This fixes several bugs with beta 2 (sorry, Windows metaserver players) and brings a few new items, including:
The invincibility/teleport effect now glows when bloom is enabled.
New mouse options for those who want a different mouse feel. Select "Classic" to get the same behavior as 1.2, or "Modern" to try the new stuff.
Lua scripts can communicate with each other through a new Level.stash API.
This will be the last beta release before 1.3 final, unless major problems are found. If anything is broken for you, now's the time to speak up.
Mac users: There's still some wonkiness with Gatekeeper. I recommend the following steps:
Copy the app from the disk image to Applications (or your desktop, etc.). Apple adds extra restrictions to applications running directly from disk images, which can cause problems.
Launch the copied app and agree to the "Do you want to run this?" dialog.
If the app fails to start, launch it a second time. The Gatekeeper dialog prevents Aleph One from launching correctly, but once your choice is remembered, it should work.
Since you've said elsewhere that 1.4 will be about moving to a new graphics API (which probably won't be compatible with older hardware) is this a last call for OpenGL ideas? If so, might I humbly promote:
Overall it seems to play okay physically, but there still seems to be that short sound delay, even with TL's suggested preferences edit as well. Should the samples be made lower? I like to be sure from you first before I mess too much with the preferences file (yes I did copy it).
If I end up having to live with it, I probably will. But, here's further specs if it helps you guys.
Sharkie Lino wrote:Overall it seems to play okay physically, but there still seems to be that short sound delay, even with TL's suggested preferences edit as well. Should the samples be made lower? I like to be sure from you first before I mess too much with the preferences file (yes I did copy it).
You can keep making the buffer smaller until the sound starts to scramble. Make sure you're editing the right preferences file!
ravenshining wrote:Since you've said elsewhere that 1.4 will be about moving to a new graphics API (which probably won't be compatible with older hardware) is this a last call for OpenGL ideas?
1.4 won't necessarily drop any hardware compatibility. The libraries I'm evaluating for 1.4 provide a high-level API which gets translated to OpenGL, Direct3D, Metal, etc. It's basically the same thing that SDL does for 2D graphics, just on the 3D side. The current front runner, bgfx, supports OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL 3.1, either of which should work on your card. It's way too early to promise anything, but it might work even better, since the OpenGL details will be better tested and likely written by someone more capable!
What is certain is that I will be vetoing any new OpenGL-specific code. Not only would adding and debugging features take time away from 1.3 fixes and 1.4 development, but it would add to the enormous pile of functionality which already has to be rewritten for a new API. The OpenGL train has left the station; no further boarding.
treellama wrote:Is this a signing issue or a sandbox issue?
It's a sandbox issue. The binaries and disk images are fully signed and spctl claims everything is fine, but AFAICT, whenever Gatekeeper pops up a dialog box first, the app fails to launch. I assume something in the SDL startup is getting disrupted, but I haven't had a chance to dig into it.
The packaging is done in "tools/build_dmg.sh" -- you can run this yourself with your signature, and see if you get any different behavior.
Maybe it's too soon to ask this question if you haven't decided on a solution for sure, but for scenarios that include custom shaders, is that something that will need to be changed for future versions of A1?
Wrkncacnter wrote:Maybe it's too soon to ask this question if you haven't decided on a solution for sure, but for scenarios that include custom shaders, is that something that will need to be changed for future versions of A1?
I would expect all of the shaders will need some adjustment. It’s my understanding though that bgfx uses a subset of glsl... so it’s possible that changes would be minimal.
treellama wrote:Make sure you're editing the right preferences file!
Probably a good idea to make sure I am doing this right so I'm not giving any misinformation. For 1.3 tests I've been using standalone A1 in the DataFiles folder of the all-in-one Marathon Infinity (1.2.1 if that matters). Would I still be editing the Marathon Infinity Preferences, or would that strictly be Aleph One Preferences?
I think it would be the Marathon Infinity preferences, but I'm not sure. You can always tell by changing your player name and seeing if it shows up in the preferences dialog.
Hopper wrote:If anything is broken for you, now's the time to speak up.
I know there's no chance of this happening, but what the hell. If you guys could fix the renderer so sprites in front of your face stop randomly disappearing, that would be super.
I generally see it all the time when playing Yuge or AOPID (mostly because those are the only 2 scenarios I've played in the last few years). Especially the early levels of AOPID where you're using a knife. However, I also verified it happens with infinity by jumping to Aye Mak Sicur, I think it was obvious when getting close to a defender.
However, I know in certain rooms in Yuge, sprites would disappear even when you're far away from them. It may have something to do with the level geometry in those cases, as certain areas had a high chance of it happening.
Sorry, I don't have an easy step by step thing to demonstrate the issue though.
It happens with the software renderer, yes. Here's an infinity film showing it. You'll have to skip past the first minute or something before I get to a few stairs and dance around some hunters. Almost right away you'll see one randomly disappear for a second or so, but they become invisible for a split second many times throughout the video.
I don't know if this example represents all of the cases where monsters become invisible, but it's the easiest one to grab.
You know, I think I've seen similar problems like that before (though not often).
If that issue shows up in the software renderer also, it could be some edge case where render tree drawing order is not perfect; say if a sprite is drawn and then other polygon walls are drawn over the top of it. If that were happening, I would also expect situations where sprites are chopped in half from some viewing angles. If such a theory is correct (which I'm not sure it is), enabling depth buffer writes for sprite drawing (but leaving depth test disabled for sprites and enabled for walls) might fix it.
I do have a couple of brief feature requests for Lua.
1. A way to access the frame rate. This would be useful to disable certain graphical additions (e.g. precipitation scripts) if they cause too much lag.
2. A way to play sounds with less than 100% volume (e.g., I don't want thunder to play as loudly when players are indoors). I don't know if there's a way to do this without breaking backwards compatibility, but it would be nice if there is.
Beyond that, the big one is what Wrk said about sprites showing up at weird times, which I think extends to more cases beyond that - just sprites showing up in weird places irrespective of polygon boundaries. I'll find a relevant link later, but I think there's already a bug report for those cases.
There's one other thing that I'll put in the relevant thread.
“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
For the sound volume issue, what about using a different sound as a work arround? One where the gain isnt as loud? Its not not like the lightning would sound the same indoors as it does outdoors anyway.
Not a practical option. There are only so many slots in the sound file, and while it’s supposedly possible to add more in ShapeFusion, I haven’t yet gotten that feature to work. (Evidently it only works correctly using newer builds, but I haven’t gotten one running yet. The version on the SourceForge page is several years old.) There aren’t any slots free in Chronicles’ sound file, and I believe Eternal only has one.
In any case, even if I could get that ShapeFusion feature to work, I suspect there are probably only a small number of slots that can be added without problems (my guess is 256, and IIRC there are something like 215 sounds in vanilla Infinity), and I would want to use them for something more important than volume changes for otherwise identical sounds. Most would probably be used for different weapon/ambient/platform/monster sounds.
A final problem is that this approach would require that everyone using a given script have something other than the vanilla Infinity sound file, which essentially negates its being used in any net maps that anyone would ever actually play – 99% of the net games anyone plays are on maps requiring players besides the gatherer to have only the A1 app and the vanilla Infinity files.
To be fair, it’s not likely that too many people are as attuned to sound things like this as I am, but nonetheless, if it’s practical to program in without messing up something else, I’d appreciate it.
“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
