RedRock
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Never ask what kind of computer a person uses--if it's a Mac, he'll say; if not, why embarrass him?
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Post by RedRock on Feb 5, 2008 17:29:35 GMT -5
The note above about the crossbow bolt sticking partly into its target made me wish I had done a screen shot last night--I was on the vehicle garage roof of Flughafen peeking over the rooftop crest, and a player shot at me with the crossbow from next to the tank garage, and it barely missed me--I was on the far side of the crest of the roof, and the bolt hit the very crest itself, so half was sticking out on my side (the arrowhead portion) but the other half was sticking out of the other side of the roof, with about 1 inch (in visible graphic representation) of the middle of the shaft of the bolt through the crest of the roof and therefore hidden, as if it had really slid halfway through the very top of the roof! It was the coolest[/b] thing to see that bolt suddenly thunk into place near my nose that way!
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Lamron
Benevolent Dictator
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Post by Lamron on Feb 5, 2008 17:43:25 GMT -5
yeah i can already tell....how long does it take you to type those explanations....but you must be a fast typer...but again wow...it must take some time If I'm copying something, I type at about 40 WPM. If I'm writing my own stuff, I type at about 50-60 WPM. Nothing spectacular, since I don't type for a living, but good enough for my purposes.
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Lamron
Benevolent Dictator
Posts: 5,214
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Post by Lamron on Feb 5, 2008 18:52:46 GMT -5
can you make an arrow that explodes like a nade so we can have two of them in the arrow ammo. sort of like the nade rifle. There may be other special things we can do with the Crossbow, but I want to keep this thread on-topic and just be an explaination of the process a project like this goes through.
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Death's Shadow
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I have become Death. The destroyer of worlds.
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Post by Death's Shadow on Feb 5, 2008 20:15:46 GMT -5
very cool.. I only hope that I can do a 10th as well.
[wailing][bowing]
not worthy ,, not worthy
[/wailing][/bowing]
I am reading this with great intrest.. on the edge of my seat for the next installment.
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A_ROOKIE
New Member
When the pain of where you are becomes greater then the fear of where your going, you'll move.
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Post by A_ROOKIE on Feb 5, 2008 21:03:58 GMT -5
HOLY CRAP!!
Thats like A LOT of work. I had no idea, I guess I did, but when you up it all down like that it seems like a lot MORE work.
Thanks again for all the time you guys spend working on additions for the game.
You guys are great.
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Lamron
Benevolent Dictator
Posts: 5,214
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Post by Lamron on Feb 6, 2008 22:02:56 GMT -5
Part 5: One of the cool things I wanted to do with this is to have the arrow actually sticking out of your chest or back while you played the death animations, and have it stay visible sticking out of your dead body. Part of the state file handles death. It uses the type of injury and direction and some randomness to determine which death animations to play. I added a check for "arrow death" to divert it to my script. I check to see if you were shot in the front or the back. I have a script to handle each. The first thing it does is attach an arrow to your body, front or back. Then a bit of math to determine where that attachment should be, and the script triggers either the fall forward or fall back death animation. Its important to note that the arrow is attached to the player, not to the body. So as long as you are in your body, everything looks fine. But if you have an out-of-body experience (otherwise known as respawning), the arrow goes with you. Another spawn-triggered script already handles removing JetPacks, BPvest, etc. so I added Arrow removal there so you don't spawn with the arrow still sticking out of you. The dead body still needs a visible arrow, so I did quite a bit of experimenting to determine where the arrow ends up relative to your standing position after the death animation. Of course, you could have been facing any direction, so I had to determine the formula to place/angle it correctly. I then spawn another arrow there and remove it 9.5 seconds later (dead bodies last 10 seconds). If you've been keeping count, in the course of shooting someone you are actually seeing FIVE different arrows. Obviously, they all look the same, so the effect is seemless in the game. 1) on the crossbow 2) in flight 3) impact 4) attached to dying player during animations 5) sticking out of dead body Now we need an appropriate death message. There is no way to add new messages or types of death to