UT 2k3/2k4 RainbowSix mute would like some testers

[Corporal_Lib [BR]]

I will have to re-download those OSM maps and see what glitches I encounter. The problem with replacing pickups is that they are sometimes use by the mappers to trigger events. If you can give me an example of the the cascading health pickups (by map name) I will see if I can fix the bug.

I'm not sure about the AK107 and P90 yet, its a big maybe...

OSM-Gauntlet has cascades in every corner (just exagerrating, they´re only where the pickups of megahealth and ammo were supposed to be), OSM-Nocture 1 and 2 have those cascades where the megahealth should be (I´ve found 4 medipacks aligned at the ground without the glitch, suppose they were replacing the health vials...) and the map lags exactly where it happens!
OSM-Seraphim Falling lags as heck and is unplayable (lotsa pickups I guess) and OSM-Use of weapons lags cus it has lotsa custom contente and the maps are HUUUGE and full of movers... Wankara and Work as a charm (they´re the only ones I can singleplay)

Wallrun and pipeclimb will be quite useful in some of those maps (kinda cheating the script but who cares lol), and a big maybe is better than a little no, ;D cheers

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

@ Kyle; if you open up the console in SWAT 3 and type "handsup" (without the quotations), you get a full first person view, along with full body awareness. You'll see your arms and legs, see yourself pulling flashbangs or magazines out of your vest pockets, opening doors etc. Not bad for a game made in 1999.

Mind you, it'll look pretty ugly if you're not using any higher polygon weapon or officer mods

I tried that MANY moons ago. It's hard for me to remember it now, but if my memory serves me correctly I stopped using the "handsup" console command because, correct me if I'm wrong, it somehow interfered with one's combat capabilities. I can't remember exactly what, but it was something like one's weapons weren't synced up with where one's reticule was at, or the reticule was missing altogether with a crooked weapon. Aagh! Whatever it was, I remembered it aggravated me to no end.

And I don't mind low-poly counts. In all honesty, I felt like the low-poly look of Thief and Thief II were perfect and strongly evoked a sense of looking at characters/environments that were a combination of woodblock prints and stained glass windows; a strange combination I know, but aesthetically it was much more pleasing to me than the more realistically depicted environments of Thief III.

The first two Thief titles STILL look great to me the grandpas that they are! And they play far better and with more depth than most of the crap that's being released these last several years...


And in regards to SMOD Tactical, I knew that he had an affinity for INF, but then again, anyone who has ever invested some time into it cannot but help walk away being impressed. DEEPLY I'd say!



And Meow, I just want to add how deeply impressed I am with where you've taken your initial endeavor, and with how hard you're striving on delivering a product that stays topnotch. My life's swamped in work right now, and I don't know how you do it. Thanks again for doing what you do...

 

[meowcat]

@ Corporal_Lib [BR]: I can probably have the P90 ready (I'm UV-Mapping it now). I only need to add a melee first person anim and it will be ready for inclusion. The AK107 only really requires me to make the kobra sight (no ECD on that). Also, thank you for listing the maps. I will give those a go this weekend and fix the issue.

@ Kyle: Thank you for all the feedback and suggestions! Given the extensive simulation options you would like to see, I will probably keep the INF mute separate so I can add to it as required. If nothing else I can start adding the variables to the weapon and player classes to support those options though. The loadout system could take a while to include weapon attachments etc. My one main concern is keeping performance relatively high. INF 2.9 ran so incredibly terribly for me (due to all of the script code) that I stopped playing it altogether (ONS in UT2k4 usually ran better believe it or not on the same computer). I will see what I can do to add those options after this next release.

I hear you about work. This hobby is varied enough (I can be coding one minute, modeling or UVing the next, and putting together a map 5 minutes later) that I can nibble away at adding stuff slowly (the YARM work so far is the combination of almost 6+ years of accumulated stuff). I very much appreciate your (and everyone else's) feedback and encouragement.

 

[chuckus]

Sounds good Mewocat. The second resident unreal map worked until the end although it was somewhat underwhelming.

