Small Mod compilation

[Seven]

Seven, how do we get the start map to look like yours? You know, with cloaked men with tentacle faces and dancing Shivas?

Hello Mirrorman95,

If you want to add models, sounds or particles into your map, you have several options:
1.) Open the map source in your favorite map editor and place them right into.
That is a common way for mappers. You see this happen quite often in modern Quake maps.
Standard Quake models are quite limited in their number. You need a simple script to do that.
2.) If you are not experienced with mapping, you can do it this way.

Have fun experimenting.

problem with new megahealth model - beating heart
-
... it spawns after loading the map, then it immediately starts to sink through the floor and within a few seconds it falls outside the level geometry.
any idea anybody?
-
jakub

Hello Jakub,

Bug reports are essential for a project like the "small mod compilation".
Nobody can test all circumstances of all features in all maps, so please continue to report potential bugs if you find them.

This bug is already fixed in the upcoming release.

It has to do, as usual, with interference between map geometry and bbox of models. Darkplaces detection process is different compared to other engines. We already discussed this in several threads.
Now, that LordHavoc decided to disable the detection fixes by default, makes things worse.
In SMC ver. 4.31 all important fixes are enabled, which helps to fix most things.

Your described map "dm4" is such a place, where the megahealth bbox size exceeds the map geometry. Like in the start map of ROGUE for example.


To fix this map, you can also use external .ent files.
You only need to move this megahealth 6 Quake units forward and it will not sink into the floor anymore.
This is the original place:

{
"classname" "item_health"
"origin" "-40 586 -320"
"spawnflags" "2"
}

This is the place without issues:

{
"classname" "item_health"
"origin" "-40 580 -320"
"spawnflags" "2"
}

But as I said, the general fix is already in the upcoming SMC release.
I found a way to bypass this issue.

Thank you for your bug reports.
Seven

[talisa]

Im on vacation right now, but wanted to reply anyway cuz i really like the new things!

The face thing is quite neat, but i agree it needs a different sound
Mebbe a maniacal laugh or a high-pitched scream or a beast-like snarl?

The squid is neat too, he fits greatin quake and itll be nice to have another water-enemy! I have somethinng for you for squid which you can add, will send a pm about this

Webangel, those flames look really great!
Please share your particlefont?

Looking forward to allnew features!
Also the additional deathknight <3

[jakub1]

some ideas about afrit
-
back deep in quake, this time experimenting with afrit. i use afrit only as a supporting monster, mostly suporting wizard/deamon/hellknight. afrit never replace vanila monster and i like it that way. however, this basicly means that there are extra monsters with no loot in the map and a level can became really ammno&healthwise unbalanced. what makes things even worse is that afrit doesn't start monster infight - is that by design?
-
1st idea: when you kill afrit and consequently gib him (or her.. im not sure about gender :-) ) or when afrit disintegrates automatically during death animation, he could leave a colectable heart gib that would heal the player a little - 8/12 hp max.
-
2nd idea: there are two afrit skins - white and red. i tweaked the burning particles and got this idea; different particles for different skins. burning afrit for the red skin and smouldering white afrit. also the color of afrit's attack could be different. burning one could throw fire, the white one just some smoking projectile..
-
3rd idea: all these adjustable cvars are getting more and more complicated. with two different afrits it would be possible to link death animation with each afrit version. eg. the burning afrit would allways fall apart (i makes sense to me - afrit is in fire, therefore more unstable and already on the verge of collapse) while the white afrit would leave solid gibable smoking corpse. cvars can adjust probability of which version would spawn, what monster would be replaced/supported.
-
stay tuned for more crazy idea!

