Is it May already? Oh boy! My flowers should be budding soon. And maybe we can see some mods budding and get released soon?
Before we head into the newsletter, The_E has done a
podcast interview with Spacegamejunkie.com. If you missed the live stream you can listen/watch to a recording
here.
First off, there's a
quick patch to Diaspora's new 1.1 release to fix a small issue where you wouldn't get the last cutscene if you won. So if you felt something was missing, check it out.
CountBuggula has posted an
update on the state of the Fate of the Galaxy for anyone that's been keenly awaiting the release of awesome Star Wars material. If anyone wants to help out, always feel free to give them a hand!
BlackWolf and his Frontlines Team now have a
true home here at HLP! Everyone welcome our newest hosted project by exploring their forum!
TheHound has advanced his operation from getting initial feedback in the FRED forum, to displaying pretty screens and updates for his campaign,
Venece Mirror.Rheyah is still steadfastly working on his
Shetland campaign. He's got some cool fluff to read through and even some cool screenshots!
BTA also gives us a update on his
Dusk Wars Act 2 workings. It sounds like he could be releasing soon too!
Finally, IronBeer is trying to find some people to
help voice act the Director's Cut of Ridiculous. So if you want to lend your voice to this silly campaign, go on over!
by niffiwanThere's nothing really big this month. Just waiting on a bit of plumbing work to be completed before starting the 3.7.2 RC phase (or so I believe).
And now for a little copy-pasta; here's a list the new features which have been committed to trunk in the last month. These will all be in the latest
Nightly Build which are posted (for Windows at least) each day that there is a change to the trunk code. Check it out if you're feeling brave or are developing mods, or if you just want to help with testing. Just remember that the nightlies also have the latest bugs as well as the latest features (but hey, it's better to find bugs in a nightly build than in the next release!)
New features!
- Made the Shields handle support non-quadrant shields - zookeeper (i.e. LUA support for model point shields)
- added a new #SOUND SETTINGS section to game_settings.tbl and in it overrides for the default sound, music and voice volume - zookeeper (mods can set recommended volume levels...)
- Output how much of the player's score comes from the currently displayed list of kills by ship type in the barracks - karajorma
- Add lua campaign lib & functions to retrieve mission filenames - niffiwan (for Axems System Viewer)
Here's the current bugs scoreboard. The bugs on mantis have been reduced slightly (yay!). Coverity has released a new version of their static code analysis tool which accounts for most (if not all) of the new issues found.
| | fixed | new | delta | outstanding |
| Coverity (this month) | 16 | 18 | 2 | 435 |
| Mantis (last 30 days) | 13 | 11 | -2 | 185 |
There's been a couple of feature requests posted in the public SCP board.
1)
Unclickable/unknown briefing icons (from Black Wolf, karajorma looks like he's going to pick it up as long as BW reminds him
)
2)
Target loss delay (from headdie)
Normally requests in the Hosted Project Collaboration (HPC) will get precedence over ones in the public forum, but (obviously) non-SCP coders can see these requests (unlike the HPC forum). So if there's anyone out there interested in fulfilling these requests, go for it
The
Chromium in FSO builds have been updated and m!m has released a screenshot of a basic HTML mainhall.
Following on from the unstretched menus, Yarn has released
another patch that adds more resolution features for mainhalls! I haven't had a proper look at it yet, but it seems that you can specify any resolution you like for mainhalls, including a zoom setting to give some control over how a mainhall will look when they are used in a screen resolution that's different to the source picture resolution. Sounds good, it just needs some testing and review!
Swifty has posted some
more info about the soft shadows feature. It seems that the current method of using gaussian blur is hitting performance pretty badly. The good news though is that he's got another way of achieving the same effect that shouldn't hurt performance so badly. Hurrah!
m!m has updated his
compressed VP builds. Of note is support for md5sums of VP files, as well as packfile checksums and number of files being logged for the new compressed VP format.
Quanto, DahBlount & Vaktezraj are taking on an ambitious project,
adding OpenCollada support to FSO. The current consensus seems to be that this mean using unmodified .DAE's with the FSO specific information being stored in another format. The drawcard feature here is better animation support.
Do I hear big massive cannons recoiling? Oh yes I would support this.
Indeed! These guys have a lot of work in front of them, but it'll be super cool if they can pull it off.
And lastly, Axem.
FreeSpaceLancer v2.0/System Viewer. What can I say? This looks awesome, a system map where you can select your destination when you jump out. Or use it in the Techroom for expanded detail about the universe your mod is set in. Go have a look at the screenshots, then wait in anticipation for the release
Eiswolf has released an Alpha version of his
Aerotech mod for all to enjoy. PPCs in space, people! PPCs!
Just after I profiled
Betrayal's Scylla redoing, he went and released it! There's not too many nice large Shivan ships out there, so be sure to add this to your collection!
Steve-O.
Hyperion. I'll let the pics to the rest of the talking.
Bryan See started his own renovation of an older Shivan ship, the
SC Raguel. Loving those arms, it looks like it even lifts.
Fightermedic continues his modelling journey with a
nice looking corvette. He's even gone an modelled destroyable panels for a poor man's geomod on this ship. Kudos to you, good sir!
Oh, Betrayal's got another ship, the
Abraham Colony Ship, which I'm sure will carry two of every other ship we have around because it looks like a big one.
Nohiki's decided to give modelling a try with a very nice looking
Stargate support carrier that carries F-302s. Keep it up!
DahBlount and AndrewofDoom continue to give us rays of sunshine with their different generations of Rays for Wings of Dawn. Both are in the texturing phase and I'm sure soon we'll be seeing them in game!
Ray Mk3 (DahBlount)
Ray Mk2 (AndrewofDoom)
And lastly, Scooby's got his
Bengal/Tiger's Claw on p3d now so we can drool at it in any angle we want now.
And lastly finally, a quick shout out to Flaming Sword's
Interface Contemplates, which now includes fiction viewer art!
This month on the modding front, I wrote some words about making and using hud gauges. All simple stuff that can really help make missions super fun.
Next month… it’s a surprise! Yes.
(You don't know what you're doing do you?)Shush, brain. But if anyone has any suggestions I can surely try to accommodate them.
by mjn.mixaelLast month's theme was
Satisfaction. I hope you are satisfied.
AndrewofDoom came in at the last minute with the beauty and won this month.
First runner up. Second runner up. Screencap Scoreboard:
Ckid - 1
Mpez - 2
AndrewofDoom - 1As a reminder, we're going to do things slightly differently this year. Our many campaigns are filled with emotional ups, downs, and/or lackthereof. So we'll highlight that with a whole year's worth of emotional themes. I don't care what's in the image as long as it portrays the particular feeling for the month.
The new theme for May is
Desolation.
Watch those HUD gauges (especially that sneaky FPS gauge) and check out the
Screencam Script to help you win a badge and bragging rights. You can see the rules and the previous winners here on the
Wiki.
Until next month!