I was hoping more in the way of puzzles and a much more indepth experience. The maps are fairly accurate considering the game is condensed down to about 7 minutes of playtime. Wish the mapper was much more gung-ho about making it a longer excursion. The zombies are just pupae with zombie meshes and voices. Kinda neat trick.

OSM maps download page

On a side note, on double checking if it's gun-ho or gung-ho I found out the origin of the term "gung-ho"
http://www.chinapage.com/word/gungho.html

God bless the internet.

 

[meowcat]

Well if I get around to making some SP/Coop maps I hope to include some interesting old school Boss fights. Part of the reason I was hoping to get the parkour moves in was so that I could include movement puzzles, to go along with the normal exploration and combat. I also suppose I really ought to get around replacing my old test zombie model (ugh they were ugly) with something actually meant to be seen by the light of day.

On another note the P90 will be in the next version. I've just about finished the basic skin for the model.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Adjusting bot speeds...bots' sight attributes & shadows...

Could anyone here advise me where I can find the config for UT2004's bots? I badly want to play YARM on RedOrchestra's maps, but the bots' speed is just out of control.

I'd like to see if adjusting the bots' settings could slow them down...a LOT. I guess my concern would be focused on altering Epic's bots' or YARM's bots' settings. If I find a setting that seems reasonable I'm more than happy to share it here once I discover what it is.

Any advice as to what files I need to alter and which settings I'd need to adjust?


And Meow, to hear you say that you're seriously considering allowing the bots to use round penetration is a VERY exciting thing to hear. In INF it happened mostly by accident, but since I loaded up my sessions with 24+bots those accidents happened a lot and really kept me on my toes in regards to seeking out the best cover possible!


In regards to attaching all of the gizmos and doodads to the firearms... I honestly feel that most players would automatically be drawn to many of the contraptions that are so routine nowadays on modern firearms: the tactical grips, IR laser (if this was functional as in INF or COD4, then "Wow!"), and flashlight. Those three gadgets make their appearances seemingly everywhere, and if they were modeled/coded into all of the firearms I don't think that there would be many who would complain about them automatically appearing on their weapon with no other option than to have them.

It seems to me that the ones of special concern though, are the aiming aides (Aimpoint, Reflex, ACOG, Elcan, etc. ...) suppressors and grenade launchers. These come with very large price tags and a host of consequences. If I were forced to focus my time on any of the gadgets so that they are player-defined options, it would be on these three.

If you go down this road, I'd like you to seriously consider releasing the only other game out there that has believable and functional grenade launcher sites. INF is the first title to achieve this feat, and I've yet to see another game or mod come close to touching the system they devised.

There's so much debate about suppressors that I hate to even bring it up now. I've done a lot of research on these things, and it seems like everyone's point of view regarding them is correct! That said, I'd argue that firearms equipped with suppressors should use specialized subsonic ammo that has reduced range and velocity but is still quite lethal due to its weight and design. There should be a trade off for using weapons that makes it harder to be heard by players and bots, and the specialized subsonic rounds provide the negative consequences with the reduced ranges and velocities. Now I'm going to scoot off of this topic before anyone else notices...!


Whatever aiming aides you decide to grace us with, again, if it's at all possible, please try to duplicate the full functionality that the real life aides provide, such as having a "backup" ironsight system integrated into the topmost portion of the aide. The recently released SCAR does a GREAT job of accomplishing this feat, amongst other weapon muts released for INF.


