Unofficial, alpha 11 weekly build

[Ltp0wer]

Hm, lots of people having problems. To lighten things up a bit for the devs, the game ran perfectly for me.

Same here.

My alpha is working flawlessly.

[Johannes]

the UI problems were only with the mac version

[Mykei]

Everything working fine for me, thank you so much for the FOV options too.

[Johannes]

You guys can copy the UI folder from the previous alpha into this one and that should fix the white UI.

Ahhh, thanks, though obviously the controls for the Camera angle don't show up, since they weren't included in the last alpha's UI. But the editor is usable again =)

[Skofo]

It still doesn't even start under WINE, by the way.

[Healey]

when you say no PPC does that mean it 3wont work on my iBook G4?

and if not will eairlier alphas work?

[Count Roland]

it won't and neither will earlier alphas.

[Healey]

well when are they expected to be supported?

[RazZziel]

It still doesn't even start under WINE, by the way.

Same here.

At least, I'm able to run this build under Windows XP SP2, a9 and a10 threw execution error and didn't even start. Is it normal that it runs at 5FPS in a laptop with a CoreDuo2 1.80Ghz, 2GB Ram and a 8600M GT? :\

[Ltp0wer]

It still doesn't even start under WINE, by the way.

Same here.

At least, I'm able to run this build under Windows XP SP2, a9 and a10 threw execution error and didn't even start. Is it normal that it runs at 5FPS in a laptop with a CoreDuo2 1.80Ghz, 2GB Ram and a 8600M GT? :\

No, that's not normal.

Do you have the latest drivers installed for your video card?

[RazZziel]

It still doesn't even start under WINE, by the way.

Same here.

At least, I'm able to run this build under Windows XP SP2, a9 and a10 threw execution error and didn't even start. Is it normal that it runs at 5FPS in a laptop with a CoreDuo2 1.80Ghz, 2GB Ram and a 8600M GT? :\

No, that's not normal.

Do you have the latest drivers installed for your video card?

Hm, I probably don't update my drivers since the last time I rebooted into Windows to play Outcast, which was... more than a year ago :P

[Ltp0wer]

Same here.

At least, I'm able to run this build under Windows XP SP2, a9 and a10 threw execution error and didn't even start. Is it normal that it runs at 5FPS in a laptop with a CoreDuo2 1.80Ghz, 2GB Ram and a 8600M GT? :\

No, that's not normal.

Do you have the latest drivers installed for your video card?

Hm, I probably don't update my drivers since the last time I rebooted into Windows to play Outcast, which was... more than a year ago

Then you should update your drivers.

[Phillip]

The grid is coming along nice. However, right now the grid is moving along with the object. Wouldn't it make more sense for the grid to be world specific, and so locked in place when you move the object?

Thanks for the idea Jo-Shadow! As soon as I saw your post I was like, ah, yeah, that would be so much better. But I didn't want a huge, world-wide grid cluttering things up. So I made the grid static, but it fades out away from the object, and the fading follows the object. I hope you like it. I mentioned you as the inspiration for this in today's blog post .

The Grouping of objects works, and when you group groups together they do indeed change color, but sometimes they seem to go towards orange, sometimes green.

I'm confused as to which means which... should single level groups have different colors than other single level groups?

Yeah, group color is still in progress. In A11 it indicates how many objects are in the group, but that's just a placeholder to test out the color wheel functions. I want color to be informative. I think your right in implying that color should tell how high in the hierarchy a group is. The cool thing is color is perceptually three dimensional (hue, saturation, and value), so I'll probably make each dimension convey some separate information. Hue probably for hierarchy level. Anyone have ideas for saturation and value (i.e. brightness)?

[Maximopartra]

To not get you guys discouraged:
My Alpha works Perfectly!


Thumbs up and Cheers!

[Johannes]

The grid is coming along nice. However, right now the grid is moving along with the object. Wouldn't it make more sense for the grid to be world specific, and so locked in place when you move the object?

Thanks for the idea Jo-Shadow! As soon as I saw your post I was like, ah, yeah, that would be so much better. But I didn't want a huge, world-wide grid cluttering things up. So I made the grid static, but it fades out away from the object, and the fading follows the object. I hope you like it. I mentioned you as the inspiration for this in today's blog post .

Heh, I'm honored.
The fading is exactly what I had in mind =)
Nice video too! will comment on that in the blog.

The Grouping of objects works, and when you group groups together they do indeed change color, but sometimes they seem to go towards orange, sometimes green.

I'm confused as to which means which... should single level groups have different colors than other single level groups?

Yeah, group color is still in progress. In A11 it indicates how many objects are in the group, but that's just a placeholder to test out the color wheel functions. I want color to be informative. I think your right in implying that color should tell how high in the hierarchy a group is. The cool thing is color is perceptually three dimensional (hue, saturation, and value), so I'll probably make each dimension convey some separate information. Hue probably for hierarchy level. Anyone have ideas for saturation and value (i.e. brightness)?

Yeah that makes sense.
(I also just noticed you use color based feedback when you use the 'Normal' transformation and make it smaller than a certain size. it tells you how close you are to making it too thin. I like that alot.)

What information do we have to convey... hierarchical depth for one, but what other information might be useful... perhaps what other objects are in the object's group one level down, like, how close are objects hierarchically. this would be usefull if many objects are in seperate groups, but equally deep in the hierarchy.

For example:

- You have 4 cubes: cube 1-1, cube 2-1, cube 3-1, and cube 4-1
(2-1 means object 2, copy 1)
- group them (makes group 1-1)
- duplicate the group (makes group 1-2)
- group these two together (makes group 2-1)
- duplicate that (makes group 2-2) and group it (makes group 1-3)
that gives you the following hierarchy:

Code: Select all

                        + group 1-1- [cube 1-1, cube 2-1, cube 3-1, cube 4-1]
           + group 2-1 —|
           |            + group 1-2- [cube 1-2, cube 2-2, cube 3-2, cube 4-2]
group 3-1 —|
           |            + group 1-3- [cube 1-3, cube 2-3, cube 3-3, cube 4-3]
           + group 2-2 —|
                        + group 1-4- [cube 1-4, cube 2-4, cube 3-4, cube 4-4]

All cubes are in the same level of hierarchy, each within 3 groups, so the hue for depth isn't helpful. If you click any of them all get selected with the same color as it stands right now.

Now if you used brightness for hierarchical group closeness as well, If I clicked cube 1-1:
- The code would find what the cube's first group is (group 1-1), which would make it and all cubes in group 1-1 normal colored.
- Group 1-2 is two steps away in the hierarchy( you need to go back into 2-1 to get to 1-2), so it should be two steps darker in brightness (the steps are ofcourse an arbitrary difference. it has to be large enough to see, but small enough to allow for multiple steps to be displayed.
- Group 1-3 and 1-4 are each 4 steps away from group 1-1, so they should appear 4 steps darker in brightness.

How useful this is in the editor will only be answered by play testing I fear, but I imagine it could be useful.
Perhaps to amplify the effect both saturation and value could be used for this.
(I'll post this in the editor suggestion thread as well. Just seemed appropriate in reply for it to be here as well)