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#1 Failure to Develop

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Posted 08 November 2010 - 01:03 AM

Read this first

I have no idea if I'm placing this in the correct forum... maybe it belongs here or maybe it belongs in the graphics forums?

Anyways, I've been slightly into modding Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 a few years ago, but never actually made a real modification or total conversion or participated in any kind of project. I was doing that before all the Rockpatch and NPatch versions. I played with ideas in my head alot, but because of the game engine being unable to do what I wanted to feature in the modification, not one project ever got started. I moved on. Untill I stumbled upon these forums a while ago and read about the NPatch and then the Ares projects and it started to trigger those ideas for the mod in my head again and I just can't seem to get them out.

So because of that I introduce you to my life-long modification; Failure to Develop...

And here's why I'm unsure of this being in the right forum. Like the name suggests, I don't expect this project to ever finish. Specifically because I'm too busy with a lot of stuff in my life including a double study, a girlfriend and the desire to move on with my life. The education I'm following is a heavy one, to say the least and I've got a lot of other hobbies to keep me pre-occupied. So I'm sure you understand that this modification will never see the light of day, unless by some miracle enough people like these ideas, help me develop it and such. But even then, it's still not sure if it will ever be finished. So I thought I would just drop all those ideas and concepts from my head in this topic and maybe I can inspire somebody or give some new ideas to a modification or anything?

Further more I plan to add material that I have made for it in this topic, including future voxels and shp's. Since those are the things that clog my mind the most. I won't bore you with background stories or anything to the modification that I had in mind.

Basic Main Units

I had this idea of having several different levels of verhicles in the game, for the sake of giving them some name, let's refer to them as the basic main units. For the good guys in the game, which started in my head as GDI, then later developed to the European Union and further, the idea was to have a sort of main design that would prove to be very easily produced ingame, thus a high buildspeed and low costs and would be adapted for different situations. Think of variants like a mobile gun system, an ambulance, an armored personnel carrier and an anti-aircraft verhicle. These would be sort of like an early game defence and offensive units and replaced through the "negative prerequiste" functions with more advanced systems in the mid and later parts of a match. This system would be used for all sides.

As a nice game effect of this system would be that in the later game if the mobile construction yard and the more advanced buildings and most of the bases would be destroyed, there would always be enough weaponry available to pose some threat to the opponents ingame. So it won't be over untill everything is destroyed, as apposed to trying to attack Mammoth Tanks or Prism Tanks with the most basic tanks. I've added a few screenshots of the good guys design for this, for the variants Ambulance, APC and Gun System. (Voxel is used for alternative image for the Grizzly tank)

Ingame (Ambulance version)
Posted Image
Posted Image

360 Animation of Voxel Section Editor

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Standard hull design where to base the others off.

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Standard turret design where to base the others off.

Posted Image
Ambulance design
Would work ingame by being deployable into a hospital or having a deployable weapon which heals infantry or something simulair.


Posted Image
Posted Image
Mobile gun system - heavier armour, tracked and would be like a cross between tank destroyer and a grizzly.

Posted Image
Posted Image
Armoured personnel carrier variant

Advanced Main Units

These would replace the basic variants and would require more specialized buildings. However, through the prerequiste system, both positive and negative, it would have been made impossible to get the advanced versions of all the variants. For example if you would build a structure that helps infantry more, like a hospital, armoury or a structure linked to paratroopers. Then the Armoured Personnel Carrier and Ambulance variants would become the more advanced versions, yet the Mobile Gun System and Anti-Aircraft would remain the same. Simulair developments would happen if you'd build your base more towards tanks or aircraft. This can be done, for instance by making dummy duplicates of the existing structures that become available when the original is build and replace the original in the construction tabs.

I'll add more of these ideas and definately more images and files if you want... I think it would waste my time to sit here for hours writing down this all, just to have it be of no interest to anybody.

#2 Failure to Develop

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Posted 10 November 2010 - 02:58 AM

50 views and no replies?? I don't know wether to see this as a low on interest or as a low on activity.. I'm hoping the later right now. It would be kind of depressing if it was the first.

Upon rereading this topic, I noticed I didn't mentioning anything that spectacular yet that I've had in my mind. So I'll mention them now.

Make-shift Threat Avoidance System

It always struck me as odd when seeing infantry fighting a tank that is barging up towards them to run over them, that they just stand there waiting to become pancakes. The same with harvesters just driving in the middle of a firefight with disregard for their own hitpoints.

