Fire Won't Appear

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Chalky
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Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Sun Jul 25, 2010 1:11 pm

I am making a campaign with the Lugaru Map Editor, I'm making a level where you go to a camp and talk to some people. In the middle of the camp is a fire, it appears in debug mode however when I load the level the fire doesn't appear. Any help will be appreciated.

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ChosenOne
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by ChosenOne » Sun Jul 25, 2010 5:13 pm

Are "Flame.png" and "Smoke.png" still in the "Textures" folder? Maybe you moved or deleted them by accident if editing textures.

And do they look correct if you view them?

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Chalky
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Sun Jul 25, 2010 5:30 pm

Both Flame.png and smoke.png are in the Textures folder.

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ChosenOne
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by ChosenOne » Sun Jul 25, 2010 7:04 pm

If you go back to your original Lugaru install (or unzip, actually, since it doesn't install) is fire visible there?

Can we get some details on your upcoming campaign? Maybe a teaser or something/details/images, etc. I happen to have one in the works as well, though it's development hangs in the balance. I'm experiencing unforseen difficulties.

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Chalky
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Sun Jul 25, 2010 7:10 pm

I really don't know anything about my campaign myself, I have a couple levels made but I haven't really thought up a story that I really like yet. :oops:

When I do I will send some stuff.

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Chalky
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:56 am

So I have the plot figured out. Here it goes:

Lugaru was peaceful, until the Mainlander Empire made an alliance with the raiders to help take over the island. The Kingdom of Koskhan, the ruling kingdom of Lugaru, are able to eventually fight them off, with the help of the wolves. Now in the ensuing chaos The Priory a sect of the Koskhan military attempt to kill the king and take over the island.

You play as Blackmeir The Priory's best soldier and person tasked with taking down the weakening Koskhan kingdom.

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ChosenOne
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by ChosenOne » Mon Jul 26, 2010 1:57 pm

Hmm not too bad, though it's very similar to the original story and also similar to a couple of mods already created. Could you innovate something more original? Maybe something without raiders, since that's obviously borrowed.

Here's a thought - Why not continue the original Lugaru's story. At the end, Turner is left without a purpose in life after setting things right and says he'll go wander the island in search of what he needs to do.
So, what might he do? Who needs him, and why? He's the best fighter on the island. What will befall him now?

I challenge you to have Turner (or your own protagonist) leave the island and do something totally new. Draw a new map for your mod. Don't forget a cool logo with an accompanying menu screen bg, too.

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kehaar
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by kehaar » Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:28 pm

Yay! More campaigns!
Fire can be kinda buggy, iirc.

You might have luck changing the fire's size, rotation or height (by jumping a little as you hit the key-- I know, right?)

There are a fair amount of bugs that pop up at the intersection of two or three objects... stuff popping in and out of visibility, not saving/loading right, outrageous consumption of frame rate, and glitches where characters can fall through "solid" objects and get trapped inside them.

I definitely endorse when making maps with fire/fire platforms to make the fire/center of the dialogue action first and see if it saves before you spend a ton of hours on the rest of the map.

Also might work to save the fire and exit all the way out of Lugaru to your desktop, then reload it. It takes a minute or two, but if it works it's worth it. That's a key trick for dialogue, too.

By the way, in snow and sand maps, you HAVE to use a platform to shoot dialogue! The drifting ground will change height under your "camera" with every load and wreck all your shots in humorous ways. You'll get characters talking framed from the neck down, or just their ears... pretty silly, but annoying since you have to do it over.

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ChosenOne
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by ChosenOne » Mon Jul 26, 2010 5:03 pm

kehaar wrote:Yay! More campaigns!
By the way, in snow and sand maps, you HAVE to use a platform to shoot dialogue! The drifting ground will change height under your "camera" with every load and wreck all your shots in humorous ways. You'll get characters talking framed from the neck down, or just their ears... pretty silly, but annoying since you have to do it over.
This is why we removed the terrain jitter from our mod. If you want random hillyness, just pixel it into the heightmap. And this is partly why our mod has map-specific heightmaps. The code looks for a heightmap in the new "Heightmaps" folder with the same name as the map you're developing. If it finds it, it uses it when it loads the map. If it doesn't, it uses the original as default.