jakub

[talisa]

i like those ideas, to make the grey and red afrit have some differences

they're great ideas imo, all 3 of them

[Mr.Burns]

some ideas about afrit
-
back deep in quake, this time experimenting with afrit. i use afrit only as a supporting monster, mostly suporting wizard/deamon/hellknight. afrit never replace vanila monster and i like it that way. however, this basicly means that there are extra monsters with no loot in the map and a level can became really ammno&healthwise unbalanced. what makes things even worse is that afrit doesn't start monster infight - is that by design?
-
1st idea: when you kill afrit and consequently gib him (or her.. im not sure about gender :-) ) or when afrit disintegrates automatically during death animation, he could leave a colectable heart gib that would heal the player a little - 8/12 hp max.
-
2nd idea: there are two afrit skins - white and red. i tweaked the burning particles and got this idea; different particles for different skins. burning afrit for the red skin and smouldering white afrit. also the color of afrit's attack could be different. burning one could throw fire, the white one just some smoking projectile..

...Or perhaps as it appears to be white, some Freezing/Ice like projectile? Or maybe a snowball

3rd idea: with two different afrits it would be possible to link death animation with each afrit version. eg. the burning afrit would allways fall apart (i makes sense to me - afrit is in fire, therefore more unstable and already on the verge of collapse) while the white afrit would leave solid gibable smoking corpse.

Interesting. another thought might be to utilise the "Bake and crumble to dust" style of death for the red afrit, and a turn to Ice and shatter for the white one.

Just my humble suggestion

Kind regards

Monty

[Seven]

Looking forward to allnew features!
Also the additional deathknight <3

The last days I was working on him. I put a lot of effort into him and he is coming out really nice.
This time I didnt want to do too much particle stuff with him. He should be a more classic enemy type.
I had to find a new name for him... His original name in Dawn of Darkness is Captain.
First I simply named him hknight2, but that sounded wrong, hehe.
Then I named him Executioner, but that was also not sufficient.
Now he is named Warlord, because of the special abilities he has.
During his lifetime he was trained in many disciplines.

He is a master in:
- Meele combat with his sword
- Meele combat with his shield-ram-attack
- Ranged combat with his grenades
- Ranged combat with his magic missiles (like Hellknight)
- Ranged combat with his homing missile (which are shootable/destroyable)
- Dodging and Defending with his shield
- Some eyewitness even saw how he was invulnerable for a short time...

He was a tough opponent during his lifetime, and is even more scary in his undead state.
He is without a doubt my new favorite enemy.
I do not want to show any clips in action, to keep him a little bit secret
You will very quickly get to know him in the game, when there is just you and him

some ideas about afrit
-
back deep in quake, this time experimenting with afrit. i use afrit only as a supporting monster, mostly suporting wizard/deamon/hellknight. afrit never replace vanila monster and i like it that way. however, this basicly means that there are extra monsters with no loot in the map and a level can became really ammno&healthwise unbalanced. what makes things even worse is that afrit doesn't start monster infight - is that by design?
-
1st idea: when you kill afrit and consequently gib him (or her.. im not sure about gender :-) ) or when afrit disintegrates automatically during death animation, he could leave a colectable heart gib that would heal the player a little - 8/12 hp max.
-
2nd idea: there are two afrit skins - white and red. i tweaked the burning particles and got this idea; different particles for different skins. burning afrit for the red skin and smouldering white afrit. also the color of afrit's attack could be different. burning one could throw fire, the white one just some smoking projectile..
-
3rd idea: all these adjustable cvars are getting more and more complicated. with two different afrits it would be possible to link death animation with each afrit version. eg. the burning afrit would allways fall apart (i makes sense to me - afrit is in fire, therefore more unstable and already on the verge of collapse) while the white afrit would leave solid gibable smoking corpse. cvars can adjust probability of which version would spawn, what monster would be replaced/supported.
-
stay tuned for more crazy idea!

jakub

Hello Jakub,

Good to see you more often at quakeone again.
So, did you finish Dishonored and all its mission packs ?
Thank you for your interest in the "small mod compilation".


About the Afrit:
Yes, supporting is what he was made for.
Replacing would only make sense for the Wizard
I will fintune the default cvar values in the upcoming release.


