Messages

51

Bug reports / Re: 0.3.1 Letters t, x, p, and more are missing.

« on: 17 July 2015, 01:41:28 »

Not sure if I can help much since it's been years since I've used GAE (much less built it).

• What language is being used?
• If you view the menu fonts in a font viewer, are the characters available?
• Do the problems persist in the latest version (SF seems to be having trouble right now, but I believe there was 0.3.2 out and 0.4 was in a beta that never got a final release)?

I'd say use the 0.4 beta as a baseline. It was pretty stable as I remember it and it had a lot of changes.

52

Feature requests / Re: Persian "princess" melee attack

« on: 2 July 2015, 03:47:43 »

Problem with secondary attacks is that the AI cannot use them unless the attack has a different field (in which case they use the attack only for the applicable field). Or at least that was the case last time I saw (it's been a while).

53

Maps, tilesets and scenarios / Re: lua scripting attack for specific units

« on: 19 June 2015, 04:58:47 »

If you consult the XMLs, you'll find that the defense tower does not have an attack command. It has an attack skill and an attack_stopped command (which is usually referred to as "hold position" for regular units). The major difference is that you cannot pick the target of the defense tower (and other units using this pattern). The reason for this is that attack commands require a move skill and for obvious reasons, it doesn't make sense to have buildings move.

It's been too long since I experimented with that, but IIRC, there's no way to give a  move skill that will not have the building at least rotate, and thus there's no way to give the defense tower a way to choose its target without engine modifications (but again, it's been a long time and maybe someone else has found a way to make that work). All the same, it won't work with the Megapack.

You can tell the defense tower to use its attack stopped command ("attack on") with giveAttackStoppedCommand.

54

MegaGlest / Re: build megaglest specific project using build-mg-2010.bat

« on: 25 May 2015, 02:36:18 »

MG doesn't use .NET. Windows does require building with Visual Studio, though, which does use .NET (but is really just an indirect requirement).

At any rate, you should be able to modify the batch file to build a specified project inside the solution. The lines you'd want to change are the ones that invoke msbuild. The /t:ProjectName argument is what you want (see the reference here). The batch file appears to be a mess (or at least in the last revision I had checked out -- can't be bothered updating), with commented out lines (starts with rem). There should be two lines that actually do anything with msbuild, one that is used if an argument is "rebuild" and another used by default.

55

MegaGlest / Re: MegaGlest mobile

« on: 20 April 2015, 11:38:23 »

Would be very difficult. First issue is that the code is written in C++ using libraries that aren't compatible with Android (Android typically uses Java or some kind of wrapper). Then there'd be the issue of the game not being optimized for very small screens (phones have very high resolution, yet very low physical sizes). Menus and such would likely be unreadable without some heavy changes.

Overall, it'd probably require re-inventing most of the game. Would be an interesting project if someone else wanted to just reuse the assets and create the engine from scratch. But it'd be very time consuming (MG is the product of years of development). A reinvention would probably want to scrap the existing engine code, anyway. It's mostly undocumented and doesn't follow modern programming practices (I think the rendering file was something like 10k lines). Using an existing 3D engine would save a lot of time as opposed to writing OpenGL code (which is ugly as sin).

Either way, it's a ton of work that doesn't have that much pay off (although I admit that the concept of MG seems a little more fitting in mobile, due to the short, independent games).

56

Closed bug reports / Re: 32bit linux binary illegal instruction (sse2) crash

« on: 20 April 2015, 11:28:02 »

The simplest approach would be to use a specific CPU and GPU combo as a minimum supported spec. This can be some combination that you know works or ideally one that you have access to (so that you can ensure that it actually does work). Then we just leave it to the user to determine if their CPU + GPU is better than the reference hardware. This is mostly by necessity because there's no longer a single number (or even series of numbers) that can be used to determine the performance of a CPU or GPU. Users would usually just consult benchmarks to determine if their hardware meets the minimum specs.

It's not perfect, but the intent is really just to provide an approximation.

I think most game devs do something like this. Eg, the Witcher 3's min hardware is a i5-2500K and GTX 660. This is really quite conservative and it will likely work at lower specs. But the lower you go, the more work you'll need to get it to run well (and technically, 10 FPS is still "working" even though it's not very playable).

57

Bug reports / Re: Tech Swordman's/Swordsman's sword in swordman_attack.g3d

« on: 20 April 2015, 11:19:29 »

I recommend to remodel the swordsman for the attack animation only, or better still: remodel the entire swordsman and switch the sword and shield (because of hand dominance issues).

Can't easily do this because we lack the source files for these original Glest models. They weren't created in Blender (and the lack of bones in the G3D model means that importing the G3Ds will have require reanimating everything for any kind of model change).

At any rate, it seems that a minor texture fix should be sufficient to fix this. No need for any kind of change to the model.

