Just because FA2 is a bitch in some ways, I just realized something that could be handy, optionally show "hidden" units, you could use the standard behind anim...
This would be especially handy where FA2 isn't showing some infantry, and there are buildings placed on top of them.
Or short buildings behind taller buildings... QUICK_EDIT
I just wanted to mention that "pavement" tilesets (the ones with parking spots) should be rendered without LAT transition to individual pavement tiles. You can see this in both temperate and snow, but because urban doesn't have a particular edge difference, you won't notice there -- newurban and desert should be the same.
Installer attached is the most up-to-date renderer with that pavement LAT issue fixed as well as it not writing or using invalid WindowLocation setting anymore (which used to happen if the window was closed while minimized). There's some other things I want to take a look at but maybe later.
Looks like Starkku and E1 Elite have done a lot of good work on this project. Would you guys prefer being able to use the built-in update function? QUICK_EDIT
Welcome back. If you like to check out all the changes in one place, there is an Info.txt in my last download which has the change listing.
Currently update check is disabled. Personally I like small apps to be portable and offline, saves me from giving it access to net and firewall prompts on version changes. Access to hosted server and updates on every change seems a little overhead. What are you suggesting and who will maintain it? QUICK_EDIT
The autoupdate becomes combersome everytime there's an outage or even flaky internet. There was even a point where I didn't want the forced updates because of a fork you made z _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Welcome back. If you like to check out all the changes in one place, there is an Info.txt in my last download which has the change listing.
Currently update check is disabled. Personally I like small apps to be portable and offline, saves me from giving it access to net and firewall prompts on version changes. Access to hosted server and updates on every change seems a little overhead. What are you suggesting and who will maintain it?
Very nice. Okay for me to merge that back to the original repository? Would it make sense to allow contributors to that repository so the 3 forks can be combined?
RP wrote:
Any plans of building an editor out of it, zzattack?
Not really. Just the upcoming remaster refueling my interest for a bit
G-E wrote:
The autoupdate becomes combersome everytime there's an outage or even flaky internet. There was even a point where I didn't want the forced updates because of a fork you made z
Fair enough, at no point should it feel intrusive or annoying QUICK_EDIT
Okay for me to merge that back to the original repository? Would it make sense to allow contributors to that repository so the 3 forks can be combined?
Not really. Just the upcoming remaster refueling my interest for a bit
Somewhat 'good' to hear, otherwise I would've stopped development of mine. Considering your drawing logic is near perfect.
Your work keeps being an inspiration and a lot of help! _________________
There's an unresolved issue (related to this despite the fact that it is posted in the original repo) with voxel rendering that cropped up a while back. The OpenTK library that used to be bundled with the renderer was no longer compatible with many of the newer graphics drivers and because the said DLL appears to be some sort of bespoke fork with a software rendering fallback (Mesa) baked into it, I made a decision to cut the software fallback and include an updated OpenTK.dll to keep voxel rendering working for the majority.
Obviously not ideal, and never intended it to be a permanent solution but I didn't get around to ask about it. Better late than never, I suppose. Could look into a proper solution that works on all platforms now since you (zzattack) probably have a better idea of where that original OpenTK.dll came from and what's in it. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
The tool uses a OpenGL context to render voxels, and contained a fallback to a software OpenGL implementation (mesa) in case the tool was ran in an environment where no OpenGL context can be acquired (i.e. a headless server, or even a remote desktop environment many years back).
The OpenTK.dll I shipped did contain some minor tweaks to make it work on Windows with mesa if I recall correctly.
On my ubuntu server I also got it to work, but it was quite a lot of fiddling and certainly not a very robust setup. I'm fine with it being removed. QUICK_EDIT
Yea if you go back a couple pages where I brought this up, OpenTK included was only referencing OpenGL via 2.x calls, and was incompatible with 4.x which my updated Nvidia driver used.