Regarding you questions:
#0) Infightīs with Afrits
I had to make a decision in that time when I implemented him into the mod.
Do I use a Hexen style Afrit or a Heretic style Gargoyle ?
For some weird reason the decision was the Afrit (I think it was due to his beautiful particles, hehe).
The Afrit has (unlike his Heretic Gargoyle brother ) no meele attack.
That is why his code is reflecting this as well. He tries to keep distance. Much like the Wizard.
He *can* (if random()-ness is on your side) come close, but that is seldom.

#1) Afrit is leaving support backpackīs
First of all, Quake is an easy game (especially the original maps).
That changes extremely quickly when you play fan-made-maps, I know.
But lets face the facts: Only soldier, ogre and enforcer leave backpacks.
And enforcers are anyway a very seldom base-map only monster.
But your idea is nevertheless good.
I do not know if I will make it for the upcoming release due to the big ToDo list.

#2) Different particles for both Afrit skins / projectiles
That is what I like the most in QuakeC. Every entity can have almost unlimited properties. You assign it at the beginning, when it spawns and you can check them at any time.
So, yes I can include this in the upcoming release as it is not much effort.
Please send me your proposals and I will include them.
Or, if you do not want to release them, I can give both Afrits different effect names (which use the same effect) and everybody can create their own "Grey Afrit" effect.

#3) Different death animations depending on Afrit skins / types
I did not fully understand your suggestion.
Yes, the Afrit has the most cvars, as he is a replacing & supporting enemy.
The death animation has its own cvar in Ver.4.31 already.
Do you mean, extend this cvar to be only valid depending on the Afrits skin ?

The whole 2-skin idea was due to a Paint.Net test I made, trying to bring some fire texture/filter on him. I could not decide which skin I shall use for him, so I implemented both...

...Or perhaps as it appears to be white, some Freezing/Ice like projectile? Or maybe a snowball

Interesting. another thought might be to utilise the "Bake and crumble to dust" style of death for the red afrit, and a turn to Ice and shatter for the white one.

"White" is not the correct word for the second skin.
There is a screenshot from him here. He is dark grey (more black than white).
Anyway, they "should" both intended to look "hellish" rather than from northpole
But your idea is good. A *freezing* ability has the spider monster.

The "Bake and crumble to dust" is a Lightning gun only feature at the moment. Also Afrits, which are killed with this weapon, are affected.
Due to the huge amount of electrical energy from this weapon all monsters are "coaled". That was the idea behind it. But I will remember your suggestion if I ever happen to try to bring a Giant or Yeti style monster into Quake
... throwing snowballs and using a breath of cold death as meele attack


Thank you everybody very much for your interest.

Kind regards,
Seven

[Mr.Burns]

..."White" is not the correct word for the second skin.

Apologies, as I don't have DP and caught this thread just in passing, I was going on a description in a previous post...

there are two afrit skins - white and red. ...burning afrit for the red skin and smouldering white afrit. also the color of afrit's attack could be different. burning one could throw fire, the white one just some smoking projectile..,,... the white afrit would leave solid gibable smoking corpse.d/supported.

Halten Sie sich die gute Arbeit wirklich mein Freund.

Kind regards

Monty

[Seven]

Hello,

I would like to release a Beta version of the next release Ver.4.50.
Because there are so many new things in it, which I would like to ask feedback for.

Everything is fully functional and playable in this release.
For those who would like to help me, may I ask for testing and feedback.
This helps me a lot to find bugs, improve the new features and finetune default settings.

A detailed Readme is included as well as all the new cvarīs to adjust things to your likings.

Nevertheless, I would like to post the minimum specs here.
Maybe some more people will get curious and help to test them...