58

Closed bug reports / Re: 32bit linux binary illegal instruction (sse2) crash

« on: 16 April 2015, 14:00:26 »

People still use processors that don't support SSE2? How old is this computer?

There's no runtime detection because that would partially offset the performance benefits of SSE2 support. SSE2 is toggled by the compiler, anyway.

You'd have to recompile the binary without SSE2 instructions. I think cmake will automatically configure for SSE support, so you wouldn't have to change anything, just build it yourself (see the wiki).

59

MegaGlest / Re: Hey, I'm trying to make a game like Glest..

« on: 5 April 2015, 20:27:22 »

To be honest, the fact that you're asking a question as broad as "what engine should I use" seems to indicate you're not quite at the level where this is doable, yet.

"Basic" coding experience doesn't sound like enough. Game programming is a fairly complicated field of programming. I'd recommend that you focus on improving your understanding at least to the point that you're able to say that you have more than just "basic" coding experience. Make some personal project and continuously expand them.

For game programming (at least from the ground up), you'll need a fair bit of math. Usually linear algebra and trig. Although you can largely avoid this if you use a high level engine like Unity or Unreal Engine (both have free versions). I strongly advise that you do not use OpenGL directly. At least not without trying it out for a good few weeks, first. In my opinion, OpenGL is a nightmare to work with.  It's too low level and lacking in even the most basic features you'd expect. For example, you'd have to implement basics like shadow entirely on your own. OpenGL doesn't provide anything to help you here. Higher level engines like the Unity and the Unreal Engine do.

If you haven't made or contributed to at least a fairly large project yet, I recommend that you stop and do so first. Game programming is not a good place to start. At least not for making a game from scratch. The same ideas are still there. Figure out what the core features of the program are and add onto that bit by bit. Refactor between changes to keep the code clean for future additions. Break features down into small, compilable parts. Run the program often so that bugs and other issues can be caught early (which means you'll want to write your code in a way that ensures that it's compilable even when the code is not yet correct).

60

MegaGlest / Re: new feature: glow effect for models

« on: 18 March 2015, 08:43:00 »

Very cool. I can forsee a lot of uses for these.

Am I correct in understanding that the tileset image you posted has objects placed on the map to make the glow (and not part of the ground texture)? It'd be even better if there was some way to create glow in the texture directly. That'd be harder, though. One possibility is to create a "glow map" that is a simple monochrome texture where white = glowing at max brightness and black = no glow. Then each image for the tileset texture could be associated with a glow map (and the color of the glow could be specified in the tileset XML).

A question for the glowing models: how is the color specified? Is it obtained from the texture?

61

Mods / Re: Licensing your mod

« on: 22 February 2015, 06:19:11 »

Pretty sure that's not correct, Titi. Licensing is not per-mod. You can distribute packages that contain files with different licenses. Heck, MegaGlest does this. The engine is one license and the resources are another. You can do the same with techtrees, making one faction one license and another a different license.

Also of note is the concept of authors giving permission. For example, the creator of some mod package could ask Hagekura for permission to use parts of the mod where a licensing incompatibility may otherwise appear. It would only apply for the guy who asked permission. It's kind of a mess (since people wouldn't be able to derive from that mod package without also asking permission), but it's an option.

There's also the possibility of fair use. It's not really a clear cut topic, so it's not clear how much of a resource can be used under the concept of fair use. Better to avoid it.

Finally, there's a third possibility. Just use the content however you want. It's pretty much a given that the rights owner issues a cease and desist first (I suppose it's possible to open with a lawsuit, but I haven't heard of that happening and that's probably for a good reason). That means "take this down or I'll sue you". It's entirely possible that the content owner will let you continue, or you'll slip under their radar. There's a few mods for commercial games that are in a position where they could be taken down at any time with a C&D, yet haven't been. For example, Pokemon Zeta/Omicron is a fan-made Pokemon game that obviously violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks, yet has avoided a C&D, somehow. Given its size and popularity at the time of its development, I would expect that Nintendo knows it exists, and merely chooses to let it exist.

That's not really in the spirit of development here, but it's an option. But it comes at the cost of having to either make changes or stop working entirely if a C&D is issued (I presume you wouldn't be in any position to challenge a C&D, unless you wanted to call a bluff).

62

Mods / Re: Balance-pack

« on: 22 February 2015, 05:58:59 »

Magister is spot on. Licensing is per file. So you just have to have an AUTHORS file or similar explaining the licensing of each file. The faction XML is a wee bit unclear because it would presumably be a derivative of several mods (since you need to have attack/armour types from several factions). But that's pretty minor. It's a low effort file that's not worth making a fuss about. Could resolve it by asking the more restrictive license mod-makers for permission (all licenses can be overridden with permission). Or just use it anyway. Nobody's sending C&Ds over the faction XML.