I came across an article while I was trying to find ways to reduce bot speeds, and this article briefly mentioned that UT2004's bots have vision capabilities that are NOT affected by the amount of light that surrounds their target. Is this true? If so, I'm wondering if there's any way that a mut made for UT called "Thief" could be integrated into your mod. The Thief mut caused individuals to become increasingly more invisible and harder to detect when they were engulfed in shadows. The darker the shadow, the more invisible they would become. BlackCat made this a prime feature of their amazing TC "Thievery," and the AI was affected by how much darkness the player was in. What I propose is this: if such a mod is doable for UT2004, the adjustments would NOT make the characters more/less INVISIBLE in the game based on how much shade they were in. This is so that human players can actually have a chance to see their target who may/may not be trying to conceal their position. But the invisibility would only affect bots. If a bot target was standing in shade, a human player would have difficulty seeing it but NOT because it was invisible, but because it was standing in SHADOW, but an enemy AI WOULD be affected by the bot-only-invisibility so that it too would be challenged to find its target. A bot standing in moderate shadow would be moderately "translucent" to the eyes of another BOT. So, as strange as this sounds, the invisibility effect would only affect bots, but not affect the VISUALS being displayed in the game to human eyes. If a player wants to stay invisible to a human then they better be good at sneaking around.

Ugh! My brain HURTS from trying to think through the terminology in that last paragraph. I hope that I make sense to more than just me!


And, I don't want to sound like a total newb by asking this, but where does the name "parkour" come from in regards to naming the super cool and agile pawn?

 

[meowcat]

Thank you for the suggestions and feedback! There is a very real chance that I will implement some of these (just may take a couple of months). Here are some of my thoughts on some of these topics.

Bot Speed: If you can spectate a bot, use the 'showdebug' console command and take a look at what there 2d speed is. If it is above 230 then the RO maps themselves may be doing something to the bot's pawn's groundspeed variable. The DesiredSpeed variable/scaling factor is the pawn is used (and set) by the Bot code depending on their skill setting. I think for YARM is set it to 1 as it made no sense (to me) that 'dumber' bots would not run just as fast as higher skilled bots.

Bot Vision: There was a mod/mutator (Tactical Shadows IIRC) that adjusted the player's 'visibility' variable to bots based on light (or rather proximity to nearby light actors). The Visibility variable affects how visible a pawn is to an AI controller. It works something like this (I figured this out while working on my half finished Metal Gear Solid mod):
VisThreshDist = (OtherVis/128) * ThisPawnSightRadius

Once the AI Pawn is closer than VisThreshDist to the other pawn, within peripheral
view, and has a clear LOS, the 'SeePlayer' event will be called each tick (or maybe only after the SightCounter variable times out less than zero and is reset) in the AI Controller.

The problem with lighting is that there is no efficient or easy way to determine how visible a pawn is. Ambient brightness, the number/radius/color of lights all play a role. Tactical shadows did a nice job, but it was still not close to perfect. If I were making a a more stealthy SP game, then I would implement the light/visibility system by map specific zones/volumes/"camo area" actors as those could be done efficiently and tailored perfectly to a level. Its a 'nice to have' feature, but as with everything else would really demand completely custom maps to work well (and not destroy performance on servers). This could be done, just not by me alone.

Weapon Attachments: At the moment I've just been including models both with and without the attachments (no special actors). I can add the little details like backup iron sights to the optics, but making them and the optic sight functional in a simple way would require some more thought on how to make it intuitive (I'd rather not make another key, but adjusting the function of another key while aimed is an option...). As for GLs, I liked INF's M203 and could implement it (the arming distance etc) fairly easily I believe.

Bot Hearing: It works *roughly* like this:
DistThreshold = HearingTheshold * SquareRoot(Loudness)

Loudness passed to the HearNoise function (in controller) is literally the same value as is passed to MakeNoise by weapons when fired, or players jumping. If the actor making the noise is closer to the AI's pawn than DistThreshold, HearNoise will be called. It's important to note that if the LOS to the "noisy actor" is blocked by BSP then additional muffling will occur decreasing the DistThreshold. Normal Weapons use a loudness of 1, most YARM suppressed weapons use a loudness of 0.15.

