Its Dark Basic as well, I know the DB community so that's very handy, I will have to look at that.
From what I read at Armagetron, the cockpit is just 2d, so it has some limitations, for a view out of the screen you would have to have it as a sphere, or that the part you sit in moves independent of the bike, either that or the HUD stays still while you look around, so it can be made to look like you are looking around.
If anyone knows where to put the moviepack files on a mac, please tell me, I am moving these around on a mac and they are not showing.
andi75 I am about to email you, so check your inbox, I sent a mail about models and levels as I have a 3d modeller on standby waiting to get stuck in, so I need the data for him, I am paying the guy, so i have to get it right or it messes things up, by paying people and getting the right people I get it done, I loath vapourwave and talk that goes no where, if I say I am doing something then I am doing it, I want to get one of these done either Armagetron or GLtron done before christmas, at least before the end of the year. I already have have 30 skyboxes for GLtron, I want 100, I will probably have to pay a renderfarm company to get them out as rendering just takes up too much time, I have 80 sets of textures for Armagetron, but there is a lot of work and things can badly hurt the projects, for example in my mail I ask for more details on GLtron and levels, if 3D can be used for all of them, or if these are lula scripts that make them, scripting a level sounds hellish, If i wanted 40 levels you cannot script that, I would not even now how, I would have to hire that, and they results would be terrible, but 3d models of the levels, yes that can be done, little things like that can make or break it, thats why I hang on both engines. same goes with Armagetron, it wants moviepack choosing and music choosing, these are things I have to know, because having a small detail crop up like that can break the project, people do not want to play a square or derivative of a square arena over and over, only die hard fans will do that, and I make games to be popular by broad audiences, same goes for armagetron, people want movie pack selection and music.
andi75 I am about to email you, so check your inbox, I sent a mail about models and levels as I have a 3d modeller on standby waiting to get stuck in, so I need the data for him, I am paying the guy, so i have to get it right or it messes things up, by paying people and getting the right people I get it done, I loath vapourwave and talk that goes no where, if I say I am doing something then I am doing it, I want to get one of these done either Armagetron or GLtron done before christmas, at least before the end of the year.
I replied to most of your technical questions by e-mail.
However, while your interest in GLtron and Armagetron is certainly very welcome, I don't have any interest (or the necessary time available) in supporting the project commercially (ofc. I can't speak for the armagetron team - I don't know how many of them already have full time jobs).
There's also the specter of Disney looming around the corner, and with the upcoming release of Tron Legacy, they're certain to send their laywers after any commecial endeavour with anything 'tronish' in the name (there is a lightcycle racer on the iphone app-store that looks & feels very much like GLtron that they apparently haven't come after though). Disney contacted me during the development of the Tron 2.0 game, but dropped the case after I refused to sign their NDA (they could have abused the NDA clauses to completely shut down GLtron - might be that I could have consulted on Tron 2.0 but I already had a full time job in 3d graphics back then).
Ugh, screen stretch! Please, please, please, if you want to share pictures of that size, attach them rather than using a pic host and inserting them into the post. It's very annoying and tedious to have to horizontally scroll one's browser window at every line. It's discourteous to readers.
Game Zone wrote:Phytotron - Nothing illegal is being done, you can check this web page, it is also linked on the GLtron web site http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I was just making sure you were sure you were on the proper grounds with respect to the GPL and whatever, if in fact you're doing a "fork" or "branch" or whatever (I'm still not clear on the definitions of those terms, even after reading up and having them explained to me).
I have been playing around trying to get a single texture on the floor with a grid on top of it, I know you can use two textures, but it is tiling them and not having it as one texture.
Do see what I am trying to do, without adding extra code, armagetron straight out of the box, floor 1, 1 image covers the whole floor does not repeat tile, its one image, layer two, grid, transparent inside the grid, this texture tiles, lower sky, single texture, does not tile repeat.
That's an impossibility with Arma as-is. Floor.png ("textured plane") always tiles. As sinewav noted, you can make a large floor.png and set GRID_SIZE[_MOVIEPACK] to a high number to make it stretch to fill an arena. However, it still tiles. It doesn't automatically lock to the size and border of the arena. If you configure the floor texture to "fit" in one arena, when one relocates to a larger arena the floor texture will stay the same size and just tile to fill the additional area; move to a smaller arena and it gets cut off; move into one of these custom map arenas and it'll really be messed.
