Entity 2.1.24

[troymac1ure]

+Added check for improper idents while loading tags / auto-fix bypass added as well

I occasionally get a popup message about something being incorrect (e.g., when I load the sbsp tag), but I don't know what it means. Is there a hole in my map somewhere, or something else corrupted after my hacks? I should try it on a clean map and report what I find. What is meant by the auto-fix bypass?

It happens even on clean maps, I think it has to do with tags incorrectly referencing idents. You'll notice some tags will show garbage in the TAG portion of idents, I think this is what is doing it. I added the code to check a while ago, but I forgot to properly enforce it, so the errors were being ignored.

I don't understand what this means (the second statement seems to contradict the first):

+Duplicating tags now keeps externally referenced reflexives
-Creates multiple copies of duplicated tags

Firstly, The + is a good thing, the - is a bad thing.
Before, if you did the recursively duplicate option, it would duplicate all tags that were referenced, but none of the tag/ident pointers were updated, so you would need to manually go through and change each ident to point to the new duplicated tags. I fixed this, but noticed just before I released this version that when you recursively duplicate, it doesn't checked for duplicate creation of recursive tags and will create multiple instances of the same duplication.

For example, if you recusively duplicate "[WEAP] battle_rifle" tag, in the predicted resourced one listing is "[MODE] battle_rifle". Also, "[HLMT] battle_rifle" references "[MODE] battle_rifle", so a second duplicate would be created. When I tried it, some tags were duplicated numerous times, which is not only a waste of space, but confusing as well. You may not see this in the normal tag editor, but click on the INFO tag listing afterwards and scroll to the bottom. You will see what I mean.

I haven't used the main menu editor yet, but I should post pictures of the one neodos hot-rodded for me as inspiration to others.

Thank you for putting in the time and effort to make Entity better!

Thanks for the feedback. Wasn't sure if anyone had even looked at it

[troymac1ure]

Firstly, The + is a good thing, the - is a bad thing.
Before, if you did the recursively duplicate option, it would duplicate all tags that were referenced, but none of the tag/ident pointers were updated, so you would need to manually go through and change each ident to point to the new duplicated tags. I fixed this, but noticed just before I released this version that when you recursively duplicate, it doesn't checked for duplicate creation of recursive tags and will create multiple instances of the same duplication.

For example, if you recusively duplicate "[WEAP] battle_rifle" tag, in the predicted resourced one listing is "[MODE] battle_rifle". Also, "[HLMT] battle_rifle" references "[MODE] battle_rifle", so a second duplicate would be created. When I tried it, some tags were duplicated numerous times, which is not only a waste of space, but confusing as well. You may not see this in the normal tag editor, but click on the INFO tag listing afterwards and scroll to the bottom. You will see what I mean.

Hmmm, just tried it again and it seemed not to duplicate tags multiple times... Then again, I usually release well after midnight, so you can possibly just ignore that "bug". That list I keep mostly for me to check into things that I find as I go...

Also, a while back JacksonCougar compained about needing WinRar for the update and I said that it was no longer needed; Well I just tried an update at work and realized that it's still checking for WinRar installation, even though it's no longer used. I'll try to fix that sometime here too.

[troymac1ure]

Actual in-game shots of the menu edited:



Realised that the visual editor needs to encorporate peek/poke buttons for quick visual updates. A bit annoying having to save it, then open the tag and poke it through (at least the whole thing can be done in one relatively quick poke now)

Oh how I wish people still played this game. I feel like I'd love to contribute alot more, but what's the use...

[CaptainPoopface]

Hey, that looks pretty good! I've gotten so burned out on the old Halo menu blue that I love to see it subdued, if not obliterated.

Oh how I wish people still played this game. I feel like I'd love to contribute alot more, but what's the use...

Yeah, I know what you mean. There is one other person I play over SLC with on a semi-regular basis. When I get a few more maps in the hopper, I'll see about throwing together a Remnant game night, or perhaps just a correspondence system so it can be ad hoc but still feasible.

I'll upload my mainmenu patch here as soon as I get a chance.

Edit: Uploaded. It was put together by neodos in about a half hour with RTH, a few years ago. He did a great job and could probably do some ace menu work with the latest Entity. I smile every time the game loads. Goofy menu navigation sound added by me. :p

[XZodia]

Loving the menu stuff!

@CPF, I was working on a correspondence system a few months ago, it was going to have a player rank system but I stopped having time to work on it, would it be of interest to you if I picked it up again?

[troymac1ure]

Loving the menu stuff!

That was just a throw together for testing, but it shows how easy it would be to create, say, remnant custom screens for a mappack

[CaptainPoopface]

@CPF, I was working on a correspondence system a few months ago, it was going to have a player rank system but I stopped having time to work on it, would it be of interest to you if I picked it up again?

I thought that sounded ambitious, with player stats and map coordination and so on. I was just thinking of some kind of bulletin notification system, where someone could list a particular day and time they are available, what kind of mod or specific mod they'd like to play, gametypes they would prefer or anti-prefer, and maybe other constraints like "I'll play if at least 2 other people play". It could just be a thread here, actually, although it would be nice to have a simple phone-friendly stand-alone site for quick access. First, however, I would like to put together a couple more new mods rattling around in my head and see what kind of interest they rouse. That'll be a few weeks, most likely.

