About the latest version of the game

Belmont2500 · **Reply #480 on:** August 08, 2009, 08:33:00 AM

I noticed.any how while I was playing(don't know if this was a glitch) I went to the ocean and I saw the Spiketail model in there I was playing as the longneck/littlefoot I don't know if it was another player or a glitch.

action9000 · **Reply #481 on:** August 08, 2009, 10:16:32 PM

Hey, just letting everyone know what I'm working on!

I have decided that the text in the game was..really really small so I've been working on resizing all the parts of the game to work with larger text, as can be seen in this screenshot:

I have also recoded how NPCs know what to say to the player. All of the words that NPCs say are now stored in text files and are easily editable by anyone (at least during the development process). The code is now also set up to allow installing of multiple languages and translation of the existing text is extremely simple.

Here is the format of the text file of what Mr. Clubtail says to a Swimmer (the text file being used in the above picture), for example:

Code: on
npcName Mr. Clubtail npcType Clubtail Start{ Hey, my treestar just blew away and I have a tummy ache! ===== Leave me be! ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== End}

All you need to do is edit the text between the Start{ and End} lines and make sure you have exactly 12 lines between those tags and you can translate the text (as well as the names of the characters and their species) to any language you want!

The text files are at the location
\Text\Whatever Language\Whatever Dinosaur Type You Are\

and the code is all set up to automatically load the correct language and dinosaur text, based on the choice. All we need now are other language text files; we're all set now to make them.

action9000 · **Reply #482 on:** August 08, 2009, 10:56:01 PM

I just changed a bunch of code that displays your character's stats. Here's a really obvious comparison:

The top two stats use the new code, which automatically centers and spaces out the text properly. The bottom two stats use the old code, which didn't work nicely in all resolutions. I also centered the text at the top of the window that shows your level and dino type.

I also organized this stats window. The top two stats are your "primary stats" and the bottom two are your "secondary stats" (though this screenshot is a bad example of that, with 2 toughnesses

). The stats that are primary and secondary are different depending on your dino and it always puts the right ones in the right places now.

As for the difference between primary and secondary stats? When you level up, you will be given more points to put in primary stats than in secondary stats. That's the simple explanation.

action9000 · **Reply #483 on:** August 08, 2009, 11:15:35 PM

And here's the final working version of the character stats screen until we add more features to it:

Everything looks to line up nicely, I'm thinking!

action9000 · **Reply #484 on:** August 09, 2009, 12:04:53 AM

Hey again!
I"m just doing a bit of work on the chat window now and I've made a few changes/fixes.

1) The box now turns darker while you're typing so you can tell that it's active.
2) The text all stays inside the window properly...except the text that you're currently typing. It still has some issues.

3) The text now goes all the way to the end of the text box on all resolutions without going too far.

And of course, the screenshot example:

Kor · **Reply #485 on:** August 09, 2009, 12:19:12 AM

Looks like you are making some progress in the game.

action9000 · **Reply #486 on:** August 09, 2009, 01:24:25 AM

I fixed the camera water/colour/fog bug you talked about to me, Mumbling. I'll let you try this sometime and you can let me know if this is what you think it should do

Now while the camera is above water, the fog effect is off. While the camera is underwater, the fog effect is on. Your player's location has no effect on this fog.

I also changed the scale of the Mouse Speed sliders in the options menu. It's a bit slower now.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #487 on:** August 09, 2009, 01:55:46 AM

The new chat boxes look great! Can't wait for the next version!

Serris · **Reply #488 on:** August 09, 2009, 02:00:17 AM

Wow! It's coming along great.

Flathead770 · **Reply #489 on:** August 09, 2009, 03:38:29 AM

wow, lots of updates, glad to see that the text box is all fixed up, the last time we were using it was...not very fun lol.

Mumbling · **Reply #490 on:** August 09, 2009, 03:44:55 AM

Awesome Tim! Did the camera thing work as you planned to?

action9000 · **Reply #491 on:** August 09, 2009, 11:23:20 AM

Yep, I found the problem with the code I wrote while you were here. I just kinda failed but the logic was correct!

Belmont2500 · **Reply #492 on:** August 09, 2009, 11:29:48 AM

nice to know you're resizing the text it was alot harder for me to read before , and great job on the stats screen and chat window

action9000 · **Reply #493 on:** August 09, 2009, 02:55:55 PM

Hey all!

Multiplayer is starting to come together but it still needs quite a bit of work. As you can see now though, the server is able to see other players in-game as the models they joined the game with!

action9000 · **Reply #494 on:** August 09, 2009, 03:19:36 PM

Okay, it almost works..!

Just a few more things to get fixed.

I must say, I think this screenshot looks pretty dang awesome

BTW: The framerate is really low because I'm actually running 3 copies of the game at the same time on one computer to test multiplayer.

action9000 · **Reply #495 on:** August 09, 2009, 04:47:24 PM

Okay, we found countless bugs when testing multiplayer in more detail. This will be awhile before it's ready, I'm thinking. Grrr...

Belmont2500 · **Reply #496 on:** August 09, 2009, 05:29:10 PM

hey I found out what's ahead of the ocean its a bottomless pit I guess you could call it an easter egg because you don't die if you fall(who would even be trying to go there besides me who was expirmenting) or a death trap because I died of boredom

the weird thing is I expected my game to crash or the framerate to go down and it didn't thank god.

action9000 · **Reply #497 on:** August 09, 2009, 05:47:45 PM

Eventually it will do something very odd once you fall beyond the lowest point that my program can calculate (values in computers do have minimums and maximums and you'd hit the minimum eventually). I don't know what would happen if you fell that far but I assure you that in the actual game, such a thing will never happen.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #498 on:** August 09, 2009, 07:20:27 PM

I know but it was hilariously amusing

action9000 · **Reply #499 on:** August 09, 2009, 09:31:53 PM

W00t!

Okay, For the first time ever, 4 players (using actual models) are able to see each other perfectly and the code works exactly the same for any number of players past that, limited only by the speed of the network connection. I still have a bunch of random bugs to kick out before the v.21 release but here's living proof of functional 4-player multiplayer

From the Swimmer's perspective:

Spiketail's:

Longneck's:

and Threehorn's:

One step closer!