TA3D

Mod Support:

Support for Xon's DLL files! This is a must for taescalation players! You will attract a lot of the Russians especially, because of how many are on gameranger, and because 99% of them are hardcore TAESC players. Flies and honey.
What algorithm/file is used to decipher the xon dll files? (Could this be implemented into ta3d)
I could probably create an outline for you on what im thinking of. What im thinking of is that, like ta's scriptor (Scriptor v_1[rc1]), where it uses the BOS outline (which is a lot like c++ btw ), and then uses a CFG file to decompile and recompile. Maybe ta3d can have a plugins folder with CFG files to cipher and decipher the DLL files! (and the dplayx.map file)

I can try to find out how this can work, i will look into the recorder components and get back to you as soon as i can.

Built-in Support for shields. =)

A) Question: What does ta3d use to decipher total annihilation's COB files? Is this still glitchy? You could use Scriptor's CFG files =). (not to sound like a broken record)
What sparks this question is that I am in the process of creating a shielded kbot and I would like to know if it has ANY chance of crashing ta3d.
The shield works in 3 ways:
When the unit is hit, it uses the solar collector's function of ACTIVATE. So say
HitByWeapon()
{
SET ACTIVATION TO 0;
SLEEP 500;
SET ACTIVATION TO 1;
}
this adds to it i believe. I don't think it does much, so I have not bothered to mess with it.
Secondly, it uses the Armoredstate command.

so here:
HitByWeapon()
{
SET ARMORED TO 1;
SET ACTIVATION TO 0;
SLEEP 500;
SET ACTIVATION TO 1;
SET ARMORED TO 0;
}
Now would this crash ta3d? :O

Built in shield support (elaborating)

I shall explain myself. IDK if this is done, I do not have a proper recompiler/decompiler for C++/Java/GLSL.

Starting out with an FBI tag, shielded=1;

now what this could do is activate a certain script function saying that the unit is armored.
say, add this function to a library .h file that the engine will call upon when it detects that shielded=1;

IfShielded(shield, shieldradius, maxd, timedelay) //shieldradius based loosely on ta's calculation of area of effect ?
{
shield=1;
shieldradius=100;
maxd=150; //light shield. Sumo laser and its down.
timedelay=5000; //5 second delay when unshielded.
}

Now what the engine can do is this:

Shield=1; in the .h file tells the engine that this IS a shield, that it should act like a shield, and do everything like a shield should.

Shieldradius=100; in the .h file tells the engine that the size of the shield covers a field of 100, an abstract integer unless an algorithm is set to determine just exactly how big "100" is.

Maxd=150; can be based on damage taken. Say if it gets hit by a sumo laser, then its down.

timedelay=5000; can be based on the maxdamage. activated when the shield is down, it can be a timedelay for between when the shield is down and when the shield restores itself.

I can make graphics, etc.....


Alternative Designs

Explosions.

Explosions, instead of being bitmaps, can be coded right? LUA/GLSL? (or both)?
Explosion Perspective can be flipped when the user changes perspective, and the Explosion can light up the ground AND features/units around it. (That opaque yellow effect you get, lighting everything around the explosion)


Unit perspective changes.

When you change perspective, or more like camera angle, the units tend to get distorted around the edges, like a really weak light tunnel effect. But just enough to make a Defender look sideways on a hill. Can this be changed? :O


Pathfinding.

How does pathfinding work? What do i need to solve this issue?
How does flow-field pathfinding work? =0

I would be happy to work on this.

More to come.

DLLs are binary files you need to know the API and ABI to use them. Also I doubt we can really use them because of design differences between TA and TA3D.

1) TA3D has its own COB virtual machine.
No, your code shouldn't crash TA3D.

For now explosions and many special effects are just sprites. I want to release TA3D 0.6 before adding some Lua/GLSL scripting capabilities to those effects.

Flashbang232 wrote:When you change perspective, or more like camera angle, the units tend to get distorted around the edges, like a really weak light tunnel effect. But just enough to make a Defender look sideways on a hill. Can this be changed? :O

I don't see what you mean. Can you post a screen shot ?

Pathfinding is done in the src/ai/pathfinding.cpp file, it's a kind of A* algorithm which returns a list of way points. For each set of unit move properties there is a map telling where units can go, it is used to look for a path.

I would be happy to except for the fact im grounded and thus have to post from my phone. on an off topic note, i might be facing assault charges so i guess i can see what turns up? hmm. i can probably see what happened when i saw unit distortion, if anyone can understand my reference it looks like the new 1.8 minecraft field of view set to quake pro, where it looks almost like a small light tunnel effect. Zuzuf, will 0 6 be compiled in debug? I also liked the frag and vert stuff, i think if we add lua/other form of code to the ta3d engine for explosions then opengl is the way to go for shading the ground and making realistic shadows w/surrounding features. zuzuf would you happen to know how supcom2 pathfinding is structured? im sure you can take the files apart, i can get you a free download if you pm me. its just that i would be happy to add improved pathfinding. i got all the time in the world and im taking education in the digital age where im learning to hack and make apps so i might be of use.


Hey where is the SRC folder that pathfinding.cpp is located in?

I think supcom2 pathfinding implementation will be kept secret at least for a few years and reverse engineering it would be too time consuming.
TA3D 0.6 stable packages will be compiled in release mode of course but shaders, scripts and every aspect of the game will remain moddable.

Zuzuf, even though im a kid, i have my connections =)

Flashbang232 wrote:Zuzuf, even though im a kid, i have my connections =)

So why don`t you use it?

Mwahahahaha