I have been doing some tests with basic textures first, just to see how things go in Armagetron, I put a non square texture for the walls, ie 128x256 or 256x512, the bigger number is the width, it made an odd effect with some kind of stretching, at the top, as if the ceiling carried on going up and the last few pixels get stretched upwards. (edit, fixed that odd bug, not sure what it was, I changed a few details setting, then changed it back and it was fixed, so no idea what happened there)
The first two are kinda self-explanatory, and why you don't need to make non-square rim wall textures (I think that's what sinewav meant by "stay square"). The last one is what causes the final top row of pixels to get stretched to the ceiling. It's not a bug. It only takes effect when using the basic textures (moviepack disabled), and is only visible if the sky texture is disabled.
Also, don't forget, the floor color commands sinewav listed only apply to the basic textures. To adjust them for moviepack, you need to add the MOVIEPACK_ prefix, as in the cases above.
I want to test if we can have multiple movie packs and then select which one we want to use, also if we can have music selections like in GLtron.
Nope, not with Arma, but you can do it in Tron Origins. (In fact, all this stuff you're messing with you might be better served working with them, if they're still active. They don't mind breaking and hacking stuff in the interest of expediency.)
one could model window frames into the bike model, then in first person mode we can have a window effect
I couldn't quite follow that paragraph(your run-on sentences are a tough read, man), but there was talk years ago of window-in-window capability, for implementing, for example, a sort of "rear view mirror." Not sure where that is. Lucifer might remember; I recall he was involved in that discussion.
If anyone knows where to put the moviepack files on a mac, please tell me, I am moving these around on a mac and they are not showing.
Do not open up the package contents and modify those. Leave those alone at their default. You want to navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Armagetron Advanced/moviepack. You'll have to create your own folder called "moviepack" (or just drag a pre-existing one in there). It goes in the same folder ("directory") as the var folder, which you'll see. You can also create a "textures" folder so you can modify those. Doing it this way, you won't have to back up the default textures and moviepack in the application package itself (they just get overwritten when the game launches), and your custom textures and moviepack will remain when you upgrade Armagetron. Just like with user.cfg, settings.cfg, etc.
one could model window frames into the bike model, then in first person mode we can have a window effect
I couldn't quite follow that paragraph(your run-on sentences are a tough read, man), but there was talk years ago of window-in-window capability, for implementing, for example, a sort of "rear view mirror." Not sure where that is. Lucifer might remember; I recall he was involved in that discussion.
I think he wants a cycle model that's visible from the incam, and use that to have semi-physical windows to look through. Alas, that won't work either with the current code. The easiest thing to do is to leave actual holes in the model, and remove the hook that prevents the model from drawing from the incam.
Thank you for your responses and help, sorry for the lack feedback to some of you, it is because I am hellish busy, doing something of this size really takes lots of time and effort, I am planing 100 skyboxes, I think I have about 70 at the moment (but most need sending to a render farm for the final render) , dong these kinds of numbers, and making them quality is a lot of work, I took on a modeler and he did some quick models to get the style, I was going to show you some images but my PC isn't recognising the hard disk, (I am working from my macs at the moment) and my web design program is on the PC, otherwise I would update the site with new images, not to worry, I am a bit full on busy to really maintain the site for now anyway. At the moment I am ploughing through the GLtron version, so lots of skybox design, I will have to see how much time the modeller has for arenas as I want to add plenty of those, I am also talking with a coder friend to see if he will come on board and get some new features in. here is a list of changes to the actual game I want to get into GLtron that I sent him.
Skybox menu image
When the player selects a skybox image it changes the menu background image, so we can see the skybox that's being used, because the menu background is changed, the menu image is held inside the folder that allows for game customisation, I think they are named artpacks in this game, you find them in the following (contents/resources/art), inside the artpack folder you put another folder with the name of the artpack, inside that you add new files to customise, so you can change the bike trail, the floor texture the wall texture of the arena, the skybox images, and the menu image, now we could just use this method as it is, just make each skybox pack sit inside one of these artpacks, and have new menu art for each one, but its a bit wasteful, I think it would be better to have the menu art from one folder, and for the game to get the skybox art from the art packs to put over the background image, there is already partly this function in the game, inside the artpack is a function to add this I think as they do this with gltron_logo.png file, that is overlaid over the background, so that can be adapted there, there is a script in the artpack called artpack.lua, that will probably have details to add this feature, just change the gltron_logo.png to skybox.png, and change its size and placement settings, I would have a look at this myself, but I cant boot up my PC otherwise I would look at the .lua script in a text editor or dreamweaver and have a poke around. But I am on the mac and text edit is being its odd self and not showing whats written, it will be my fault not knowing my way around a mac, anyway, whatever I open it with, there looks like an option here to do what I want.
