Legacy:Mecha/Developer Journal

03/10/2003

Woo-lah.

Noticed PHYS_Hovering on the PhysicsType page, and tried playing around with it. I thought it'd be perfect to make skates with, with the part about "making crazy jumps".

Turns out, weird things happen. I threw together a mutator(basing it off of BootsOfJumping) that basically tries to set you in PHYS_Hovering all the time. I've yet to get the hang of state changes–translocating, firing a remote-Redeemer, or entering/leaving a vehicle resets you to PHYS_Walking. However, I threw in some random lines of code, and now it will reactivate when switching weapons(!?), or getting shot into the air by a bot.

As the page says, PHYS_Hovering apparently wasn't meant to be dealt with. showdebug doesn't list it when it's active, and the pawn frequently gets stuck in animations–pain(after I used the shieldgun to bunny hop out of some places; hovering renders you unable to get some pickups, or negotiate steep stairs), or weapon switching. Hovering also negates some of the effect of jumppads; running into them on Face3 makes them about a fourth as effective as normal. Hovering also means you don't take any falling damage at all though(you do a neat little bounce effect). You also pretty much ignore walls that aren't 90-degrees vertical–you can even climb the pyramid in Face3! Seems gentle terrain bumps(like in Antalus) result in the fastest speeds/highest jumps.

I also stuck in foot trails from the Speed Combo for grins; these dissappear about a minute into the level. I've no idea why, again(outside of the usual crappy-code answer).

Bots don't seem to be affected–although they categorically don't do well with subtle gameplay changes.

And of course, apparently I'm not cleaning up properly–dying causes an infinite recursion fault.

Still though, it's fun to see the pawn hovering around–probably could use the effect for an antigrav belt or poor-man's jetpack. I wonder if it was originally intended for the hover bikes, before Karma was added? Will probably keep experimenting with it. And I've now been introduced to just how much an Inventory item can do.

Am still working behind-the-scenes, have a ninja-themed mutator pack planned. Waiting for Lightwave Discovery Edition, to actually get custom meshes in-game.

02/14/2003

's been over a month already?

After a (self-destructed) video project at the top, a two week-long headache in the middle, and some sleepless nights(causing the headache) finishing a design document for Gearframe at the end, it's been hectic. Couple that with my grandmother's decline and passing away, and you could say that "stuff's happened".

But a bit of nose-tweaking on the BU forums have woken me up, so it's off to the races again. The design document should go public(it's being passed around a circle of friends and contacts) within a few days for people to laugh at. In the meantime, I'm trying to clean up some minor Wiki bits I noticed and add some things that have sat around on my drive for awhile.

01/06/2003

Seems that Maya PLE won't import anything worth a damn, not even DXF. I'd hoped to import an old Ajim model for excretions and laughter, but no dice. And the 4.5 PLE, which gets rid of the watermark, doesn't appear to have an Unreal plugin yet. After a day of indigestion at work followed by a sensible spicy Indian dinner, I'm going to bed.

01/05/2003

After moving into a new apartment, waiting for DSL, and enduring the holidays, I've finally gotten to start UT2k3 development. Decided to add a page on the Wiki, and will try to clear up bits about Maya and animation as well. Speaking of which, I'm disappointed in Alias|Wavefront. Not only is their "customized" PLE just the standard PLE(super-annoying watermarks and all–they could have really stolen gmax's thunder here) with a UT2k3 startup screen, Maya 4.0 is significantly less impressive than I thought it would be. A|W promised "an entirely updated interface!", yet it's still pretty much as it was in 3.0–a heap of random options just tossed in a pile. Max may not be as powerful but(with the exception of the transform stack) is much more fun to model in than Maya. I think I need to petition the Blender gang to open up bone data in the Python module, now that they've gone open-source. I'd rather spend time working out problems in a familiar interface, rather than work out the interface to solve the problems. Of course, if it was up to me, I'd be using Softimage|XSI, but SI doesn't think the hobbyist's market is for them yet, a pity.