Weapon Ballistics (as applied to a game), my own little rant: I think most of it is crap and a waste of processing power & development time with respect to actual gameplay, UNLESS there is a noticeable difference in performance for the given type of combat. What I mean by that is if one rifle's ammo/barrel/other characteristics mean it will inflict 45 base damage points, and another rifle will cause 34, they are almost equivalent (both will kill a full 'health' player in three shots) unless there is some other significant difference (like body armor penetration or damage decrease with range, overall weapon accuracy, penetration through solids etc.), in which case, unless you had some major Pros and Cons for each weapon, more than likely a dominant weapon would appear and all others would be ignored altogether. So in the case of suppressed weapons, I have no complaints as it makes sense that their range/muzzle velocity would be less, if they also had the added benefit of not being noticed as easily by bots (this has already been implemented by YARM suppressed weapons.

This of course again means that a better player pawn damage model/system is required (I think I left the YARM Damage mute in the last release, it had a few options for more location specific damage scaling). I have never been shot, but I would assume that just about any gunshot that is not a graze (with little more than a skin abrasion), would probably take you down for the count/out of action unless it squarely hit body armor (that stopped it) and even then you would probably be pretty stunned/knocked over. So for that reason I think spending too much time trying to accurately model weapon/projectile damages and ballistics (with respect to realism) is a little silly unless you also brutally punish the player for being shot to begin with (in which case all guns are more or less equal once they directly hit a player I suppose...).

So what does this mean for YARM? I am very willing to implement new pawn damage models, more accurate weapon ballistics, but I won't do it at the cost of game performance if the difference is not going to be noticeable anyways. I am more than willing to put in code 'hooks' to allow others to experiment with different values without having to recompile the whole code file (I've already have some hooks included, though I need to clean the code up a bit).

I'm not quite sure where the term Parkour came from, but I think 'free running' as it is today was started in France (not to say that those kind of moves have not been done by Circus performers and acrobats for hundreds of years prior).

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Wow! Thanks for the detailed reply. Its thoroughness really expanded my understanding the mechanics of the game.

I have to keep this short as I'm on my way to work, but in which file could I locate the settings that you're making reference to?

Thanks!

 

[chuckus]

Weapon attachments.
While this would be a much more code intensive solution and it's workability in UT2k4 is questionable, STalker has a system where attachments are completely seperate models and when attached in the inventory menu, are spawned on the weapon equipped. I'm not sure if There are variables to define where the attachment is displayed in the 1st person viewmode to create the illusion that it's attached when really it's technically just floating under or on top of the weapon or whether Stalker's engine simply uses the XYZ coordinates and model scale set in the weapons config to determine where to put the scope on the weapon. I know that for example on the m16 equivalent in the game, the ACOG is much bigger than when it's attached to the mp5. It could be that weapon is scaled to the model or it appears that way because the XYZ coordinates place the mp5 further ahead.

In this way, any weapon can have an ACOG provided you set the "attachscope" variable to 1 in it's config.

In doing so, allowing weapon attachments would require a lot of work in the beginning but then would be easy for all subsequent weapons. I don't know if UT2k4's engine could support this and the coding might wind up being so convoluted that it's not worth it.

Secondary Sights.

Since Yarm by default uses the middle mouse to aim, perhaps "middle mouse" would always default to Iron sights and backup sights. To use the scope, you have to then press alternate fire or "right mouse" to use the attached scope. While in aimed mode, melee attacks would be disabled but as it stands now, the melee is a bit of a cheat as you can cap off a few rounds and start swinging in between almost every shot and resume shooting before the weapon is even returned to the shoulder. This would fix that problem by preventing melee attacks while aimed rather than having to code a time delay for shooting during melee attacks.

 

[meowcat]

@Kyle: To change the various weapon damages (and how their scaled by range) requires you to compile your own .u file with only a single class, subclassed from ym_WeapDataSet (or however many different damage 'sets' you want). This is easy to do and I will include a quick tutorial in the next release. The class 'YM_CODGameGearUtil' should be used as the template for any subclasses you make. it contains the basic damage data, wall penetration rating, and min/max ranges at which damage decrease is calculated. The setting 'WeaponDataClass=' in the yarmTDconfig.ini file under the [yarm_CODMW.mute_YarmCODMW] section allows you to direct the mutator (and weapons when playing the COD mutator) to the correct weapon data set class.

