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Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 10:42 am
by zuzuf
Since the package builder is working again I can make packages more often. In order not to flood the forums with a new thread for each package I'll just keep one up to date.

Windows packages:
ftp://downloads.ta3d.org/binaries/windows/dev/0.6/

Ubuntu/Debian repository:

Code: Select all

deb http://downloads.ta3d.org/binaries/linux/apt testing main
Mandriva repository:
ftp://downloads.ta3d.org/binaries/linux ... rpmi-media

Last TA3D package is built from revision 2720, changes since 2717 include:
  • small fonts should be easier to read
  • wave sprites orientation should be more robustly computed
  • updated Matman's images
  • size of wave sprites corresponds to the size of the images scaled by 0.25
  • wave sprites are shifted from shores in order to appear only in water (at least most of the time)
changes from 2714 to 2717 include:
  • Fixed scrolling issue (when cursor is on one side of the screen)
  • Free camera on/off icons transparency fixed
  • Added Matman's skies
  • Fixed a compilation error on windows
changes from 2707 to 2714 include:
  • the GfxTexture objects are now used to render the circle and arrows in camera moving mode and the pause image, that way it can use image sizes read from files to display them correctly.
  • Free camera on/off icons replaced with Matman's (there is still no transparency in r2714, this is fixed in r2715)
  • GDB is a dependency of the Linux package when built in debug mode (those crash reports are really useful :) )
  • fixed a bug that could crash the game while saving
  • a unit without any animation script shouldn't crash the game any more

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 11:25 am
by MattyWS
One thing to note quickly that prevents me from wanting to play the game properly, scrolling around in OTA was easy enough, you move your mouse to the side of the screen and the camera just moves. I don't know if my monitor size is to blame (22' 1680x1050) but TA3D doesn't do that when scrolling down or left and right, you need to keep moving your mouse in that direction just to keep the camera moving. Annoying as hell. :P Also what's actually wrong with those lasers? They seem fine in photoshop but invert when in game. :o

Still confused about this one too:
"the GfxTexture objects are now used to render the circle and arrows in camera moving mode and the pause image, that way it can use image sizes read from files to display them correctly."

Seems no different from before unless I'm missing something. :P

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 11:31 am
by zuzuf
The changes made to GfxTexture stuffs should not change anything if you don't change the arrows and circle images or the "game paused" image.

I've just made a ticket for the scrolling bug.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:22 pm
by MattyWS
Say if I try to change the arrow to just a normal triangle, in-game the arrow will just be the same with my new triangle image inside it. :P

And damn that was fast fixing. :o

I noticed not all lasers are the same colour, is there a scripted colour overlay or something? Commanders laser is yellow while HLT is blue. Very odd.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:48 pm
by zuzuf
That's it, provided cache data of previous arrow file has been deleted (just enable the developer mode in options->advanced and TA3D won't cache texture data but it'll be a little bit longer to load a game).

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:10 am
by MattyWS
Is there any way to replace them completely? shape and size? :o deleted cache and in dev mode but still stays that way. :P

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:19 am
by zuzuf
OMG I found what's wrong ... the binary is missing in windows package :'( , I guess there was an error in the build process and I didn't see it. I'll fix that when I have time, this afternoon I hope.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:22 am
by MattyWS
While you're at it, I don't know what is causing it exactly but every time I try a metal map with features, the map glitches out, didn't know for sure until just now I made my own greenworld map, and for a bit of variation I put a metal radar tower down and it crashed

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 6:29 pm
by Balthazar
Yeah, the binarie would be helpfull to test ))

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:22 pm
by zuzuf
New packages are being built, they should be available within a few minutes.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:44 pm
by MattyWS
New release with the fix to my camera scrolling issue? :o

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:22 pm
by zuzuf
Yes :)

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:33 pm
by MattyWS
Can you make metal and energy numbers and the such in bold and maybe a bit bigger please? :)

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 12:15 am
by MattyWS
Probably annoying you with stuff but any chance you can set the saves to not be so stretched? I'm trying to make them look nicer but any attempt I make is just a thin line hitting the shores. :P

EDIT: solved the mystery of the arrows and circle images as well as the free cam on/off icons, I forgot to even put the alpha maps in. :P

