Alternate Terminal/Switch Textures
-
baudrillardboy
- Born on Board
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Sep 3rd '17, 14:32
I'm trying to add a second terminal texture to the same texture collection. How do I tell Aleph One to treat it as a terminal and not a terminal-colored wall? I know Eternal has alternative terminal textures on some levels (e.g. the transparent ones that sometimes show up), but I've looked through the MML and can't figure out how that's implemented. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
"its f***ed up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town" —@dril
As far as Aleph One is concerned, there isn’t a second terminal texture. What you see in Eternal is a trick: the real terminal texture is hidden on the side’s “primary” texture, and its “transparent” texture uses the hologram. This is done in the following way:
There are ways to redefine the texture collection so that terminals and pattern buffers use two separate textures, but we didn’t bother with that for two reasons: (1) we also wanted transparent space above and below the hologram in case we needed to use it in vertical spaces of more than 0.5 WU (this way, we can use it in spaces of up to 1.6 WU or so); (2) redefining the textures may also require rewriting some of Vasara’s write-only code. (Or Visual Mode.lua’s, which isn’t quite as write-only as Vasara’s, but is still extremely impenetrable; if memory serves, even treellama has said he has difficulty reading it, and he wrote it!)
Tempus Irae did something somewhat similar, though it didn’t use holograms per se. The forthcoming Tempus Irae Redux will use a different method that uses fewer polygons: the old dual texture trick documented on Hastur’s Workshop. It even works in much the same way, except that the “caps lock to realign height” function is not available in Visual Mode or Vasara (thank THE LORD – it resulted in misaligned heights throughout levels), so you’d have to apply heights in draw mode. Effectively, you’d apply the “fake” terminal texture as the “transparent” texture here, and the texture Aleph One regards as the real terminal texture would be the primary texture.
(In some cases, Eternal also uses the dual texture trick – the real texture for the terminal at the very end of each chapter – or, in chapter five’s case, the secret credit terminal – is hidden by the landscape texture in the back, and the hologram is on a different side entirely.)
Let me know if any of this was confusing. :v
- Change the ceiling height
- Apply, align, and light both the primary and transparent textures as desired
- Readjust the ceiling height to that of the polygon on the other side of the line
There are ways to redefine the texture collection so that terminals and pattern buffers use two separate textures, but we didn’t bother with that for two reasons: (1) we also wanted transparent space above and below the hologram in case we needed to use it in vertical spaces of more than 0.5 WU (this way, we can use it in spaces of up to 1.6 WU or so); (2) redefining the textures may also require rewriting some of Vasara’s write-only code. (Or Visual Mode.lua’s, which isn’t quite as write-only as Vasara’s, but is still extremely impenetrable; if memory serves, even treellama has said he has difficulty reading it, and he wrote it!)
Tempus Irae did something somewhat similar, though it didn’t use holograms per se. The forthcoming Tempus Irae Redux will use a different method that uses fewer polygons: the old dual texture trick documented on Hastur’s Workshop. It even works in much the same way, except that the “caps lock to realign height” function is not available in Visual Mode or Vasara (thank THE LORD – it resulted in misaligned heights throughout levels), so you’d have to apply heights in draw mode. Effectively, you’d apply the “fake” terminal texture as the “transparent” texture here, and the texture Aleph One regards as the real terminal texture would be the primary texture.
(In some cases, Eternal also uses the dual texture trick – the real texture for the terminal at the very end of each chapter – or, in chapter five’s case, the secret credit terminal – is hidden by the landscape texture in the back, and the hologram is on a different side entirely.)
Let me know if any of this was confusing. :v
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
-
baudrillardboy
- Born on Board
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Sep 3rd '17, 14:32
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I'll have to play around with using the dual-texture trick this way; not sure why that didn't occur to me before. It will likely work better than the hack I kludged together last night. I ended up using <control_panels> to redefine terminals from other sets to use textures from the current set. It seems to work so far in Vasara, but I'm not 100% sure why my code is working OR how it will respond once maps are merged. So I can see why the dual-texture trick may be a bit less of a headache.
And while I 100% agree about the lack of visual-mode height-adjustment options being a blessing, I do wish I had it back every time I try and do a more organic landscape. When precise alignment isn't important, it's SO much easier to do rocks, caves, etc. visually.
Incidentally, it's funny to see Sarasota as your location in your profile. As a recovering New College Weirdo™, the town seems to show up in the most interesting contexts.
And while I 100% agree about the lack of visual-mode height-adjustment options being a blessing, I do wish I had it back every time I try and do a more organic landscape. When precise alignment isn't important, it's SO much easier to do rocks, caves, etc. visually.
Incidentally, it's funny to see Sarasota as your location in your profile. As a recovering New College Weirdo™, the town seems to show up in the most interesting contexts.
"its f***ed up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town" —@dril
I think that approach could work, but I can’t promise that it wouldn’t ever try to load the other texture set – which is obviously a problem for a scenario that uses as much memory as Eternal does. For something like Apotheosis X that doesn’t have any hi-res assets, that’s not really worth worrying about, though. Overall, the dual texture trick is probably the way to go, at least for terminals and pattern buffers – you might need to redefine tag switches, light switches, platform switches, wires, and/or chip insertion switches to use discrete textures, since those need to alter their states based on game events. Likewise rechargers, if you want to use more than one kind of recharger per level.
I actually attended New College in '01-'02, but I was 100% not ready for university at the time and wound up dropping out. I recently got a second bachelor’s degree from USF Sarasota though. Would you happen to have been acquainted (and still be in contact) with Asmodeus or Incognito? I’m curious if they’re aware I’ve uploaded their films of Acme Station (several times in Asmodeus’ case, since it’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that someone vidded that level without taking a single hit), and also if they ever recorded any other vid films that never made their way onto the Vidmasters’ page.
I actually attended New College in '01-'02, but I was 100% not ready for university at the time and wound up dropping out. I recently got a second bachelor’s degree from USF Sarasota though. Would you happen to have been acquainted (and still be in contact) with Asmodeus or Incognito? I’m curious if they’re aware I’ve uploaded their films of Acme Station (several times in Asmodeus’ case, since it’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that someone vidded that level without taking a single hit), and also if they ever recorded any other vid films that never made their way onto the Vidmasters’ page.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
-
baudrillardboy
- Born on Board
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Sep 3rd '17, 14:32
Small world! And it's hard to find a more timeless story than "went to New College for a couple semesters before realizing I was not prepared." Even today, that describes a pretty huge chunk of my friend group. I scraped by somehow, but I can't say I was prepared either, haha. I got a grad degree this past year, and the difference in my academic performance was night and day.
I can't say I know Asmodeus or Incognito. Searching through Facebook based on the names in the video descriptions, I may know at least one person who knows Incognito irl, but not through Marathon. To be honest I didn't even realize there was a New College presence in the Marathon community at all. When I attended (2011–2016), I think I was the only person there who had heard of the game (which is too bad, given the number of sci-fi/Lovecraft/philosophy nerds there). Those are absolutely insane runs, though. Wish I had seen them sooner; Acme Station is probably my all-time favorite map.
I can't say I know Asmodeus or Incognito. Searching through Facebook based on the names in the video descriptions, I may know at least one person who knows Incognito irl, but not through Marathon. To be honest I didn't even realize there was a New College presence in the Marathon community at all. When I attended (2011–2016), I think I was the only person there who had heard of the game (which is too bad, given the number of sci-fi/Lovecraft/philosophy nerds there). Those are absolutely insane runs, though. Wish I had seen them sooner; Acme Station is probably my all-time favorite map.
"its f***ed up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town" —@dril