kidmystik101 on 25/7/2007 at 11:12
Poke646 also implemented a text log system. Go check it out. It's also a pretty good mod.
kodan50 on 3/8/2007 at 03:08
Wow, I just discovered that based on the plot setting you choose, will depend on the log you get, there is a full log, and a simplified log. After all the years of playing the game, I never knew that! Ever those days where you feel dumb? :p I will need to experiment some, but different logs per difficulty settings should be easily controlled, I just need to make the duplicate log files for each log entry, blah blah .. That will be coming shortly.
Also, I have ripped the audio logs and got some of them to work, but as it turns out, our PDA interfact can't handle more than like, 6 logs with audio otherwise I get some technical information, seems like the PDA itself is limited to a certain amount of memory used to control like log entries, and audio enteries, where I can have about 13 logs of text, and 6 of those can have audio. Certainly strange ....
Regardless, I think I am done with the structure of Medical, once I get the log system sorted out, then I will release another update. Doors are going to be harder than I thought. Half-Life doesn't like microbrushes very well, and while only one spot is noticable with a HOM effect, it may cause more problems at mapping of doors and such continues. That, and doors can only open in one of 6 directions. Guess what directions. This means that diagonal openings, like Elevator doors, may be impossible, or at least considerably challenging.
I hope MegaBrutal responds soon, so I can release the updated version of his PDA interface, even with the limitations that are evident, at least the picture and sound queuing will make the run through feel a lot better. I know I am rushing his work, no worries, I just want to get the blasted thing out some time before the end of this month.
MegaBrutal on 3/8/2007 at 08:21
Quote Posted by kodan50
Also, I have ripped the audio logs and got some of them to work, but as it turns out, our PDA interfact can't handle more than like, 6 logs with audio otherwise I get some technical information, seems like the PDA itself is limited to a certain amount of memory used to control like log entries, and audio enteries, where I can have about 13 logs of text, and 6 of those can have audio. Certainly strange ....
Yes, it's really strange... please tell me more details, because it should handle 20 logs, and newer ones should delete the oldest logs if you have 20. It should be all right even if you have sounds for all of your logs. I don't know what's the problem now, however I never tried to add 20 logs.
Real life prevented me from working on the code in the last week. I tried to implement that sound queue stuff, but I detected a strange thing, and it causes a problem. The HEV suit has a queue for HEV sounds, but that plays the next sound of the queue after a FIXED time. It's all good for "Power XX percent." messages, because they take about 3.5 seconds. This is the constant time it waits before playing the next sound. The game has no clue about the length of the sounds exactly. Engine functions doesn't block the execution of the code, so they create a new thread for the sound playing (it's quite normal). But after I started a sound, I can get no information of that anymore. There are no engine functions to get the sound's lenght or informations about the started playing. I could easily solve this FMOD, because if I create a distinct channel, I can ask it's state (is it still playing?), but that wouldn't work on Steam, because Steam really doesn't like if I use FMOD. The other solution would be using Windows API calls - I could create another thread to play the queue, and I would use WinAPI PlaySound there which blocks your code's execution if I remember correctly, so I could easily get know when the sound's ended.
Kolya on 3/8/2007 at 11:03
Quote Posted by kodan50
Wow, I just discovered that based on the plot setting you choose, will depend on the log you get, there is a full log, and a simplified log.
Didn't know the plot difficulty setting (actually "mission") influenced the log length either. Just confirmed it.
You can still always change the length of logs in the game options.
MegaBrutal on 3/8/2007 at 14:23
I have another idea, it's clean but really inconvenient. In that case, you would have to give the sound's length design-time. I really wonder though that there isn't a simple function to request the sound's length...
kodan50 on 3/8/2007 at 15:44
Quote Posted by icemann
Am I correct in assuming that this is now a 2 person project (kodan and brutal)? or still a 1 man?
If MegaBrutal can manage to get the sounds to work right, then I will use his PDA interface, and it will become a 2 man project, maybe, I guess that is how you can look at it.