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 11:09 am
by Balthazar
Binarie would be helpfull to run the game )) there is no ta3d.exe file in the latest package 2714 still... (

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 2:06 pm
by MattyWS
Fixed free cam on/off icons for sure now, also have a few other things, I changed the arrow/circle images to look a bit nicer and get in the way less (slightly smaller). On top of that I made the explosions look like explosions as opposed to big yellow blob. All these files are here http://www.box.net/shared/rluc53x7qg

Again, don't have to use them but IMO they do look better. :P

Also in the process of changing the waves but I have a few suggestions.
1) Move the waves back a bit off the shores, they go onto land where there is clearly no water, the waves should not even touch land, maybe a bit close but thats about it.
2) The waves come out stretched in-game when in fact the images are square. they need to look this long ===== as opposed to this long ==========. Sounds odd but please do this, I can make those waves look pretty if this is done, or if it's an easy fix tell me how and i'll do it.
3) This one is simple, waves sometimes hit the land diagonally.. It look ridiculous and should definitely be fixed, that said I don't know how this works and it may take up more processing power or something but if as suggested in #1 on my list, this problem won't matter anyway as the waves will hopefully not touch each other nor the shore.
4) This one bugs me the most, it's that white thick outline that hits some of the shore every few seconds. It looks terrible. :/

Note I have the water set to ultimate, if that makes any difference at all.
Image

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 2:31 pm
by Balthazar
There`s no easy way to fix the wave orientation on the land edges, especially the narrow ones. The line wave algorythm was the most basic one. The long white wave that is running through all the shore is more advanced wave algorythm.

The main trouble as you can see connected with the height map. There are many errors in height map posotioning on the OTA maps and the waves drawn accordingly with errors - comes over the shore or have strange direction toward the land...

I don`t know if it can be fixed to look correctly so I disable the short ways and leave only the long waves... But in the lates builds I frefer to play without waves at all - it looks more pretty IMHO. Maybe we should create wave by adding some height distorsion near the shoreline - this will make effect of periodical water flooding the shore.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:58 pm
by Balthazar
Any news about ta3d.exe?

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 5:28 pm
by zuzuf
package r2717 contains the binary :).

The long wave effect is implemented in a shader. It lacks some randomness in wave distribution that's why it looks a bit ... odd. This effect only appears in the highest levels of water quality setting.

I am going to look closer at the normal waves problem. I doubt I can easily fix the orientation bug but I can at least shift waves back into water.

I doubt it will be easy to have a bold font for energy/metal stuffs but I can make it bigger or may be play with the blending function to simulate a bold font.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 9:49 pm
by zuzuf
I've just fixed most of it (except the shader based wave effect). New packages are being built and this time I ran the right script so packages should also appear in the repositories once they're built :oops: .

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:14 pm
by MattyWS
Nice I can scroll again! But you didn't use my arrow/circle and explosion images. :( but you did fix the arrow and circles from being stretched, which makes my new images look AWESOME :shock: If you wish for me to remake the circle and arrow images to a more TA styled look, I can, just say the word.

A few bugs still being of major issue are that weapons aren't entirely usable. the Core commander locks up after using d-gun (using the free data pack if that makes a difference) and a few other weapons kinda just.. hit the ground in front of the unit. ballistic weapons are cool though, works like a charm. Just not sure about most of the weapons yet as well as the arm commander's laser, he moves his upper body to shoot, then moves it back for a second then moves it again to shoot again. Normally in TA he moves and keeps shooting until he stops shooting, then moves back to normal. Flak weapons can still shoot the ground (when prompted to, not sure about automatically attacking land units) this was the Core mobile flak unit.

T1 airplant locked up when I clicked to build a air transport unit when it had just finished building a T1 air fighter (Core again).

Aircraft's still don't look natural, sorry I know this one will haunt you but they need to have a smooth flight rather than staying at a fixed distance from the terrain. When they go over hills it looks silly. :( I still personally think you should make them a fixed height over the water level rather than terrain, because water height stays constant. It'd make the aircraft's fly at the same level just like in TA.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 4:56 pm
by zuzuf
Well ... r2720 includes your arrow/circle images so unless there is some cache issue you should see them. Regarding the style maybe it should be linked to the GUI theme: when you select default.skn theme it uses OTA styled images, when you select Matty.skn it uses your new images - which are really cool by the way :).

