If anyone has any pet peeves with the UI or graphics I didn't cover, let me know and I might include it.
(1) Add a resolution setting to the .ini file. DirectDraw=0 will run the game at desktop settings, but at the cost of slower rendering, and since the UI doesn't scale, at high resolutions it can get too small. I want to be able to pick the resolution the game runs at.Greetings, PlotinusRedux. Do you mean, for example, "Video Mode=1024"? That's the first line in my Alpha Centauri.ini.
I've just joined this community. I loved SMAC in its day, but hadn't played it since sometime in the early 2000's. I was hoping CIV:BE would be a SMAC reboot, but all it did is make me miss SMAC, so I downloaded it from GOG and here I am.
I have a lot of experience patching old games like this, and it's kind of a hobby I enjoy. Whereas Yitzhak is fixing bugs and gameplay logic--the important things--my initial efforts are going to be at improving the graphics and UI.
Yitzi--
I'm fine with sending my changes to you to include in your patch. I'm going to stay away from the places you've been adding code to avoid overwriting any of your changes, and we're working on different parts, so I think we'll be able to just add my changes to yours without having to reconcile any conflicts.
Also, is there a lobby where people play this multiplayer? If not, I wrote an MSN Gaming clone, http://ewarzone.com (http://ewarzone.com), for playing these old direct play games, with a custom direct play service to bypass firewalls. I got tired of running it and turned it over to someone else, but I'm sure I could get this working there and get a lobby devoted to it.
See this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=480023) for a discussion of a graphics display bug that was never, as far as I know, fixed. Not a major bug, but it tends to confuse newer players.
Also, is there a lobby where people play this multiplayer? If not, I wrote an MSN Gaming clone, http://ewarzone.com (http://ewarzone.com), for playing these old direct play games, with a custom direct play service to bypass firewalls. I got tired of running it and turned it over to someone else, but I'm sure I could get this working there and get a lobby devoted to it.
Wait, you made WarZone?
I played TA on that a few times. Lots of fun
Would be great to see someone play SMAC on it, the only lobby that exists for it as far as I know is GameRanger, which has most games that have ever had multiplayer though.
Incidentally, I'd suggest a simple improvement to the graphics would be to switch from .pcx to .gif. If the palette issues weren't too difficult to hurdle, that might make some simple animations possible - a pretty revolting development, most likely, for leaderheads and bases, so-so for logos and diplomacy landscapes, but fantastic potential for the still units in units.pcx. It would tend to make individual flies necessary for animated elements, so it would take a number of available optional file calls added into the code, so I doubt the animation part is feasible, but just sayin'.
Incidentally, I'd suggest a simple improvement to the graphics would be to switch from .pcx to .gif. If the palette issues weren't too difficult to hurdle, that might make some simple animations possible - a pretty revolting development, most likely, for leaderheads and bases, so-so for logos and diplomacy landscapes, but fantastic potential for the still units in units.pcx. It would tend to make individual flies necessary for animated elements, so it would take a number of available optional file calls added into the code, so I doubt the animation part is feasible, but just sayin'.
Another .exe modder, excellent :D.
I have one major graphics pet peeve. From my latest game:
(http://i.imgur.com/UCLklGs.png?1)
It seems to be related to playing small maps on a large screen with directdraw=0. Scrolling away and back will cause the tiles to re-render correctly, but it occurs at the start of each turn.
That game has a load of custom factions so may run strangely for you without them, I can either send it to you or try and get a save with standard factions.
I also hope you and Yitzi can work together and handle version control nicely. Ideally in a way other developers could plausibly be added to without horrible edit conflict issues, perhaps github or something similar?
I'm looking forward to 2, 3, and 5 especially.
It does start off extending to top and bottom, but as the screen moves around during the upkeep different parts are refreshed, the original screenshot was after upkeep. Perhaps this is a more useful screenshot?
(http://i.imgur.com/IR6NHBL.png)
The save is also attached, hitting end turn will trigger the bug.
Ete,When following your instructions:
I've been able to consistently reproduce the defect and I have it fixed one my system. I'd like you to check something to see if the same thing will also fix it on yours.
To reproduce the defect,
(1) Use Z to zoom until until the exact point at which you can no longer scroll the screen horizontally by hold on mouse at the screen edges;
(2) Hit X to back up the zoom once, to the first point where you can move the screen horizontally with the mouse;
(3) As you scroll through with the mouse, you see the updating, black parts of the map.
Now try the exact same thing, but at step (3) instead of scrolling with the mouse, scroll left and right with SHIFT-LEFT ARROW and SHIFT-RIGHT ARROW. This time, you should *not* see the defect.
Assuming that works for you as well, I know what's wrong and how to fix it. It has to do with rounding issues with the scaling, where one part of the code rounds one way and decides the map is big enough to scroll with the mouse and another part rounds the other way and decides it's too small to scroll, when the zoom factor is very close to line between them.
D'oh, yeah, Ete, I reversed zooming in and zooming out, it should read:No problem, I figured it out :).
(1) Use X to zoom out until until the exact point at which you can no longer scroll the screen horizontally by hold on mouse at the screen edges;
(2) Hit Z to zoom in once, to the first point where you can move the screen horizontally with the mouse;
(3) As you scroll through with the mouse, you see the updating, black parts of the map.
Reworking the zoom code to adjust to screen resolution has fixed it for me--basically now it computes the zoom out level that will first show the entire map and sets that as max zoom out, computes the zoom in level that will show 6 tiles horizontally and sets that as the max zoom in, then adjusts the other zoom levels to fall evenly between the two.Okay, that sounds sensible. Good to have the black screen thing gone.
I'm doing my changes a bit differently from Yitzi because I want my changes to work with both SMAC and SMAX, but I will make sure it is 100% compatible. The only .exe changes are about 20 bytes to load the ac2.dll file that contains all my actual changes for both, the the .dll figures out which was it's been loaded by and hooks API's and modifies code in memory to work it's magic. So Yitzi will just need to change those 20 bytes in his .exe once, and after that just downloading ac2.dll will get all my latest changes. We'll just have to coordinate if we both want to modify the same function, but the nature of our different focuses--UI on my part and game logic on his part--that will probably be rare.Ah, okay, that should avoid a lot of sending patches back and forth or dealing with edit conflicts. I think you're the first to use .dll injecting on SMAX.
With the reworking of zooming, do pods/resources/fungus no longer disappear when you zoom out a certain amount? I'm asking because I'd like to be able to screenshot full maps to display on-wiki, and currently when you zoom out sufficiently to do this for most maps most of the important detail is lost.