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More of Darkstorm's incessant problems.
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Darkstorm
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Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 5:31 am    Post subject:  More of Darkstorm's incessant problems.
Subject description: Or ramblings if you will...
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I'm not sure what to do here, it's not related to the bridge I was messing with or bridges in general (hence a near topic thread). I have this low to high concrete/water cliffs in TI. It's clearly not designed for being hit smack with a low cliff, but it has this weird shadow bug with ramps. I do recall the particular low to high water cliff tile set seeming unfinished, so I suppose it could just be a problem there, but I thought I'd ask anyways.

Also, it's not really an issue anymore now that I figured out the problem, but I was having some issues with terrain placement being laggy until I found that "show building outlines" causes this. It's just kind of strange.

Third, I'm just kind of curious, but is there a real requirement to constrain a map to 100x100. So far I've been working in that space, actually puts a little bit of map scale in to perspective, I've always imagined TS maps to be much bigger. And looking into the dimensions of a couple of the TI missions, it seems that a little 100x100 makes for a decently sized map.

And since it's hard for me to contain myself with the progress on my mission, it's getting there. Need to rig up triggers and teams for the first section (it's a sort of two part mission). The second section is untouched but isn't as big, although I still need to think about the layout.

(Honestly, I could see myself facebooking every little thing I did if PPM worked that way, but best not. There's plenty of other things that the world already gets overexcited about.)

EDIT: Oh and slight addendum, from where I'm posting this it's about midnight, hence the rambling part.



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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That is no shadow bug on the transition piece, it's a wrong z-data on the tile. This is IIRC already fixed in the Staff build.
So don't worry about that, you can still map with the tile and in the next public version this is fixed.

Darkstorm wrote:
Also, it's not really an issue anymore now that I figured out the problem, but I was having some issues with terrain placement being laggy until I found that "show building outlines" causes this. It's just kind of strange.

FinalSun is almost as old as the TS engine and often works weird.
I once had the same issue where FS was so slow it took 3 seconds to place a single Overlay and when i installed some new GraCa drivers, FinalSun was suddenly 1000 times faster.

Darkstorm wrote:
Third, I'm just kind of curious, but is there a real requirement to constrain a map to 100x100. So far I've been working in that space, actually puts a little bit of map scale in to perspective, I've always imagined TS maps to be much bigger. And looking into the dimensions of a couple of the TI missions, it seems that a little 100x100 makes for a decently sized map.

Maximum map size supported by the TS engine is X+Y<=512.
FinalSun however can only manage max 200x200 maps, while actually 256x256 maps are supported by the TS engine (FinalSun however crashes when you want to edit such big maps).
I think FinalSun is restricted to something like 40.000 cells for a map.

One of the biggest maps i made was Africatorial for DTA which is 430x80. (430+80=34400 cells, thus inside the limits of FinalSun)

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Volgin
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Joined: 07 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I don't get why an alternative to FinalSun hasn't been crafted yet... FS is a piece of shit, tbh.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Because it's one hell of a work. I'm still very impressed that Matze managed to get this tool done that long ago and that it still has an really impressive amount of features. (after all it served the community well for more than a decade)

Just imagine the amount of work:
-classes to read every filetype of the game (SHP, VXL+HVA, TMP, MIX, PAL, INI...)
-understand and read the map fileformat (the coding of the terrain in IsoMapPack, OverlayPack etc is a nightmare)
-find and read all necessary source files and associate them with the data from the map (e.g. several objects like Overlays even have subframes which need to be considered)
-show all the data in the right way (no overlapping issues, correct palette, correct position (buildings, overlays, units, terrain all have a different centering towards a cell) etc etc)

^^up to this point map renderer managed to get things done (and better than FinalSun due to a closer ingame representation)

-write a graphical interface to place and manipulate all the different aspects
--render engine to show constantly a part of the map (this is something different than map renderer which doesn't has to care that much about performance)
--read the editor inis to adjust aspects of the interface and functionality
--offer menus to place overlays, terrain, units, buildings etc
--adjust terrain height
--editors to add AI stuff like triggers, scripts, teamtypes etc

-write the data in the map format

so right now, map renderer has only managed to get half of the things done, and everyone who checked the source code knows how big that is already.
Considering Matze did FS more than 10 years ago, without all the insight knowledge we have today, he did a really impressive work back then.

