Raap
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Posts posted by Raap
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9 hours ago, thedisclaimitory said:
will there be a separate testing group for this alliance (...)
I've had mixed results when it comes to testing both privately and publicly. In both cases for Siege and HW I had trouble gaining a lot of feedback, despite setting it up through the proper channels as @Einstein could verify.
The public HW test was tricky to set up and required several hands on deck to make live server downloading for it a reality (I do so love that feature though!). The whole testing event was announced in advance for a weekend and had a small screenshot contest with a small cash reward going along with it as an incentive, and the winner ended up being part of the map loading screen (the image of the Advanced Naval Yard being under attack).
But, ultimately, the amount if feedback was very limited despite all that effort. So most likely when it comes to MY content, testing will mostly be done by me and select individuals whom I'll ask in advance if they have time to do a targeted "QA run-through" of specific elements. A good example of this approach is me having the Dread Plateau screen effects tested for graphical display anomalies on different hardware other than my own configuration.
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56 minutes ago, Pushwall said:
I think you're missing the point I was trying to make. I never said the ANY's repair/LST should face forward. It's just that they're on the wrong side to be suitable for Coastal/Under where you are forced to go right to reach the Soviet base - and even on Pacific Threat, having the repairs on the right side would provide further encouragement for Soviets to go long and attack the left side. On Hostile Waters the ANY would have worked pretty much the same way regardless of whether its LST+repair bays were on the left or right, but you chose to put them on the left and now here I am stuck with a building that requires extra building work, terrain work, or both to be suitable for those other maps where you want to see the advanced buildings replace the originals
Even if I opt to just cut holes in terrain instead of mirroring the building so repairs are on the right, there's still the problem where it would take forever to bring a boat from the sea to the repair bay, or get an LST out of the LST bay and into the sea, as in both cases you have to go all the way around the building - extra problematic for boats which have sluggish handling and are also long enough that there would need to be a lot of clearance between the repair bay and the cliff to eliminate any chance that W3D physics might kick in and get the boat stuck. And even more clearance if cruisers become a reality! (In which case I'm sure I could axe the "cargo boat" part of the ANY to make room for spawning those. Repairs, on the other hand, would be a different matter.)
But I guess I would have had to mirror eventually anyway regardless of what you chose because who knows there may be naval maps in future that demand the Allies' LST/repair bay to be on the left instead of the right
I think I lost a portion on that post in a faulty edit.
What I was adding, was to say you could easily mirror the naval buildings in 3DS, if it solves the problems on the current maps.
As for Cruisers, if they were to spawn in place of the cargo ship, then you'd need three clear sides on all maps...
You need to do something different to Cruiser spawning. One thing I mentioned somewhere or to someone is that those big ships should spawn off-map as a cinematic and sail in while the owner is teleported into the driver seat upon purchase. Not even the "Advanced" Naval Yard is big enough to support a cruiser properly, unless the ship is downsized to the size of a Destroyer of course.
31 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:Biggest change: Raap now has an avatar.
Well, you know, if someone gives you a green name...
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Just now, Coolrock said:
I guess this is a close second to what we talked about
My green is better.
Also, less fat.
You're fat.
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Green name requires fitting avatard.
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6 hours ago, Pushwall said:
I've been meaning to get around to this for a while but mirroring the Advanced Naval Yard while ensuring all of its extra components also mirror properly proved problematic last time I tried.
Why would I need to mirror it, you ask?
Well, the repair bay and LST spawn zone are both on the left hand side of the building. Plus the building is twice as large as the original. And on Coastal Influence and Under, you know what else is directly to the left of the naval yard? A big old f-off cliff. So move the ANY further to the right to allow boats to park in the repair bay and LSTs to leave? Nope, no can do, because then on Coastal Influence there'd be no land for either side's LSTs to beach at and no room for Missile Subs to aim at any buildings behind the ANY, and on Under V2s would be able to hit the enlarged, further-right ANY from the Soviet base - further enforcing the "kill rocks ASAP" mentality. I get the feeling you did not design the ANY with "other levels" in mind
The ASP is also problematic for some of the same reasons. The LST spawn is on the right hand side of the building. On Under/CI this once again leads directly into a cliff. But the dilemma here is that the repair bay is on the left and we certainly can't mirror that without making it incredibly inaccessible on Under/CI and further encouraging Allies to spam ships down the short route on Pacific Threat since that would mean Soviets wouldn't be able to repair subs facing that route.
