Community made patches and improvements

[divVerent]

Pain/Death sound system is already in svn, check it out on the "Over the Lazy Dog" servers. Different gibs per player model would be simple, we just have no "gib" models for that (e.g. screws, metal parts for robot models).

[MirceaKitsune]

Either way to further my series I made a 3rd patch (seems I found a good job at managing the menus ). This patch includes two changes in the Effects window which add two new features from cvars.

- Added Fog checkbox before Coronas so fog can be turned off from effects. By turning off fog in Silvercity for example I managed to improve my FPS by 6-7 points and fog was also noticed to make things go slower on Slimepit_Revisited so this should make things much easier for those who have slower PCs. There was an empty slot in the menu where this fits perfectly either way so yeah, don't see any reason not to since it's a setting anyone should be able to turn off.

- There is a cvar called r_shadows which allows ambient / skybox lightning to cast shadows from models in a perfectly vertical angle... completely separate from both Dynamic Lightning shadows and World Lightning shadows. r_shadows creates a very nice effects and allows shadows to be displayed anywhere on a map casted by ambient lightning which completes the shadows set.
I grouped it to the right together with the other two shadow settings. So if the devs agree I think that would be a pretty effect to be able to enable and disable at will from there. Please feel free to reorder and change the tags if need be however, I ordered them as best as I could but it may not be the best way.

Once again the two changes are totally unrelated but in the same file, so fi only one makes it yeah. Also the table size change from 3.5 to 3.25 is for the new Shadows checkbox to fit in (although that does make the Effects window look better either way so even if the shadows setting doesn't get in maybe you can keep that). Downloads here and here.

[divVerent]

- Added Fog checkbox before Coronas so fog can be turned off from effects. By turning off fog in Silvercity for example I managed to improve my FPS by 6-7 points and fog was also noticed to make things go slower on Slimepit_Revisited so this should make things much easier for those who have slower PCs. There was an empty slot in the menu where this fits perfectly either way so yeah, don't see any reason not to since it's a setting anyone should be able to turn off.

Sorry, but fog is a touchy subject there. Being able to turn it off means getting an unfair advantage in game against others. Therefore, mappers and developer(s) agreed to having a way to force fog on the client. So even if you set that cvar to 0 in the menu, the game code will revert it to 1 when playing on a map with forced fog. Therefore, such a menu setting would appear "broken", and should better not exist at all.

There is a cvar called r_shadows which allows ambient / skybox lightning to cast shadows from models in a perfectly vertical angle... completely separate from both Dynamic Lightning shadows and World Lightning shadows. r_shadows creates a very nice effects and allows shadows to be displayed anywhere on a map casted by ambient lightning which completes the shadows set.

Hm... too bad this effect is very broken

If someone could fix the bug that the weapon model sometimes throws its shadow to someplace completely different from the rest of the player model, it'd be a very nice option. Or maybe let that option not throw a shadow of the weapon model at all, but just of the player model - would at least look a lot less stupid.

So basically, both options aren't in the menu for a reason... but now that you mentioned this topic - it'd be a great thing if someone could fix the r_shadows feature

[MirceaKitsune]

Sorry, but fog is a touchy subject there. Being able to turn it off means getting an unfair advantage in game against others. Therefore, mappers and developer(s) agreed to having a way to force fog on the client. So even if you set that cvar to 0 in the menu, the game code will revert it to 1 when playing on a map with forced fog. Therefore, such a menu setting would appear "broken", and should better not exist at all.

The only advantage this gives is a higher FPS from what I seen. Everyone sees players very well in all (at least official) maps with fog and I never had fog making it harder for me to hit someone or see them correctly (except the lower fps in some cases). And if the fog is way too high in a map that's mainly the map's thing and configuration... I for one don't think fog can give a gameplay advantage unless it's set to a distance that can cover your FOV at least 90% from one point on the map to another one you look at. Some older video cards probably can't even support fog at all so yeah, this isn't something I agree with personally but if that's what everyone decided then yeah don't add it.

Hm... too bad this effect is very broken

If someone could fix the bug that the weapon model sometimes throws its shadow to someplace completely different from the rest of the player model, it'd be a very nice option. Or maybe let that option not throw a shadow of the weapon model at all, but just of the player model - would at least look a lot less stupid.

I did notice it does that in certain situations though I didn't give much attention to it. The reason I believe it does that effect is because player models cast shadows differently when you look down, so I think that's actually the player model shadow being casted over your in-hand weapon model (in which case it would even be correct since the player casts shadows over the gun). Probably needs checking a bit more in that case

[Me(n)tal]

I have Nexuiz 2.4.2 and I haven't see pain/death system there... But ok, I will look at svn for it... I can do some simple gibs myself and add it to game in md3 format... Also I need improved material system to make correct footsteps sounds and correct "smokepuffs" (bullet hit effects, sparks on metal etc...), so who want to help me with material system?..