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kehaar
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by kehaar » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:29 pm

ChosenOne wrote:
kehaar wrote:Yay! More campaigns!
By the way, in snow and sand maps, you HAVE to use a platform to shoot dialogue! The drifting ground will change height under your "camera" with every load and wreck all your shots in humorous ways. You'll get characters talking framed from the neck down, or just their ears... pretty silly, but annoying since you have to do it over.
This is why we removed the terrain jitter from our mod. If you want random hillyness, just pixel it into the heightmap. And this is partly why our mod has map-specific heightmaps. The code looks for a heightmap in the new "Heightmaps" folder with the same name as the map you're developing. If it finds it, it uses it when it loads the map. If it doesn't, it uses the original as default.
Hoho, cool!

Man, I got to keep up with all the stuff that's coming out! I even have a campaign idea that I stopped making because it needed different heightmaps.

So the snow/sand thing was just "jitter", not a deliberate drift/dune effect designed by David because it was awesome? If you had a level platform sticking just a little out of a shallow hill, the sand and snow would make very pretty looking drifts that always changed... I guess I just never noticed it in grass maps.

And so now, if you load a heightmap from your custom painted heightmaps, you don't get the jitter/snowdrift effect on those, so you can plant your "camera tripod" right on the snow and it won't rise and fall when you reload saved dialogue strings?

(by the way, could you link me to the thread with the heightmap mod?)

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ChosenOne
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by ChosenOne » Mon Jul 26, 2010 9:56 pm

Yeah, they're very nice adjustments to the engine.

Snow and Sand get a slight z axis randomization to most or all terrain mesh vertices. The more elevated (like mountains) the stronger it seems to be applied. And it was deliberate. For a little added realism I guess - sand and snow do pile up and form little mounds so it made sense, but look at all the issues it caused. A bad case of 'form over function'. It happens.

I'm afraid there's no thread to link to. These are modifications to my WIP campaign. It may not be out for a while. Once it's out, everyone will benefit from the changes we'll have made. More are on the way.

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kehaar
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by kehaar » Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:23 am

Awesome.

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Chalky
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Wed Jul 28, 2010 2:12 pm

Thanks for all the help! Now that I think about my plot is a little unoriginal, I try to fix it.

Again thanks.

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Chalky
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by Chalky » Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:49 pm

So I have a new idea for my campaign plot, it is going to continue Turner's story after the events of the original Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot campaign:

A couple years after Turner kills Hickory and Ash and declines to be the next king of Lugaru, he sets off to wander the island to find purpose. However Hickory survives then kills the current king and elects his second in command to be the new one. He then makes an alliance between his remaining followers, the remaining raiders and the remaining wolves, and plots to militarily take over the island. Which he does. Turner and Skipper, now living on the small island to the south of Lugaru, decide to return to Lugaru and attempt to retake the island.

On the island they meet Blackmeir, Dantele and Rtash, who join them on their mission.

You, the player, take control of all five characters.

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kehaar
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Re: Fire Won't Appear

Post by kehaar » Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:22 pm

Sounds good, and very ambitious... a potentially epic story line.

You might see if you can organize the story into a few chapters, or make a first chapter with some kind of 'OH My God, What's Going to Happen Next?' cliffhanger ending just so you can reach an end of some sort after 6, 8, 10 maps.

I'd looooove another epic story, but I think a lot of people get bogged down after a while, so they never get released. :(

Let me know if dialogues make you crazy. I'm fairly good at figuring them out on a mac, and if you're on pc, there's a DEdit tutorial on the forums somewhere.

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