Raap

There is something about W3D that keeps it an appealing engine to work with, and despite it's age, it has mostly everything needed for all existing W3D projects, besides support for more fancy graphics, multiple processor cores, 64bit, and a better network code. Beyond that, switching to another engine is swapping out one set of instructions for another one, while making nearly all existing work obsolete. New engines are best left to new projects, ideally something that cannot be done on W3D (a massively multiplayer game for example), so you'd actually get proper benefit from a different engine.

Perhaps, although people getting lost on this map was likely due to the lack of background landmarks, and dense fog. A background landmark has been added that ties into the map plot, and fog will be a little bit less dense.

Oh my... is that Hostile Waters? People have been asking me for a remake for years, so I figured now is probably the best time to do it. I'll post a preview thread when the map is nearing completion, it's still quite a work in progress, since I'm basically redoing it from nearly nothing (and expanding quite a bit in terms of gameplay depth, hint; naval transports are the most important vehicles). I probably shouldn't hijack the thread about a map though.

Then I might as well restart 3DS.

AFAIK some tweaks are in the works for naval balance, although Coastal Influence is more of a land balance problem. Although I know a map that would probably feel any naval imbalances quite noticeably...

Not working for me. I am getting used to working around it, however...

I remember that's why Chop added the 2nd pair of silo's since the first pair I placed wasn't enough. ... 3rd pair of silo's some distance behind the barracks?

Infantry are currently set up not to generate credits on damage. If I had to guess, this was done due to the introduced health regeneration. It makes Fissure in particular play at a rather slow pace, so I don't think it was a good idea to have it completely removed, personally. With that said, adding it back without adjusting the economy of some maps would only make the economic problem worse, so if this were to happen, it'd have to go hand in hand with map-specific economic adjustments. Possible work-around: Introduce a script that only results in credits upon damage, if you damage infantry with an infantry character and not a vehicle (otherwise Demolition Trucks would be credit farms).

In my opinion, opening up another server will split the player population, something that wouldn't help anyone. The only realistic approach is making the game as ping independent as possible, through limiting the amount of actions in the game that depend on ping (actions requiring perfect timing, and such). As well as potentially raising the TTK in order to 'buy time' for slower connections, although I think the TTK in APB is pretty solid where it is right now, a few oddities aside. I suppose if the network code ever got improved, and we'd have less rubber banding, the overal experience should improve regardless of ping, as well. But I suppose that after 13+ years I should really give up on that dream?

I wouldn't do such a thing personally given how unknown the results would be on Windows10. That W3D plugin for a new 3DS version sounds more interesting now though, seeing as the problem isn't on my end alone. Maybe one of you really amazing, handsome, smart and intelligent programmer dudes can look into that challenge once more.

I'm going to have to live with it until someone manages to create a W3D plugin for a modern version of 3DS. In the meantime I'll just use layers to hide things instead of standard hiding/un-hiding, at least that will reduce the amount of restarts I need to do. The good news is, despite the annoyances, I was able to Delta-fy the 3DS mesh files for two of the APB maps I plan to work on (aswell as correct all the materials to point at the right folder... one of my maps requires three 3DS map files just to store all the materials, so that took a while), now its just down to updating the art and LE stuff.

That's not easy or possible to even do in windows 10 (at least not dwm.exe, which is basically the shiny part of explorer). I've already ran 3DS in lower settings such as 16bit, but none of these settings make a difference. And yes, I'm running as admin. 3DS won't even load without running it as admin (it just freezes and forced me to manually crash it without admin). Seems I've hit a wall on this issue... I'm surprised nobody else has this problem, or did none of you upgrade to windows 10 out of fear for problems like this one? ;P Edit: I 'fixed' the units issue by... repeatedly changing it until it finally saved it.

Hmmm that's really strange. The other thing I can suggest is try changing the rendering mode from Direct3D to something else like OpenGL. I tried absolutely every single option related to this and none of it makes any difference. Having to jump between two different 3DS versions could just get annoying. Besides, if it weren't for these technical issues, 3DS 8 would have been just fine... including for the creation of new assets, as I've always done it with 3DS 8. Unless the W3D tools support newer 3DS versions... Anyhow, I've exhausted every option on 3DS's side for solving this, unless it's something I'm not aware of. That's not the only problem though, my 3DS absolutely refuses to save changes to the unit system (how distances are measured), I can set both settings to meters and it will just ignore that I did so. Another thing I noticed is really poor performance in large projects. I know 3DS 8 was never amazing in this regard, but I think it got worse on Windows10... I'll keep trying to fix these issues for now...

It happens if something is behind it or not... Actually it even keeps the 'frozen image' across all windows applications, from desktop to Chrome... Quite odd. I'll try to find a proper solution but meanwhile if anyone knows this problem and how to fix it, let me know. This and waiting on Delta assets aren't completely preventing me from doing anything at all, though, since I can still create custom assets... As long as I don't right click too much...

