Hi Guys,
Back from fossil hunting and ready to dive into some fixing fun. I have read through the last four pages of posts to get an idea where we are, and have made some notes below. I have found three reproducible bugs, five non reproducibles, a bag of feature requests and a lot of information requests. I sliced up the categories for my own sanity, and will be focusing on the confirmed bugs and the planned features, then I will switch to the unconfirmed bugs and 'maybe' look at the other feature list. If the original reporters can provide additional information in respect of the unconfirmed bugs, that would be very cool. Without further ado, my lengthy feedback:
Favourite Less-Than-Useful Bug Reports
. Beta 4 tested and I remove it immediately.If I want to test a level you just get a black screen
. Alright so the segment appears now, but when I add a light only one side of the segment shows up
. I am getting a weird bug where sometimes the guns turn black :/
. My characters turn black when shaders are on and they have a d2 texture...
. the serial is not working Help me
Confirmed Bugs (GOING IN V117)
. Segments09.FPM in TUTORIALS folder has z-clash issues
. Keyboard shortcut could still call up legacy preview map in editor
. Use RAGDOLL on DARKVOICES characters, and the heads explode. Fix so heads stay intact (rigid joint)
Feature Requests (MIGHT GO IN V117/V118)
. Add polygon count numerics over the full resource panel view
. Addendum to manual to include all new features and instructions on 'how-to-use' the new functions
. Flag in SETUP.INI to disable peeking from the control system (unfair MP advantage)
Unconfirmed Bugs (NEED REPRODUCING)
. how come when I run with stock weapons, they make a shooting sound, and on the last shot on the auto slug it plays the reload sounds?
. Reports relating to 'shader errors' need a little more meat. The stock media works fine with all PS2.0 shaders
. Run a test game and move the mouse to the right side the cursour runs out of game screen to my second monitor
. Building a simple arena multiplayer game in V117 BETA5 will crash whether hosting or joining
. For levels using corridors presenting culling (invisibility) issues, send stock based FPM to lee@thegamecreators.com
Feature Requests (NOT INTENDED FOR V117/V118)
. Change test game resolution
. The Project Blue variable system will be considered for integration after V117/V118 is complete
. Request that screenshot mode export JPG as well as BMP (perhaps an option in SETUP.INI)
. the engine require a good inbuilt flashlight system
. New flag in SETUP.INI to optionally hide the doors and windows entities associated with segment items
Information
. X10 Users are able to switch to X9 using their X10 serial code and the free version of FPS Creator
. NOTE: X10 users upgrading FPSC Free should be aware some media will be missing (only available on the DVD build)
. FPS Creator will run on certain higher-end netbooks. Use the free version to test whether yours is compatible
. Resolution is fixed in test game mode. Edit the SETUP.INI of a standalone executable with WIDTH=1360 and HEIGHT=768 fields added to change final resolution
. Full list of FPI actions posted elsewhere in this thread
. All V117 shaders simply replace identical functionality of the old shaders with PS2.0 versions. Some of the new shaders pull additional textures based on naming convention
. V117 is based on the original FPSC source code, and any existing mods will have to be abandonned to use any of the V117 features
. V117 introduces additional build steps to create AI obstacle data which may introduce slower compile times
. A simple particle engine is now built into the decal system of V117, but requires media to function. Pack to follow
. Ragdoll is not included with the official update, you will need to scour the community for the third party script to activate it (rating related)
. Bloom is activated by default. To remove it, open SETUP.INI and set POSTPROCESSING to zero
. NOTE: V117 users on older machines WILL notice a performance drop. To avoid, use the above step to remove BLOOM
. To get Depth Of Field, open SETUP.INI and set POSTPROCESSING to two
. Water, shadows and new weapon animations not in V117. Expect these in V118 or above
. ONLY "(Talker)" characters from the default stock character set can lipsync. Older characters cannot