So the idea came to implement a threat avoidance system in the harvesters, other support material and infantry that can be crushed. Both in terms to lose the stupidity of the harvesters and to give tanks that psychological effect again. Here's how I figured it would work:

Harvesters

Stripping them of current weaponry and implementing a gattling weapon as a dummy weapon. This weapon would not do any damage to the enemy, but rather serve as a way to have the harvester figure out what the enemy is. The gattling weapon uses multiple stages and rolls up to the one that can damage the enemy. This is why the AA stages aren't used for the ground targets. If you use this system to make 6 dummy weapons, one for small infantry that are relatively harmless for the harvester, one for infantry that can do significant damage, one for hero or commando units, one for tanks that are harmless, one for tanks that do moderate damange, one for tanks that should give it a "get me the hell out of here asap" feeling, one for base defences and one for aircraft. Then giving having all of these dummy weapons a minimum range that is further than what the weapons those enemies average can fire. For example if a tank has a range of 3 cells, the dummy weapon on the harvester should have a range of 4 cells. So that it's just safe. These classes of threats can be devined by the armour and immunity logics. It might be a bit of coding, but it would be worth it, in my opinion.

Infantry

Most infantry have 1 weapon, so making a copy of it and using that as the secondary would graphically not matter. The original weapon should have the minimum range then and be used to fire at everything except for tanks, the dummy weapon should have the damages set to only be fired at tanks.

That way if an infantry engages another infantry or base defences, it doesn't try to keep a distance, because it would not have to worry about becoming a wheel ornament. Yet when it engages battle with a tank, it would try to run when the tank gets too close. Naturally this gives the same cat and mouse effect as the scatter function when controlling the group of infantry. But I've never seen the computer use this function and it would make more sense if the infantry would do this on their own, because of tanks being a psychological weapon as well.

Superweapons to Stimulate Mixed Armies

I read somewhere that modifications should either be a complete overhaul of the game or a balanced match that adds thought-out material and stimulates the player into using different types of units as apposed to just rushing. This got me thinking of how this could be accomplished with the concepts I had in my head and I thought of using the superweapons for this.

Paratroopers

The most obvious one would be the EMP superweapon, because it disables your tanks, thus the need for infantry. But I thought it would be even more fun if the computer would be able to punish you for preparing a rush before you even get to their base.

This could be done by a paradrop superweapon that would be fired at the smallest or largest force the computer can target. The paratroopers themselves would be more elite type of infantry and depending on the materials the players develops into (see above post, the main units section) it would be complementing that.

For example if the player develops to the point that he'd get advanced gun systems, the paratroopers would be 3 verhicle hijackers, 2 snipers and an engineer. All in different colours and stats as the general infantry, to make it look like a special force. The whole idea of having about 20 tanks grouping to attack a computer base, then getting that paradrop near them, tanks getting taken over and ensueing battle because of it does sound good to me. Plus, it would be fun to use as well. Other sets of paratroopers would be 2 medics, 2 mechanics and 2 rifle soldiers for supporting powers. Or a commando, 2 medics and 3 bazooka soldiers for specialized in infantry. I think you'd understand the idea by now.

Such paradrops are easily counterable by having a mixed force or efficient anti-air units.

Base defences

Having base defences with an area of effect weapon, like a mortar, artillery shells or more effective flame weaponry (like the aegis firing logic with a flame thrower to cover more ground) would also discourage rushes, especially because you'd suffer more damage that way. In particulair if you're forced into a bottleneck in front of the enemy base.

The base defences, paratroopers and possibly an EMP weapon should be enough to defend against rushes. More balanced units would also help to stimulate the production of mixed forces.

Graphics

I'm not entire sure what I'm planning with this.. when I first had these concepts I wanted to do a GDI versus Nod type of modification, hence the colours. It was supposed to be for the GDI, as a humvee that would transport two infantry, but having no weapons of it's own. Rather more advanced sight, speed and sensors. It would also be open-topped so that the infantry would fire. The Nod schemed one would be for when Nod would have captured the GDI weapons facility to build it. As you could perhaps tell, I have no idea how to do normals.

Posted ImagePosted Image
Posted ImagePosted Image

So yeah, any feedback?? Or is there just no interest in what kind of concepts I've had in my head?