The Advanced Naval Yard has this separation in order to avoid 'traffic' at the front. It would have been super annoying to have ONE GUY in his Destroyer block the entire Allied team's naval advancement. So I made that split to move repairs and LST's away from ship spawns, and additionally, made it impossible for ships to re-enter the spawn bay. I designed this for gameplay, and HW's terrain just happened to suit it.
Making everything forward-facing is asking for problems, plus it is work, and I'd argue altering terrain is easier because these are often map segments with relatively little detail to begin with. Expanding a cliff to gain a coastal cave is literally hollowing out a piece of static mesh and ensuring the script zones cover the new area properly.
Anyhow, as usual, just my 2c!
@Raptor29aa My sole motivation is to push the boundaries of W3D. If not with gameplay, then with aesthetics. You will have seen this evolution of things, from my earlier work, to Siege, to HW, and eventually to Dread Plateau (which is still a long way out). Since gameplay isn't something I can afford myself much breathing room on any longer, that just leaves graphics.
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The iceberg content was actually me giving in to the requests of more (relevant) non-naval gameplay. The original map (which in hindsight was much more popular) only had naval units and a gimmick unit to break stalemates. And at some point, too much time went into it to axe it completely based on yet another wave of feedback. In short, players often do not know what they really want, opinions keep changing and while changing an opinion is free of charge, altering game content based on this, is not.
This is why a lot of game developers avoid pleasing too many audiences. It is easiest to focus on one specific niche and deliver for that specific audience. My desire to create deviating gameplay severely conflicts with that line of thinking.
Triple A games make these mistakes all the time as well when they add maps or game modes that do not get appreciated by the majority of their players. The only unfortunate casualties here are people who do appreciate gameplay variation, and I can say that at least when it comes to my contributions, the more significant deviations have ended. I won't say I'll never hide a bonus objective inside a level ever again, as I still think they add something to the game if they are truly a bonus objective, but no longer will a primary objective be anything other than 'destroy the base' in the traditional formula.
All in all I do not consider it a complete loss. Obviously I would have preferred it if more people enjoyed it but I can not change that outcome. Hostile Water's assets were largely created with re-usage in mind, and I still think that my take on the naval buildings is better than the regular buildings. So who knows, some other level might use some of the assets... Maybe one day someone other than myself can do contributions, that'd be something.
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And a volume slider!
Amagahd feature creep!
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Here is a 20 second trimmed 'ringtone' version I quickly dumped for you;
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G0UaJTOzz6DjZ5QlVeXfkWbrhRMFNU8m
The whole track seemed a bit excessive.
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7 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:
Is Hostile waters out of rotation due to the possible new naval repair bay?
Hostile Waters has been permanently cut from the official servers as Pushwall doesn't think the Repair Bay can fix the naval 'field' persistence issues. I support this decision, no reason to keep something around that a majority no longer enjoys.
I will still finish the Repair Bay (I had to wait on the current game version before I could do so), I needed to add a submarine docking area (ships can dock so it would be unfair if subs could not). Suffice it to say it is a bit of collision trickery to get it right.
Hostile Waters will continue to exist as a Lunar-like map, meaning it will receive general patch updates like unit balance and such, but active development, following the Repair Bay addition, will stop. Moderators can opt to run it on-demand and if anyone ever decides to host their own server then this map will be available for them as well.
Short post-mortem on it: When Delta launched we had a different, mostly older player base. During this time I had a LOT of requests to bring back this level (in context, I never had so many requests for anything else ever before), and so I did revive it while remaking it from scratch, and adding gameplay to the icebergs (which were just giant floating rocks in the original .9935 version). Fast forward to today however and the bulk of that audience no longer play the game, and the current player base has a distinct dislike towards anything non-core gameplay.
