Author Topic: New Features for POF Version 3000 [FS2 = Version 2117]  (Read 33639 times)

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Offline Kazan

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
mine is a 600mhz Pentium III - low end by our standards on this board - but very common by general standards, I'd be pleased to have it run on my system well

but you also have to remember there are peope that are going to think that because it's the "same game" that it's going to have the same "minimum requirements"
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Offline aldo_14

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Kazan

the performance hit is in the fact that you have to have more full AI objects, more full graphics objects, etc


Is that true, though?  You're basically replacing turret AI with a seperate AI for the turret model, the submodel with a similar polymodel, etc.  beyond the fact it's docked to the ship, i don't see a major difference compared to the way that FS2's turrets seem to work.  AFAIK, they have seperate AI classes and bounding boxes - they are seperate attached objects (potentially with LODs).

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to use cut down versions of AI for turrets - they would need their own code regardless of how you implement it.

I honestly don't see how this could be considered impossible.  Granted, I've not worked on AI or 3d aps, but it's already been done- and with higher AI levels and more complex bounding boxes than you'd need for pure turrets.

 

Offline CobaltStarr

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Aldo's brought up a good point... turrets need AI regardless of how they're implemented, and having them as "docked" objects rather than as subobjects of the base model won't make a difference in that respect... just instead of making them full docking points, make them dedicated turret mounts. Besides, I wouldn't mind having standardized turrets for each type of weapon... (and having a turret literally fall of the ship before it blows up would be a cool effect too... ;) )
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Offline Bobboau

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
I don't think it would be a good idea to use docking points to do this, it would probly be less efichent than if there was some sort of built in ability to change the turrets you have on the model. if there was a list of turret types, with geomitry, firng points, relitive normals,  and animation data in ether a table or in a model file (of the turret). it just seems to me it would be better if there was one copy of the fifteen odd turret types held in memory than if there was all the repetitive turret data, not to mention from a mission design point of veiw this could only be a good thing.
as for how this would be implemented with turret points, would probly be something like
Code: [Select]

;; remember I'm not a programer, I probly ****ed this up, baddly, but I'm trying to talk you're language
;;STRT [b]S[/b]oft [b]T[/b]u[b]R[/b]re[b]T[/b]

int num_TurretPoints
for each TurretPoint, s {
   vector point[x,y,z,s]  ;;position of the turret
   vector norm[x,y,z,s]  ;;normal that defines the rotation axis and which way is up for this turret
   vector forwardNorm[x,y,s]   ;;normal that defines wich way is forward, the defalt direction turret will point, note this is 2d it is along the plain perpindicular to the first normal
   string name[size=7pt]  ;;for asigning the defalt turret type
 }


now there would also be a list of turrets, I'm in favor of useing a new table,

#turrets

$name:  ;;name of turret type
$pof file:  ;;name of the model file
$dead pof file ;;name of model to be used when turret is destroyed

#end turret

the new animation data you mentioned would be held in the turret's pof file, as would the TGUN data with firing points and normals (most cases the normal would be 0,1,0 but some instances may be usefull to have a turret that is pointing off at an angle)
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Offline Sandwich

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
I can't really follow the more technical stuff here, esp. with regards to the POF data structure, cold fusion and zero-point energy (;) ), but I gather you're talking about a plug-and-pray type turret mount - the mount stores the data for direction and FOV, while the turret you put on there stores the 3d model, weapon type, etc?
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Offline Inquisitor

New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Serves me bloody right for not reading more than the first couple posts of this thing.
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Offline Sandwich

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Inquisitor
Serves me bloody right for not reading more than the first couple posts of this thing.


Eh? What'd ya miss? :)
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"...The quintessential quality of our age is that of dreams coming true. Just think of it. For centuries we have dreamt of flying; recently we made that come true: we have always hankered for speed; now we have speeds greater than we can stand: we wanted to speak to far parts of the Earth; we can: we wanted to explore the sea bottom; we have: and so  on, and so on: and, too, we wanted the power to smash our enemies utterly; we have it. If we had truly wanted peace, we should have had that as well. But true peace has never been one of the genuine dreams - we have got little further than preaching against war in order to appease our consciences. The truly wishful dreams, the many-minded dreams are now irresistible - they become facts." - 'The Outward Urge' by John Wyndham

"The very essence of tolerance rests on the fact that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Stretching right back to Kant, through the Frankfurt School and up to today, liberalism means that we can do anything we like as long as we don't hurt others. This means that if we are tolerant of others' intolerance - especially when that intolerance is a call for genocide - then all we are doing is allowing that intolerance to flourish, and allowing the violence that will spring from that intolerance to continue unabated." - Bren Carlill

 

Offline CobaltStarr

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Actually, Bobboau, that's basically what I said (although you might have started that post before mine showed up)...