Edited by Failure to Develop, 10 November 2010 - 02:59 AM.


#3 mevitar

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Posted 10 November 2010 - 11:48 PM

Yes, you posted it in the correct forum, so don't worry about it ;). But don't be surprised nobody replied - it's hard to reply to something so long. Many people won't bother trying, as it is too much effort (it took me a few hours to reply to everything, but maybe I'm just slow...).
As for the ideas - well, it's really hard to judge now, since you're only starting. Some things you posted are already being used in some mods, others are not, and I have never heard of them before. I'll try to give as much feedback I can, though.


Basic Main Units

I had this idea of having several different levels of verhicles in the game, for the sake of giving them some name, let's refer to them as the basic main units. For the good guys in the game, which started in my head as GDI, then later developed to the European Union and further, the idea was to have a sort of main design that would prove to be very easily produced ingame, thus a high buildspeed and low costs and would be adapted for different situations. Think of variants like a mobile gun system, an ambulance, an armored personnel carrier and an anti-aircraft verhicle. These would be sort of like an early game defence and offensive units and replaced through the "negative prerequiste" functions with more advanced systems in the mid and later parts of a match. This system would be used for all sides.

As a nice game effect of this system would be that in the later game if the mobile construction yard and the more advanced buildings and most of the bases would be destroyed, there would always be enough weaponry available to pose some threat to the opponents ingame. So it won't be over untill everything is destroyed, as apposed to trying to attack Mammoth Tanks or Prism Tanks with the most basic tanks. I've added a few screenshots of the good guys design for this, for the variants Ambulance, APC and Gun System. (Voxel is used for alternative image for the Grizzly tank)

I don't thing it's a bad idea, but what worries me is that the units you presented look too similar to each other. Why not giving more diversity? Don't make them all based on the same hull, but with different turrets and some details changed. It would be easier to quickly recognize the units in the heat of a battle if they all looked different, not just variations (right now, I'm sure I would be confused when trying find a tank in the sea of apcs while my base is being crushed).


Advanced Main Units

These would replace the basic variants and would require more specialized buildings. However, through the prerequiste system, both positive and negative, it would have been made impossible to get the advanced versions of all the variants. For example if you would build a structure that helps infantry more, like a hospital, armoury or a structure linked to paratroopers. Then the Armoured Personnel Carrier and Ambulance variants would become the more advanced versions, yet the Mobile Gun System and Anti-Aircraft would remain the same. Simulair developments would happen if you'd build your base more towards tanks or aircraft. This can be done, for instance by making dummy duplicates of the existing structures that become available when the original is build and replace the original in the construction tabs.

I have nothing to add here, except what I already stated above - try to add some diversity. I think people would like more when they would see something like Sherman Tank be replaced with Abrams MBT, and then with the Mammoth MK3 (not necessarily those units, but you get what I mean :p) - all different design, completly different tanks, so the player would actually feel they got to a completely different class (not just a Sherman replaced by bulkier Sherman, replaced by even bulkier Sherman ;) ).


Make-shift Threat Avoidance System

It always struck me as odd when seeing infantry fighting a tank that is barging up towards them to run over them, that they just stand there waiting to become pancakes. The same with harvesters just driving in the middle of a firefight with disregard for their own hitpoints.

So the idea came to implement a threat avoidance system in the harvesters, other support material and infantry that can be crushed. Both in terms to lose the stupidity of the harvesters and to give tanks that psychological effect again. Here's how I figured it would work:

Harvesters

Stripping them of current weaponry and implementing a gattling weapon as a dummy weapon. This weapon would not do any damage to the enemy, but rather serve as a way to have the harvester figure out what the enemy is. The gattling weapon uses multiple stages and rolls up to the one that can damage the enemy. This is why the AA stages aren't used for the ground targets. If you use this system to make 6 dummy weapons, one for small infantry that are relatively harmless for the harvester, one for infantry that can do significant damage, one for hero or commando units, one for tanks that are harmless, one for tanks that do moderate damange, one for tanks that should give it a "get me the hell out of here asap" feeling, one for base defences and one for aircraft. Then giving having all of these dummy weapons a minimum range that is further than what the weapons those enemies average can fire. For example if a tank has a range of 3 cells, the dummy weapon on the harvester should have a range of 4 cells. So that it's just safe. These classes of threats can be devined by the armour and immunity logics. It might be a bit of coding, but it would be worth it, in my opinion.

