0ctane

I have a bad habit of doing "informational" forum posting, so you will likely see me commenting about my commits. I have nearly finished a IMNSHO cool restoration effect, but I have recently been pondering a idea regarding these effects in general. I think the complexity of the spells should increase with the difficulty of casting them. We want people to say, "OMG that was Soooooo Coool...crus is sooo 1337....I want to get better at magic so that I can cast that too." You know, give people an incentive to level magic so that they too can cast the fancier spells. I am not necessarily advocating making the lower spells (like heal and shield) boring, but it is something we should consider. At the same time, the low level spells are cast most often, and we don't want to introduce lagging during an invasion due to 50 people casting a complex heal (no offense Kindar) while 50 invasion beam effects are also being rendered. We need a balance between effect complexity, spell popularity, and spell difficulty. Of course, regarding complexity, we could do a "Slowdown: disabling special effects" escape similar to the disabling of shadows on low fps. Does my rambling make sense?

I understand what you are talking about. An "effect" could actually be a couple separate entities taking individual paths to the target. Kind of like "lazy missiles" in Robotech/Macross. Would require some randomization code as far as the path is concerned. The other issue is that spells are currently instantaneous. To realistically implement, there would have to be a damage delay for the missiles/projectiles/whatever to get to the target.

I am actually working on a similar effect for restoration...kinda like in Tron when they go down to the game grid. I think the code will need to be slightly modified for "shooting" someone, but I have a good idea on how to do it. [edit] one problem I foresee is avoiding other actors. this might need to include a pathfinding algorithm or to go over the heads of other actors.

I have made a new commit which fixes some things and adds Kindar's heal effect code. Maybe we can con emajekral into making a short video (since Fraps is not an OS X program).

Well, under control? I do not know about that. We would be glad to have your assistance. I have very little experience in making SFX, and I am learning on the job (so to speak). I mostly just got the ball rolling on this part of the game and created a framework for others to work off of. While summoning does not generate effects (yet), it might be cool to have a fire circle be created for invasion beaming (which, in effect is very similar to a summon anyhow). Or some sort of opalescent "Akira effect" circle. The current sfx code does allow tracking of the actor, so I think particles could also track without too much trouble. What would be neat is if the particles would trail or drag with actor movement (like waving a flaming torch). This might be a bit more difficult to accomplish. (I am only guessing since I have not looked at the particles code and RL is taking over).

VERY nice work. The sun and moonrise are excellent. Out of curiousity, what are you using to capture the video?

LOL. I did not realize that we would have testers so soon, but I guess it is better to find problems early. However, this suggests that you are not on the test server when using this code. Shame shame! I have noticed that if I am in the console, and I do a spell, the visual gets stored until I leave the console. This could be an issue as they could buildup and then all get displayed at once when leaving console. I imagine this is what RallosZek observed, therefore it is not so much an #afk problem as a console problem. Kindar Naar is tackling some effects. I will look into this console issue while I am fixing some other issues. We also probably need to have an option to turn off the effects, and link it to poor_man.

Okay, commits are in. By making a pointer to the actor within our special effect, we can trace the position and have an effect properly follow a moving actor (which required looking at floats rather than shorts). My/our do_double_spikes function should be an easy enough example to follow, especially if you have looked over highlight.c. Using do_double_spikes as a template, other effects can be created and inserted into the display_special_effect switch structure based of effect type. Comments on the structure of the code? [edit] although, now that I think about it, it might be better to move the glPush/PopMatrix and glTranslate out of the individual effects and into display_special_effect instead. The creators of the effects do not need to know the actors position since (most likely) the effects will be local or radiate from the actor anyhow.

Yikes! Patches already? Well, I just did an overhaul of my code to make it much more general and to include more functionality. Can now do spin effects with my code too. It should be much easier to do stuff other than these simple spike circles. I like some of your ideas Kindar, and I am going to add them to my code (since I am causing trouble with my rewrites). I will have a new commit ready in a few hours. Don't worry, Roja, we will make much prettier effects. I am still in a proof-of-concept stage. [edit] Okay, committed latest changes. Added in Kindar's heal effect through a generalized function. Although not complete yet, I have a double halo effect for the restoration spell. [edit2] Figured out how to track an actor with a spell effect. This is much cooler. Will commit changes late on Monday.

Well, for some reason I cannot capture the effect on my Mac when doing a screenshot. Maybe this is because I am using the Mac's screenshot program as my client does not have its own screenshot->png functionality. Maybe Kindar will have some luck.

Yeah, I also need to make a special_effects.h as a "good" programming practice. Hmmm.... This is a bit strange then. When I cast remote heal on humans, the effect was fine. As I commented in the code, the "-11" was entirely a fudge factor. I noticed that the z value was always 11 units too large for me, although I have no idea why this would be so. Maybe this has something to do with declaring functions in the header files. Yes! Good call Kindar Naar. I will commit this change. For now, I need to make more MatEs and MagEs, otherwise I will not be able to test these effects. While I am somewhat happy with my heal, remote heal, and smite/heal summoned, I do not like my shield effect (since it really was just a temporary proof-of-concept anyhow). I have a much better idea in progress. I am also thinking about adding a spiralling effect to the summon spells to make them a bit more interesting. But, please, if someone wants to work on an effect, do so!