When I looked at the OpenTK sources I saw they had separate syntax/methods for both, so I figured it just needed a newer version, but eht Mesa dependency prevented that. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
I've gone over all the changes and merged them back into the originating repository. Must say I'm quite surprised and impressed by the efforts involved.
At a glance, it seems that most (all?) additions were able to fit in the framework that was in place. Does that align with how you (@E1Elite/Starkku) felt while implementing those changes, or would you say there's areas that are either too hard to use, not flexible enough or plain wrong?
Are there any areas where rendering can be improved but that seemed too tedious to work on? Any components that form limitations due to how they were implemented? Basically, anything that's too confusing and prevents people other than me from working on them?
These are the first big contributions the project has received after, apparently, nearly 15 years and although my interest always comes in bursts, I'm very much willing to help improve factors that would facilitate receiving more contributions from others over time. QUICK_EDIT
This tool has lot of plus points, it already reads the game and map content, much more can be done with this. Last year I was thinking of ice growth manipulation feature but didn't want to deviate too much from the tool's name sake. Just for rendering, there is a patch in the works for TS game.exe that could take the whole map screenshot, that would be the exact game render.
Say to implement laser fences, one has to pickup Owner/Side related laser post and fences to get the graphics objects, power present on the map for that owner, range of the fences etc.. Fences should connect to that owner only, the terrain should not have deformation, should avoid all obstacles which include map object like building, overlays and can connect only through the tiles having certain terrain type (excluding cliff, rock etc.). Building foundation should have all the cells marked (would help in mouse over the building in preview window also), or atleast boundary so that the laser fence does not connect through the building. If one touches building foundation, Ares provides custom foundation as well. Then provide logic using scan for adjacent cells or path to next post with only in 4 directions. This shows how much is left to be implemented.
The automatic game finding is based on registry entry which goes wrong completely, I didn't have the heart to remove it because of the effort that went in. Like opening a TS map and there is no TS path in registry but RA2 has, then it will open that map as RA2 map and any modification of tiles etc. will result in corrupted map.
Case of cliff shadows and tile anims like the tunnel top isn't implemented. I tried to put the tunnel top, but was getting anim offset values added to itself by about 9 times, left the code with ToDo comment, found it difficult to trace the problem because of the structure and usage of TileCollection.cs and lack of time. Had to give an alternative outside the tool solution which isn't perfect.
Then there are things with little consequence to the user, like all the content of the map gets merged with rules variable including bulky mappacks which is not necessary. Sequence of operations like game content could be parsed before map content to do any post parse processing. Faced the sequence dilemma when implementing wall placed as buildings to be converted to walls, had to take a different route.
Feel free to ask any questions regarding the changes or others.
Checked your zoom feature (unreleased) for the preview/diagnostic window, it works fine for both mouse wheel and mouse selection box and the mouse over coordinates were shown correctly. It could use a hotkey like Ctrl+Numpad0 or some mechanism to reset to default zoom. QUICK_EDIT
Laser fences definitely seem to require more of a stateful engine rather than a simple load & render setup that we have. But simply acting as if every actor has a sufficient power level when connecting fence logic seems doable. Evaluating terrain on neighbouring tiles is of course already done in a few places (ore spread, LAT system) so that shouldn't be considered infeasible either.
Auto-detection of the map engine should be mostly about map contents, not about registry. That said, some maps could very well be valid in both TS and RA2, and I don't think there's a definitive way to always get it right. If possible, just guide the tool a little bit by forcing the engine mode
Shadows are incredibly tedious to get right. I'm not sure if Westwood used a z-buffer or something else. The reason for the debug preview window and mouse-over info was mostly to evaluate the shadowmap and height buffer. I've probably spent dozens of hours but ultimately, like lighting, getting a complete 1:1 match with the original is still not a success. That said, I recall the shadows on the lower end of the 'Stormy Weather' map from RA2 being quite hard to get right, but ultimately I was reasonbly content with how that turned out.
I'm not sure cliff shadows are supposed to work.