Infantry

Most infantry have 1 weapon, so making a copy of it and using that as the secondary would graphically not matter. The original weapon should have the minimum range then and be used to fire at everything except for tanks, the dummy weapon should have the damages set to only be fired at tanks.

That way if an infantry engages another infantry or base defences, it doesn't try to keep a distance, because it would not have to worry about becoming a wheel ornament. Yet when it engages battle with a tank, it would try to run when the tank gets too close. Naturally this gives the same cat and mouse effect as the scatter function when controlling the group of infantry. But I've never seen the computer use this function and it would make more sense if the infantry would do this on their own, because of tanks being a psychological weapon as well.

There is a tag named ThreatAvoidanceCoefficient, which tells how much the unit (or infantry) is trying to avoind any threats on their path. Although I never compared it to what you proposed, I think it may be worth trying out. However, this won't work for infantry - gattling logic is available only for objects posessing a turret. You'll have to find a way to make it work only with 1 weapon (and make the infantry have only 1 usable weapon at a time).


Superweapons to Stimulate Mixed Armies

I read somewhere that modifications should either be a complete overhaul of the game or a balanced match that adds thought-out material and stimulates the player into using different types of units as apposed to just rushing. This got me thinking of how this could be accomplished with the concepts I had in my head and I thought of using the superweapons for this.

Paratroopers

The most obvious one would be the EMP superweapon, because it disables your tanks, thus the need for infantry. But I thought it would be even more fun if the computer would be able to punish you for preparing a rush before you even get to their base.

This could be done by a paradrop superweapon that would be fired at the smallest or largest force the computer can target. The paratroopers themselves would be more elite type of infantry and depending on the materials the players develops into (see above post, the main units section) it would be complementing that.

For example if the player develops to the point that he'd get advanced gun systems, the paratroopers would be 3 verhicle hijackers, 2 snipers and an engineer. All in different colours and stats as the general infantry, to make it look like a special force. The whole idea of having about 20 tanks grouping to attack a computer base, then getting that paradrop near them, tanks getting taken over and ensueing battle because of it does sound good to me. Plus, it would be fun to use as well. Other sets of paratroopers would be 2 medics, 2 mechanics and 2 rifle soldiers for supporting powers. Or a commando, 2 medics and 3 bazooka soldiers for specialized in infantry. I think you'd understand the idea by now.

Such paradrops are easily counterable by having a mixed force or efficient anti-air units.

Base defences

Having base defences with an area of effect weapon, like a mortar, artillery shells or more effective flame weaponry (like the aegis firing logic with a flame thrower to cover more ground) would also discourage rushes, especially because you'd suffer more damage that way. In particulair if you're forced into a bottleneck in front of the enemy base.

The base defences, paratroopers and possibly an EMP weapon should be enough to defend against rushes. More balanced units would also help to stimulate the production of mixed forces.

This will work, but if you really want superweapons able to prevent a rush, they have to be available early enough to do so. For example, what seems the logical way of adding an EMP superweapon (available after Tech Center), will cause it to be a weak rush breaker, because you'll very likely to get rushed before it loads fully. The varied paradrops also won't help much if there will be too much to build before getting to them.


Graphics

I'm not entire sure what I'm planning with this.. when I first had these concepts I wanted to do a GDI versus Nod type of modification, hence the colours. It was supposed to be for the GDI, as a humvee that would transport two infantry, but having no weapons of it's own. Rather more advanced sight, speed and sensors. It would also be open-topped so that the infantry would fire. The Nod schemed one would be for when Nod would have captured the GDI weapons facility to build it.

This would be realistic, but imagine someone building 10 hummvees, and having to fill them with infantry. This may be not that much of a problem (after all, some people use 10+ manned ifv army in unmodded YR), but i can see 2 other problems with this unit: targetting, and AI.
Firstly, since your hummvee wouldn't have a weapon of its own, you couldn't order it to attack anything. Sure, the infantry inside could attack, but only on their own. Selecting a hummvee and ordering it to attack something won't make the infantry inside attack that target, because your hummvee doesn't have a weapon, and can't target anything. In the end, you'll have no control over what the infantry inside is attacking, so you'll be needing to give it a weapon after all (if you still don't want it to fire an actual weapon, give it a dummy weapon for targetting purposes only).
Secondly, even if you find a way to make the infantry inside attack the way you order it, the AI can't handle more than 1 transfort in a team (at least for now). So, when you add an AI team with 5 hummvees and 10 troopers, only 1 hummvee will get filled, and the rest will remain empty. You could make a workaround for it by adding an AI-only hummvee with no transport capabilities and a weapon that looks like 2 machinegunners attacking (or 2 rocket troopers, or whatever else you'll want).


