jacob. Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 (edited) IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v683/cmcjacob/vcmpinihelper.png[/img] I'm sure most of you have already heard of this project I've recently started, due to me periodically posting updates on IRC. I've decided to bring the updates to a topic here instead, to keep things organized n' stuff. I've had the idea ever since the server INI system was explained to the public but only started it the day after the release. It basically, as I'm sure you've seen from the screenshot, makes server *.INI files extremely easy to compile, and I've designed it to bring out the creative side of anyone interested in writing VC-MP gamemodes. One of the most useful features I've implented, in my opinion, is the virtually confinable world boundaries. What the hell is that? Here are a couple of screens I managed to take while developing this feature.. Specifying world boundaries is as simple as dragging a square over the 2D map. All the coordinate calculations are done instantly. The core (parsing) segment of the program is complete for everything except vehicles, which is going to be quite tricky considering vehicle spawn locations will be specified from a 2D map - whereas the Z axis can obviously not be specified. I've talked with kyeman and have thought of a possible workaround, but it won't be easy. The interface has been the biggest challenge in this project; without the eyecandy, the program looks ten times as complex as it actually is. Being able to visually see what you're changing as you change it is always easier, and I feel that it will make gamemodes much funner to write - whether it be spiffing up Vanilla Vice to your liking or even starting one from scratch, you should have fun when designing your gamemode. The features I am implementing into this program are only limited to what the INI system offers. This means that as the VC-MP team make INI changes (i've heard something about having multiple gamemodes stored in one ini, then having the server 'cycle' through them periodically), I'll make whatever capable changes I can to the program respectively. Anyway.. If you have any suggestions, don't hesitate to let me know. Some media: Final www.jacobdis.com/WorldBoundariesFinal.wmvSome of you have already seen this, but it's my final version of the ingame world boundaries confination. Weeks of work was put into this to get it just right. Final General->Other Options: Final Setting a class Model ID: Final Setting class weapons: Final Setting world boundaries (outgame): In developement Setting a class XYZ position (outgame): When can this be expected.. well, I don't want to make the same mistake twice, so I don't know. Let this be a lesson why nobody likes setting release dates; you just never know what'll come up. I'm lucky if I get 30 minutes of free time on week days, but hopefully I'll get this whole next weekend to myself to finally get this project off my shoulders. [edit] Added screens n' stuff. Edited September 7, 2005 by jacob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob_TDH Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 hell yeah...looks real good I think a lot of ppl gonna find it very useful, good luck with it jacob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr1489 Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 You are the f*cking man jacob! Two words, FINISH IT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posty_2k3 Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 Will we be able to edit car spawns with this as well? Or are you still figuring out how it will be done because of the Z co-ord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sobeit Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 placing cars would be too inaccurate.... unless u used OGL or DX to render the VC world, which is over complicated. there will probably be a raw scripting page sience he needs to load and save the script as a whole. (stuff you selected added in real time?) thats my best guess...so you can raw script, or edit afterward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[FSC]CoNqUg Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 (edited) that looks fcuking awesome m8 keeps us posted when is it likely to be released? Edited August 16, 2005 by [FSC]CoNqUg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacob. Posted August 16, 2005 Author Share Posted August 16, 2005 placing cars would be too inaccurate.... unless u used OGL or DX to render the VC world, which is over complicated. What makes you so sure of this? I have an exact calculation for converting onscreen Top/Left values to their precise X/Y cartesian coordinates. Will we be able to edit car spawns with this as well? Yeah, you will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeter Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 (edited) If you can click on the map to place object like spawn points and cars and stuff and have a small direction line to show which way its facing and you can click and drag that line to make it point in a direction you want it at, that would be awsome and make life really easy to make my own .ini files. Btw if placing cars and trucks on the z axis is tricky to get on the roads, why not have them spawn for a little distance higher from the ground so they drop onto the ground? If you can give them a extra 5-10 points of health for the car or whatever then when they hit the ground they should be back at normal health. Edited August 16, 2005 by Skeeter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Og_loc Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 GL Jacob sounds great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfk003 Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 (edited) Really great ! I think this was truly needed, and again it will make less work to do for the devs, great The eye candy as you say it outstanding for a vb program, wish I could do the same. I've never been good with anything graphic unfortunately Edited August 16, 2005 by Jfk003 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[FSC]CoNqUg Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 Expected Release Date?