Hello, I have a problem with 3DS on Windows 10; When opening a mouse click menu (such as right clicking on the viewport space), the viewport or any menu in 3DS is covered by an 'frozen' image of a previous file state. Example: As you can see in the image above, I can't really work with a 3DS that prevents me from actually viewing much. I've already tried several compatibility modes, with no difference between them. I'm using an Nvidia GPU (970GTX), Windows10 64bit. Latest drivers and everything, as well as DirectX 8 installed. Any solutions?

A very good friend of mine works at EA, so I'm sure he'd be able to find out who to get in touch with regarding C&C these days. Harass them again about that W3D source code while you're at it, for old times sake!

I spit out my coffee after realizing your dog was wielding a gun with his mouth. Seriously, that's some pretty good animating for this engine... I remember dogs being classed 'impossible' back in the day, along with stuff like heli carriers. If only there was a way you could smooth out the turning, maybe not make it possible to turn instant 360 degrees, and add a slight vehicle-like momentum. But I do think it'd be pretty awkward to play a dog in normal APB gameplay. Perhaps it would be best reserved for AI units and special maps. (Read: A doggy-land FoI, featuring yet more time travel! ... Or not.) As for APB development, its up to Pushwall. Currently player interest does exist, although player awareness of Delta even existing can improve. If it makes any difference; I'll contribute a few 'fan' map projects to keep things fresh for a little while. I'll share more info on that once I got the files that I need.

Are there legal limitations for putting it up on your launcher as if it were a W3D Hub project? Just curious, since Renegade isn't "free" like the older RTS titles were made. Edit: Maybe push EA into just making Renegade free? Or did absolutely all EA employees we used to have some dialog with leave the company?

You'll have to experiment as the exact answer depends on the object's usage in your map(s) and there light sources originate. A general rule I used to apply to everything was to always draw edges in such a manner that it connects every face, this is to prevent shadow issues. A crude method of doing this is to manually draw the edges using 3DS vertices snapping... Exact wording might differ in the tools since I've not used it in 4+ years. And another thing I did was that rarely a face/polygon would be larger than about three or so meters, in order to minimize the stretching. In a really small map you can get away with simply raising the overal polygon count in your models, but in most practical cases you have to strike a realistic balance for performance reasons. The middle ground here is to make normal terrain relatively safe on the polygon count, but areas which you know are in close proximity to a light source you raise the polygon count at in a round or spherical shape in order to effectively 'draw' the light on that geometry as smooth as you can. I hope this post made sense.

Coincidentally, discussing this very subject with you was one of the last things I happened to be doing while on the BHP team, according to my personal message logs on their website. I also got reminded of why I left the team in great detail, but that's another story.

Please take my post with a grain of salt given how out of touch I am, but looking at your wire frame my immediate concern is with W3D lighting engine, and particularly the process of vertex solving in Level Edit. It actually often made sense back in my time on the team to ADD extra faces in areas that lacked them. I personally did this process manually in order to 'draw' where W3D would render light sources and such. Looking at your windows, it will likely result in sharp shadow edges and light 'stretching out' unrealistically across your model. Just something to consider. Good models besides that. I personally always though the biggest challenge came from texturing your 3D work - Especially when you got this picture in your mind that requires new textures for everything!

Hey Raap, good to see you again! I just read your mammoth feedback post over on the BHP forums, lots of good points raised there... I particularly liked the idea of being able to capture oil derricks by simply being present as a non-engineer... more similar to a control zone on domination mode I guess. Currently the two scripts, whilst built on similar foundations, aren't completely compatible but if Pushwall is interested I could look into supporting something like that... Hey Dan, I just wrote down my thoughts after a few evenings of playing on the live server, but keep in mind that since I have been away from anything W3D related for quite a few years, that I might be a little "out of touch with reality" in terms of what might actually work, and what would not work. With that said, I have no idea what you guys have been up to with the W3D engine in my absence, besides seemingly having fixed some of the performance problems that plagued APB's Gamma release (VIS also helps, but not on flat maps, and my FPS nonetheless improved dramatically there as well). Anyhow, I got to feel quite nostalgic coming back to the game and recognizing a lot of old faces, so I might stick around and make an attempt to complete some old projects on APB - as a "fan" - that I never got around finishing during my time on the team. Oh, and can someone explain to me what AircraftKiller did this time? I remember having a brief email dialog with him when he was starting some W3D project, but I was unable to assist him.

Hello folks, I figured I'd register over here, given APB's "change of hands". Since Delta released, I decided to make a small return to the community, so you might see me pop up from time to time. See you in-game! Edit: For those who have no idea who I am (can't blame anyone, it's been quite a few years), I used to be a BHP staff member and did work for several APB releases back in the day.