Eternal X 1.2

Discuss and unveil current Marathon projects.
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Cyborg
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Might be a dumb question, but I looked through the preferences and didn't see where it would enable bump-mapping. The replacement textures are still nice to look at, though; also peeked at Chapter 5, and while I didn't get far at all, it definitely feels different without all those Headless.
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treellama
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You need to be using the OpenGL (Shader) renderer
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Pfhorrest
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Hathomirr wrote:Been meaning to play through this scenario again, so it's nice to see one more major update going on. Keep it up!

Just out of curiosity, will it still be possible to play through it without using the additional 3D effects (bump maps, weapons, hud) should one choose to?
I belatedly checked this today and it seems that just turning off the HUD and weapons plugins doesn't break anything, so the answer is yes.

Although, something seems a little off about the firing animation for the fusion cannon when the HD plugin is off. President People, any chance you could look into that?

I'm also wondering if maybe I should package the textures into a plugin too so that they can be selectively turned off (i.e. without turning everything else off) by those who want them. Will have to make sure the lores textures in the shapes file are updated to match the new ones first. (People, any chance you could help with that when the time comes too?)

ETA: Also I checked Ch5 and it still functions adequately with its old merged physics even with the shapes and sounds changes made to accompany the new physics, so Ch5 is still playable in this alpha despite my expectations.
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Hathomirr
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Pfhorrest wrote:I belatedly checked this today and it seems that just turning off the HUD and weapons plugins doesn't break anything, so the answer is yes.

Although, something seems a little off about the firing animation for the fusion cannon when the HD plugin is off. President People, any chance you could look into that?
Just tried it for a bit myself, and no issues here either, save for a few transparent pixels on some of the non-HD weapons and the issue you mentioned with the fusion cannon.

One other thing though, not sure if it's been brought up before, is that the soundtrack does not change when transitioning between levels (going from the first level to the second plays the same track unless level warping, for instance). This does not happen in every level though, as the soundtrack functions normally while I was playing through a couple of the levels in the final chapter.
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Pfhorrest
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That's an Aleph One bug that's fixed in 1.3a1 which you can find linked on this forum somewhere.
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President People
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Pfhorrest wrote:Although, something seems a little off about the firing animation for the fusion cannon when the HD plugin is off. President People, any chance you could look into that?
It's taken care of now. It'll be in the next round of changes.
Pfhorrest wrote:I'm also wondering if maybe I should package the textures into a plugin too so that they can be selectively turned off (i.e. without turning everything else off) by those who want them. Will have to make sure the lores textures in the shapes file are updated to match the new ones first. (People, any chance you could help with that when the time comes too?)
I can give it a shot. No guarantees they'll look great, though. I'm not terribly experienced in getting hires sprites to look good when scaled down.
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ravenshining
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Pfhorrest, did you get the maps I sent you Friday? I sent them to the same address you sent the landscape to me from.
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Pfhorrest
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Thanks for checking, that had gone into my junk folder somehow! I will take a look at them a little later tonight.

ETA: For everyone else's reference, those are all synced to the merge folder git repo now.

And here's a screenshot of some of the updated lighting:
Screen Shot 2018-02-12 at 10.11.05 PM.jpg
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Meerjel01
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A long but worth-full way man!
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Pfhorrest
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And here is the first of the updated human textures taken on that same updated level (the corrugated metal on the floor):
Screen Shot 2018-02-12 at 11.13.41 PM.jpg
Can someone tell me what's the best way to view the original Marathon 1 textures now that I don't have Classic and so can't use Pfhred? I'll be wanting to compare to those for this texture set (trying to make the Marathon look a little bit more like the Marathon) and hadn't realized I don't know how yet until this morning.
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Meerjel01
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Take pictures in game without any plugins perhaps?


Seriously, someone should make Marathon 1 tools.
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treellama
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You can open the M1A1 shapes in ShapeFusion, or view the originals in Aleph One's Visual Mode. That's probably the best you can do.
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treellama
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Pfhorrest wrote:And here's a screenshot of some of the updated lighting:
Here's what I mean by differential shading:
window.png
I darkened the left and top insides of the closest window, and lightened the bottom. I think it gives it more depth.
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Wrkncacnter
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Yeah. Pretend you're using wall shapes that are all one solid color without any texture (like COLORSPEACK). If you can't easily navigate your level and see the architecture, you don't have enough differential shading.
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Pfhorrest
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FWIW that screenshot of updated lighting was not me acting on the advice to do more differential shading, but just a screen shot of Ravenshining's updates to the failure dream levels so that shadows are cast in a direction that makes sense with the sun in the landscape texture.