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Darkstorm
Commander


Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well I'm glad it's not my issue this time. As for a new FS, I'd agree with LKO. It's not as easy as, "create a new map editor."

Last edited by Darkstorm on Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:07 am; edited 1 time in total

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^Rampastein
Rampastring


Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Location: Gensokyo

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

IMO FS/FA often don't get as much respect as they deserve. While they have some rather annoying bugs, they're also quite impressive considering how much they're able to do and how quickly Matze managed to create such a map editor back when the engine wasn't as well known as it is nowadays. While it'd be nice if it rendered the map like the engine does, it's not a very big deal to check how the map looks ingame a few times during a map's development. The main things I'd want is being able to place tiberium on slopes with the automated tool and some GUI changes so stuff like triggers would be faster to access. But overally, I find FS pretty good.

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RP
Commander


Joined: 12 Jul 2012
Location: Mapping God Heaven

PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Don't forget FS 1.01 is based on FA2YR. FA2YR has WW code all over it.

If you look at the FinalAlert beta's (read, not FinalAlert 2, like 0.98, you'll see a huge difference compared to the WW versions.

Just take a look at the trigger editors from FA and FA2. I suggest you can clearly see which belongs to what FA.



The one version has every parameter open, where there's barely any knowledge of what does what. The other version has all the parameter stuff put away nicely and only displays 'settable' parameters.
Don't give him too much credit, FA lacked a lot, but with the knowledge back then he did a decent job.

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Darkstorm
Commander


Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Do the difficulty settings for triggers actually work? From what I've tried, they don't seem to.

Also, I'm finding at high elevations I get this weird text rendering issue. It appears as though there is no terrain (like what happens when you have an exposed underside of a tile). However, there is actual tiles, is there some issue with elevation?

@LKO I don't mean to pry into TI's affairs but any chance TI will be getting a snow theater anytime soon. I'd like my next mission to be given a change of scenery, but the current "snow" theater for TI doesn't really exist. If not, I have a few ideas on how it could be reworked but I still favor a snow theater. (My initial idea for the mission would be taking place in a ruined GDI base outside Reykjavik and Iceland isn't exactly temperate.)

(With all the questions I'm asking for my second mission, it seems amazing that I was able to complete my first one without opening a thread.)



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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Terrain on height level 13 and 14 is known to cause graphical bugs. It's highly suggested to stay on height 12 and below.

A snow/alternate theater is planned for TI, but hasn't been started yet. So it surely will take a while until this is done.

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Crimsonum
Seth


Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Location: Fineland

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
Do the difficulty settings for triggers actually work? From what I've tried, they don't seem to.


That's right, they don't.

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Terrain on height level 13 and 14 is known to cause graphical bugs. It's highly suggested to stay on height 12 and below.


Yet on some maps where all height levels are used, these glitches don't happen at all. I've yet to find the reason...

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Can you name a few maps?
Maybe it's a FinalSun issue of not placing correct the data in the map. Just like Ice tiles which are placed, yet the growth logic is broken. But not when you copy them from a WW map.
Maybe when using the height raise/lower tools, some of them are broken and create artifacts like saving a tile on height 13.5 or some other strange values.

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Crimsonum
Seth


Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Location: Fineland

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Can you name a few maps?


Here's one: Stormy Plateau. It uses all 14 height levels without any issues.

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Darkstorm
Commander


Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Ah, then all I need to do is lower the map by one. (I assume 14 is the max map height.) It's a pity about the graphical issue though, that means you basically can't use 2 levels of height.

I guess I'll need to work on an alternate plan for my third mission, which I'll probably combine some of the elements I planned to have in my fourth mission to make something different. It's probably a bit better considering it isn't forcing me to introduce Kazuars or move off from TI's tech advancement.

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