D2X-XL Q&A

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:28 pm

Not intentionally.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:03 pm

Diedel wrote:(mp3 only if either SDL supports it or I find some free lib that does).

Have you looked into smpeg?
http://freshmeat.net/projects/smpeg/

Pumo · Post by **Pumo** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:26 pm

Cool, at last D2X-XL will have MP3 or OGG support! Yay!

I'm so happy...

DizzyRox · Post by **DizzyRox** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 1:09 pm

Hey Diedel, how much further can the object models go in regards to, with items still very large (texture weight wise) like the doors/power up orbs/ and energy fields. Can those be feasably and functionally turned into models, or do you anticipate everything to smooth out as the models are majority to the sprites?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:12 pm

Dizzy,

sorry, I don't understand your question.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:57 pm

I think the guts of what he is asking is......

Is it possible to replace all animated textures with models to save space?
Anything that is a sprite can be turned into a model?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:14 pm

Theoretically, doors could be turned into objects, but that would require some more coding. The other animations ... hm ...

DizzyRox · Post by **DizzyRox** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:44 am

Yes sir ,that was the bottom line, thanks Aus

i.e...door models with collision detection to open them.

doors would prolly be a real gain,
abate you'd have to modify DLE-XP also, eh?
Im not sure how well the p-ups would look though, as models, without, what is it, multitextureing and/or shaders?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:39 am

No, I'd just replace door textures by powerups in-game.

DizzyRox · Post by **DizzyRox** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:09 pm

I see ,cool

One last thing, Is there anything we can do, modeling and/or texturing to help get the shadows working better/correctly, or is this a limitation of the oof format?
thanks

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:31 pm

The models need to have closed hulls. There must not be holes in the model's hull, not even if it doesn't affect normal rendering. Adjacent faces (i.e. faces sharing an edge), need to share the edge's vertices, too. Faces must not overlap.

Something like this:

face 1 edge: x-----------z
face 2 edge: x-----y-----z

Where face 1 and 2 share vertices x and z, but face 2 has an extra vertex y is not permissible either.

Weyrman · Post by **Weyrman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:43 am

I have just finished level 1 of Lost Levels and I have a question concerning robot behaviour which was really noticeable in this level but I have also noticed in standard D2. Robots, particularly smaller ones seem to wizz away, often towards me, when hit with a glancing blow from primary weapons, specially lasers. I expect them to dodge and attack but they seem to move immediately at max velocity, often running directly into me.

This may not be a bug I know, but seems to something that has crept in recently.

Anybody else notice this kind of behaviour?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:44 am

Try with standard bots in standards levels to verify. Lost Levels is by no means a measuring rod for regular game behaviour.

Weyrman · Post by **Weyrman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:12 am

Ok, I stand corrected and humbled. As the level of difficulty goes up, the robots become more aggressive in their nature. I was too used to the small ones sniping and running and recently I have upped the difficulty level and didn't realize that this was now standard behaviour, I just considered it as aberrant.

Thanks for the nudge in the right direction for working this out.

I tried the level D2:CS 1 on insane and have no idea how anyone survives!

Weyrman · Post by **Weyrman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:31 am

What is the benefits of having 3d models of things over graphics? I must admit that the new hi-res powerups are very nice to look at and as the models don't seem to do rounds very well so don't look as nice.

I have picked up that the models have less memory load and also throw shadows. Are these the pluses?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:53 am

Jeff250 wrote:
Diedel wrote:(mp3 only if either SDL supports it or I find some free lib that does).
Have you looked into smpeg?
http://freshmeat.net/projects/smpeg/

I have been debugging that frackin smpeg for two days to make it work. It doesn't crash for me now anymore, but I am not sure it really works until a lot of people have successfully used mp3 music with d2x-xl.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:12 am

Weyrman wrote:What is the benefits of having 3d models of things over graphics?

Answer

Weyrman wrote:I have picked up that the models have less memory load and also throw shadows.

Weyrman wrote:Are these the pluses?

Partly.
Shadows and less memory is great, but it will be even better when all the powerups are 3D hires models like the ones Dizzy made in tga format!

The other thing is you can look at the models in any direction and not have the image [sprite] viewed in only one direction.

Weyrman wrote:I must admit that the new hi-res powerups are very nice to look at and as the models don't seem to do rounds very well so don't look as nice.

What do you mean by "do rounds very well"?
Spinning around? Like the original powerups?

At this point. I like the natural look and feel of them floating/ kinda spinning.

I'm sure that this is only a test to see how things will work.
I wouldn't doubt that Diedel can make them spin like the original powerups.

I just hope he gives us an option to choose between a natural feel spinning and the original spinning.

Weyrman · Post by **Weyrman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:32 am

No, I didn't mean spinning, I meant round as in cylindrical as in the round bodies of the missiles. I know the current ones look pretty round but you can see all the segment seams and it just doesn't look as good (eye candy wise).

