect thats scaled by the shield function (inverse, in this case) of the biped, pretty straightforward.
Thought I'd throw my idea in here, even though I will attempt to implement it myself.
Swivel Camera
What it does: Allows the camera to rotate around the player in a orbiting fashion whilst the player's rotation orientation stays still. Player will be in third person.
How its executed: Via console, command could be "camera_swivel <boolean>"
But hey cant you use debug_camera_save/load?: Not the same, camera orbits around player, which means player can still move using movement keys.
Hey if there is no limit, go as high as 64 or 128. Maybe, at best, offer the ability to use multiple lightmaps for one BSP. Can that be done? I'm not asking you to change the render engine. I just want more BSPs and/or multiple lightmaps for each BSP if it's possible.
If I could load in different lightmaps for the same BSP (i.e. shadow positions), I could save on BSP usage, thereby saving on total disk space.
Just had another idea come to me, which has probablly been mentioned anyway and I can't be bothered to add a discription right now but I thourght I should make sure the idea gets out there.
A system to prevent anyone who is carrying the flag or bomb from entering vehicles, except from seats that don't allow you to drive and allow you to use your own weapon.
Probablly just as impossible as I expect most of the ideas in my main post where, but for most of those I still haven't had anyone tell me for sure that they are impossible.