Lots of shooting bugs are probably timing issues, I don't fully understand how it works in OTA. They are things to use from FBI files and also some information to grab from scripts but I am not sure I know the correct scale for all these values :(

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 9:27 pm
by MattyWS
Ahh cool so they are in there. :P

Made new OTA looking arrow/circle images, in my opinion they are rather good. (I'm a slight perfectionist)

Also added a few other files you might be interested in, Paused Defeat and Victory images remade, smaller as well (I prefer smaller like in OTA) My only issue is that they still look twice the normal size in-game, any way you could make those images to display in-game at their normal size? These images also follow OTA style. link: http://www.box.net/shared/88ytv1tlq4

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 7:34 pm
by MattyWS
Massive bug in the waves I think, it works sometimes fine but half the time massive white lines cover the map. However thanks for fixing the waves, I already have some waves done for it, looks amazing. :D

On another note, I'll be redoing the skies soon as I'm not entirely happy with them.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 8:17 pm
by Balthazar
Matman wrote:but half the time massive white lines cover the map.
Well, it`s not a bug, it`s a feature. It`s wave type "2" and the one you was talking about a little earlier - are the type "1" waves. No waves are the type "0" )
Now the type 2 and 1 are on. If you set waves to off, the type 2 will stay "on".

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2010 9:36 pm
by MattyWS
I'm not sure I understand. :oops:

Also another bug/feature ( :P ) sometimes the whole maps is pure white like a think fog, until zoomed all the way out, then when you zoom in again the white fades in and you can't see anything...

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:41 am
by Balthazar
Matman wrote:I'm not sure I understand. :oops:

Also another bug/feature ( :P ) sometimes the whole maps is pure white like a think fog, until zoomed all the way out, then when you zoom in again the white fades in and you can't see anything...
No, this is definately not a feature ) How about some screenshots? (F8 -> screenshot() )

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 7:29 pm
by MattyWS
Image
Image

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 8:34 pm
by zuzuf
It looks like buggy wave sprites :?

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 1:11 am
by MattyWS
All my waves sprites are the same (0,1 and 2 are all the same image used 3 times just for testing) And you can see that there are waves still there. That said it stops glitching when waves are turned off. That said my wave images are double the normal size (for testing purposes) if that makes a difference. Almost done with those waves anyway

Points about gameplay.
1) You can see enemy units underwater.. This should only happen when you have under water units close enough to their under water units or with sonar plane I think.
2) Even when the map is set to greyed out (field of view and stuff) you can select a unit with a weapon, hover the cursor over the minimap and you can find random targets (the attack icon appears) and you click attack and it goes there and attacks a unit that you can normally not see. (I did not have any radars built).
3) Pathfinding.. make it awesome. :P Especially aircrafts..
4) Change the green blobs that indicate a units path (where it's going and stuff) to dotted lines or something similar rendered by code, kind of like what TA Spring has done.

Points about graphics.
1) Time to ditch the old TA explosions when the new explosion sprite is on. Not sure if there is a setting to turn off the new explosions graphics but if there is, then old TA explosions should be turned off somehow. This would also help to keep TA free source.
2) Pause, Victory and Defeat images are inconsistent at the moment and need to be the same size in-game (if you haven't done this already since I think I already suggested).
3) Any luck on replacing beach tree's (archi, or palm) with something prettier? That map I made especially for TA3D is looking nice but those tree's.. bleh.
4) Not needed but in the sky.tdf files it would be nice to add a line of code that could change the visibility/brightness of the sun reflection in the water, as space skies or clouded skies with no sun still has a reflection in the water of a sun.