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:15 am

Ofc the sprites look awesomely detailled, clean and shiny. But yet ... I prefer the models: Even if they look coarser, somehow they look more realistic. Imo they fit perfectly to the game. The sprites are just *too* nice.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:10 pm

Besides that, there's the fact that Descent was known for being one of the first games to have actual polygonal enemies, as opposed to the sprite enemies used in previous 3D games (such as Doom, for instance). It's nice to finally get the chance to give it the polygonal weapons powerups to match.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:34 pm

Weyrman wrote:No, I didn't mean spinning, I meant round as in cylindrical as in the round bodies of the missiles. I know the current ones look pretty round but you can see all the segment seams and it just doesn't look as good (eye candy wise).

Ok, so what models are you talking about?

There is only 4 done at the moment.
Cons, guided, homers, and flash missiles.

Those ones don't need much detail. After all, they are mostly cylinder in shape.

The mega, smart and e-shakers missiles will need more detail because they have lots of features to look at.

Chaos Death Saurer · Post by **Chaos Death Saurer** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:16 am

Will D2X have support for custom models? Like, if we wanted to use .oof models in a custom mission, would we be able to do that, or is there a way it can be done without overwriting the originals?

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:37 am

I'd say you can.

You would probably just need to do a request and send a copy of the lvl + Model to Diedel so he could code it in.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:01 am

Currently no oof robots are supported by D2X-XL (it's a question of getting one). I would need to add something to allow overriding default models once oof bots are available. That would mean all you have to do is give your custom bot the filename of the default bot it should replace and include it in your hog file. Something like that. This is only an idea of a concept right now though.

Chaos Death Saurer · Post by **Chaos Death Saurer** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:26 am

I could make a few robots for you to use. I'm not sure if Dizzy is going to do any, but I could make a few placeholders so you could do the actual code for them.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:24 pm

All versions of D2 from 1.1 and up support custom models of some sort, but .OOF is a different story.

DizzyRox · Post by **DizzyRox** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:37 pm

no need for shaders anyway ,right

Atixtasy · Post by **Atixtasy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:46 am

Going into what Chaos was asking about incorporating custom models into d2x-xl, wouldn't it be possible to have, a routine that, say searched for custom bots in the bot folder and load them up with d2x-xl upon startup? That way if the person wanted to play a level with them they'd already be loaded, but if they didn't it wouldn't matter much.

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:59 am

As far as I know.... every \"model\" that is made for D2X-XL.
Diedel will need to know what model it will replace so that he can code it in.
Just like the powerups Dizzy is making.

Having said that.
I'm guessing that Diedel could pre code the models names in and give a list of the following models he coded in.

But that is up to Diedel.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:38 am

Aus-RED is right on the spot.

Atixtasy · Post by **Atixtasy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:10 am

I see what you mean but what I'm saying is...Ok for a scenario. I'm loading a level made by someone that has a custom robot. That's fine but Diedel if you put it into the level data (mn2) a table of any custom bots and any other data needed to load them into memory for use you really wouldn't have to hard code each and every one in. Make something like a custom robot manager for DLE-XP and have it put the code, (that you would other wise put in there yourself once you knew the modelname). You would after all have to have strict naming convention though.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:44 pm

Yeah dude, I have time to burn and so much money I don't need to work, so I should probably add that to DLE-XP.

Geez, when do people start to think before they post?

Atixtasy · Post by **Atixtasy** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:06 pm

Edit by Aus-RED-5

Please use PM instead.

Thank you.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:42 am

Does D2X-XL support Descent 2 missions?!?

j/k

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:00 am

Hm ... I am not entirely sure ... wait, I'll check with the debugger ... oh no they don't work! Shouldn't be a big problem.

Edit: Fixed!

Hehe!

Atixtasy · Post by **Atixtasy** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:39 pm

lawl!!!

Aus-RED-5 · Post by **Aus-RED-5** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:14 am

Jonathan Paskiewicz wrote:Whoops! I didn't read DRSP-readme in D2X-XL. I didn't know that new notepad! I understand about how to use hire hi-res textures & models. I putted them in TEXTURES folder. 3D model keys are work, but hi-res textures not.

d2x.ini:
"-hires_textures 0" changed into "-hires_textures". nothing. I think "0" means off, "1" means on, but still nothing. How do I disable and able them?

I'm so sorry, I bothered you! >_<

Jonathan,

Please post all questions regarding D2X-XL in this thread.

Thank you.

DizzyRox · Post by **DizzyRox** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:47 pm

Hey Diedel
If I make a hostage model, could that be possible in D2X-XL?
also,may not be appropraite for this thread but kinda of applys to D2X-XL,(opinions welcome), and this might be a goofy idea, call me weird

but I had the notion to make a male and female hostage, same outfit pretty much same everything cept height maybe a couple other things

the idea being,this one female, that one male randomly in game.
Thing is, I cant remember story as to why the hostages are there, (are they all pilots, if so, all male, or mine workers?)
Could this happen at all,might be cool if done discreet enough?

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:23 pm

Sure, why not? They hostages are mine workers.

darklord42 · Post by **darklord42** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:40 pm

I imported the origional Decent music tracks off of my mac cd and turned them into mp3s. How does one get them to work in game? I found out about the commands for the d2x.ini but i have no idea how to work them or tell them to work with specific mp3's? Do I type in the directory of the mp3s? where do I put them? Also i have no idea how the playlist should be organized or where to put it. Im using the mac version of d2x-xl
I realize that you can play the music directly off the cd using the redbook option and that does work, but my cd is so old/scratched that i'd rather not use it.