DescentBB

D2X-W32 1.4.69

• New: The mission browser can now handle sub directories of the main mission folder. This will also work when loading saved games or connecting to a multiplayer game: D2X-W32 will simply search the mission folder and all its sub directories for the required mission and load the first one with the given name it finds (that means you should be careful not to store different versions of a mission in different folders).
  
  This feature is pretty handy to keep a huge mission folder tidy.
• New: Descent 1 one shot triggers will now be properly converted (to multi operation triggers).

D2X-W32 1.4.70

• Fixed: Using Vertigo robots in custom built missions did not work for whatever reason. Hopefully, my solution works for all cases ...

D2X-W32 1.4.71

• Fixed: Activating the "start IPX game" menu item called up the join IPX game screen, while "join IPX game" called up the start IPX game screen.
• Fixed: Hires texture rendering not working any more (shader syntax error).

D2X-W32 1.4.72

• Fixed: Vertigo support still didn't work (was disabled in the release code).
• Fixed: Newly introduced shader bug leading to underlying textures of partially transparent overlays (e.g. grates) not being rendered.

D2X-W32 1.4.73

• Fixed: Clients that have joined a UDP/IP match in progress getting disconnected from other clients.

D2X-W32 1.4.74

• Improved: D1 weapon data now hard coded to avoid problems with faulty/incomplete/whatever D1/D2 installations.
• Improved: D1 weapon emulation.

D2X-W32 1.4.75

• Fixed: If opening a hires door, all doors with the same texture throughout the level would open.
• Fixed: Couldn't shoot through hires grates.

Sorry for being late, but thanks since version 1.4.61 for the custom palette support!!

A little reminder:

Please Don't Post In This Thread!

You can use PM if you feel you need to reply to a note I posted here.

D2X-W32 1.4.76

• Fixed: Folders being added to the mission list twice.
• Fixed: Built-in missions now only displayed in top level mission list.
• Improved: Mission list size increased.
• New: Cheatcodes
  • 'subspace' (teleports you to another segment of the level)
  • 'cryptonite' (unlocks all doors and opens all walls)
  • 'pumpmeup' (charges shields and energy to 200 each)
  • 'electro' (shield boost).

D2X-W32 1.4.77

• Fixed: You couldn't load any multiplayer missions any more after having used the main menu option "New single player game".

D2X-W32 1.4.78

• Fixed: D2: Vertigo wasn't listed when chosing 'New single player mission' from the main menu.

D2X-W32 1.4.79

• Fixed: Merging of a base and an overlay texture if at least one of them was a TGA image.
• Fixed: Merging of a base and an overlay texture with different image dimensions.
• Fixed: Some midis not looping properly when playing D1 missions (fix provided by Rob).
• Fixed: Music looping during D1 endlevel sequence (fix provided by Rob).
• New: If a boss robot is placed in a segment with a group id > 0, it will only teleport to segments with the same group id. Group ids can assigned to segments in levels of type D2X-W32. This feature serves to keep each boss in its own realm in multi-boss-levels.

D2X-W32 1.4.80

• Fixed: Save games weren't loaded properly.

FYI
WinXP & IE 6.0 reports errors on:
http://www.descent2.de/
Line: 27
Char: 4
Error: 0 is null or not an object
Code:0

The page does not load properly.

Fixed, thx.

Improved mission folder structure

D2X-XL is now able to handle sub directories of the mission folder.

D2X-XL now has improved external view.

D2X-XL now has a smart weapon toggle switch: If enabled, Spreadfire cannon will be overriden with the Helix, and Vulcon cannon with the Gauss (if you have the respective bigger gun).

D2X-XL now allows to adjust render quality in the render options menu (from pixelated to completely filtered and mipmapped).

Added Camera Object

I have added cambot support to d2x-xl v1.5.34. The cambot is completely stationary and passive (no tracking). Place a cambot in the D2 folder or D2 data folder in a file named cambot.hxm (must be a regular hxm file containing the robot data incl. poly model etc.)

d2x-xl will take care of the cambot not overloading other bots, but being added as a new bot similar to vertigo bots.

dle-xp has been enhanced to support cambots (regard that a cambot is an extra type like player, powerup, etc. and not found in the robot list). After placing a cambot, don't forget to add a camera trigger to it.

Do you have an example of the cambot that people could use? (Sounds like fun!)

There is a cambot.hxm in the current d2x-xl.zip file included. Place it in the D2 main or data folder. Insert it in a level with DLE-XP just like a robot (it's an extra object type though, no polymodel in DLE-XP). Attach a camera trigger to it and let it point in the direction you want the camera to face. Level type must be D2X-W32 (umm, need to change that to D2X-XL ...)