As you could perhaps tell, I have no idea how to do normals.

Some people make them completely by hand, but you don't have to. Each Voxel Section Editor has a built-in auto-normalizer, and the newer ones have few possible normalizing algorithms available, so it's up to you which one you'll use. They're not perfect, but they'll do most of the time (even better if you'll learn to fix any normalizing errors by hand).

Also, you don't have to make all units by yourself (although it is preferable if you want to make your mod look as unique as possible, or simply like doing everything by yourself ;) ). There are quite a few sites with resources (both voxels and shps), so if you need anything simply look there (you can access some of them by clicking on C&C and then on Resources on the menu on top of the forum).

Edited by mevitar, 10 November 2010 - 11:50 PM.

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#4 Failure to Develop

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Posted 11 November 2010 - 10:40 PM

Yes, you posted it in the correct forum, so don't worry about it ;). But don't be surprised nobody replied - it's hard to reply to something so long. Many people won't bother trying, as it is too much effort (it took me a few hours to reply to everything, but maybe I'm just slow...).
As for the ideas - well, it's really hard to judge now, since you're only starting. Some things you posted are already being used in some mods, others are not, and I have never heard of them before. I'll try to give as much feedback I can, though.


I'm glad to see some reply. I can imagine that it's a bit of a long read, but if I'd shorten it too much, it would probably not make sense for anybody. Thanks for the reply. ;)

I don't thing it's a bad idea, but what worries me is that the units you presented look too similar to each other. Why not giving more diversity? Don't make them all based on the same hull, but with different turrets and some details changed. It would be easier to quickly recognize the units in the heat of a battle if they all looked different, not just variations (right now, I'm sure I would be confused when trying find a tank in the sea of apcs while my base is being crushed).


You've got a good point with this, yeah. I'll give them more diversity then, although I do still want to have the main units looking simulair, for that whole mass-production vibe to it. But it will be different enough to tell the difference in game in such scenario's then. I'm having some ideas for it, but I need to turn those into voxels first before showing it. I can post that in a couple of days.

I have nothing to add here, except what I already stated above - try to add some diversity. I think people would like more when they would see something like Sherman Tank be replaced with Abrams MBT, and then with the Mammoth MK3 (not necessarily those units, but you get what I mean :p) - all different design, completly different tanks, so the player would actually feel they got to a completely different class (not just a Sherman replaced by bulkier Sherman, replaced by even bulkier Sherman ;) ).


The whole bulkier staging up isn't what I had in mind at all. Let's say that for a regular tank, it would start as unit A, then through the development it can develop into a more specialized function, let's say from a regular main battle tank towards a tank destroyer. Then the specialized stage would be replacing the original tank in the production. But the other purposes of the original tank will then be handed to an infantry, for example the rocket soldier will have heavier weapons to tank on other armour.

There is a tag named ThreatAvoidanceCoefficient, which tells how much the unit (or infantry) is trying to avoind any threats on their path. Although I never compared it to what you proposed, I think it may be worth trying out. However, this won't work for infantry - gattling logic is available only for objects posessing a turret. You'll have to find a way to make it work only with 1 weapon (and make the infantry have only 1 usable weapon at a time).


I've heard about that tag, yeah. Although as from what I understood it is triggered by a building that has the threatratingnode and then that logic stays on the units, even if the building is destroyed. At least, I think that's the ingame logic that you mean. If it is, I'm purposely not using that system for this, because I do want to use that system as linked to a tech structure or a superweapon. But the tech building/superweapon can't be build or found on all the maps/matches and I don't want the Harvester's avoiding of problems to be lost with that.

This will work, but if you really want superweapons able to prevent a rush, they have to be available early enough to do so. For example, what seems the logical way of adding an EMP superweapon (available after Tech Center), will cause it to be a weak rush breaker, because you'll very likely to get rushed before it loads fully. The varied paradrops also won't help much if there will be too much to build before getting to them.