Level/arena/ map images
the game can have arenas, it has a level selection capability in the menu when playing the game, when selecting new levels it shows the level name, but it would be better to see an image of the level as well, so an image file that is put on top of the menu background image.
screen size
I would like to also get the game out for netbooks as an extra platform, Intel's AppUp is a good platform to distribute netbook apps but the Apps have to fit a certain aspect ration, as the screen size is not the same as a monitor, so either more options to change the screen resolution size, the game already has option in the menu for screen size, or if you want the game in a window or full screen, so either add more screen size option, or have a separate version, with the screen sizes at the aspect rations that netbooks are in.
skybox not distorted
The present method gives some distortion to the top and bottom skybox, it looks like it is a coded skybox, and not a model like what I have used in game engines, whatever method used, I don't like the distortion, so either a fix, or the game uses a different method. This problem is the least on my list of importance, as it does work at the moment, but I would like it to look better.
Random selection
I would like a setting in the menu to give random selections of the following settings
skybox
arena/level
music.
we have a menu for all these, you can select any of them and play the game, but what happens is when playing the game, its just the skybox, arena/level, or music that you chose, and while playing it will just give you what you choose, to choose a different skybox, level or music, you have to come out of the game to the menu screen, and choose a new one, I want in the menu a random feature, so the player can have the game pick a new setting for every new game, that way when playing the game, the player can have the skyboxes levels or music change, this makes the game more interesting, of course the player can set it up to randomly change whatever they want, they may want the same level and skybox, but the music to randomly change every new game, or want the both the music and skybox to change every game, or even all three to change, so a check box or something,
random skybox
random arena
random music track
Then they select what they want to random change on the start of each new level.
A possible feature for future updates, I say future, as I don't think it could be done in the amount of time. The user has the feature to select a rota of choices, that way they can set up exact lists of what levels skybox and music to play and in what order.
Hopefully my coder contact will take the job on, if not, its free open to anyone that is interested, its a paid job, but remember, you have to be able to do it, and in very short time, I want it done before Christmas, and deadlines to me are VERY important, everybody works hard, and it is not fair to let other people down that work very hard, so that is to be remembered.
On another note, I can't wait to update on how the game is going, it uses some very far out concepts and designs and the game world is very out there in terms of its concept, I cant wait to show a fuller view of the game world so you can see for yourself just what is being created.
wow gamezone you keep reviving this topic your quite dedicated and wow you all have alot of ideas by now it would be a good idea to get a seperate thread and expand on the ideas there
There are just a few values that get passed to the program, not much there really. Surely it could be expanded to suit your needs. Here is what's inside gltron-0.7:
17na - Yes you are right, I should make a new thread for this one real soon.
sinewav - Thanks for having a look there, unfortunately I am not a coder, so I have to bring people in to make changes.
I got access to my PC, I have put the test bike images on the web site http://www.avantivitastudios.com/solarcycle/
here is an animated preview if you don't want to visit the site, this should be an animated .png file, but I am betting it doesn't work and only shows the first frame, if its not animating, please tell me and I will replace it with plain screen images.
The bike is just a test, it will be replaced.
I had some bad news, the coder I know is busy, so he cannot take the project on, does anyone know who or where to go to pick this up?
I have been trying to get the infinity mirror floor effect in Armagetron, thanks for the link sinewav. http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 42&t=19213
The guy that made the effect, doesn't say how he did it, someone on the thread says
floor_mirror 10
floor_mirror_int 100
not sure why the above has these two bits of text rather than just one saying reflect the floor this much
Ive been pasting the above, thats even if it is the correct thing to do, all over the text below and nothing happening, what is the correct way to get the infinity floor effect?