1.) Optional "Ragdoll" for corpses
2.) Optional Twitching corpses
3.) Optional new monster type: Warlord
4.) Optional new monster type: Hydra
5.) Optional Interactive evil textures
6.) Fixed original Quake monster-count bug for swimming monsters
7.) Possibility to add animated/loop models via .ent file into maps
8.) Improved New dog and New zombie adjustments
9.) Improved vengeance skull: skin-texture, particles and fixed sound bug (endless loop)
10.) Fixed Afrit gibs from floating in mid-air
11.) Fixed custom megahealth models (heart & cross) from sinking into floor
12.) Spider replacement for shambler does now double damage
13.) Increased loading time for maps.
14.) Each monster corpse now spins in random direction when shot (before only counter-clockwise)
15.) several minor modifications

DOWNLOAD


Thank you and have fun playing.
Seven



[EDITED]
The textures in this release are not final.
I am still working on them...
[/EDITED]

[talisa]

just test-played the beta-update, and im absolutely looooooving it

the hydra is great, and the ink-spit attack is very awesome, when you get hit and suddenly find yourself unable to see and move
its really confusing, i kept just waving my mouse around shooting in hope to hit the hydra whenever it happened


the new warlord enemy is superb too, love all the different attacks he does and
i also looove the fact he often tends to raise his shield to fend himself from incoming shooting, which makes him feel more intelligent
only thing i didnt like much was the fact you made him use the doom1 lost soul as projectiles, but that i could easily change by copying the original hellknight spike.

the grenade-throwing is also interesting, although it seems a bit odd that he tosses a regular grenade.
perhaps you could make him throw a more medieval looking thingy, like something like that spike-ball bomb from rogue of hexen2 mebbe?



the ragdoll is also great, it makes quake feel more real and alive and fancy, without adding to much fancyness so that it still feels like quake


the interactive evil face is nice too, but i have to say i prefered the model you used in your clip over the one you included in this beta.
the one you included looks to much like the lost soul from doom, while the model in your preview clip looked different and resembled the texture a bit more.

also, i noticed that the skull seems to spawn at the exact point of impact, which sometimes looks odd like if you hit the texture at very bottom/top or the very sides.
isnt there a way to make it so that it always spawns from the center of the texture?

.

also, i found two bugs in your beta-release:
-when you have no-target activated other enemies often do NOT seem to wake up when you hit an afrit, even if the afrit you are hitting is floating right next to another enemy
-nails sticking into surfaces also stick into sky-brushes in your beta, which looks rather weird and kinda funny




.



also, for whoever wants it, i made a very basic recolor of the hydra skin for use as second skin for the enemy,
which imo works quite well for it since its a natural color for squids. its nothing fancy, just a simple recolor, but thought id share it anyway

DOWNLOAD 2ND PURPLE SKIN FOR HYDRA

another time i will try make a completely new skin from scratch for hydra, and will have a shot at trying to make a more realistic-squid-style skin for it

[gdiddy62]

Seven,
Warlord ROCKS!!! Agree that it might be interesting to have a different grenade model, but love this new monster!!
Hydra attack ROCKS!! I love this monster
I get the same sleeping bug with notarget,,didn't you say something about that..I'll have to look at past posts.

Keep up the excellent work!!!

[Seven]

Thank you for your first impressions and feedback/opinion about the Beta release.
Maybe some more will come...


So, the Hydra seems OK and does not need tuning. Fine.


Regarding the other mentioned points:

1.) Nails stick in the sky:
This is not a SMC bug, it is a Darkplaces bug (since end of 2011).
It seems that DPīs pointcontents-checks are screwed up a bit.
You can simulate it with original Quake (with nails and rockets as well), when commenting out the rockets BecomeExplosion (); line and shooting in the sky.

This in specific does not work anymore (it is used in nails and rockets touch functions):

        if (pointcontents(self.origin) == CONTENT_SKY) 
        { 
                remove(self); 
                return; 
        }

Fortunately we can fix this with:

	local float surfnum;
	local string s;
	surfnum = getsurfacenearpoint(world, self.origin);
	if (surfnum >= 0)
	{
		s = getsurfacetexture(world, surfnum);
		if ((s == "sky1") || (s == "sky4"))	// add all skies here
		{
			remove(self);
			return;
		}
	}

The fix will be included in final release.


