DF-21 Forums

[Matt H]

The list stops at what was posted in May, so the more recent entries aren't included. But this seems like a good topic to open this new forum with.

Some entries are edited, removing commentary and ensuing discussion, as well as a few corrections here and there.

Original contributors include Patrick Haslow, xwing_original, Geoffrey Simpson, The_Mega_ZZTer, mr_pong, Matt H, Barry Brien, alkaline888, DarthDoctor, Llyren, and japh.

Enjoy!

1. 3DOs- anchoring textures on 3DOs with multiple quads decreases the amount of warping of the texture. The more quads the less it warps. Within reason, of course. But this is a great theory to use when creating simple "flat" 3DOs to display textures.

2. World-width/ world height of WAXes can be altered to produce giant WAXes or simply small ones at a higher resolution.

3. Original game WAXes display the enemy from 8 equally positioned angles. Machines today can easily display WAXes with up to 32 angles, making the WAXes appear more three dimensional.

4. Horizon textures are only affected by light level 31 in the CMP file.

5. To create elevators that morph_move in more than one direction, the elevator's starting position must be the last stop of one elevator definitions direction and the first of the other elevator definition. The morph_move sector must have two different definitions, one for each direction, and it is better for each to have separate event_masks (i.e. 65536 and 131072 for starters- multiples of 65536?).

6. The object with EYE: TRUE can exist independent of the object with LOGIC: PLAYER. The EYE object is affected by all normal INF definitions, but it will only face the original direction in which it was created.

7. Boss Logics (e.g. Dark Troopers, Boba Fett, etc.) target the LOGIC: PLAYER. Non-boss logics (stormtroopers, gran) target the EYE: TRUE.

8. WAXes animated with VUEs will always face towards -Z.

9. Y coordinates in the LEV file are in the oppposite direction to the Y coordinates in a 3DO or VUE file.

10. The use of BMs is case sensitive. For instance, if a BM's name is spelled in all caps in the texture list of a GOB's LEV file, while the actual BM file's name is spelled in lowercase, the level will crash when the player looks at that particular texture.

11. When an elevator change_offset is lowered below -3 in a sector containing the player, it will kill the player by "crushing".

12. Whenever you try -0.x in DarkForge it automatically reverts it to 0.x.

13. DF, JK and MotS GOBs tend to compress ALOT when compressed into a ZIP. The reason for this is because ZIP was origially designed to compress all files, but to compress text files the best. GOBs are container files, and many of the files they contain are, as we all know, basically text!

14. There is an upper limit of 32 frames per animation sequence (e.g. walking left view or firing a weapon). More than 32, and 2wax.exe will say that there were extra frames. It will still compile, but it will stop after 32 frames, and any frames after 32 will be dropped, nowhere to be found. And to be clear, 32 is not the total number of frames that can be had but rather the total number of frames per animation.

15. Although the WAX file structure allows for an enemy WAX to be animated when idle, the game engine won't animate it.

16. If you have 2 vertices of the same sector in the exact same place you will not be able to enter that sector. If the player start is in that sector, apart form turning jumping and firing, you will not be able to move.

17. Having textures listed in your lev file that don't feature in the gob can (not necessarily do) cause your level to crash during loading.

18. By assigning the player x number of LOGIC: PLAYERs you increase by a factor of x the damage that player suffers when shot, punched, falling, etc. Aside: the x factor also changes how high landmines throw you into the air.

19. Sounds: DF VOCs have a low sampling rate, which can mean that the voices you recorded get marred with fuzz and static when you later downsample them to the DF rate. When converting higher-quality sounds, music and voices into lower-quality DF VOCs, apply an anti-aliasing low-pass filter to the sound file before resampling. This will help to avoid high-frequency sounds (e.g. "ss" in the word "hiss") ending up as fuzz and static in the DF VOC.

20. Chris Wright's otherwise superb DF BM Converter for the Mac doesn't do white britemaps (To get around this problem I recommend keeping a spare WinPC user handy - I always store an extra in my trunk - to convert these BMs).