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Og_loc Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 Asking for that will probably annoy him, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 placing cars would be too inaccurate.... unless u used OGL or DX to render the VC world, which is over complicated. What makes you so sure of this? I have an exact calculation for converting onscreen Top/Left values to their precise X/Y cartesian coordinates. What he means is the Z axis, which can't be set from a 2D map. With SCM there used to be the easy way of using -100 for ground level spawning, but can't do that with VC:MP. So I'm interested in how you're going to get around that challenge, other than that, looks awesome. Nice work. adam broke it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f3llah1n Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 I suppose if push comes to shove you can have a box saying 'insert co-ordinate here' and let people get it themselves still, very nice work mate, cant wait to get using it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTA Pimpin Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 Looks brilliant Jacob. I cant wait to use this for building my server's ini files. Thanks man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poohead Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 sweet, cant wait to make my own game mode Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XcR Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 Good work, Jacob. Looks nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr1489 Posted August 16, 2005 Share Posted August 16, 2005 One question: Is it possible to put an admin control panel? By this I mean something like an external remote admin. If its too much to do so or not possible, thats ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uNi Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 Hm i love the world boundaries feature but in overall looks a great tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacob. Posted August 17, 2005 Author Share Posted August 17, 2005 placing cars would be too inaccurate.... unless u used OGL or DX to render the VC world, which is over complicated. What makes you so sure of this? I have an exact calculation for converting onscreen Top/Left values to their precise X/Y cartesian coordinates. What he means is the Z axis, which can't be set from a 2D map. With SCM there used to be the easy way of using -100 for ground level spawning, but can't do that with VC:MP. So I'm interested in how you're going to get around that challenge, other than that, looks awesome. Nice work. Ah. I will most likely have the users only input the X and Y values, then when ready to compile the INI, have it call Vice's own FindGroundZ(fX, fY) function. Yes, it's going to going to have to load and start the game automatically, call the requried functions, then close. The process (if coded properly) should only take about 3-4 minutes. Is it possible to put an admin control panel? By this I mean something like an external remote admin. If its too much to do so or not possible, thats ok. I don't think they've built in any external protocols, so kick/ban functions can only be called from a client connection that is logged in as an administrator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr1489 Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 (edited) http://www.zshare.net/download/skin-models-rar.html There you go jacob, a picture of all the skins and their IDs. Edited August 19, 2005 by njr1489 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Og_loc Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 Nice one but the one with pictures is better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr1489 Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 How did that get there? I'll edit my post since that was a mistake. I have the version with pictures already so jacob should have them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Og_loc Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 /me slaps Jacob with a trout and rapes him until he releases it, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacob. Posted August 22, 2005 Author Share Posted August 22, 2005 (edited) I've been hard at work this weekend. - World boundaries confining now works through the 2D map, and you have an option to virtually display the boundaries in the game. This means you can click a button that immediatly loads you in the game (windowed), and renders four semi-transparent 'walls', making sure you know exactly where the boundaries are set. Thanks to MP5 for the feature suggestion, and saracoglu for some math help. - Ever used 'Free Look' in VC cam hack? It allows you to fly around in first person view, steering yourself with the mouse and moving with the arrow keys. Fly to any location and look at any angle; click a button and your spawn menu's CamPos and CamLook are set instantly. Thanks to MP5 for the feature suggestion, and Racer_s for his awesome CamHack source. - When setting the class model ID, you can now see the model in a picture as you change them. Thanks to MP5 for the pictures. - When setting class weapons, you can now see a picture of the weapon as you change them. Thanks to the author of Weapon Workshop for the pictures. - A few things you don't care for - rewrote parsing methods for easily compilation on export, added a debug dump to ./debug.txt, customizable weapon/ped ID descriptions, completed mission asi/directx file hooks to be placed into VC dir on load and deleted immediatly after closing the game, etc. Thanks to spookie obviously for his SCMMod and Speedo sources. Edited August 22, 2005 by jacob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr1489 Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 Woooooo nice work! I'll have more suggestions once you tell me more about your progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thenight Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 With SCM there used to be the easy way of using -100 for ground level spawning, but can't do that with VC:MP. So that was a SCM function right? Can't you add it to the next VC-MP version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 No. When VC:MP spawns cars, it locks them in place to prevent distant cars falling through the (un-loaded) ground, so you need the exact co-ordinates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 So that was a SCM function right? Can't you add it to the next VC-MP version? There's a function somewhere that gets the ground co-ordinates of a location when fed the X and Y, so it returns the Z. This wouldn't be suitable for all cases, but I believe that's what jacob is trying to use. adam broke it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thenight Posted August 22, 2005 Share Posted August 22, 2005 The FindGroundZ(fX, fY) should work fine for every vehicle, you just have to add up +1 to the result Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
