I know, it's been a while since I posted. Most projects are currently postponed because... Well, someone started playing OGame again.

With three universes on the run, there is little time to do other stuff.

Except  today, because I send all my fleets out on a 40+ hour return trip because I need some spare time.

We've started a running club at work back in December because we wanted to participate in a running contest ranging 15 km trough the city where I work.

I bailed out a few weeks after the start because my back hurt but when I heard last week that there was a 5 km contest as well, I was crazy enough to put my name down.

The good news is, I'm confident I can make it !

Maybe not while running, I get tired after 7 minutes or so, but I just walked the entire course today in 40 minutes. That averages 7.5 km/hour and, according to some results I found on the web, I may not be the last to finish.

Take a look here:

2nd Annual PENINSULA RUNNERS Fort Langley Half Marathon / 5Km  July 17, 2005

3rd Annual PENINSULA RUNNERS RBK Fort Langley Half Marathon / 5K July 16, 2006

I won't finish first but I sure hope to beat my own 40 minute record tomorrow.

Tags: running, sports
Current Mood: exhausted

Not much is happening right now. I wish I could do some more work but with Pogo challenges, urban dead and a whole new OGame world going on in the background, I hardly get some time to code.

The Enemy Territory server is answering to tiny little queries now, the login procedure should be feasible, although Firefox may act silly and ask you to confirm your login, while Internet Explorer is doing nothing at all at the moment. I suspect the problem with I.E. being the local testing and how local pages are not supposed to talk to strange servers or something like that.

I made the first payment for my trip to the USA this morning. My flight tickets should be coming in soon. It's been official since Thursday, my boss has approved my leave, I picked up a larger suitcase on Friday, and as of today there is no turning back. The land arrangement still needs to be set up. I'm landing in Chicago, and departing from Montreal. I have 24 days to get from point of landing to point of departure.

Urban Dead is still a bit of a silly game, but I like all the community building around it. I'm even trying to learn to write kiZombie, a zombie speak variant based on English. My character in OGame is called Zombie and I've been banned for a day because I was posting non english messages. Darn humans being unable to read zombie speak, bleh.

I've been raided three times in OGame, first fleet I blew up with six lasers I built in a jiffy. The other two raided my world with no losses to them.
Last raid was yesterday, as of today I have a fleet. I will have 8 small cargo ships within a few minutes, I'm using them to fly my stuff around, so it can't be stolen so easily.

Somewhere tonight all that stored stuff should build me a colony ship. I hope I land a big one during the night. I'll send my ships raiding then, there are two abandoned worlds here. It appears as if nobody has harvester ships yet, too much debris.

I went shopping this morning too, shouldn't be worth mentioning except that this should be my last shopping spree before I leave, and now I have to aim at emptying my fridge before the 24th.

I bought party snacks, maybe I should invite some neighbors to help with that fridge :)

There are two kegs of beer in there too...

Right, not enough deuterium for the colony ship so let's go and fly this stuff around some more, out of sight, out of mind.

I hope to get enemy territory up still tonight, should be fun to see if the folks can kill the server.

Tags: games, travel plans

Probably my longest title yet, so I'll make this a very short entry and just give you a screenshot:
In other news I'm traveling trough the USA/Canada from March 24 onwards until April 15 or something. So that's keeping me busy somewhat.

Tags: enemy territory, mmorpg

It's been quiet here, I know.

Just got off work. The boss called me this morning, I knew it was coming, had some software to release.

So a bunch of us are now playing urban dead. I haven't seen an HH server since thursday when we lost yet another match.

I think I either won't sign up for next season or put myself on backup. This will interfere with my trip to the US and the Lan party so I won't get to play as much either way.

Speaking of urban dead, I've tried on several occasions to put up a game like that. Which is not simple, given the tools and websites that I currently have available. I'm giving it another throw right now, in between the dull plunger math that I'm still fighting with (all of your bezier curves are belong to Lethal)

Pretext

Enemy Territory, either map replica's or self drawn maps, I still need to see.

Classes as usual: Medic, Soldier, Covert, Field ops, Engineer, choose on start of game. Buy skills later.

Sides as usual: Allies, Axis, choose on start of game. Cannot switch.

Most if not all buildings should be open. Engineer can buy a skill to build teamdoors, mg's, barricades, walls.