You can now have the cambots rotate around their vertical axis (where the small line of the arrow symbol in DLE-XP points along) in a 90 degree angle. If you already have cambots in a level, set their type to 'cambot' again in the object type drop down box, then set their AI to 'normal'. Otherwise add them and set their AI to 'normal'.

I have updated my level Glass House to demonstrate this.

Diedel wrote:A little reminder:

Please Don't Post In This Thread!

You can use PM if you feel you need to reply to a note I posted here.

*giggle*

This thread is generally discontinued, and I only use it to highlight special advancements in D2X-XL.

Camera Performance Improved

A news flash on a nice achievement I've made the last few days.

As you may have noticed, camera views can cause the framerate to drop pretty drastically, especially if there is more than one camera view in sight simultaneously.

I had been trying to implement an OpenGL extension allowing to directly render into a texture located in video memory a while ago but had failed due to the lack of OpenGL 1.4 and upwards support by the Microsoft compiler.

I finally got up-to-date OpenGL header files now and have managed to get rendering to textures to work, achieving a speed up of between 10% (x 1.1, GF FX 5200) and 200% (x 3, X800 XT PE), depending on your hardware.

I have also managed to fix a few camera view orientation problems (like left/right exchanged ... )

So look out for a new version in the near future.

Btw, with the render to texture extension, lightmap creation can also be greatly accelerated, as Lehm has pointed out to me before vanishing from this place ... where is he, anyway?

New menu style



You like?

yes ... if it works right!

Looks good. I like it!

What this sight does is not just give you a pretty background - the game continues to work in the background, and you will see everything that's going on.

On the other hand, you cannot pause anymore ...

Something I will probably need to change for singleplayer games. D'uh.

Yeah, it's a nice touch. The fonts are kind of begging for a change after that, but for the meanwhile that works.

I know it could be hard to implement but I think a toggle to choose between old and new menu style would be nice. I liked the old menu style (which doesn't mean I don't like the new one). Don't nobody hit me for this, please

Add '-menustyle 0' to d2x.ini.

Eventually we're going to have a rewrite of D3, in which you can switch it to D2 by adding '-d2' to the .ini file.

Not that that's a bad thing... Great job Diedel, new menu is super-spiffy.

Just wait until I have added particle systems and fog ...

mmm , I miss the game paused when I enter menu. toggle?

He's working on it.

Smart Menu File Search

D2X-XL now supports a smarter search method in file selection menus.

The current method was that if you hit a letter key on the keyboard, D2X jumped to the next file (mission or player file) starting with that letter.

If you had a lot of missions starting with the same letter, finding the right one this way could be somewhat tedious.

Things got further complicated with the introduction of mission sub folders, as these are always placed at the top of the file list.

So I have built in the name search method found in most modern applications, working with name completion.

Let's say you have three mission folders:

[Single]
[Spaz]
[Spotlight]

Hitting the 'S' key will create a search pattern 'S' and move the highlight to 'Single'. Hitting the 'P' key will expand the search pattern to 'SP', putting the highlight on 'Spaz'. Hitting 'O' will find 'Spotlight', using the search pattern 'SPO'.

The backspace key serves to backtrack the search pattern, so no pressing it will truncate the search pattern to 'SP' and again place the highlight on 'Spaz'.

You can switch between the old methods pressing Strg+S in the file selection menus, or by checking/unchecking the 'Smart File Search in Menus' option in the toggles menu.

Decreased Menu Lag

After investigating into the D2(X(-XL)) menu rendering code, I have found a way to remove CPU intensive computing overhead and thus could greatly reduce menu rendering lag with the new menu style enabled.

An example:

On my Athlon 64 XP 3500+ s939, 1 GB RAM and a X800 XT PE frame rates in my level Speed! (windowed, 640x480) dropped from around 72 fps to 30 fps when calling up the options menu. With the code changes, there is a drop to between 60 and 70 fps depending on what parts of the level are in view.

The improvement should be very apparent on older machines with less RAM and a weaker CPU, but a good video card, because as I said already the problematic code burdened especially the CPU with a lot of computational overhead - unnecessarily, if I may add that.

A note on midi playback: It looks like am already pretty close to enabling it for Linux and OS X. I might have something working tomorrow already.

A somewhat exciting news for the Descent 1 fans out there:

I have managed to have the complete Descent 1 textures in a level, including animated textures.

The bosses will now have the proper sounds if you enable it. Backdraw is that D1 sound comes at 11 Khz only (afaik).

Suncho told me that in D1, the ship did not bank when turning, so I fixed that too.

A few steps closer to the original D1 feeling.