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[J-M v2.5.5]

I always thought this thread was good, but it's really getting gold now XD

 

[Gurluas]

It could just be that he's putting it back because you're annoying the living bejebus out of him. :V

Hey...To be fair i haven't mentioned Nashalrath for almost...Two months i think.

But seriously picture this: You have a big story planned out...You make a prequel to this story...For some reason the prequel is horribly broken and has no connection to the story at all, in fact sending wrong signals out.
Its like having making a book about love which promotes killing and war.

The fixes to repair that prequel are extremely tiny, so tiny they barely take 30 minutes to cook up.
And yet you have to endure about 5 months of waiting to get that prequel fixed.

Its just a bit annoying you see?

Current Nashalrath is a mix of bullsh*t..literally.. with random stuff happening which makes no sense and has no explainations, it almost feels like one of those Gmod poops such as Left 4 farts.

In addition, the next Nashalrath update features the transition to a new map i am trying to commision.

 

[Tentadrilus]

You just openly admitted Nashalrath is a load of bullsh*t. That's probably why Thothie is putting it off.

Well, if it truly is as rubbish as you say it is, it'll require a lot of work to get it to a playable standard, which is most likely why it keeps being kicked back.

Sorry to appear militant, but is that really so hard to see?

 

[Gurluas]

Not really, because 99% of the fixes have already been applied. All which remains is essentially changing the bludgeons to elves. Then its done.

And changing them to elves basically means swapping files in the bludgeon script.

 

[FER]

what gonna be with the spells? even tough we dont get new spells we get magicall charge attacks which work as spells and also train magic. Cant those charges be translated to spell or at least get more normal weapons and leave the uber fancinnes to spells[

 

[Thothie]

*sigh* So long has a rework of the magic system been over due, but it is such a daunting task... Most of the charge attacks require you already have a fair amount of training in the spell catagory in question to take advantage of, and I've *tried* to set it up in such a way that the way they accelerate SC training isn't *too* outrageous. The spells should always be more effective than the charge attacks, allowing for the time it takes to create the charge attack and it's effectiveness vs. the related spell.

ATM I'm working on Sorc_Vill scripts and optimizing the script system. Consolidating more sprites and models being a high priority.

To do what I had in mind with the magic system though, I think we're going to have to make another stab at MiB's fix for the Mana/Health client<->server update rate. The last one, for some mysterious reason, resulted in character files splitting, as you may recall in the global rollback fiasco of MAR2010a. The concept of rapid-fire spells is just going to be too taxing on the server if it updates the client's mana every frame, as it does now. This system would help a lot with lag in general - pissed me off no end we had to rip it out, and we've still no idea why it caused the corruption it did.

 

[The Man In Black]

If anything, the system caused corruptions because it loops through pointers as a way of consolidating some code. You could just expand it to 4 if/else-if statements and it wouldn't cause a problem, likely. Just dump the pointer bit >_>

 

[Thothie]

If you can write me up an RTF based on the code I sent ye, I might be able to implement it, but I had to comment out the entire original hp/mp update delay code before I could get it to work again. :\

Be nice to see where to put that player data reset thingie too. ^_^

I still think the best thing we could do for this mod's stability would be to make items in packs not load their scripts until drawn or worn though, but I suspect it'd be an epic project.

 

[FER]

If you are going to consolidate some models, please remember to topen them in MS3D and hit "refresh texture" or put them in a smoothing goup if that doesnt work, as we have many consolidated models unsmoothed.

 

[The Man In Black]

If you can write me up an RTF based on the code I sent ye, I might be able to implement it, but I had to comment out the entire original hp/mp update delay code before I could get it to work again. :\

Be nice to see where to put that player data reset thingie too. ^_^

I still think the best thing we could do for this mod's stability would be to make items in packs not load their scripts until drawn or worn though, but I suspect it'd be an epic project.

I was kidding about the memset thing. It wouldn't work, and I don't think there's a good place to put it. Best thing to do would be to figure out all the things that 'stick' and have a server send a reset of them. That's what I did with the ones I knew, but apparently I didn't get them all.

I can write an RTF Saturday night, but you can probably just go do it yourself if you look at the code. Instead of using a pointer to the integers and floats you're just going to directly reference them without using a loop. The rest of the concept is the same.

As for the items in packs thing, the coding itself would be minuscule. The testing of it would be difficult, though, as I doubt we know all the things that items-in-packs "do" and as such wouldn't be able to verify they all work.

 

[Thothie]

As for the items in packs thing, the coding itself would be minuscule. The testing of it would be difficult, though, as I doubt we know all the things that items-in-packs "do" and as such wouldn't be able to verify they all work.

They do everything they do in hand. They run all their passive events, run all their loops, call all their game_show events when the player spawns, plus each has a think cycle, etc. etc. I've global test events I can run on scripts, so it's fairly easy to see what they are doing. Trick would be to make their scripts not exist until pulled from pack.

If you are going to consolidate some models, please remember to topen them in MS3D and hit "refresh texture" or put them in a smoothing goup if that doesnt work, as we have many consolidated models unsmoothed.