Walls, teamdoors can be blown up by dynamite.
Barricades can be panzered/naded as well as blown up with dynamite.

Teams can barricade inside buildings, placing their soldiers at windows so they will shoot if an enemy walks in.

Use some kind of 'intelligence' counter so dumb soldiers will shoot accidentally at a covops in disguise like regular ET players do. Bad if you happen to hold a panzer, but like 33% chance that those cancel their shots in due time. Riflenaders cannot see the slashed circle so they shoot anyway. Covert can call "I'm a covert op" to warn, reducing the chance to be shot by another 50% (50% on RN, 33% on panzer and other guns)

This should reduce when soldiers get smarter.

Medics revive and throw medpacs.

Spawn points will be all over the map, spawncamping and killing is not allowed. Players shooting / barricading inside spawn are fair game.

/kill should be possible. Instagib/respawn.

Teamkills happen, hopefully not too often like in urban dead with the PK'ers. Worries for later. Teams should be able to vote kick for a day. Admin bans will hopefully not be necessary but are an option.

Some buildings will house ammo racks, medpac stands, command posts, mg's

objectives ? (Either team should be able to defend) Not sure how and if I should implement those.


Tanks, boats, to get around. We'll be using action points as well. More are used to go trough water. Sitting in a tank might move you around without using AP until you hit a barrier. Fops will call arty on sight, soldiers will first kill the driver. AP are only used for walking around, so people can get inside and defend while they are offline.

Call for a medic/ammo automatically if you are out of / dieing. Medic or fops in the same building will auto supply, forcing people to group together to defend.

I'm bored already, lots more to be added here. I'll try to get some proof of concept up first, we can try to get that up and running afterwards.

Server use should be minimal so all stuff must be pre downloaded from a regular site, server is only used to transmit player movement/results. Spawn new players 4 times / day to reduce upload requirements from the player list, everything can be done client side from then on.

Tags: enemy territory, mmorpg
Current Mood: bored

I'm currently breaking down a BSP with the plunger in it to see if I can steal the vertexes instead of going about doing all that math stuff myself.
That's how much I like Math, a bad habit for a coder.

Looking at the normals we might have a winner here, but I won't know for sure until I dump the 198 vertexes I just found into a .MD3, that will go easier than writing yet another viewer for this kind of data.

Back to the drawing board: Rubber part matrix: 15x9 (135) Wood part matrix: 9x7 (63), total: 135 + 63 = 198 vertexes. Don't hate the math, hate the mathematician. All I got were the same vertexes I can just read out of the .reg (.map) file.

Only wasted one hour and a half and who knows, that bsp reader may come in handy one day.

Tags: bsp, coding, deadmeat
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Anastacia

Just dumping a mail I sent to myself somewhere last year. As a security measure. I wrote this during a boring piece of overtime at work and it needs to be finished.

Tags: buddies, coding, modding

Map voting implementation idea:
g_mapvoting takes the name of an ini file, much like g_shrubbot does.

In this file, the following:

general
{
    campaignsize   6 // this amount of maps must go in the campaign, excess maps are tossed out.
    resetmaps 10 // reset xp after 10 maps, regardless of what the current map in the campaign is.
    resetxp   2000 // reset xp as soon as one person reaches 2000, regardless of what the current map count is.
    // resetsensxp 190 // reset xp as soon as one person gets 190 battle sense (mine spotting) see below for the map xp limits, add one for each xp class for completeness. Up to the server admin to set one or not.
    // XP only gets reset at the end of a map ! We might want to tell the peeps why we are resetting, will NOT coincide with map 1/6 as usual (or whatever campaignsize is)
    revotepercentage .5   // if less than half the amount of people that voted the campaign is still on the server, re-vote.
    plugfactor 0.2   // 20% of the number of times a map hasn't been played gets added as free votes.
    //MAX Weapon stuff can also be set here as a general setting, e.g.
    maxmedic 3 //Only three medics get a gun. The rest can still become medic but can only use their knife/grenades/medpacs/needles.
    //map specific stuff will override these if any.
}