As a side note, the decision to axe Hostile Waters also goes hand in hand with the decision for the entire game to never create maps that significantly deviate from the main formula, and also to avoid creating maps with a focus on 'hold the middle'. To that end, Siege is on the edge of the chopping block for permanent removal as well, but I think Pushwall wants to try a few more things with it, I am not sure.
On a personal note, I think Under might be at similar risk, because it is essentially a one way 'hold the middle' map as well.
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The whole concept of VIS on W3D is backwards to begin with. It is designed for a 'ship it and never touch it' development mentality but none of the W3D projects operate under that mentality as stuff keeps changing on all levels as development perpetually continues.
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The Chrono Tank really opens up a lot of attack possibilities on Siege for the Allies and in that sense it is a true counter to the Soviet Yak.
... Too bad the map is out of rotation still!
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Needs to start playing Hell March on 20+.
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Need a unit gameplay video!
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Pushwall tells me all the time he loves creating VIS sectors, especially in open view levels with both naval and air units enabled. Literally the best times in his life.
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Fingers crossed that maybe one day, following a successful Mammoth implementation, we can have a skilled individual work on creating a more automated culling system. No idea if that could ever be done for Level Edit though, but what do I know right!
Anyhow, back on the topic of reviving old maps. I applaud your enthusiasm @trunkskgb, I personally have a life time burnout of fixing old stuff as I have done so a lot for APB over the years (especially in ~2007-2008). I'm just happy to work on new things now.
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7 hours ago, trunkskgb said:
Level Edit scene files, LDB, LDS,LDD...etc,
(...)
I didn't see any scripts file from the unpack, nor did I add any to the mix file.
Edit: I sort of assumed your project crashes on loading, but to be clear, does your LE crash as you select the project in the little dialog box? Or does the crash occur when you try to load the .lvl?
Edit2: If you actually meant your MIX crashes IN GAME, which is actually not very common unless you break something weird, then I pretty much guarantee it is a faulty preset instance. In this case check your instances in LE for dubious entities, delete what you do not know.
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Sounds like the most likely issue then is a dubious preset instance, in the older Level Edits such a thing causes an 'corruption' of sorts.
Unfortunately there is only one man who can delve under the hood, and than is W3D Wizard and Solver of Raap Problems; Jonwil.
So you got
twothree choices:- Read my above edits about preset instances if your crash occurs either in-game or upon loading the .lvl.
- Contact Jonwil on these forums and hope he has time to look into your issue.
- Start from a clean project using the latest 4.x.x tools and scripts and use W3D import as a foundation of your level rebirth.
I recommend the latter in this particular case because even if Jon fixes your one crash, chances are there is a boatload of other broken things because of how old these files are.
Choice is yours, good luck either way!
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With the exception of Jonwil, I don't think anyone here can really help on the Renegade front.
But, I can think of a few possible crashes.
Are to attempting a recovery via importing the mix file in some way (Edit: yes you are, via some program called Level Redit that I never used)? Chances are, you are using conflicting scripts in the project folder that are not compatible with newer versions.
But in truth, if you are not using the original level edit project, then you should be looking to start anew instead. You can always extract the art files from the mix and then import these into 3DS, be aware however that you will need to apply a lot of fixes as W3D import is a last-resort method in the event of losing art source files.
Beyond that, importing mix files into level edit typically has a very large range of crash risks and other issues, so to pinpoint the exact cause, well, your only hope is Jonwil. I'm just letting you know you should consider a clean slate to save yourself a world of trouble!
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I'll have to see how things go.
All of the base and APB game logic will be taken on last. I still got a lot of work left to do and progress is slow, so I'll be honest to say this may take a while.
I sort of expected to be done sooner but the work pace is so frustrating in 3DS that I simply have to do it in periodic sessions, so I don't throw my keyboard out of a window.
I mean I flipped the Naval Repair Bay in a matter of hours (testing and logic time included) because it was a small asset. This thing is like Siege on drugs in comparison.