I dunno how to use MS3D to consolidate models - I merely port the SMD's and textures over to the new model, and add the entries to the QC.

No data in the model itself changes, however, so if we are losing smoothing groups, it has to be a function of the compiler, and thus there'd be nothing I can do about it. The data remains the same.

 

[The Man In Black]

I meant as in what they need to do. We know they need to keep their script name for reference, but how do we know they don't have something else that needs to reference them specifically. Some coder may have decided that, rather than create a temporary item, he would just reference the one on the player. Null pointers would ensue. Just an example of us needing to pretty much do EVERYTHING in the game in order to make sure we didn't break it.

 

[FER]

I dunno how to use MS3D to consolidate models - I merely port the SMD's and textures over to the new model, and add the entries to the QC.

Take for example the torkalath bow:

The unsmoothing takes place during the process when someone rigged the bow to the hands. If it wasnt you then someone else rigget it.

 

[Thothie]

I meant as in what they need to do. We know they need to keep their script name for reference, but how do we know they don't have something else that needs to reference them specifically. Some coder may have decided that, rather than create a temporary item, he would just reference the one on the player. Null pointers would ensue. Just an example of us needing to pretty much do EVERYTHING in the game in order to make sure we didn't break it.

The major potential problem I see off hand is the functions that find weapons - maybe the inventory system itself, which would be fatal, but also the $item_exists function. But, if it can be worked around with any less effort that re-writing the entire inventory system from scratch, it'll be worth it.

I dunno how to use MS3D to consolidate models - I merely port the SMD's and textures over to the new model, and add the entries to the QC.

Take for example the torkalath bow:

The unsmoothing takes place during the process when someone rigged the bow to the hands. If it wasnt you then someone else rigget it.

Ah, I did use MS3D to position the model into the hands - it maybe I didn't copy the original hand triangles back into the SMD. This is the sort of aesthetic issue I don't notice. :\ Shall endeavor to correct.

 

[Gurluas]

All you have to do is to refresh textures.

 

[Orochi]

Alright, since no one knows how to properly smooth models, looks like it's up to me to explain.

There are several graphical glitches with the weapon p_models/w_models. One is the fact that many weapons have become unsmoothed. This is fixed by importing the .smd reference file in MS3D, select all the vertices (Make sure you're in vertex selection mode!) and click on the groups tab. Click the "1" button under smoothing groups, then while the vertices are highlighted, hit assign. Voila. If for some reason you can't get it to work, I'd be happy to fix it all for you.

Second, some of the models have reversed vertex orders. This means that they appear to be "inside-out" in some way. Easily fixed, again by importing the mesh into MS3D, selecting all vertexes, then selecting "Reverse Vertex Order" from the Vertex menu at the top.

Third, a lot of the models are in the wrong hand. This is probably due to you not using the correct submodel index, but can be fixed by a modeler as long as you don't change the script; simply swap the order in the .qc file.

Thothie, eventually you WILL have to use a modeling program. Not all bugs can be fixed with a text editor.

 

[Thothie]

Thothie, eventually you WILL have to use a modeling program. Not all bugs can be fixed with a text editor.

Actually, all those bugs are the result of having used the model editor, instead of copying chunks of text, as I explained already... Except the forums got rolled back about a month as a result of the transfer.

Woulda been fine had I done it with text editors, but it also woulda taken all day to align.

Everything can be fixed with text editors - they give you much more access to the model than the modeling programs do, but it simply isn't practical.

 

[FER]

Refresh textures could have worked anyway

 

[Orochi]

Everything can be fixed with text editors - they give you much more access to the model than the modeling programs do, but it simply isn't practical.

No, actually, not everything can. Not easily anyway, which is why I use a combination of the two.

 

[Jelly]

Technically, a modelling program is just a GUI for writing the positions of vertices, with which vertices they are connected and other such small details. >_>

Whether or not the human mind can comprehend said text in the format it is written in when created by a modelling program is another case. Which is why the combination of text editors and modelling programs is probably the easiest and most efficient way.

 

[FER]

Refresh texture works for the unsmoothing problems most of the time, as the smoothing groups are still there but the model wont smooth for some reason.

 

[Orochi]

Text editors are GREAT for mixing and matching parts of animations.

 

[Thothie]

Everything can be fixed with text editors - they give you much more access to the model than the modeling programs do, but it simply isn't practical.

No, actually, not everything can. Not easily anyway, which is why I use a combination of the two.

but it simply isn't practical = Not easily anyway

Stop making my point for me.

 

[Orochi]

I'm not making your point for you.
Re-read what I posted. I mean that not every problem that these models have can be solved with text editors. I'd like to see you UV map a model with a text editor, or create an animation from scratch with one. It simply isn't feasible to do all that by hand. A GUI interface where you can draw like an artist with a brush is handy.

 

[Thothie]

Again, you make my point. It's quite possible, just not practical. Actually did it a few times in the past - just to nudge textures though.

You can do anything with text editing, but just as you can accurately describe a man molecule by molecule, it's much more practical to say, "There's Gabe Newell.", or use the modeling program.