the game. That's all handled by compiled game code that I can't really do anything with. So I find a deathtype that isn't being used. Since I am using BT .dll files on this SH server, there is a cause of death called "landmine" that isn't being used. So I tell the arrow to do "landmine" damage to whoever it hits. This produces a death message of "AAAA stepped on BBBB's landmine". That's not very accurate, so I use a HEX editor to open up the game .dll. A HEX editor lets you open the raw data of any file with no formating or interpretation of the data. Searching through this data I found the characters used in that death message and replaced them with my own. I can only do a one-by-one character replacement. The new message has to be exactly the same number of characters as the old, or the game won't even load up at all. You have to be very carefull using a HEX editor, its easy to screw everthing up. Now we have the new message "AAAA was hit by BBBB's arrow. I had a couple of characters left at the and of "arrow" but I just filled them with spaces so you can't tell. This is the same method I used to create all of the custom death message on the server. By this time, AIGAD has finished the model/texture and sent it to me. I package everything up and send him an evaluation version that will let him run around in a private map shooting at things and testing it. I load it up on two computers and start a private game so that I can see and control both players. This lets me check to see if if looks good in third person and experiment with arrow death animations and make sure that being killed while reloading the Crossbow works correctly (I've had problems with that before). Assuming that everything works properly, I do all the special weapons menu scripting that will let you select it in game. When its done, I install the server part, and upload the new client fix to the website for everyone to download. The last step is fixing problems you guys cause by doing some combinaton of actions that I never thought to test for. ;D I hope that gives you a decent overview of the process. As we work on these different projects (RE detonator, Pulse Rifle, BPvest, Crossbow, Grappling Hook), we get better at colaborating with each other. Obviously, they would be impossible without such a gifted model artist willing to volunteer to work on them with me. AIGAD may want to add to this thread with more detail on the model construction. I told him he made it look too easy! Right now, AIGAD and I are working on the Grappling Hook. We're looking at pictures and discussing how the model should look, and I'm experimenting with different ways to script this to handle the player movement and controlling were you can use it.
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Killer_Monkey
New Member
Even a creepy little undead Monkey can kill!!
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Post by Killer_Monkey on Feb 6, 2008 22:50:11 GMT -5
AND HES STILL NOT DONE....YOUR GONNA BE THANKING THEM FOR A WHILE OR AT LEAST UNTIL WE HOPE THEY ARE DONE! LOL
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RedRock
LPmember
Never ask what kind of computer a person uses--if it's a Mac, he'll say; if not, why embarrass him?
Posts: 4,968
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Post by RedRock on Feb 7, 2008 14:04:20 GMT -5
Excellent work, you two. Very clever on the scripting workarounds, Lamron. Five arrows!!!! I think you are an illusionist at heart!
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Post by vinsanity on Feb 7, 2008 14:34:12 GMT -5
Or maybe even an illusionist in fact? What never ceases to amaze me is the level of code that goes into these things.
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AIGAD
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Post by AIGAD on Feb 11, 2008 0:43:24 GMT -5
Lamron forgot part 6... Tweaking the values in script to make an automatic crossbow and AIGAD a pin-cushion:
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Post by vinsanity on Feb 11, 2008 0:49:23 GMT -5
LOL Looks like a voodoo doll!
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Death's Shadow
LPmember
I have become Death. The destroyer of worlds.
Posts: 3,184
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Post by Death's Shadow on Feb 12, 2008 17:14:11 GMT -5
automatic x bow.. you boys are sick sick sick.. I LOVE IT.... LOL
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RedRock
LPmember
Never ask what kind of computer a person uses--if it's a Mac, he'll say; if not, why embarrass him?
Posts: 4,968
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Post by RedRock on Feb 12, 2008 17:49:05 GMT -5
..... Tweaking the values in script to make an automatic crossbow ..... Not a bad idea for a different weapon--a handheld (handgun) NEEDLER--shooting small nails/needles at auto rate, magazine of maybe 32, moderate to low damage, very stealthy!
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Post by Fritzy_Canuck on Feb 18, 2008 0:24:36 GMT -5
Just wanted to drop a line and say what a sweet weapon that crossbow is...Great job fellas!
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