2.) Warlords spike model:
I use these for the Helknight as well and like them a lot.
Lets wait for some more feedback before we make a decision.
Or I will make them optional...

3.) Warlords grenade model:
That is a good idea. The grenades/multigrenades are most probably meant for grenade throwers. I will look for a more fitting model.

4.) Ragdoll imitation:
Be aware, that it is designed for original ID1 monster models.
Also capnbubsīs model work great.
The shamblers castle replacement models have quite different animations.
That is why they dont look very good with ragdoll "2" enabled.

5.) Evil face model:
Yes, I know; but the model from the youtube clip cannot be used because it is from a different game and must not be used. The actual evil face model is from Ruinerīs free model extension set.
I already have a bad conscience while using the Hyrda from Hexen2.
But as long as Patrick Martin uses so many Hexen2 models in his Drake mod, I fell OK.

Yes, I can fix the spawn position to be always in center of texture in z-direction. But I cannot do this for x/y direction. But I guess it is already much better when the height (= z) is always in center.


6.) Afrit not waking up other monsters:
I could not simulate this issue.
The Afrit is designed this way:
When he gets hit, he wakes up nearby monsters (as usual).
But when his fireballs touches other monsters, they do NOT get mad at him and start to attack him.
I had to do this due to the amount of fireballs he throws and the angular variation.
Otherwise other monster would attack him more than the player

Anyway, if this only happens when in "notarget" mode, this is not important, as this is only a cheat to move through maps and you do not usualy play Quake like this, no ?



Thank you for your Hydra recolored skin.
I will have look at it. The screenshot looks very good.


Question:
- The shield-ram-attack of the warlord. Is it good this way ?
Or is his force too small/big which throws you backwards a bit ?

Thank you.
Seven

[talisa]

i think the force of the warlords ramming attack is perfect the way it is, its not to strong and not to weak ^^

ah i see about the nail-bug, thought it was an SMC-bug cuz i hadnt noticed it yet before.
good to hear you already found a fix and that itll be in the next release


hope you like that recolored skin seven
i personally totally love it, it works so well for this enemy, the dark-purple color

.

also yeah i think the afrit bug isnt anything to important since it only seems to happen when no-target is off, which is only used for when testing stuffs
so for me personally it doesnt really have any kinda priority to have it fixed


shame you wont be able to use the head-model in your clip cuz its from another game, it looked nicer then the lost soul model you included i think

[Mirrorman95]

Are those Sitters' Lost Souls firing out of the Warlord?

[jakub1]

hi seven
-
i've just dowloaded this preview version of smc and first impression:

the warlord is a formidable opponent, excellent addition to the quake bestiary

hydra is fine although for me, it doesn't feel very quakey.. can't say exactly why

ragdoll feature - i encountered many occasions when dead body was moving in regular intervals w/out a cause. it was funny... but was glad i could turn that feature off

more tomorrow, too tired and sleepy...

[webangel]

Are those Sitters' Lost Souls firing out of the Warlord?

Yep. This are sitters Lost Soul Models.

hi seven
-
i've just dowloaded this preview version of smc and first impression:

the warlord is a formidable opponent, excellent addition to the quake bestiary

hydra is fine although for me, it doesn't feel very quakey.. can't say exactly why

ragdoll feature - i encountered many occasions when dead body was moving in regular intervals w/out a cause. it was funny... but was glad i could turn that feature off

more tomorrow, too tired and sleepy...

@jakub1,
I like Sevens "Ragdolls" and personally I think the hydra is a great contribution to Quakes enemies.

@Seven,
is it possible to change the dead animation from the hydras.
I think it would be cool if they just laid down on the ground. This standing up dead thing looks a bit weird....
Sorry.

Great work on everything else.