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Oh man I'm getting a lot of "I've seen this before" type comments! From people I know as well as random folks. I cannot quite gather what it is that makes people see something they recognize in this very simple scene. If anyone here has any ideas on what I might have accidentally re-created, let me know! It's a puzzle to me.
In other news, I'm debating (with myself, obviously) if I should include a War Factory or not. The map can easily handle it in terms of space, and there is no shortage of vehicle play space around the middle, but I have a problem I am torn on; Due to the object density on this map, over network play, larger vehicles like tanks may suffer severely from rubber banding on all the plants, rocks, or other objects. I'm having playability concerns essentially, but something I will not be doing is reducing level detail to accommodate for this - pushing W3D graphically is my driving force here.
Air units would be no problem, but Hinds and/or Yaks on an infantry map is begging for trouble since the Allies got no equivalent units (not unless Longbow missiles start doing significant damage to infantry).
As for other buildings, nothing is off the table (edit: except naval buildings...). In fact a Missile Silo is very likely, although it might be slightly altered in terms of charge and flare timers.
Also extremely likely: Asymmetric building distribution.
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48 minutes ago, PwnCall said:
I haven't played apb in probably 5 years. Do I need to download anything to play or just join a server through renlist?
We use a custom server browser and launcher.
Yes you'll need to install a new client, APB uses nothing compatible with stock Renegade.
https://secure.w3dhub.com/launcher/w3dhub_launcher_0.8.3.1_install.exe
Players typically populate the server during primetime EU and NA. Outside of those times the game can be, well, empty!
Edit: You can also play an OLD version of Reborn but this version is not being updated any longer. I do not know the status on the new version. Lastly if you want to see what an RPG/persistent world would look like on W3D, try out ECW. That game is, well, crazy and evidently created by an insane person. The only drawback would be the Renegade-styled graphics (unless you love those!).
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Adjusting colours in GIMP can be straight forward, just alter the hue settings.
Honestly I find GIMP working very well for game development needs, it does those types of tasks better than Photoshop, which I find more orientated towards photography and printing jobs.
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6 hours ago, FRAYDO said:
Nothing gets past the NKVD.
I made a joke that re-creating Rivals gameplay on W3D would take a few minutes.
Maybe I should...
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You're welcome to try and create an APB level, if you think you're up to the challenge.
There are a lot of differences between APB and stock Renegade, you'll find that you will need a lot more time to do a level for APB, and that Gmax will not be powerful enough to support the requirements (We mostly use 3DS Max 8 and even that program isn't doing well with it at all).
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2 hours ago, Pushwall said:
So let's take a hypothetical situation where someone ejected their boat/sub a bit too far away from "land" for them to be able to jump on top of the sub or touch the boat's entry zone (because hey there's shallow water in the bay I don't need to be precise right?? Or just an accident) meaning the only way to get back in would be to walk underwater to get to it...
Save for making the script zone very small (which won't help since we got two different submarine models), I can't currently think of an elegant and thematic way of fixing that, unless the bay area simply no longer becomes accessible to non-submarines and instead gets two ASP-like submarine 'slots' with infantry walkways above.
But I don't like that, visually, for this asset.
I'll think more on it later.
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1 hour ago, KevinLancaster said:
Is it possible to have the exit location be above the vehicle so that you would land on top of the sub/ship?
Walking on vehicles is very messy over network play, you will most likely slide off slowly (and lose control over your character in the process).
No getting out of the submarine hatch to walk 'on deck', unfortunately!
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APB 3.2.4.0 Changelog
in Red Alert: A Path Beyond
Posted · Edited by Raap
I think you mean the buildings?
Select "single player" on the W3DHub launcher, then go to Skirmish. Set up a match using the map "RA_HostileWaters" and you can explore this map solo (there are no AI units for this map).
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SIDE NOTE: Ain't it about time we filter out the RA_ prefixes from the level selection and ending score screens to instead refer to a proper string with the proper map name, like "Sea Mist" instead of "RA_AS_Seamist" (new players don't know what all this prefix stuff is about plus we pretty much decided to can assault maps a decade ago, and recent discussions also concluded to stop [significant] core gameplay deviation anyway).