21. Chris Wright's DF FME/WAX Editor for the Mac can only compile SEWER, ANIM and SCENERY WAXes.

22. Brad Oliver’s DarkForge is about a bizillion times more stable when you turn off the cursed "draw sectors as filled" option.

23. DarkForge allows level creators to "stitch" wall textures! It will only stitch from left to right.

24. When you have a weapon supercharge you're rate of fire does not equal the rate at which you're using ammunition, so you get more ammo then you actually possess. Depending on your computer, with the really fast guns like the Imperial Repeater Rifle, the ammo never decreases and you can fire for as long as you want without the number ever dropping.

25. Every wall has its own adjoin settings. An adjoined wall between two sectors is actually two walls, each adjoined to the other on both sides of the wall from each sector. While they usually match up between the two sides, they don't have to be. The adjoin settings can be manually changed. In other words, just because wall A is adjoined to wall B, wall B doesn't need to be adjoined to wall A. Wall B can be adjoined to a different wall (Wall C) or just not adjoined to anything at all.
Corallary: Several different walls can all be adjoined to the same single wall, all looking in at the same place at the same time. (They just need to be in the same x-z location and have the same adjoin settings.) But on the other side of that wall, that wall can only be adjoined to one wall at a time.

26. Although there is some as of yet unknown limit for the filesize or pixel-size of a briefing file, it is possible to successfully create briefings longer than 3000 pixels... however, when a briefing becomes around 1000 pixels, it will not appear in the F1 briefing menu for some reason... probably a memory reason (LEC probably disables the briefing ingame if it takes up too much memory, even if it fits in the pre-game briefing).

27. You should have a negative offset in your MOVE command for your textcrawl, otherwise there's a 10+ second delay between the Star Wars logo and the crawl.

28. DFUS appear slightly longer vertically then they are horizontally. Ever notice that 8x8 doors don't look quite square?
Footnote: It seems to apply to PCs but not Macs (allowing of course for monitor settings).
Footnote: Monitors, like televisions, usually use a 4:3 aspect ratio. This is why they have resolutions like 1024x768, 640x480, or 320x240. When you have a resolution setting that is different from this, the pixels stretch to fill the same amount of space. So in the case of Dark Forces, with the 320x200 resolution, it is stretching the 200 pixels into the same amount of space as 240 pixels (if they were closer to equal). This elongates the pixels, making them appear longer vertically than horizontally.

29. If a subsector and its adjoined gap wall are placed on top of a wall of the parent sector, the subsector will flicker in and out of view.

30. An explanation of PALs and CMPs:
Not all the PALs are the same. True, many of the PALS, such as SECBASE and EXECUTOR, are the same, but some are not. Much of all the original PALs are all basically the same*: The brite-mapped colors (the first 24 colors that are always bright), the 176 regular default colors, the last color (white), they are all pretty much the same for each PAL. However, 47 of the last 48 colors in the palettes are custom colors, and they differ between many of the levels. SECBASE is different from TALAY is different from JABSHIP is different from NARSHADDA is different from ROBOTICS is different from GROMAS. And the difference is found in those last 48 colors. Just look at the PALs in WDFUSE to see.
The CMP does map the colors different for the different palettes. SECBASE, for example, has a lot more colors of blue-grey in it's custom color section. So when the CMP sets up the gradient from light to dark, it uses those extra colors in its mapping. But in a palette that doesn't have those extra blue-greys, a different mapping with less colors has to be used.

So if you don't match the CMP up with the PAL, things are going to look funny, because it will be mapping the wrong colors at the wrong times.

The PAL really does control what colors are available to be used. The CMP controls where and when the colors in the palette are used.

*The reason they are basically the same is because they aren't exactly the same for all the palettes. In GROMAS the default colors are all tinted redish, so they aren't the really the same. But they are similar and all affected the same, so when the GROMAS PAL and CMP are used, objects using the brite-mapped and default colors still look correct, just red-tinted.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

Moff Rebus is a closet homosexual.

[The MAZZTer]

[Darth Oosha]

Was the list stopped there for any particular reason? There must be backups newer than that.