That said, if she wants to follow up on that differential lighting advice and make further updates to those (or other) levels I'd love to see that. :)
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President People
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I've noticed something weird with some monsters' new melee attacks. A few of them have a melee range more than double the range of the actual projectiles they fire. The Mother of All Hunters is especially guilty of this. They'll stop in the middle of a battle and dance in place, attempting to throw punches at you from 4 world units away, when the attack itself only reaches .768 WU.

I would cut the range down to 1 world unit (or match the attack's range exactly) across the board, and I can throw together some new melee attack sequences, both to look less silly, and to keep them from staying in one place too long after taking a swing.

Any thoughts on this? For reference, the default Pfhor Fighter and F'lickta both have ranges to match their melee attacks.
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ravenshining
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Pfhorrest wrote:FWIW that screenshot of updated lighting was not me acting on the advice to do more differential shading, but just a screen shot of Ravenshining's updates to the failure dream levels so that shadows are cast in a direction that makes sense with the sun in the landscape texture.

That said, if she wants to follow up on that differential lighting advice and make further updates to those (or other) levels I'd love to see that. :)
treellama wrote:
Pfhorrest wrote:And here's a screenshot of some of the updated lighting:
Here's what I mean by differential shading:
window.png
I darkened the left and top insides of the closest window, and lightened the bottom. I think it gives it more depth.
Looks great in photoshop, but that's not happening in Aleph One. Those surfaces already have a difference of 100% and 0% light level, and slightly different coloured textures to boot: blueish textures in shadow, yellowish textures in sunlight. Without the different coloured textures, you would barely be able to see the difference at that close range, but look out the window across the chasm and the shadows become black.

Marathon just doesn't darken all the way to black up close, and all these dark grey textures make lighting effects even less noticeable than they would with say, white or coloured textures.
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treellama
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What
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Pfhorrest
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President People wrote:I would cut the range down to 1 world unit (or match the attack's range exactly) across the board, and I can throw together some new melee attack sequences, both to look less silly, and to keep them from staying in one place too long after taking a swing.
That sounds great to me :-)
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ravenshining
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treellama wrote:What
Behold, the same hallway, screenshot from the other end, about 7 WU from the door. The shadows are black as night.
TheTangentUniverse_0000.jpg
Yet as you get closer, the shadows fade. At this point, a large part of the effect you're seeing on the floor, ceiling, walls, and lintel are because I've used a blue-hued texture on the left and a yellow-hued texture on the right.
TheTangentUniverse_0005.jpg
When you get *really* close, you can no longer easily discern the shadow on the dark grey surface of the door, but you can still see it on the white moulding.
TheTangentUniverse_0006.jpg
Meanwhile, across the chasm:
TheTangentUniverse_0007.jpg
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treellama
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That's intentional, it's called the "miner's lamp" and was ported to the OpenGL renderers from the original. It doesn't stop you from doing differential shading, though, which is abundant in Marathon maps!
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ravenshining
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treellama wrote:That's intentional, it's called the "miner's lamp" and was ported to the OpenGL renderers from the original. It doesn't stop you from doing differential shading, though, which is abundant in Marathon maps!
It's already as differentially shaded as possible given the available texture set. The photoshopped screenshot you posted where you lightened one side and darkened another, already had the respective light levels set to 100% and 0%, and had different coloured textures to enhance the effect despite the miner's lamp. The only way to increase the differential shading from where it is now is to lighten the entire texture set.
Last edited by ravenshining on Feb 13th '18, 22:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Wrkncacnter
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*facepalm*

You're saying that this represents the current light levels?
Shading.png
Shading.png (91.61 KiB) Viewed 18545 times
If so, you've got some very strange graphics settings.
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Pfhorrest
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treellama wrote:You can open the M1A1 shapes in ShapeFusion, or view the originals in Aleph One's Visual Mode. That's probably the best you can do.
Where can I find M1A1 these days? All I can seem to find is the current package of the originals.
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ravenshining
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Pfhorrest, I think M1A1 still has a bighouse page. However, if you've downloaded M1R, look in my shapes file, they're all there, plus some M2 demo & Infinity textures. Not all of them have their HD counterparts in the download yet, but the originals are all there.

Wrkncacnter, yes, those are indeed the light levels. Just double checked with Weland and Vasara. The textures are simply very dark to begin with, providing very little room for contrast, and the extravision in that shot is fooling with your depth perception.
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