And while your code earns a "close but no cigar" it does get the point across well enough... :)
HLP's... Ummm... Can I get back to you on that?
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Offline Nico

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
I don't think it would be a good idea to use docking points to do this, it would probly be less efichent than if there was some sort of built in ability to change the turrets you have on the model. if there was a list of turret types, with geomitry, firng points, relitive normals,  and animation data in ether a table or in a model file (of the turret). it just seems to me it would be better if there was one copy of the fifteen odd turret types held in memory than if there was all the repetitive turret data, not to mention from a mission design point of veiw this could only be a good thing.
as for how this would be implemented with turret points, would probly be something like


well, I choosed the idea of docking points (turret dedictaed ones was the original idea ) coz it sounded more simple to achieve. basically, in our good old FS2, I can do ONE turret like that already. I make a small turret pof and dock it to the ship, et voila. It was just to expand the idea in a simple yet effective way. But there's one advantage for my iway over yours ( sorry if I'm wrong, I can't really understand the technincal terms in there), it's that you can add any turret you want, even if the turret pof has been made after the ship pof. Ok wait, i'll reread your post again, not sure i really understood it at 100%...
hmm... I'll wait for your reply, I can't figure it out ( not exactly fluent in english yet ).
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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by venom2506


well, I choosed the idea of docking points (turret dedictaed ones was the original idea ) coz it sounded more simple to achieve. basically, in our good old FS2, I can do ONE turret like that already. I make a small turret pof and dock it to the ship, et voila. It was just to expand the idea in a simple yet effective way. But there's one advantage for my iway over yours ( sorry if I'm wrong, I can't really understand the technincal terms in there), it's that you can add any turret you want, even if the turret pof has been made after the ship pof. Ok wait, i'll reread your post again, not sure i really understood it at 100%...
hmm... I'll wait for your reply, I can't figure it out ( not exactly fluent in english yet ).


Correct me if I'm wrong (there's a lot of that going on in this thread already, though.  ).  But isn't there a LOT more to it than simply docking a turret to a dock point?  Once a turret-POF is docked with a cap-ship, then won't the turret simply sit there?  What would be there to make it rotate and fire?

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Offline Nico

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
In FS2, basically, I would make a thin plane with a barreled turret on it or something like that.imagine you dock an ursa to a capship, but the ursa is supersmall, and the turret huge. Voila.
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Offline Kazan

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
bobboau :D that was very good psuedo-code actually

actually now that someone says something i -  think we could have a turrets.tbl like the ships.tbl .. yeah, i think there should be a way to make it almost as efficient
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Offline KARMA

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
others asked about materials and multylayers, i don't know if it will slow down or not performance, but i think it would be funny, maybe a solution (i'm not a programmer so maybe it is simply and idiot idea) could be to create some "default materials" that you can assign in pof editing to specific polygroups or maybe faces. for example, if you create a standard "glass material" i can assign it to my cocpits or capships' windows in the pof editor..as said, donno if it may be done or not, or if it would work better than multilayers or not

 

Offline DTP

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
I’m not sure what you are able to do to shields but.

I have been making this conformed shield for the Lucifer, and believe me it is really close to the hull, BUT...

Given the fact that a Cap ship is relative large when compared to a size of a face on the shield being on a normal fighter you get these odd effects because of stretched shield polies and so.

Not even a 6000 face shield will cover the Lucifer to an extent that you get rid of those odd effects.
And this one I managed to get PCS to convert. After that I use import shield on the original Lucifer.

1 way to solve the problem would be to increase the Polygon count, but I already tried increasing it to 9000,16000 and 23000 & Currently PCS crashes “the window goes white with no error msg`s being shown” on those high polygon counts.

