Jump to content
Eternal Lands Official Forums
ttlanhil

ack, a snowstorm!

Recommended Posts

snow is coming back!

ouch! darn sand!

I was playing around with weather.c (the rain) hoping to come up with a decent snow... didn't quite manage it, but it's a start

progress towards snow

 

 

if you press HOME, it doesn't take sit_lock into consideration. and sometimes people wonder why they don't move because they forgot they have sit_lock on. this should fix both problems

enforce sit_lock on HOME, and tell user if sit_lock on

 

 

The new progressbar is nice, but we can do more. here's a patch to make it accept colours when it's made, and give it much more scaling (it's also not quite as tall)

make the loadbar a bit more colourful(scales colour)

 

 

if the top six slots in your inventory are empty, the quickbar is rather useless, right? so why not make it link to the item next down? we can do that too

make quickbar use lower items from inv if top empty

 

 

F2 can only catch one URL, and it's somewhat limited. how about catching as many as you like and putting them in a window?

URL catcher and window

 

 

ever notice how you can get the same error over and over in error_log? hundreds or thousands of times? pointless, isn't it? better headers, times, and no more of the same message over and over again(if it alternaes between two, sorry, you're on your own).

add timestamps to all logs

 

 

if you're a windows user, you have a default web browser setup already... so why should EL ask you to chose one? this patch will make it use the system default

use default web browser in windows

 

 

 

 

 

if you're not compiling the source yourself, none of this should be particularly interesting. but if you are, check it out!

 

we now return you to your regularly scheduled forum

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love the sand and snowstorm ideas, they would match perfectly within the game :D Not that I have any idea how to compile a source (do what to a what? :confused: lol), but it looks pretty anyway ^_^

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sitlock was never intended to be an absolute lock, just preventing accidental movement back when we use to have to mine by constant clicking. If anything, sitlock is stronger then it should be now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice, keep working on the snow/sand :P

 

((also these should be able to be defined as AREA effects, because we have many maps that only have a small portion as a desert))

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Wasn't the current quickbar supposed to be replaced at some point with another implementation?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sitlock was never intended to be an absolute lock, just preventing accidental movement back when we use to have to mine by constant clicking. If anything, sitlock is stronger then it should be now.

197495[/snapback]

 

if people want to use it when processing and sitting on a bag, let them. it's extra control that people can have (and more realistic to have the control, to boot). the problems with current implementation that I've seen are the HOME key (because sometimes you bump that while on a bag) and people wondering why they can't walk away. if both are fixed, then sit_lock is a great tool

 

 

Nice, keep working on the snow/sand :)

 

((also these should be able to be defined as AREA effects, because we have many maps that only have a small portion as a desert))

197511[/snapback]

 

it's simple to change between which effect you're using while the game is running, once the maps define what sort of storm you want the weather type can automatically use that

 

 

Wasn't the current quickbar supposed to be replaced at some point with another implementation?

197606[/snapback]

 

 

well, if it works... heh

if there is a better way, lets use that, otherwise lets make the best use of what we have, I say

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Snow and sandstorms I would love to see. Put the finishing touches and hopefully we will be able to put them in the CVS soon. Are AREAEffects defined? How are you doing with those ttlanhil :) (Im not much for the rest of those patches. Just the pretty ones.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like the last two patches a lot. I used both of them on the test server before the update and they are very nice. The error log repeat one is helpful because it is annoying to search through 1000s of entrys of "can't find .../something.caf" to find the error that made the game crash.

I like the default borwser one because I cannot make EL open Firefox with f2 no matter what I have tried. It did work with this patch though.

Just my opinions. I would like to see them in the game. Hope they don't have any bugs or anything like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm currently working on the URL window one again, because of changes in CVS (yes, even though it's a seperate file, it still needs maintenance)

the snow and sand stuff is on hold because lachesis is working on better weather stuff, after that's finished I'll have a look and see if there's anything I can add, but probably not. as I understand it, you won't have area effects as far as weather until the new map format

 

with the default browser one, while I'd like to extend it to other OSes, it's highly unlikely that it'll happen. why? because this is what you'd have to do:

are we using KDE's windowmanager? if yes, use kcmshell to launch default browser

are we using GNOME's windowmanager? if yes, use gnome's launch default browser

repeat for any other complex window managers with ability to set default browser

then run through a list of all known browsers to see if they're installed

 

you could try to do the KDE/GNOME options, but then you pobably have to include their libraries or end up with a system() call anyway... just listing browsers in el.ini (and I did add a few) is simpler

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The current implementation is more or less a hack that checks a map flag in order to replace normal rain by something more appropriate. If we want area effects -- and looking at maps like Desert Pines or Idaloran I'd recommend that too -- we need to make weather more positional in general, since it is certainly not acceptable to have rain turn into a sandstorm when changing areas. Positional weather means that the server keeps track of different weather zones independent of the map borders, their transition and evolution, and informs the client about changes. In order to avoid lots of weather updates when walking close to a zone border, I think the client will need to get some zone info itself. That's quite a bit of work, not sure whether to really do this.

 

P.S. The framework change in weather I wanted to do is mostly done, I only want to change light.c a bit still -- remove the "light levels" to allow smoother transition using clock, similar like done in weather.c So you can add your code in there if you like, I also wanted to try making some graphics but I don't know whether I'll have the time yet.

Edited by Lachesis

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

my posted weather patches are just small hacks on the weather at the time. just changing the colour and speed of raindrops (plus a bit of pseudo wind moving things around). I'll work on this more later (after I check what lachesis has done. might re-add wind and rain colours and such depending on what's already there)

 

if in sand-type border areas we don't have rain (neither sandstorm nor water rain), then we can avoid this. and it's realistic to boot.

rain/snow mix is less realistic, but we could get away with it (it looks like rain? no, it's really sleet. even if it does look like rain...)

alternatively, how about a base temperature for the region be known, and you have a crossover area on the scale where you mix snow and rain... bonus here is that the client can do time-of-day and time-of-year temperature adjustments, and automatically chose whether to use rain, snow, or what mix of both

 

tracking the location of storms instead of just an on/off (with timers) would be good, have it sweep from one side of the map to another. lightning would be heaviest in front of the storm (when raining. during sandstorms, it'd be proportional to the strength of the storm. and no lightning during snow at all)

 

how about instead of sending info of how much rain where, the server sends the size, density, current amount of precipitation, location, and velocity of rainclouds(and updates them occasionally). this would be done for all storms in the area. client tracks where they're going like other actors. once they get far enough away, data is dropped

 

during storms, the sun should cast no shadow, optionally lightning and lamps and such could still cast shadows. cloud_shadows should off course be off

(feel free to use any of this stuff when playing in the light(sic))

 

some of this will require server and map def work though

Edited by ttlanhil

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Additional to what Lach said, I think we need a climate variable for larger regions (maps that border each other with similar graphical style) plus a mirco-climate for the single maps. The level borders are only technical borders, so if we assume the landscape just continues after the border, it's not acceptable to run from rain showers in KF to a sandstorm in Southern KF.

Edited by kl4Uz

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

An idea would be to define the areas in the map files, then let the server send a START_CLIMATE instead of START_RAIN etc....

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't know if the idea is induced by the different posts but please take a look at this suggestion, where snow storm causes cold damages, while desert causes heat damages and sand storm causes standard damages, on a per minute bases (like for snake poison) depending on your cold/heat/standard protection.

 

Let me know !

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×