[divVerent]

More material types - near impossible.

In Q3 maps, we however can select "metalsteps" or "nosteps" as surface parameter.

It would already be a great help if someone looked at all our shaders, and set "surfaceparm metalsteps" to all metal shaders.

[divVerent]

Sorry, but fog is a touchy subject there. Being able to turn it off means getting an unfair advantage in game against others. Therefore, mappers and developer(s) agreed to having a way to force fog on the client. So even if you set that cvar to 0 in the menu, the game code will revert it to 1 when playing on a map with forced fog. Therefore, such a menu setting would appear "broken", and should better not exist at all.

The only advantage this gives is a higher FPS from what I seen. Everyone sees players very well in all (at least official) maps with fog and I never had fog making it harder for me to hit someone or see them correctly (except the lower fps in some cases). And if the fog is way too high in a map that's mainly the map's thing and configuration... I for one don't think fog can give a gameplay advantage unless it's set to a distance that can cover your FOV at least 90% from one point on the map to another one you look at. Some older video cards probably can't even support fog at all so yeah, this isn't something I agree with personally but if that's what everyone decided then yeah don't add it.

Some maps set exactly such view blocking fog, e.g. xyon and morfar-ctf, and disabling fog on these maps would be cheating. Silvercity's and Reslimed's fog sure is harmless. And if the GPU does not support fog, DP still uses it (vertex based) in a way that works on any GPU.

Hm... too bad this effect is very broken

If someone could fix the bug that the weapon model sometimes throws its shadow to someplace completely different from the rest of the player model, it'd be a very nice option. Or maybe let that option not throw a shadow of the weapon model at all, but just of the player model - would at least look a lot less stupid.

I did notice it does that in certain situations though I didn't give much attention to it. The reason I believe it does that effect is because player models cast shadows differently when you look down, so I think that's actually the player model shadow being casted over your in-hand weapon model (in which case it would even be correct since the player casts shadows over the gun). Probably needs checking a bit more in that case

Picture of the bug: http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... 973468.jpg
I am trying to fix it at the moment (fix attempt is committed): http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... f7d5e1.jpg

If the fix gets confirmed working, I'll add the menu option.

[MirceaKitsune]

Some maps set exactly such view blocking fog, e.g. xyon and morfar-ctf, and disabling fog on these maps would be cheating. Silvercity's and Reslimed's fog sure is harmless. And if the GPU does not support fog, DP still uses it (vertex based) in a way that works on any GPU.

Hmm... one idea could be making a -map- property where fog could be marked as "necessary for the game to be fair" or ambient fog that someone can remove. So if the map would specify that certain fog surface / generator is necessary to block your view so it's not considered cheating the client would render it either way. Otherwise when the fog is just there so stuff looks nice allow it to be turned off from Effects.

Or better off, the game could calculate the distance and intensity of the fog and if it notices the fog can cover enough areas of the map in order for disabling it to be called cheating and seeing where you shouldn't, that certain fog would be immune to the fog setting and always on. Just random ideas

Picture of the bug: http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... 973468.jpg
I am trying to fix it at the moment (fix attempt is committed): http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... f7d5e1.jpg

If the fix gets confirmed working, I'll add the menu option.

Actually I was just updating Darkplaces from SVN and I seen this:

rev. 8554: r_shadows: use the parent entity's light direction for shadowing attached entities. Prevents tearing apart the weapon from its holder.

rev 8555: r_shadows 2: cast shadows always DOWN, ignore level lighting

Maybe a darkplaces dev or Div as he said above he'll try seen this and fixed it now?

[divVerent]

That was me. I hope these changes work, but I need someone to confirm them. r_shadows 1 is supposed to actually work now, and r_shadows 2 is supposed to always project downwards now (so it doesn't wildly mess around like r_shadows 1 does if the map has a bad light grid, which q3map2 often causes). Maybe it would be good to have both options in the menu, but not sure.

And the problem with r_drawfog is: the server forces that cvar to 1 if forced fog is enabled and the map has fog. There is no other way to force it on... but if the server does that, the fog cvar WILL be 1 even if the client disconnects. That is the problem to fix, otherwise playing a "fog map" will turn r_drawfog 1 and your disabled fog goes away.

[Alien]

Picture of the bug: http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... 973468.jpg
I am trying to fix it at the moment (fix attempt is committed): http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/~r ... f7d5e1.jpg

If the fix gets confirmed working, I'll add the menu option.

What can I say, fantastisch