I am very willing to add more variables to this weapon data set information for making the damage/effects calculations/model more realistic.

@Chuckus: I actually did that system (or a very similar method) back in UT2k3. That is what I will probably do this time as well. For several of my weapon models I already have attachment points built in (or could use existing ones with an offset). As long as I don't permit changing the attachments mid game (or while the player is still living and their weapon has not been destroyed), the replication overhead is minimal (just replicate the attachment activation byte when the weapon and its third person component are first spawned). The other sort of sticky issue is figuring how to adjust the iron sights depending on which attachment is included. I'll take a look at adding it to YARM.

[EDIT]
Also here are two shots of the P90 (I have not coded in the Red Dot sight version in though the model is done).
<->

[EDIT 2] Some changes for the next release:
1. M67 grenades in YARM COD and INF will actually be the M67s instead of the glowy smoky ones (which will still remain in the YARM Weapons mutator
2. FN P90 and FN57 are in
3. Much better Parkour code for the test pawn. It's not ready for application to all of the other yarm type pawns, but its close.
4. Multiple firemodes on the AK and M16AR
5. Adrenaline can be turned on and off (to support OSM maps)
6. There is a config file setting for the COD and INF YARM mutators that can turn off the crosshairs for added realism (not replicated)
7. Weapon tracers can be turned on and off via a config file setting (not replicated)

Will update more as I work down the checklist.

[EDIT 3]
I've fixed the "cascading" item drop issue with OSM maps, but its sort of an ugly hack (the end result being that some dropped items will not be replaced).

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Meow,

You're a fast worker!

I like that! Just remember to get some sleep every now and then.

Thanks for the info regarding the weapons. It's strange to think that portions of STALKER's weapons might not even "be" there as we think they are. The smoke and mirrors that are used in video game creating are truly astounding.

I hate to say this, but what I'm looking for is the name of the file that will allow me to alter the bots' behavior, specifically their movement speeds. I want to ratchet them way down to see if this mod can be playable on RO's superb maps. The game mechanics are a pleasure, but I'm hoping that the base of maps that are strongly rooted in realism can be expanded, and RO has that in spades. Of course the bots move as a bullet on said maps, so that sort of kills the sense of immersion, to put it mildly.

It's exciting to see what you've got coming up for us right around the corner. Are you planning on putting any variant of a SCAR into the game? I'm not so concerned about when, because if you haven't noticed it yet, you already have a lot on your plate!

 

[meowcat]

Hi Kyle. If you could spectate the bots for while, use the 'showdebug' console command and let me know what the Speed2d is for the bots on the RO maps is that would help get an idea of whether its something I can adjust or not. I could probably toss in a few more options in the YARM Bot mutator to tame their rapid speed.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Meow,

I've spectated and checked out the bots on RO's Warsaw, your version of Ghostown, and another "standard" UT2004 map (can't remember the title right now), and on all three maps, the bots routinely hit 420 as their max 2D speed. And that's set to "average" skill.

Hope this helps!

 

[meowcat]

hmm, that is not even close to correct (the default max ground speed is 230 for yarmPawns). Are you running any other mutators, and do you have any of the speed modifier settings turned on in YARM?

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

The only other muts that I'm running are the blood loss and vampire damage muts. All the other active mods are YARM. I'm pretty confident though that I achieved those ridiculous speeds BEFORE I activated the blood/vampire muts.

I'll try again with them off.

One thing that's a bit odd though. All of the bots have "Halo" based names because I have the Halo TC mod installed, "Project Torlan." However NONE of those muts are activated, yet their names are showing up in the game.

Could it be that as well, or...?

 

[Corporal_Lib [BR]]

@Kyle, I think you haven´t configured the YARM mutie in the mutator selection menu (select the mutator then hit the "configure", button low right screen corner, so you can acess the mutator config menu), as you can easily slow down the bots this way (and enable "bots don´t run when shooting" option)... they won´t walk as bots in INF, but they aren´t "speedy gonzales" like the average UT2K4 bot anymore ;D

@Meowcat: ouhhha, this P90 is sweet! It could be supressed in a future release (or comboned with red dot, tactical light and suppressor as the INF one)... and speaking ´bout attachments, the backup sight could be activated by holding down right key + another function, or UT2K4 engine doesn´t permit key combos?