maps
{
    battery
    {
       maxfopsxp 89 // do not start map if there is a level 3 fops in any team.
       maxfopsxpbonus 49 -3 // give map -3 votes if there are level 2 fops on the server.
    }
    mlb_daybreak // use 'map' name as set in the .pk3, <HH> Stumpy example:
    {
       minplayers 9 // must have more than a 4 vs 4. Cannot start map at all unless 9 players on the server.
       maxplayerbonus 15 -10 // minus 10 votes if the number of players is 16 or less
       maxplayerbonus 23 -5 // minus 5 votes if the number of players is 24 or less
       //breakdown:
       // 9 players, can play, but map gets -15
       // 16 players, can play, but map gets -5
       // 24 players, can play, map is considered neutral.
       //maxplayers 30 // not used here, just for reference, can go elsewhere
       //maxcovxp 49 // maximum covert XP use on fueldump or other sniper heavy maps (mlb_temple, etc...)
       //maxmedxp 129 // no adrenaline junkies !
       //maxengxp 89 // no flak jackets (might be 129, just guessing here)
       //maxsolxp   49 // panzer whore's beware.
       //maxweapxp   129 // no akimbo's
       //maxsensxp   129 // no landmine spotters !
       //maxtotxp 500 // do not start this map if there are players with more than 500xp on the server
       //bonus scores, can be used with all of the above, examples :
       //minplayerbonus 9 2 //give this map 2 bonus votes if there are 9 players on the server
       //maxplayerbonus 15 5 //give this map 5 bonus votes if there are less than 15 players on the server
       //maxpanzers 1 //Should not get more than one panzer in this map
       //maxflamers 2 //Should not get more than two flamers in this map
       //maxmortars 0 //No mortars in this map
       //maxmgs 1 //Only one soldier can pick up an mg in this map.
       //maxarty 2 //Only two fops can throw arty cans/call arty with their binocs. More can join up but they will only be able to hand out ammo and use their mp40/thompson, no arty cans or calling.
       //maxrnade 2 //Only two engies can shoot rifle nades, the rest will have to shoot regularly. (This is already done in etpro, spread the love !)
       //maxmedic 3 //Only three medics get a gun. The rest can still become medic but can only use their knife/grenades/medpacs/needles.
    }
    mlb_temple
    {
        maxsnipe 2 //Only two players can use a sniper rifle, the rest will have to take the sten.
    }
}

If revoting required, present maps according to their votes as set by the above list and the plugging votes.

If a player drags a map down, it will be deducted one negative vote per position it goes down. If a player drags a map up, it will receive one extra vote per position it goes up. So a map set to the top by the server can only receive negative votes. A map set to the bottom by the server can only get positive votes.

System will revote internally in between the maps, so as soon as xp resets and battery wasn't played in a while, it will keep on racking up bonus votes until playing it becomes inevitable. Might be every three campaigns if people keep throwing lots of hate against it (by dragging it to the bottom).

Edited with some <HH> Stumpy ideas.

Tags: modding, voting
Current Location: home
Current Mood: creative

Goals:
- Figure out how to decompile a map and alter it.
- Check if etpub really supports etpro map alterations.
- Figure out how to modify game models
- Make a tiny mod to allow living persons to run around in their undressed models.
- Make a movie

Pretext:
Quote Dead Meat: "There are no Sharks in E.T."

Synopsis:
Map battery, Dead Meat is watching over the bay from the back door path with his binoculars. Nice weather as usual, no allies in sight. (Crucial: Must be Axis, allied fops is black.
D.M. "Hmmm, nice weather, no Allies, looks like it is going to be yet another lazy day." (Last two words said while yawning.)
Walks back to the bunker where he finds Goat in the process of constructing the command post.
D.M. "Hey Goat, wanne come down the beach for a swim ?"
G. "Sorry man, I can't. I've got three more MG nests to construct in the base and I don't trust the looks of it man. H.Q. reported lots of Allied movement in the area. Maybe we'll learn more as soon as I get this up."
D.M. "Yeah yeah, construct your stuff, I'll be back in a jiffy. If you hear a call for arty, seek cover !" (Dead Meat walks out the door and yells these last words trough the bunker hole out front)
Before Dead Meat disappears around the corner, Goat peeks trough the shooting hole an yells: (Command post is finished now)
G. "Beware of the sharks !"
Dead Meat continues down the path to the beach mumbling...
D.M. "Sharks... There are no sharks in E.T. !"
As Dead Meat comes to the beach, he turns around as if to have a conversation with the cameraman.
D.M. "Do you mind ?"
Camera now turns to take Dead Meat out of view. Activate undressing mod, leave a used uniform on the floor if possible (model exists, check if it can go prone, something called garments)
As a yell of yeehaa sounds, camera turns back on Dead Meat only to see him rushing into the waves up to a swimming point. (Might need to edit map to make the sea deeper)
Queue 'Jaws' tune, shark fin to protrude out of the water.
D.M. "What the..." (Shark surfaces eating Dead Meat. Drag Dead Meat under water, produce in water explosion, Gib Dead Meat, try some funky red smoke to look like blood in the water for a short while)