. Performance mileage may vary in V117. Try switching off POSTPROCESSING to improve frame rate
. Ambient light in test game NOW comes from internal testing value, NOT the level settings (used by BUILD game)
. If you are having problems generating a LIPSYNC file, try downloading the SAPI SDK from Microsoft at: http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/4/3/B4314928-7B71-4336-9DE7-6FA4CF00B7B3/SpeechSDK51.exe
. To get DAI characters to move up/down stairs, create a single line waypoint from the center of the bottom segment at the foot of the stairs to the center of the segment at the top of the stairs
. If you hit the 1.8GB limit, open SETUP.INI and reduce the values in 'lightmaptexsize' and 'lightmapquality'
. There are no plans to combine BLOOM and DEPTH OF FIELD in V117/V118
. Some characters are not DARKVOICES enabled as they had insufficient facial features to add the bone system
. All characters that use DARKVOICES lip syncing are specially rigged with over 20 additional bones
. Be aware thet DAI wont go through a cut opening in a segment wall unless the CSG Punch name starts with "door". Otherwise it gets passed over by the pathfinding system
. To turn on PS2.0 shader featres, go to FILE>PREFERENCES and tick Full Shader Effects (then use SCIFI media)
. For most testers, avoid the files in the Google Code as they are work in progress. Stick to the beta updates
. There are currently no plans to release Beta 22
. If you hit a black screen during an animation cut-scene, you are too close to the upper memory limit. Reduce the size of your level consumption to 1.5GB or lower, depending on the size of the animation video file
. If your FPS Creator crashes with an error immediately, check to make sure your virus checker is disabled or filtered to allow FPSC to run
. FPSC Web was an experimental attempt at embedding FPSC in an ActiveX window, now definately abandonned
. To avoid entities being subject to the 'reduce texture size' feature, set REDUCE TEXTURE field to -1 (solves the issue of fine detail entities such as wire fences loosing their detail)
. A tip for those who want DEPTH OF FIELD AND BLOOM. Hack the DEPTH OF FIELD shader file to add your own BLOOM (not pretty, but effective)
. A good tip for reducing the memory consumption of your level is to switch static entities to dynamic entities with the ISIMMOBILE set to YES. They will not lightmap but will reduce your memory hit a little
. There are no plans to develop a 64-bit version of the FPS Creator engine (a LOT of work)
. If you are having issues with seemingly random crashes, start completely a fresh (after making backups) and uninstall, delete manually, reinstall from CD, apply latest update, try stock levels to confirm everything working then bring in your backup levels and custom art a bit at a time in case any issues you are having relate to these and not the stock materials
Getting Characters To Talk
1. Locate this folder - files/audiobank/darkvoices. This has a converter app in it called ConvertAllWAVFiles.exe
2. Now place all of your wav files you wish to convert to lipsync files inside this folder.
3. Execute the convert app.
4. All of the wave files will now have an associated lipsync file for it.
5. Place the wav files along with the lipsync files wherever you want to access them.
6. Now open up your talking characters fpe file. You will see the following.
;ai
aiinit = appear1.fpi
aimain = behaviours\greet player.fpi
aidestroy = destroy\fadecorpse.fpi
soundset = male
soundset1 = RPG_Mod\audio\demo6\canihelpu.wav
7. Point soundset1 to the talking wav file you wish to use.
8. Use the fpi file that is in scriptbank/behaviours folder. This is just a generic (template) fpi for talking characters. You will probably want to edit it for your own use of the character.
Getting A Crate To Spawn On A Trigger
1. Create a floor, a light source, a trigger zone and crateA from the scifi entity category
2. Change the trigger zone main script to PLRINZONEACTIVATEUSED.FPI and add crateA to the IFUSED field
3. Edit the RESPAWN details of the crateA entity to the following; No, 99, 99, Yes, No, 50, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 90, 0, 0
4. Remember to APPLY CHANGES after editing the entity properties and run test game
5. As soon as the player steps into the trigger zone, the crate should slowly spawn 99 crates
I drink tea, and in my spare time I write software.
