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Topics - Ver

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1
Technical Help: IN GAME bugs (after loading world) / Grainy GUI
« on: February 09, 2008, 02:53:17 pm »
Now that I've installed the current version of the game, I see the GUI objects (not the 3D objects) looking very grainy and pixelated, whereas it appeared crisp in the previous version. This problem is livable, but I'd rather have a way to fix it.

Does anyone else get this problem?

2
Development Deliberation / 3D Grass
« on: January 14, 2008, 01:51:11 pm »
Will they remove the 3D grass in the next release altogether?

The grass has increased slowdown for PS users virtually across the board. The team had to release a patch already for those people that saw the game become unplayably slow because of the grass. It doesn't even look good. Unlike most 3D grass in other games, what we have going right now literally looks like cardboard cutouts because the individual patches are single flat poly with a texture and spaced too far apart (although if they changed that, it would only make it run even slower).

3
Server Status / Updater, pt. deux (client .3.20)
« on: October 22, 2007, 05:59:42 pm »
Who uploads the files to the updater and why have they not been uploaded yet?

And yes, I am on dial-up, and no I will not redownload the whole game over again. If the answer I get is a big fat "no", then this is the only large-sized game (free or pay) I know of that requires users  ot redownload the whole thing without a patch option.

4
General Discussion / What's going on here?
« on: October 14, 2007, 06:38:14 pm »
I haven't tried v0.3.20 yet (I don't want to redownload everything, so I am waiting for the files to be loaded into the updater). The consensus seems to be that this version added lots of great new features, but also added many bugs.

Lots of crashes. Pretty grass that absolutely murders the framerate. Some people can't get it running. Mining isn't working out? GUI clunkiness? Even people with high-end computers are getting unbelievable lag in Hydlaa?

What's going on here? Maybe it's time for version 0.3.20b (first stable release)?

5
Is this quest broken?

I've given the seven drinks to Crosh Dunehammer, and when asked if I knew who "Zak" is, I answered no. Then he mumbles a bit more and and says "I just heard something". He says nothing more. I've tried every answer to this cliffhanger-type statement I could think of, including "what did you hear" and "what is it"? The only answer he recognizes is "no", which just makes him re-loop the same statement.

The quest isn't finished, so there must be something left to do. It seems that this is a case of poor storytelling. I have asked a couple of players how they got through this, and they told me they got stuck at the same part.

6
General Discussion / Mounts?
« on: October 05, 2007, 06:27:21 pm »
Personally, it's very hard for me to imagine how mounts will be implemented within the current framework of PS. Advanced features like player-owned houses with limited interior-customization seem much easier to imagine at this point -- they might be here by the time Steel Blue is released (cross fingers).

On the other hand mounts just seem...difficult. For land-based mounts like horses, there's the issue of where they're stored. Mounts can't just appear and disappear at will -- you'd have to incorporate areas that are "stables" into the maps, where the player can "rent" one at any time, or possibly/alternately there is a stable that the stable-watcher NPC calls "yours" (even though "your" particular space is technically also owned by hundreds or thousands of other characters) where your bought and owned horse is kept. The latter option will allow a player to feel that their character has more domain over virtual property, but mildly hurts suspension of disbelief. And mounted characters absolutely should not be allowed to enter cities, or ridiculousness will inevitably ensue. Mounted characters would have slight advantages in overland travel speed and in combat.

Aerial mounts (like pretasaurs) are tougher. Begin with the pertinent issues from land mounts, and consider the factor of flight. The player should NOT be able to control the flying mount (which would take forever to code and still introduce 80 million new bugs), but rather it should be handled like World of Warcraft which has the player selecting a destination and the flying mount auto-piloting to that destination (and the aerial view is priceless). Essentially the player goes to a "stable" where pretasaurs are kept, selects another stable for pretasaurs in Yliakum, and the mounted character is shown being auto-flown to that destination. But the usefulness of owning extremely expensive flying mounts must be apparent to the player vis a vis their friends magically teleporting them.

I have no doubt that by 1.0 all of these issues will have been worked out and things like mounts implemented into stratospheric quality. Go PS team! :beta:

7
Complaint Department / I'm whiny?
« on: October 05, 2007, 01:06:35 pm »
I am according to a handful of project devs. And apparently broken quests don't count as being bugged:

http://www.hydlaa.com/flyspray_upgrade/index.php?do=details&task_id=352

8
General Discussion / Decals?
« on: October 03, 2007, 03:09:56 pm »
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Image:Showcase_1_1_Decals.jpg

Are Planeshift's graphics movin' on up again?