Merging of map contents wilth rules seems inevitable, since mostly everything in rules.ini can be overridden inside the map. I'm not sure what the problem with that mechanism or implementation would be. Could you elaborate? QUICK_EDIT
I don't see an ideal way to handle cliff shadow because even the game handles it funny. For example if you use one of the cliff backs that appear more like a standalone rock as a kind of rocky extension into the top plateau, a unit standing 2 cells away (up-right) will be shadowed even though it is at the same level.
In my mod I currently have cliff shadow enabled for the temperate theater temporarily, and I find it hard to justify keeping it on. I'm pretty sure I also tested it a gazillion years ago when it was discovered it still works in RA2, but I don't recall my thoughts at the time. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Laser fence is an example and can be done, but needs more effort to do the intermediate things first. State of the the map is what is present in the map.
Automatic game finding has benefit when loading vanilla game map and the system has registry entry for that game to tell the location of the mix files. In that case, one can even leave the mix location input empty. In other cases of registry entry not present or loading a mod map etc. it will go wrong. Why provide an option that could go wrong, just force the user to give the game and select the mix folder.
It looks so incomplete without the tunnel top for a rendered map specially for TS. I ended up modifying the tunnel floor tile to have the added top, because I couldn't resolve the problem in time.
Can't replicate everything that the game does but for lighting I added a modifier to modconfig.xml that a modder can use. That seems satisfactory with a little light ambient reduction.
What I meant on the merging of map contents to rules variable is that, rules doesn't need PreviewPack, IsoMapPack5, overlay packs, action, events etc.. It works either way, so no issue there. QUICK_EDIT
I'd like to have a stab at the tunnel stuff. Can tunnels be created in FA2? Perhaps easier: could you share a map (and required terrain mods) containing an example tunnel?
Regarding the automatic detection, that's something that I found useful in the very first releases where only RA2 maps were supported. Just select a map, and the tool figures everything out. With added functionality, either some more configuration is needed, or more sophisticated auto-detection. I feel that if auto-detection cannot reasonably be expected, i.e. due to modded game files or altered registry settings, then incorrect detection is acceptable given that the user has all the means at their disposal to override engine settings.
Fair comment regarding those map sections indeed. I'd actually like to support rendering multiple maps using the same engine instantiation. Primarily to support a kind of web-service scenario where multiple maps can be rendered in quick succession. So that would mean rules/art are parsed only once, and every theater is preloaded. I believe that would allow for very fast on-demand rendering. QUICK_EDIT
FA2 supports tunnels with TX installation but the tunnel top that is user facing is part of the tile itself, only away facing uses tile anim which is very small, you won't be able to test layering when units are standing under the tunnel. So it would be better to try it with TSClient as TS has the projecting out tunnel and both front and away facing tunnel tops are tile anims.
I would like to suggest one feature: if instead of only 1 textbox for "Output thumbnail" size (map Width) we could set the width and height values, in 2 textboxes or 1 textbox like now but with comma separation.
Why? because for CnCNet thumbnails is a bit problematic calculate the right value.
For example:
I need thumbnails with a max size of "800x400" pixels and if I set "800.0" in the Output thumbnail the height isn't limited (for example vertical maps). So for every map I need I have to check if the height is more than "400", in such case I have to open a paint application for resizing the thumbnail & make it fit the the "800x400" box size... or check the final width size I need in that paint application and re-recreate again the thumbnail with the width I really need to fit the right height under 400 pixels... and this for every map. _________________ C&C:Reloaded > GDI, Nod, Allies, Soviets & Yuri... & TS terrain!
[ Discord ] [ ModDB ] [ YouTube Channel ] [ Telegram Channel ] [ Official Forums@Revora ] QUICK_EDIT
Both 8-Facing and 32-Facing frame computation were implemented, so it lost its purpose (only DTA mod was using it for 32-facing and I suppose it wasn't working properly anyway). And it was exposing code to XML file which is not a good practice. And Bittah Commander was informed and DTA mod got the changes as well. QUICK_EDIT
As for the screenshot, I suppose it is still not finished as the game can't handle 511x511 cells, so map specific resolution needs to be set/passed before taking screenshot.