The EMP superweapon will not require a tech center, mostly because I don't plan on having a tech center. I plan to have it available after a radar tower, seeing as the EMP does need more advanced communication networks. As for the paratroopers, they will become available as a plug-in in the radar. There will be two upgrade slots for 1 radar, after that first radar is a build a second radar becomes available to be build, which will be one with upgrade slots. As for the upgrades to it, it will be the player's choice what to put in it, paratroopers will be one choice, other choices will be like additional funding or a spysat uplink and things like that. So if a player thinks that he/she can handle everything with the regular base defences, it would be more logical to get a spysat uplink and additional funding as apposed to specialized paratroopers.

The tech center, as I mentioned, will not be available to be build. The only thing it really does is give more advanced construction options and that's it. I figured that the more advanced building structures can be made available through other ways too, like the concept with the regular units. As for the advanced tanks and such, I plan to have multiple tech buildings that will serve as weapon-manufacturers. Each one having their own technology applied to a few models that can only be build from that tech weapons factory. This encourages players to stop being secluded in their base and being more active as well as forcing players to spread their attention to more points on the map and thus make the match more interesting. Stolen tech will not work on these neutral weapon factories, but they will on the regular weapon factories.

This would be realistic, but imagine someone building 10 hummvees, and having to fill them with infantry. This may be not that much of a problem (after all, some people use 10+ manned ifv army in unmodded YR), but i can see 2 other problems with this unit: targetting, and AI.
Firstly, since your hummvee wouldn't have a weapon of its own, you couldn't order it to attack anything. Sure, the infantry inside could attack, but only on their own. Selecting a hummvee and ordering it to attack something won't make the infantry inside attack that target, because your hummvee doesn't have a weapon, and can't target anything. In the end, you'll have no control over what the infantry inside is attacking, so you'll be needing to give it a weapon after all (if you still don't want it to fire an actual weapon, give it a dummy weapon for targetting purposes only).
Secondly, even if you find a way to make the infantry inside attack the way you order it, the AI can't handle more than 1 transfort in a team (at least for now). So, when you add an AI team with 5 hummvees and 10 troopers, only 1 hummvee will get filled, and the rest will remain empty. You could make a workaround for it by adding an AI-only hummvee with no transport capabilities and a weapon that looks like 2 machinegunners attacking (or 2 rocket troopers, or whatever else you'll want).


You got a good point with that. I didn't know that problem from the AI, the targetting problem would be an easy fix with a dummy weapon, yeah. But that taskforce problem is a bit trickier. I'll think about how to handle it, wether to change the concept and/or stats of it or changing it to only a scout role, so that it will not be really efficient in offensive manners at all (low hitpoints and low armour, for example) so that the AI taskforce will use it less frequently. (1 hummvee, 2 troopers and a fire support verhicle, instance)

Some people make them completely by hand, but you don't have to. Each Voxel Section Editor has a built-in auto-normalizer, and the newer ones have few possible normalizing algorithms available, so it's up to you which one you'll use. They're not perfect, but they'll do most of the time (even better if you'll learn to fix any normalizing errors by hand).

Also, you don't have to make all units by yourself (although it is preferable if you want to make your mod look as unique as possible, or simply like doing everything by yourself :shiftee2: ). There are quite a few sites with resources (both voxels and shps), so if you need anything simply look there (you can access some of them by clicking on C&C and then on Resources on the menu on top of the forum).


I did notice the resource sites, yeah. But I like doing artwork and I don't have much experience in voxelling and shp's, so this is good practice as well. You can see some obvious mistakes, like the size of those humvees and the texturing on the first voxel images. I'm currently using the auto-normalizer, but I want to be able to do normals by hand. Can you tell me how I can learn that? And possibily how the .hva files work. I have the hva editor from Project Perfect Mod, but I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

#5 mevitar

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Posted 13 November 2010 - 11:56 PM

I've heard about that tag, yeah. Although as from what I understood it is triggered by a building that has the threatratingnode and then that logic stays on the units, even if the building is destroyed. At least, I think that's the ingame logic that you mean. If it is, I'm purposely not using that system for this, because I do want to use that system as linked to a tech structure or a superweapon. But the tech building/superweapon can't be build or found on all the maps/matches and I don't want the Harvester's avoiding of problems to be lost with that.

I don't really have a clue how IsThreatRatingNode stuff works, but ThreatAvoidanceCoefficient doesn't need it.