And if the cascade fix for OSM maps eliminates the huge laaaaag, it isn´t a ugly hack, its a gift =D

by the way, I suggest everyone to watch B13 and B13 Ultimatum, as an astonishing parkour flick ;D

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Bot speed up caused by...

Meow,

I'm happy that you said what you did, because it prompted me to go back and remove the muts. The result?

The bot speeds on ALL maps, including Red Orchestra's, were much more realistic!

Between the two extra muts I was using, BloodLossClassic.u was the culprit behind speeding up the bots. Strangely, BloodLossLite.u did NOT cause the bots to speed up. I'm happy about that, although I still prefer BloodLossClassic's features better. Till (and if) you implement your own wounding/bloodloss/bandaging system, it's the Lite version that's going to have to do.

The Vampire Damage mut does not cause any speed up by itself or in combination with BloodLossLite.

If I wasn't so exhausted from work all the time, I have no doubt that I would've had a good idea of the most recent change that I myself made that could've triggered the bots to speed up.

Oh well, better late than never. Perhaps in your upcoming Read Me you'd like to start making note of other muts that have a negative consequence.

One observation: I never noticed before that the YARM's Weapons mut produced not only a M67 with a super long & thick smoke trail, but that it also produced a yellow glow. Maybe the one mut was causing the glow not to appear, or perhaps my bloodshot eyes were too tired to notice it. I'm really enjoying the YARM Weapons mut a lot as it replicates pretty well the INF v.2.95 that I love and remember. But the smoke and the glow on the frag, well... Would you consider supplying a toggle to turn those effects on/off? It'd be greatly appreciated by me if you could.

Also, I installed tonight a mut called MutBotManager-v6.1 and while it works well with the Halo bots, it doesn't seem to affect the YARM bots at all. One of the features that I like about the MutBotManager is that allows the player to select the kits for specific bots which can be selected by the player. Are YARM's bots so different that the manager can't find them or integrate with them, both or...?

Time for bed! Good night all!

 

[meowcat]

@Kyle: Mutators that replace the pawn class and/or playercontroller/bot classes (like YARM optionally does) are always incompatible with each other (though you may be able to use subfeatures of them like custom weapons etc.). I have not tried all of the other mutes out there, I was only aware that a few like MonkeyMatrixMoves, RuneStorm's Ballistic Weapons, Popsi's Independent gravity, Chaos, and a few others that affect player movement were incompatible.

I've fixed the grenades for the next release (INF and COD mutes use normal non-smoky/glowy M67s, only YARM weapons will still use the halo style frag grens).

I will take a look at the bloodloss mutator. Problem is that you can't always assume that a map will have any health pickups at all to stop the bleeding (start the breathing, protect the wound, treat for shock,... boy even 4 years later I still remember that...). Do you have a link to the MutBotManager?

I really liked some of the content from project Torlan, but boy was that mod messy/disorganized. It messed up all kinds of settings and had so many separate packages that should have been combined. It took a fresh install of UT2k4 to finally clear everything out.

@ Corporal_Lib [BR]: I'd watched that chase scene before, but never the entire movie. You were right, it's really good for showing off parkour moves/work.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Meow,

Here's the link to the bot manager mut:
http://www.filefront.com/3951227/Mut-Bot-Manager-6.1/

I hope that it proves useful.

I'm off to do some more testing. If I'm awake enough at its end I'll probably have something more to post.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

It looks like that bot manager is only for the Halo Flood Invasion gametype, which is a major letdown. I thought that it would work on the other gametypes, but if it does so, I haven't been able to get it to work. What made it especially disappointing is that the GUI makes it appear that one can specify which bots will show up on which team, but when I spawned it was just me wearing the Halo gear and everyone else was a default UT2004 character.