Just taking screenshot of the map would be better as it is generated by the game itself, this tool doesn't replicate all the workings of what the game does.
But this tool works for both TS and RA2. Process in batch for a bunch of maps. Can set jpg/png formats for output with thumb size. There are added functionalities like preview window shows tile/overlay details etc.. Tunnel line could be plotted, preset starting location markers can be set with different shape and sizes, insert map preview into the map, map related utilities like compressing IsoMapPack5, fix tiles and overlays, ice growth markers etc.
This tool also is kind of platform which reads game and map content, where other shortcomings of like map editors can be implemented. QUICK_EDIT
Hitting enter should always be propagated to the focused control. I did recently correct the tab ordering on the UI, so you could hit tab (or shift-tab to navigate in reverse) until you hit the 'render' button and hit enter then. QUICK_EDIT
Except that none of the controls requires ENTER for anything, you can't add newlines to the text fields and the radio can be selected with arrows or spacebar. Seems to me you could bind ENTER to the render button safely? _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Hitting enter should always be propagated to the focused control. I did recently correct the tab ordering on the UI, so you could hit tab (or shift-tab to navigate in reverse) until you hit the 'render' button and hit enter then.
The tab ordering is currently a mess, though I didn't test whether it's exactly backwards with shift-tab, it's not really useful as it is...
E1 Elite wrote:
Every button can use ENTER instead of a mouse click.
For some reason the renderer crashes for me when temperat.ini -> ClearToPaveLat is set to a nonexistant, dummy entry. However the dummy value is a necessary workaround as I don't want pavement to auto-LAT in-game. Other LAT flags work fine with a dummy value, like ClearToRoughLat or ClearToSandLat. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Nevermind, I figured out the problem was due to PaveTile being set to a valid entry while ClearToPaveLat was not. I recall I did that for a reason but don't remember that reason anymore
zzattack wrote:
There's also an option to disable auto-lat entirely in the renderer.
Where is this option? Though it wouldn't help in my case, I only want to disable LAT for select few tile sets. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Changes (2021-06-20) (Credits: E1 Elite):
- Swamp LAT fix.
Changes (2021-06-15) (Credits: Starkku):
- Always initialize all tiles for tile recalculations.
Changes (2021-05-26) (Credits: Starkku):
- Change default value of backup setting to false for command-line.
Changes (2021-01-24) (Credits: Starkku):
- Add application manifest file and enable DPI awareness.
- Correctly use Ground lighting value when applying map lighting fixes.
Changes (2020-09-12):
- Ask send report only once on errors for batch processing. (Credits: E1 Elite)
Changes (2020-08-02) (Credits: zzattack):
- Zoomable preview window with height and shadow tabs
- Code re-organization, optimization and fixes
- UI re-organization and tab order fixes
- OSMesa and other leftovers removed
- Tile animation partial fix
- Mix header reading fix
- Ecache list parsing is made sorted instead of as OS provides
- Support ShouldUseCellDrawer tag for animations
- Infantry on bridge fix (Credits: E1 Elite)
- File system access restored for preview window (Credits: E1 Elite)
- Readme, copyright updates
- Bug report, update check restored
- About window corrections and build bat file changes (Credits: Starkku)
Note: Though the bug report and update check is enabled in the tool, server may not yet be ready for use.
Attachment contains the updated map renderer and TSClient addon files to be copied into the tool folder. Updated source code.
Major bug report: Since my graphics card got fried and replaced with a weak one, the map renderer now crashes when it tries to render a voxel. Somehow, FA2sp can render voxels but not the map renderer. _________________ C&C community is rotten. QUICK_EDIT
The community will thrive after you're gonne G-E. Too bad Banshee doesn't get that and keeps you around instead of insta-banning you on the spot. But Banshee has bills to pay and eventually will get that you're poison, not medicine to PPM... QUICK_EDIT
You can post new topics in this forum You can reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