I don’t know if this is has something to do with the memory allocated by PCS not being able to cope with such a high shield polygon count or if it can be fixed to work at all so that those odd stretching effects can be eliminated. Note the game is not being dragged down on my system with a shield of 6003 polygons. 800 mhz Tbird, GF2.

Secondly. This one I think is an engine limitation of Freespace 2.

When a "stream" "laser" enters an assumed bounding box of the shield and has not yet hit the shield, then the shield lights up where the projectile will hit. And then lights up again when projectile hits.

I don’t know if there is any bounding box information in the POF file shield chunk that can be edited so that these "2 flashes pr hit" can be removed.

It would however be superb if you could tweak PCS to work with a shield polygon count of 10000 - 16000.

Note I tried poftocob with high limits. “Ran out of MEMO capacity”. And it never used more than
2 MB`s of ram as I can active monitor this.
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Offline Kazan

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
the way PCS functions the max number of shield polys is 2 to the 32nd power minus 1 (2^32-1) it just takes a lot of time to execute because it's finding the associations
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Offline EdrickV

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Ideas for a new POF format:

Support for translucent & transparent textures. (Imagine a space station with a big interior hanger bay and some "windows" through the hull. Or a station with a hydroponic garden.) And undoubtably more uses I've not thought of.

Support for a mirror texture maybe? "The beam cannon that turns corners. You see, it hits this giant mirror over here, bounces off and hits that mirror over there..." ;)

Fake turrets. Ability to have fixed direction turrets that don't need seperate submodels, a cross between gun points, turrets, and subsystems for ships where you want to have more turrets then would work well on the engine. They wouldn't increase poly count, as they'd be built onto the model, and wouldn't need a very advanced AI. (And probably no destroyed texture either.)

Better control on exactly how a subobject is able to move (so turrets won't fire through ships.)

Maybe bay subsystems/subobjects for use with escape pods that will be launched when hull == 0 or when told by a script?

Expandability: A POF section that could contain data which would be ignored unless run under a game engine that understands that data. For future expandability.

A version string so if upgrades are made later the engine can tell what features a particular POF file supports and how it expects things to work. :)

Multi-axis rotation support for submodels, including but not limited to turrets.

More a table thing then a POF thing I think, but:
Special class flag "any" or "any_weapon" to allow a ship to equip any kind of weapon regardless of it's class. And vice versa (if there's a turrets.tbl for the seperate POF idea) to allow a weapon/turret to be equipped on any ship.

More a FRED2000 thing, but support for multiple fighter bays per ship, and a better memory when using them so you don't have to keep re-assigning a wing to a fighter bay when you bring up that wing in a wing editor.

Thoughts on other ideas:

Docking port turrets: Sounds inefficient, see below.
Seperate ship/turret POFs with tables: cool, same customizability as docking port turrets and less work for ship builders who don't want to make custom turrets/weapons. :)
Models with moving/animated/script replacable subobjects: Awesome. :>

Whew. That got a lot bigger then I expected when I started. Maybe some of it will be doable and interesting enough to consider. :)

Edit: Dropped one little )
« Last Edit: April 17, 2002, 03:51:36 am by 657 »
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Offline Nico

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Kazan
the way PCS functions the max number of shield polys is 2 to the 32nd power minus 1 (2^32-1) it just takes a lot of time to execute because it's finding the associations


I dunno if DTP will understand, but I sure don't :sigh:
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Offline aldo_14

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Kazan
the way PCS functions the max number of shield polys is 2 to the 32nd power minus 1 (2^32-1) it just takes a lot of time to execute because it's finding the associations


venom - 2^32-1 is, IIRC, the max value a signed (?) 32 bit register can hold.  According to my calculator, this is;
4294967295

I'm not sure if the allocated memory in the COB2POF convertor can hold the required number of vertices in data, possibly the co-ordinate values would overrun the allocated stack space.

 

Offline Kazan

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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
venom: the max size of any array on a 32bit operating system is 2^32-1` or about 4,294,00,000 [stupid kcalc won't give me exact]
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New Features for POF Version 3000 (for FSF) [FS2 = Version 2117]
Quote
Originally posted by Kazan
venom: the max size of any array on a 32bit operating system is 2^32-1` or about 4,294,00,000 [stupid kcalc won't give me exact]


But there could be an array of arrays of arrays of arrays to make a much larger number of "cells," right?  (for future POF formats)

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