Points about glitches.
1) Metal features crash the game when you see them (you don't get to, they just crash the game before the game can render it on the screen)
2) I've had times when starting the game, non of the units that are remade (HD unit if you will) show up on the screen. they can be selected and used but the models don't show.
3) Commanders lock up after using weapons, been said before I know, but it's just one of those things lol


Looking good so far.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:06 am
by Durand
Les petites polices sont effectivement largement plus aisées à lire. Surtout que je joue dans une fenêtre, donc avec tout rétrécit. Excellent travail.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 1:45 pm
by MattyWS
Maybe changing font of the metal and energy numbers would be better as well, now the fonts easily see-able but hardly readable.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 2:45 pm
by MattyWS
Image

Compared the evolva core commander model used in TA to the commander used in the free data set. This may be the cause of the commanders locking up, no? Either way this is a problem I think. Unless it also came with the script in the free data set, this model won't do.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 8:44 pm
by Balthazar
Hehehe, yeah, i guess it was unnoticed )

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:01 pm
by MattyWS
So I remade all the in-game GUI, it was ugly before. http://www.box.net/shared/4qah85b05a Take a look and see what ya think, I added something of interest to the resource bars, when you're low on resources you will know. :)
Image

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 10:21 pm
by zuzuf
Yeah the side bar is really nice :)

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 2:44 am
by MattyWS
It would be rather nice to have a button that can full screen the minimap, complete with all the new icons to distinguish what unit is what, so that you can have a true strategic zoom with ease. Not that zooming out isn't easy but some like the quick buttons way.

On a side note, I noticed that messages don't come up in TA3D like "Construction unit cannot reach destination" or "Self destruct in..." or "Peewee is under attack"... Just a thought.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:57 pm
by MattyWS
Hows progress Zuzuf? I can't wait to test out a new release! :o

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 8:49 pm
by zuzuf
Sorry, I've been a bit busy I didn't found much time to work on TA3D (but I'll probably be forced to work on TA3D this week end because of the snow).

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:37 am
by Balthazar
Yes, you see - the snow sometimes is a good thing )

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:46 pm
by MattyWS
Kinda waiting on the new release to come out so I can give you some updates on images and stuff for the release after. :o Hope you aren't giving up just yet. :P Snows gone!

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 12:35 pm
by zuzuf
No I am not giving up :P. I am busy and tired that's all and current code revision has a few bugs I want to fix before making a new release (I changed a few internal data structures like strings and hashtables). I hope I can make TA3D build with Clang (a new C++ compiler) soon it's a nice tool which could help find bugs and it could greatly improve performance (according to a few tests I ran it looks better than GCC).

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:48 am
by MattyWS
Ahh good stuff. Something to note, someone found out Tidal generators have a tag different to most. You can find the link below, You may want to implement this as a fix, because it seems better than just on/off.

http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41714

On another note, I've almost redone all skies, they look a LOT better now, before, my sky images made it look like every map was high up in the sky, now the sky actually fades into the distance at the horizon. Also added a quickfix to the sun's, make them look less like a photo of a sun and more .. 'fake'. This effect looks better IMO, Uncanny valley theory. :roll:

I've stopped for now attempting to redo the wave sprites, because I get a bug that simply draws long lines covering the map, and the only fix is to reload the map, this is a bug I cannot figure out, since the only change I make is in the PIXELS of the images themselves. It's annoying. Redid the ripple sprite too. Not sure if you've seen it but I made the images for when you push the middle mouse button to scroll around the map look more OTA-style. (just for you) and redid the side, bottom and top bar GUI for in-game for Am and Core.

Only thing I have not given to you so far is the new skies and wave images. Which I'm waiting for the next release. ^^

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:39 pm
by zuzuf
That's interesting but I would like to run a few tests on other tags before fixing it (maybe the fix could be more general).

I've seen your images for when middle button is pressed and I liked them :), it's much better than the old flat circle and arrows. Your new GUI bars are cool too but I fear I may have changed something that slightly shifted energy and metal bars, however I didn't check that in depth.
Regarding skies I have started the build process of new packages :D . Since I have recently changed a few core components (hashtables, and TA3D::String is now Yuni::CustomString) this is the first automatic build test with those changes so it might fail but if it works new packages should appear within 1 or 2 hours.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:16 pm
by zuzuf
Ooops, the windows package failed to build properly, it ships the same binary as previous package, I am going to remove it, fix the build process and make a working one.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:46 pm
by zuzuf
new packages are ready :)

~!!?!@?!@#!@3

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:14 am
by Flashbang232
yOU SERIOUSs>ds?qw

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:35 am
by MattyWS
No update list? :o

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:45 am
by MattyWS
Doesn't work. doesn't run the exe, says some dll isn't installed.

Re: Current beta packages

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:41 am
by Flashbang232
Same.


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Am i annoying? :(