63

Closed bug reports / Re: "Bull" unit

« on: 15 February 2015, 08:39:24 »

Huh, that's interesting, because the bull texture *is* in the same orientation as the cow texture already.

I'm not sure what's going on with these textures. Dropping the cow texture into the folder makes it look correct. Only difference is that the cow texture uses the png extension (why do we even use TGA anymore?).

In fact, this seems to be entirely a file extension issue. Nothing that I did to the TGA worked. But when I saved as a PNG, I get closer to the expected results. I only tested in the G3D viewer, so it might just be a bug there. Here it is with the file extension changed, only (no rotating or anything):



Regarding the team color, this seems correct as the texture shows. I'm not sure why the author chose to add team color to its butt, though. Really, the whole texture could use to be redone. It's so dark that it pretty much just appears to be almost a uniform black (with team color).

64

Closed bug reports / Re: "Bull" unit

« on: 13 February 2015, 22:28:18 »

Can you elaborate? I'm not sure how one would rotate and flip the below texture:

65

Mods / Re: "Free" (temporary) file hosters do not work - let's fix it

« on: 13 February 2015, 22:24:39 »

I don't have time now, but I will come May (I'm taking an internship and finally will only work one job). If this is still pending, I can help out here. I've picked up a great deal of experience in web development in the last few months, particularly with Scala and the Play Framework. I have experience with managing files securely. I work as a full stack developer, so front end is fair game, too. I'd prefer to move away from PHP, though. I'm expecting to be using C# and ASP.NET on the internship, so that's a possibility, too. I have experience in server configuration for Scala and the Play Framework (in fact, it really just needs Java to be installed).

66

Mods / Re: Licensing your mod

« on: 13 February 2015, 22:21:20 »

There is no problem. No need for CC. There are unspoken rules.

One issue is that creating a custom license makes it easy for there to be unintended loopholes. The CC licenses are created and reviewed by experienced lawyers.

Of course, we do have to note that for most personal work, it's just not a big deal if the license goes wrong.

67

MegaGlest / Re: New feature in map editor

« on: 10 February 2015, 14:48:21 »

what did you replace it with? xD, is it a tease to get us to get the newest git? XD

It seems that instead of randomizing on a per-cell basis, it randomizes areas.

Probably implemented by picking random seed points and the heights at such points, then interpolating all the cells inbetween to create the smooth slopes shown in the image.

68

Feature requests / Re: Better way to show Discount on morph command

« on: 30 January 2015, 04:59:02 »

It's a good idea, but the current display is too vague. Unless you read this post, it's not clear what the number means.

To be honest, I'm not sure about any way to display this that doesn't require reading about this feature first. I think it'd be better to change how morphing works (just require the change in resource if the change is positive; if the change is negative, give it after the morph). I can't think of any way that this would cause issues and it seems more logical.

69

Mods / Re: Low Tech/Feudal (new medieval mod -- Omega is great)

« on: 26 January 2015, 04:33:52 »

I moved the thread to the mods board, since I don't take orders from titles!

70

Mods / Re: Tileset statues

« on: 24 January 2015, 10:08:42 »

Now this thread can be locked/referenced.

We don't really lock threads just because they've been fullfilled, here. There may be others who want to follow up for whatever reason and locking the thread just results in the creation of a new thread.

71

Mods / Re: Low Tech/Feudal (new medieval mod, do not move to "Mods", yet)

« on: 24 January 2015, 10:07:08 »

Imgur is pretty much the best image host for 99% of uses.

On the MegaGlest wiki, upload files directly with Special:Upload. You need to make an account and be logged in in order to upload files.

72

Mods / Re: Low Tech (feudal)

« on: 8 January 2015, 06:13:42 »

I'd like to encourage you to try and do this yourself. Checkout the wiki (link in my signature) for guides on creating mods. What's the error message you're getting?

73

MegaGlest / Re: the end for 4.9 cpu

« on: 5 January 2015, 03:22:33 »

This seems very strange to me. The AI had almost twice as much resources but produced less units? I understand getting less kills because the AI is dumb, but shouldn't it be producing a lot more? Is it holding back or something?

74

MegaGlest / Re: Objective attack

« on: 27 December 2014, 10:27:27 »

Units are already able to do this if they don't have a move skill but do have an attack skill (eg, Tech's defence tower). However, you can't currently have a moveable unit that does this.

So you'd have to implement it yourself if that's the case that you want.

75

Feature requests / Re: Build skill resume

« on: 11 December 2014, 13:15:07 »

Well, we do have to note that the repair speeds are often purposefully lower than build speeds to slow down the building speed when using multiple workers (in which case only one work is actually building and the rest are repairing). So to retain this behavior, only one worker should be able to resume building.