Decals are one of the nicest 3D effects, and it would be great for the PS graphical devs to apply decal technology to the character shadows. Granted, .19 is the first implementation of character shadows, and basically all they are right now are a simple circular image of a shadow that follows the model's z-coordinate. But the prospects are exciting.

9
General Discussion / Bad-looking trees
« on: October 01, 2007, 11:24:01 pm »
I am sure people have noticed that on the long narrow path outside of Hydlaa city, the "trees" along that path look terrible! :thumbdown:

They're nothing but a single small texture repeating over and over. It looks like someone cut out a bad cardboard image of tree trunks, made thousands of copies, and glued them on to cheap pieces of flat black posterboard, rather than like a forest.

What caused the map designers to (no offense intended) slap an ugly repeating wallpaper over a flat-polygon wall instead of having rows of polygonal individual trees? I can't imagine it was technical limitations -- maps like the Eagle Bronze Doors and Hydlaa city are far larger and more high-poly than that forest path, and their trees look like trees!

10
Guides and Tutorials / NPC Conversation Guide
« on: September 11, 2007, 09:24:19 pm »
The usefulness of this guide is subject to change as the NPC conversational AI changes.

New Planeshift players should note that Planeshift, unlike the competition, really is a role-playing game. You are required to stay in character and the setting is allowed to be suspended only for reasons of technical aid. Interaction with NPCs is not constrained to a few generic questions or responses that can be selected from a  pop-up menu. The developers decided that to make the game experience intuitive and full of verisimilitude on every front, it was necessary to have players communicate with NPCs in a unique way: by typing in phrases and sentences, as you would communicate with other players. All communication with non-player characters in PS is done through typing phrases. MUDs have done it for years.

The following is a list of the phrases/questions that almost all of the game's current NPCs will answer to:

  • Hello- NPCs interpret this as a greeting
  • What is your name?- NPCs tell you their names as well as a a brief introduction of themselves
  • Who are you?- NPCs tell you some information about themselves
  • What do you do?- NPCs tell you about their occupation
  • How are you- NPCs tell you how their personal business is going, and the reply is often related to the quest they have for you
  • I need a quest- NPCs reply by offering a quest if they have one
  • What do you sell?- NPCs tell you what kind of goods they sell if they are merchants
  • Give me a <item>- NPCs may give you a particular item (often at a price)
  • Where is the <place>- NPCs may give you where a particular place is located and how to get there
  • Goodbye- NPCs interpret this as a statement of leaving (note: this doesn't end the conversation with NPCs -- PS NPCs answer any question or statement in any order)

This list is absolutely not exhaustive. There are also many aliases. Instead of "hello" you could just as well say "hi", "greetings", "hail", or "salutations". Instead of "I need a quest" you can just as easily ask "can I help you?" Instead of "give me a sack" you could say "I need a sack" or "I want a sack". As the NPC conversation system becomes more advanced and articulate, NPCs will be able to provide accurate answers to complex sentences and even multiple sentences.

I hope this guide is a useful reference.

11
Complaint Department / Bad Skies
« on: September 11, 2007, 08:53:48 pm »
Has anyone mentioned this thus far?

Planeshift's skies look terrible! There are no clouds or movement of any kind, just an extremely grainy and unattractive mass of homogeneous blueness with no clouds or sun.

Old 3d games with much lower quality graphics than PS had much better looking skies. Examples are Everquest Classic and the old Lithtech games (like Shojo). Is it some kind of issue with the Crystal Space engine that makes PS have the terrible-looking skies? It seems like the terrible-looking sky is an artifact from the earliest Atomic Blue version releases of PS that no developer ever bothered to go back in and improve.

12
Development Deliberation / Bump Mapping
« on: September 08, 2007, 10:35:16 pm »
An example of bump mapping (model on the left is after applying a bump map, the version on the right is before bump mapping): http://www.blender.org/typo3temp/pics/b80cff90da.jpg

Developers of all types of PC games, and increasingly console games, use bump mapping to fill in minute and beautiful details. It saves tremendous amounts of polygons.