[alkaline888]

Matt, a thousand thank yous for preserving this life-saving list! Greg

_________________
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
—Kurt Vonnegut

[Tom Manning]

:: Tips his hat to Matt ::

Thank you, and this looks like it is in artical form, now when df-21.net it back...

_________________
Tom Manning
For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, Stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn: Return of the King

[Barry Brien]

[DarthDoctor]

[The MAZZTer]

Heh, that''s funny when taken out of context like that (it's #18 FYI ppl).

_________________
http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[Nottheking]

Here's what I could remember of what I put, numbered much lower, of course, and in the order I remembered them...

31. The stops for an ELEVATOR MORPH_SPIN MUST be absolute (without the @ symbol). If you fail to do so, the elevator will fail to do anything.

32. If, when using I.M. mines in a sector with bit 1, flag 1 set ('sky'), you propell yourself above the normal ceiling height (into the sky, literally), you will shoot up about an extra 100 DFU, to the top of the 'skybox', if that term could be aplied to DF...

33. When using the ELEVATOR SCROLL_FLOOR type, any slave sectors will NOT move the player; they will only move the floor texture.

...I think I posted more than that, but that's all I can remember for now...

_________________
Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you..

[Casey Neumiller]

Wow

DF lives!

[Darth Oosha]

[quote="Barry Brien"]The list wasn't stopped. It was added to whenever anybody could think of something new to add.[/quote]

No, I'm talking about the first post saying:

[quote="Matt H"][i]The list stops at what was posted in May, so the more recent entries aren't included.[/i][/quote]

So: why?

[Zev]

:steps up: Hi, new guy here, thought I could help. I'll just put up what I have more or less w/o discriminating beyond some cuts of irrelevant stuff. For any corrections, I took the most recent correction.

34. Dark Forces uses the "JEDI" Portal-Based Raycasting engine to imitate a 3-D environment. The JEDI engine was one of the last (if not the very last, I'm unsure if DN 3D was a RCer) raycasting engines devoloped, and offers many more possibilities than all previous game engines, improving on the hyper-popular DOOM engine by offering:

Capability for the player to jump, crouch, as well as look up/down up to (I think this is right) 60 degrees.

2nd elevetions that permit bridges, as well as variable-depth water.

A more advanced clipping code, that allowed multiple sectors to occupy the same X&Z coordinates, and even all three!

An aplet/interior code of some sort that permits fully 3-D objects (3DOs) to be rendered inside of the racasting sectors.

by Nottheking

35. The Bryar Pistol is actually a rife with the barrel cut off, and the Imperial Repeater Gun was supposed to be the main weapon of the DarkTroopers.

by Taton

36. DF for MAC runs at 640x400x256.
DF for DOS runs at 320x200x256.

by Nottheking

37. The SEWERBUG logic can travel directly from one sector with no 2nd altitude setting upwards to an adjoining sector with a higher 2nd altitude.

by Patrick Haslow

38. The second altitude can be set to form an invisible ceiling directly above the player object's HEIGHT setting to prevent them from jumping, moving, or even living.

by Patrick Haslow

39. If you create a generator enemy and add a line of that enemie's normal logic to that generator, you will be attacked be a 'poltergeist'.
What's actually happening is that something that isn't there yet (the generator) is behaving with the extra logics you gave it. Confused? Try this. Get a wax and give this as it's logics:

LOGIC: GENERATOR REE_YEES2
LOGIC: REE_YEES2
DELAY: 0
INTERVAL: 0
NUM_TERMINATE: 1
MAX_ALIVE: 1
MAX_DIST: 2000
MIN_DIST: 5
MASTER: OFF

Some notes of interest:
The wax itself will never appear, for some reason even sending 'master_on' to it's home sector does nothing.

The 'poltergeist' attacks with great ferocity as it is using 2 ree_yees2 logics, the generator and the normal one.

When you use the LACDS cheat, the poltergeist will still not show up on the map, yet to the best of my knowledge, it can be killed.

by Barry Brien

There were a bunch of additions to this, but I don't know if they're important. Should I post them?