Current status:
Tried to plant D.M.'s face on the existing fops. Needs more work to it but plausible. More baldness + learn how the face model works (only one ear, is duplicated, colors must match on each side of face, is in it's entirety)

After all of the dummy models, make my first real model: The Plunger, to replace Axis Fops helmet.
Now how do I get it on to his head ?
Never mind the weird wood texture, you could have little soldiers running around on it, that's how big it currently is in my map editor. I can 'view' an .md3 right now, just need to find a way to convert this baby into one.
All I'm going to get on export are the waypoints I set in the map editor. Now you should know that every other point is fixed and the one in between is supposed to set the curving.
The number of curves you get is based on r_subdivisions. That's why I made it so big. Now to find the code that does this 'splitting up' in individual triangles for the .md3
Basing it on the 'cap' for axis as it is less heavy than the helmet. 86 verts, 92 tris. My goal should be to keep both below 100. The head's attachment point is the bottom of the neck, which is why you'll see that I had to pan down quite a bit to still get it to fill my screen. The hat is also 'attached' to that same point at the top of the torso, so in fact floating above it to come out on top of the head. My plunger will have to do that too.


I already started writing a .MD3 viewer, if I can open it, I can write one. It will teach me a lot W/R/T size constrains ETC... Start Plunger from an actual helmet.
I somewhat got my MD3 viewer to work yesterday. I haven't figured out the frames yet but just reading the 362 vertices and 646 tris out of the file and dumping them on a canvas produce something that looks like a head.
Now I'm assuming the tris won't change trough the frames but the vertices will. I don't think I'll have to animate Dead Meat's plunger but I'll probably have to keep all 401 frames into mind if I try to mod goat. It doesn't look like there are plenty of tris on top of the head to displace them into horns, so I might have to add extra tris in there.


Edit the existing head. Mayday ! 401 frames in existing head, might be the suck. Add goatee for goat, might need to mess with either existing stuff or the other trick:
Make another helmet, this time for Goat. Just adding two horns to his head, see if the goatee can be installed this way. (Cross check test, would be needed for Mrs. Hoboninja's mask anyway)
See if E.T. can run from a memory stick on the work Laptop. Use the good PC to record demo's, Laptop and old PC can play Goat and Dead Meat.
Bulk transforming images is a must. Might need to record several frames for the actual movie due to 10.000 image limitation. Ask GhostOfKhan/Mr. Latenite for info. Try auto dropping frames to Windows Movie maker. Batch convert first at excellent quality, making one big movie, then start shopping up and adding music to produce the final product. Check on movie maker's FPS limitation before actually recording anything from the demo's.

Side projects/spin offs:
If etpub supports etpro style alterations, write a fix for sands of time because we love that map !

Tags: coding, fun, modding, movie making
Current Location: home
Current Mood: creative

GhostOfKhan has requested a bit of a map where a tank moves trough a valley filled with old ruins.

Since this is for the movie I'm going to try a few shock and awe things:

- Tank leaves track marks in the soil
- Tank leaves a cloud of dust while it moves
- Valley and Sand have a heat haze effect

Off to the drawing board.

But first I need a mapping process to be able to turn maps into PK3's more easily.

Tags: hh, mapping, movie, tank
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: 4FM

In preparation of Mrs. HoboNinja's throwing stars, I'm going to try and redo the Throwing Knives code.

Proposed changes:

/weapalt will no longer throw a knife, but move your hand/knife in a throwing position (like loading the silencer/a rifle nade on a gun)
An animation should show on a player performing this action.
When the player is out of knifes, his hand should return in the 'stabbing' position.
An animation should be prepared for first person mode as well, showing you holding the knife ready to be thrown.
Speed limits should be adapted so they don't criple the animations, both the throw, and 'fetching' another knife after the throw (instant reload).
I think it would at least make the throwing knifes more visually appealing.

Tags: hhmod, throwing knifes
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: creative