I did notice the resource sites, yeah. But I like doing artwork and I don't have much experience in voxelling and shp's, so this is good practice as well. You can see some obvious mistakes, like the size of those humvees and the texturing on the first voxel images. I'm currently using the auto-normalizer, but I want to be able to do normals by hand. Can you tell me how I can learn that? And possibily how the .hva files work. I have the hva editor from Project Perfect Mod, but I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do.

In case you don't already know that, to draw normals, you have to change the spectrum to normals (on the top menu, View -> Spectrum -> Normals). Every color on the palette means different light angle, but I can't really help you with which one is for which angle. However, normalizing entirely by hand is difficult, so I would advise using one of the autonormal scrpits as a base (possibly 6-faced auto-normals, as they are the simplest).

As for the .hva files, they determine the position the voxel (and any section it has) are drawn in the game. They also allow animating voxels. For now I suggest viewing .hva of any voxel from the game, and playing with it a bit. For most voxels, however, you can simply copy an existing .hva (like Grizzly's or Rhino's) and rename it for the unit you need it - it will work normally.

Edited by mevitar, 14 November 2010 - 12:14 AM.

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#6 Failure to Develop

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 03:30 AM

I don't really have a clue how IsThreatRatingNode stuff works, but ThreatAvoidanceCoefficient doesn't need it.


It doesn't? That's interesting. I looked it up on ModEnc and I'll run some experiments with it then and see what differences the two methods are, if there are any differences. Thanks for the tip.

In case you don't already know that, to draw normals, you have to change the spectrum to normals (on the top menu, View -> Spectrum -> Normals). Every color on the palette means different light angle, but I can't really help you with which one is for which angle. However, normalizing entirely by hand is difficult, so I would advise using one of the autonormal scrpits as a base (possibly 6-faced auto-normals, as they are the simplest).

As for the .hva files, they determine the position the voxel (and any section it has) are drawn in the game. They also allow animating voxels. For now I suggest viewing .hva of any voxel from the game, and playing with it a bit. For most voxels, however, you can simply copy an existing .hva (like Grizzly's or Rhino's) and rename it for the unit you need it - it will work normally.


If I use the autonormals as a base, how do I know which ones I should edit? Is it a trial and error method or are there any structures in the pallette? Like the left values become lighter, right values darker, so you fix it accordingly?

I have tried to use the existing .hva files, but for some of these designs, they don't work. Especially turret-wise. The last one I tried gave a really weird ingame effect by having the turret floating somewhere to the left on some angles and in the center on others. Do you happen to know when in the HVA Editor, if the voxel should be in the origin of all three axis or in a different position?

#7 Apollo

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 07:09 AM

I don't really have a clue how IsThreatRatingNode stuff works, but ThreatAvoidanceCoefficient doesn't need it.


It doesn't? That's interesting. I looked it up on ModEnc and I'll run some experiments with it then and see what differences the two methods are, if there are any differences. Thanks for the tip.


The two are unrelated AFAIK and threatratingnode stuff is likely redundant stuff as it was scrapped in TS anyway, as for threatavoidance, it works and is normally used for harvesters however having the bright idea to put it on all units causes severe pathfinding errors so would use sparingly unless don't mind AI losing track where it was supposed to be going when it had to take a detour, another thing to add is the AI ini's avoidthreats in teams but again, such stuff comes with penalty of pathfinding issues.

I have tried to use the existing .hva files, but for some of these designs, they don't work. Especially turret-wise. The last one I tried gave a really weird ingame effect by having the turret floating somewhere to the left on some angles and in the center on others. Do you happen to know when in the HVA Editor, if the voxel should be in the origin of all three axis or in a different position?


You haven't centered the body/turret so its turning angle is too large. Look at original voxels to see how they are centered (should be no brainer) but essentially rotation point is the axis center. In the cases of wanting turret more front/back on the body than center, it must be moved with turretoffset values while voxel wise turret is kept centered same as the body. Just a tip, you use Voxel Offset to position the voxels in Hva Builder. not the HVA Position which is wrong way to do it for simple non-animated voxels. If you want to do an animated voxel, say you want an spinning barrel, you voxel offset align it to the axis and then use the hva rotation and add few frames to turn it around and ultimately move it to the correct position using hva position (in every frame), not voxel offset or breaks animation.
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