In a nutshell, an area of bump mapping on a model causes that area to appear lighter or darker in relation to the current environmental lighting on that model, portraying depth. It is a relatively easy and low-memory alternative to using lots of polygons to fill minute details.

Planescape doesn't seem to have any bump mapping yet. A question I'd like to ask developers is will it ever? While PS's graphics are good now, but they'll be tremendously better if the art department eventually utilizes bump maps on models and landscapes, even able to compete with some of the newer MMO releases out there (if they also overhaul the environmental lighting and shadows system).

13
Fan Art / The Character Modeling and Skinning Art Project
« on: September 05, 2007, 03:29:09 pm »
The Character Project

It gets a little depressing looking at all the races and genders in the PS character selection screen that don't have a model yet. It's perhaps the biggest reminder that PS is far from a finished game. Here I propose a new project where individual members including myself add lots of skins and models to flesh out the character appearances. Hopefully they will be of high quality and included in the next possible version of Planeshift.

Present all skins in .PNG picture format, along with some preview shots. The PS team can simply convert them into .DDS texture format later.

Provide a download link for all modeling work, and please provide some preview screenshots as well.

Let http://www.planeshift.it/races.html be a guide.

Current Project Goals: (Completed goals are crossed out)

Ylian Males:

-Skin three new face textures: a "tribal" face, an "Asian" face, and a "malevolent" face
-Skin two new textures for each face and for the hands texture, one for a "dark" skin color and the other for "light", the current one being called "tan". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the eye color the same, though)
-Model two new hair styles: long and short
-Model two new beard styles: goatee and none (that one ought to be easy modeling, eh? ;) )

Ylian Females: For now

-Create an ylian female model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the dermorian or ynnwn female model, make necessary changes, and you are done.

Xacha Males: For now

-Create a xacha male model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the dermorian male model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Xacha Females: For now

-Create a xacha female model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the dermorian female model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Dermorian Males:

-Skin two new face textures -- any design you want. Extra points if they differ noticeably from the existing faces
-Skin two new textures for each face and for the hands, leg arm, and foot textures, one for a "amber" skin color and the other for "cream", the current one being called "copper". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the clothes color the same, though)
-Model two new hair styles: long and short (make sure it still has a couple of bangs)

Dermorian Females:

-Skin two new face textures -- any design you want. Extra points if they differ noticeably from the existing faces
-Skin two new textures for each face and for the hands, arm, foot, and leg textures, one for a "amber" skin color and the other for "cream", the current one being called "copper". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the clothes color the same, though)

Stonebreaker Males:

-Slightly modify the face tattoo skin to make the tattoos more visible
-Skin two new textures for each face and for the hands and cfoot textures, one for a "pale" skin color and the other for "dark", the current one being called "normal". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the clothes color the same, though)
-Model two new hair styles: ponytail and short

Stonebreaker Females:
-Skin three new face textures: elderly, face tattoo, and one of any style you can think of
-Skin two new textures for each face and for the arms texture, one for a "pale" skin color and the other for "dark", the current one being called "normal". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the clothes color the same, though)
-Model two new hair styles: short (just remove the pigtails) and long (make the pigtails thicker and slightly longer)

Hammerwielder Males: For now

-Create a hammerwielder male model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the stonebreaker model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Hammerwielder Females: For now

-Create a hammerwielder female model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the stonebreaker model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Lemur Males: For now

-Create a lemur male model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the dermorian model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Lemur Females: For now

-Create a lemur female model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the dermorian model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Diaboli Males: For now

-Create a diaboli male model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the ynnwn model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Diaboli Females: For now

-Create a diaboli female model with a corresponding medium hair model and skin it with 1 choice of faces. Don't feel like you have to start from scratch -- use the ynnwn model, make a few changes, and you are done.

Klyros:

-Skin three new face textures, each with a different style of tattoo
-Skin two new textures for each face and for each texture, one for a "gray-green" skin color and the other for "dark azure", the current one being called "aqua". This one is very easy because all you need to do is a RGB simple color swap (keep the clothes color the same, though)
-Differentiate the male and female klyros by altering the torso, leg, and foot texture somewhat so that females have a different style of clothing
-Differentiate the male and female klyros by making the male klyros have slightly larger wings. This should be very easy to do -- simply go into 3DSMax/Maya/Blender and increase the wing size slightly

Other:

-TBA

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