Sorry folks. While the code currently works (on my Mac at least), I have discovered a problem. As it stands, there is no way to distinguish between caster and target, so I am rewriting the code. On the plus side, I am pulling my temporary code out of highlight.c, so everything should be contained in special_effects.c and be cleaner. I currently have a plan for the summon effects and regeneration. I hope others are thinking about possible effects for the other spells. Also, I think it would be cool to add sound effects to these actions, but I would like to get the graphics done first. [edit] Okay, committed changes. Right now, the special effects are "tile based". For instance, if you are walking and cast a spell, it sorta gets dropped behind as opposed to following with you. This is fine for smite/heal summoned since they are radial spells, but not the best for other types. Anyhow, take a look at the current examples. -DSFX

I have a question. For the tele-to-range spell, how much data are you sending from the server? I would think you would want the player id (16bit) plus x and y position of either where they are going to or where they came from. This will depend on part as to what gets sent from the server first: the teleport spell success (in which case you need to know previous position) or the special effects (in which case you need to know where they are going). I am assuming you want some sort of disappear-reappear effect which requires both positions. Along with this first commit will be modifications to highlight.c/h. I am hijacking highlight.c/h code right now for temporary special effects. [edit] Okay, I have committed the new stuff. You will need to add the file special_effects.c to your Makefiles and use a -DSFX. Only three effects are currently active...smite_summoned (red effect), invasion beam (regular green highlight effect) and everything else (blue effect).

Okay. I have created a routine called parse_special_effect which, as its name implies, splits the server data for player, player:player, and location special effects. The new functions are being built into a file called special_effects.c. Should I instead put the code into an existing file? I still have some debugging code in place that will print messages to the console, which has been useful for seeing when and what spell is cast. If there are no objections, I will commit this to CVS with a #ifdef SFX so that it does not effect others. Then, the fancy effects can be worked on by multiple people. Right now I just have it do a green highlight under actors.

Can you give a little more information as to when the music stops? Does it happen soon after map changes? Where are you when it happens? Events such as these tend not to be random. Why don't you give the game a chance? Sure, there are still bugs to be worked out. This is not a multi-million dollar company working on a game to be sold at $50 a pop. This is a community of developers trying to make the best game that we can. As problems come up, they get fixed in their due time since most of us have real jobs outside of EL to actually pay the bills. If you are so impatient, I seriously doubt you would have donated cash in the first place. EL has a vibrant community and the developers listens to input from the players in order to make the game better (although not every suggestion can be considered). So, if you are so bothered by a little music glitch, feel free to give your money away to some company that does not give a rat's *** what you think.

I am a bit surprised that your CPU load is near 100%. At limit_fps of zero I get a full GPU load, but not CPU. Regardless, when I actually use a fps limit, typically 50fps, the reported fps always seems to be quite lower, 35-40fps. I have noticed this effect for both by Athlon 2200 / Geforce 440MX and the more powerful Macs I use. I highly recommend a FPS limit, otherwise you are going to stressout that videocard. EL will try to use every ounce of GPU power possible at limit_fps=0. I thought the NTSC standard was 30fps for broadcast TV. I am not sure about PAL. Do (non-HD) TVs go up to 50fps? I am not sure.

Quick update. I have been able to probe a number of the spells. Here is the status on what I can see: 0 = poison 1 = remote heal (only when I healed someone who was hurt) 2 = harm 3 = shield 4 = restoration (server message only received if injured) 5 = smite_summon 6 = invis ? = decloak (no message from server) ? = invasion beam (need to see a beam to verify) 9 = heal_summon 10 = mana drain ? = tele to range (no message from server) 12 = heal So, some progress.

Okay, I have done some very basic stuff like adding in the defines from Ent's first post. I was testing the receipt of server signals (multiplayer.c), although I cannot test for all due to my low magic level. For heal and shield both by myself and others, I get information from the server. =) However, remote heal and tele to range report nothing (by self and others). Are these implemented serverside (as in, are they sending SEND_SPECIAL_EFFECT back)?

I will be testing the SPECIAL_EFFECT_SHIELD (and probably other "self" spells later). [edit] Although, why does extra data need to be transfered? Whether or not a spell was successful is already known. We could just tag the SFX to the success. [edit2] Then again, the spells code is a bit hard to decypher.... Maybe I will use Ent's protocol.

Well, it is nice to see a Mac screenie. I tried to replicate your conditions (although my MP are a lot less). Wounded myself, went to Molgor, had storage and inventory open, and waited.... no problems. I even put on a BP cloak. I have a feeling this "bug" will be difficult to track down.

Yes, a very funny video. I particularly like the "star wars kid" reference.

A quick Macintosh Guide: 1) Go to your home folder. This is typically Macintosh HD -> Users -> your_user_name 2) Go into the "Library" folder. 3) Go into the "Application Support" folder. 4) Go into the "Eternal Lands" folder (If you do not see this folder, reread steps 1 - 3) 5) Use a text editor of choice (I like TextWrangler, but TextEdit will do just fine) and open the el.ini file. 6) Change the server_address to game.eternal-lands.com, save, and close the file. 7) Start up el_osx and enjoy.

Oh, I am interested. However, I do not have much time for it right now.

Don't we already have this as the CUSTOM_LOOK define? [edit] And I thought there was another thread stating the changing of textures was forbidden (outside officially sanctioned changes). Granted, that person was trying to make all rabbits red so that he could hunt them better.

While I am not a fan either, think of it this way...you get to know when there is an easy training opportunity.