We should continue this discussion in your thread and not hijack Troy's.

[troymac1ure]

We should continue this discussion in your thread and not hijack Troy's.

...and here I was so happy to see activity in this thread
on the bright side though, we seem to have activity back on the board itself.

[JacksonCougar]

Why didn't you include plugins?

[troymac1ure]

Why didn't you include plugins?

Some people like to keep their plugins, so I don't tend to include them, however...

Just click on Tools -> Update Plugins

If others wish to add to the plugin database, just upload your plugins to the Plugin\ directory on the Misc server and run Tools->Update Plugins to catagorize them.

[JacksonCougar]

We/I should just make a wiki or custom_script to host plugins on the server and let them be updated more easily while maintaining a single working set that everyone could use. The current segmentation of plugins is not a healthy, nor good thing. But regardless the way entity plugin work leave room for perfect plugins to still brick the map by not aligning fields correctly to a memory boundary. If there's some interest from this i'll break open the web design software and see what I can cook up. Troy?

I'm thinking maybe a hard-coded or restricted backend layout which enforces the tag_block(struct) boundaries and alignments (which I am 99% sure I have mapped out correctly), and the ability to edit field names and return the plugins in various formats (.ent for entity support, .xml for generic fun, and add more formats as they are needed)

[XZodia]

That would be awesome but sounds like a lot of work

[troymac1ure]

Well, I've looked at Entity's code a few times in the past and I can't find where you're talking about breaking the memory alignments. The code pads to 16 byte boundries and I think? the other different ones as well.

The plugin updater currently names the plugins by a hash check to avoid (exact) duplicate plugins. I made a converter for Grim's plguins that goes .ent to/from c# (although it may have been done in turbo pascal ). So far no one has taking advantage of sharing their plugins across the board (I think). The only other though I had was to include an uploader in entity as well. Also, the updater was a fairly quick put out, but has room for expansion (such as descriptions on the updates, etc).
A multi-plugin system may be cool too, but I dunno if there is that much desire for these things still.

I think if things were to go ahead, a plugin revamp may need to be in order as well to encorporate things such as boundries and add support for more type (I recently added support into an unreleased version for color wheels for example).

[CaptainPoopface]

I would like it if my plugins could somehow be validated for correct memory offsets. Quite often when editing a projectile in the proj tag, I get an error on the "darken by" field; my effe tag frequently shows large integer values for what are supposed to be enum indices (0, 1, 2); and my scnr plugin shows Japanese characters in some of the string fields (e.g., player starting profile). It may be worth noting that I bounce around between the old and new meta editors. Not sure that's related.

It's really a drag to mod without using key features of modding like cloning chunks, duplicating and injecting tags because something in the process breaks system link for me. I would love to know where the problem is and how to fix it, especially if it's a "simple" plugin issue.

[troymac1ure]

@troy Does this mean your going to release your menu GUI editor soon? =)

Been working on this and I have the fonts working in it now. The main issue I am having is figuring out how the menu layout is done. It seems a little complicated in that there is a pointer to a list of strings used, but doesn't really define what eah string is used for.

For example, The screen header, the menu options names and descriptions are all listed in the same list and it seems that if a Header StringID is define then it is used and the following are put into the menu list, except for at some point the list is stopped (I think USUALLY equal to the number of panes) and the rest are used for descriptions.
The headers I think are placed in a specified location by the "Shape Group" value.

This may sound confusing, but it seems like this is how it works. Anyways, I have it 'working', but it's not perfect for sure.

[XZodia]

Sounds good =)

[troymac1ure]

I can't find any possible way in which it puts the menu items in order. They seem just randomly placed and somehow it figues it out. No individual references to StringIDs and even the main reference has the items out of order & even placed with information SIDs between. I must be missing something...

[XZodia]

It's entirely possible that it is hard-coded as it is part of the menu's structure and the entire menu structure is hard coded.
With the exception of the map list.

[troymac1ure]

No, it's not. Each menu has listings in different orders and for example the Player editor screen has (something like) Appearance, Controls, Voice Output, Xbox live status, definitions for the above and the two below, subtitles, voice masking.

They all seem in no particular order. The description definitions are, but I can't find any way they relate to the listings...

[troymac1ure]

I'm so stupid. The answer is right in front of my eyes I'm pretty sure and as much as I looked I couldn't see it.
The listing order is done by the StringID index values, but the only view I have is alphabetical order. I've been looking into the Unicode strings data too much...

Well, off to bed, but I think I may have a fairly close visual of the menu screens soon (except for models & buttons).

[troymac1ure]

I've been playing with customer BSP injection again lately and finally got it working almost perfectly!
I was totally missing updating a very important section of the SBSP tag after injection.
I just have to recalculate the lightmap on the map after injection, so for now I just null the lightmap.
I will try to post some in-game pics later on.

[XZodia]

Cool, no collision though I assume?

[troymac1ure]

Cool, no collision though I assume?

Collision works perfectly and lightmap is recalculated now. No bugs; works 100% flawless on 12 different tests.

[CaptainPoopface]

April Fool's!
I did feel a little murmur in my heart for a second though.

[Click16]

Fuck fuck fuck! I started modeling a BSP in 3ds! FUCK I FOGOT IT WAS APRIL FIRST >_<