Here is the .cfg file I have been using in TR2N Origins
#MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_RED 1 floor color (with moviepack)
#MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_GREEN 1 floor color (with moviepack)
#MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_BLUE 1 floor color (with moviepack)
MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_RED 1 # floor color (with moviepack)
MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_GREEN 1 # floor color (with moviepack)
MOVIEPACK_FLOOR_BLUE 1 # floor color (with moviepack)
MOVIEPACK_WALL_STRETCH 4 # relative length of wall segmnents
GRID_SIZE_MOVIEPACK 4 # the grid size same for moviepack
MOVIEPACK_NAME "TEST" # Movie pack name
mOVIEPACK_BY Testing Settings # Creators Sig
I have also noticed that the wall textures are stretched over the whole arena wall, rather than tiling, even though the code
MOVIEPACK_WALL_STRETCH 4 # relative length of wall segmnents
looks like it says something else, perhaps walls if floor 1 walls 4, then wall is 4 times bigger, something like that, anyway, I have been changing the results and getting nothing different, just all looks the same.
I should of names this thread, expanding armagetron, or something like that, as the thread moves back and forth it seems that is really what i am trying to do.
As Lucifer pointed out in that thread, all the guy did was turn on the floor mirror, but turn off the floor texture itself, along with the sky. Then point the camera at the floor. What you're seeing reflected are the rim walls. Those mirror commands are irrelevant.
all the guy did was turn on the floor mirror, but turn off the floor texture itself, along with the sky. Then point the camera at the floor.
By point the camera at the floor, you mean what view you get in game, one can change the view in the setting I notice, or by pressing u, or c in regular armagetron, that doesnt do the effect, and he also says below
Because in cockpit mode this is a masterpiece. You put the tilting camera and it really looks like you're flying.
Thats perspective mode. so first person, not looking at the floor. Plus in the screenshot its looking from above and at an angle,Ill try again and see what happpens, perhaps I am doing something wrong. No, I have tried both ways of changing the view, and it does not get the reflecting into infinity.
Also sinewav also says this
ntensity is actually a property (floor_mirror_int). Take a look at these two examples of floor mirroring:
You're reading too much into what you're seeing. By, "point the camera at the floor," I just meant for taking the screenshot. That doesn't create the effect; it just makes for the screenshot. Any camera could be used.
Because in cockpit mode this is a masterpiece. You put the tilting camera and it really looks like you're flying.
Thats perspective mode. so first person, not looking at the floor. Plus in the screenshot its looking from above and at an angle
In that sentence he is not describing what is seen in that screenshot. That should be obvious by the fact that you can see his cycle model and walls in the screenshot. Rather, he's speaking hypothetically of using Internal Camera (can we stop using terms like "cockpit mode" and "perspective mode," please) and then using either the look or move functions to point the camera downward. To repeat, that is not what is seen in the screenshot, and the camera has nothing to do with creating the effect.
All that's going on in that screenshot is exactly what everyone is telling you. The only "conflicting information" you're getting is from your own misunderstanding and trying to read more into it than what's there.
Look, when I'm done checking through the forum I'll go recreate that screenshot in multiple views, to demonstrate and prove to you what's going on. Stand by.
I tested in Armagetron, turn off sky and floor, and you get the effect, it was TR2N origins it didn't work, In Armagetron though it doesnt work correctly as the last top and bottom pixels are stretched, I was using a square texture as well. But even I got the effect perfect, its not that impressive, I was looking for something to replace the fact that without additional coding, you cannot use skyboxes, right now, I think the only option if I want to do something quickly, is TR2N and make really good textures for it and a really nice bike model and make nice menu images, and that's about all one can do in a short space of time, I have lots of content for a game that uses skyboxes, but Armagetron and its spin offs dont support it yet, and GLtron needs some features I want first, not that much is needed for GLtron, but getting reliable people that can do the job, in a short time is not possible I do not think.
So for now its TR2N Origins, only I have some problems, see my posts above on texture stretching
I fixed this, I used this
TR2N sky is looking awful, looks like its messing up the texture, looks like its converted it to 16 colors or something, looks too rubbish to use. TR2N wall textures do not look as well rendered as Armagetron, wait a moment, Ill try higher rez textures for the wall and see what happens. TR2N uses 4 rim wall textures rather than 1, which isn't needed, make 100 artpacks, right that's 300 extra textures that's not wanted adding to the download size, I hope that can be changed, and I would also like to get the floor more shiny.