MegaBrutal, actually, how about this:
System Shock does not automatically play the E-Mails as you get them. I think it would be better to have E-Mails just beep (like they do on System Shock) until you check it, cause I never recalled a spot where an E-Mail automatically plays, althou there are some areas where sound does play. So, why not just rewrite the code to not play an E-Mail automatically, but also have another trigger type that plays a sound, but doesn't store anything in the PDA? I can record some SS1 video to simulate what I mean, if you like.
This could fix the sound queuing, cause the autoplay sounds are short enough where they shouldn't cause any problems, and even thou they would play over the logs, at least it would be better implimented.
kodan50 on 3/8/2007 at 16:12
Oh yeah, you wanted more info on the sound problem I described erlier, here is a resized screen shot of the console:
(
http://anyon.no-ip.org/Half-Shock/HL1/error.jpg)
From what I can tell, this is just trying to decypher the error message, is you have a maximum of 192 bytes that can be used to manage the log enteries. When you have about 20 (in my test I did, I had 17) you are close to the limit, however if you add the audio as well, then you push past the limit. It seems thou when you add the audio string in the message specific, it makes each of the logs bigger, and when you get about 6 in my experimentation, then there is more data than what will fit in the pre-defined 192 bytes of space. Also, this limitation will need to be removed, System Shock has a lot of logs in it, and if they all can't fit in that pre-defined space, then the logs won't fit, thus making the log system preactcally useless.
Can someone tell me how many logs are on each level? I want to make sure I have the right count.
MegaBrutal on 3/8/2007 at 19:28
Don't worry, all issues will be fixed. And thanks for detecting this ugly 192 byte-limit. It's a major bug, when I saw it I almost dropped my mind, but now I know how can I deal with it. The 192 byte is an internal limit for server to client messages, probably to prevent lags in multiplayer game. However it's a single player mod, logically there is one server and one client, both runs on the same machine (it's not my modification, HL works this way). I need to use this message system to transfer data from the game DLL to the client.dll. I can't change this limit, because it's integrated into the HL engine, but I can make a workaround.
And I'll also remove the e-mail sound autoplay stuff, and avatars will be presented as well. And I don't need a video to imagine that e-mails aren't played automatically. Don't think, that I'm a retard please...
kodan50 on 3/8/2007 at 21:54
Quote Posted by MegaBrutal
Don't worry, all issues will be fixed. And thanks for detecting this ugly 192 byte-limit. It's a major bug, when I saw it I almost dropped my mind, but now I know how can I deal with it. The 192 byte is an internal limit for server to client messages, probably to prevent lags in multiplayer game. However it's a single player mod, logically there is one server and one client, both runs on the same machine (it's not my modification, HL works this way). I need to use this message system to transfer data from the game DLL to the client.dll. I can't change this limit, because it's integrated into the HL engine, but I can make a workaround.
And I'll also remove the e-mail sound autoplay stuff, and avatars will be presented as well. And I don't need a video to imagine that e-mails aren't played automatically. Don't think, that I'm a retard please...
whoa sorry, I didn't even think that might feel like an insult, I need to be more caurful. sorry about that, just excuses to help ^_^'
I don't know if multiplayer will be done, but I bet it would be cool to have, so if multiplayer does surface, we can just disable the log system for the multiplayer, i cant imagine anyone in a firefight then suddenly decides they want to check there logs :D
kodan50 on 4/8/2007 at 16:32
Well, I will certainly try to add some multplayer functionality into the game, that means I need models, but while we are talking about it, what kind of functions are you looking for? In the spirit of SS1, I wonder if HL can handle people individually changing levels, like one person on medical, one on science, then that person can go to medical, It would add a lot to gameplay, but fear that a 2 player deathmatch would be, well, hard as hell to find each other ... HL probably can't even handle that kind of complexity, so I might just have to make a bunch of MP things on each level, then we can decide what level to use for the Frag Fest