40. There is an effective way to immobilize the player using INF. Unfortunately, It doesn't stop you from turning:

In the sector where you wish to freeze the player, split any wall in the sector into three pieces. Set the appropriate bit (I think it's 32) to make the middle wall "move wit sector". Edit the INF and make an "elevator morph_move". Set the elevator to have two stops; '@1 hold', and another 'hold' stop, so the the middle wall will have one of its vertices overlap with an adjacent one.

by Nottheking

41. You can make a sector consist of what should be several sectors... To do this in WDFUSE, use the 'polygon' tool, and creat a gap in a sector. Take pull the gap out of the sector, and move the vetices as to 'turn it inside out'. The result will be a sector split in two, with both parts with parts with identical lighting, flags, ceilings and floors (obviously). This is usefull with INF, allowing you to split a single item over what would otherwise be several sectors...

by Nottheking

42. A sector using the "texture" command cannot have working slave sectors that repeat the effect.

by Patrick Haslow

And that's all I have.

[Matt H]

[Zev]

Not a backup...just happened to have forgotten to clean my internet files folder.

[Darth Oosha]

I had a saved copy from September that I actually put on ftp.df-21.org at one point. Or did that go down too?

[Matt H]

Maybe the powers that be didn't know or didn't realise you did that. Is it a copy of the original thread, or a copy of the whole site?

[Nottheking]

...It's a good thing you don't cycle through your cache very fast, Zev... thanks.

...I remembered another one of mine... I think this is all of the ones I figured out, now that I add this...

43. If a sector's INF contains the MASTER_OFF flag, and contains generators that also have the flag MASTER_OFF, a MASTER_ON message will only activate the generators, and never affect the sector, no matter how many times the message is sent.

_________________
Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you..

[Fenwar]

[Barry Brien]

I don't know if this counts or not.
If you want to make a regular bm transparent manually (say you were using Mattias' Photoshop plugin) all you have to do is open the bm in a hex editor. On the first line you'll see the number 36. Change this to 3E and save. You now have a transparent bm.

[Nottheking]

[Nottheking]

Thanks, Jackson.

I've come up with a new one!

...Well, I think it is. Here goes:

43/44. If you get distance HOMing, you can reduce its effect by splitting the walls into smaller sections. I'm not quite sure why this works, but it probably has something to do with the ammount of ray calculating or something. I have used this to solve a few problems, such as the white corridors in my SECBASE entry. Just be carefull you don't split adjoined walls too much, or else you will end up with portal HOMing, to replace your other problem...

_________________
Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you..

[Barry Brien]

[quote="Nottheking]
Sounds interesting, but exactly what do you mean by, Transparent? Do you mean that some BMs won't have/use the single transparent color in the palette?[quote]

You know how some bms (ie glass.bm) are transparent? In order to make transparent bms I usually use the /t switch in bmpdf, but this program only allows you make bms up to a certain size. Mattias' Photoshop plugin lets you create bms of any size, but you cannot create transparency (ie instead of a window, you'd get white streaks against a black background with glass.bm). So I figured out how to manually edit a normal bm to make it a transparent bm.

Your method for reducing homming sounds fantastic. I must give it a go.

[Nottheking]

Just a note to everybody: When you quote a post with a quote , and delete their quote(like you just did, and I am), remember to properly restore the tags, because it seems IE possesses less intelligence than Bush, and cuts into them.

[Darth Oosha]

You didn't know about glass.bm? Then who made Nottheking-SECBASE? Maybe you're thinking of JK's transparency effects where two textures are combined on the same screen pixel?

[Nottheking]

[The MAZZTer]

[Nottheking]

[Nottheking]

I'm not sure if this deserves its own number, but I've figured out an (almost) complete chart for weapon damage and enemy health/damage. I forgot the correct firerates for the weapons, though...

...All of the numbers here equate to the player's health/shield points:

[Darth Oosha]

That was measured using PLAYER logic objects, ala Scape Goat, right?

[Nottheking]