Topics

16

Off Topic / TIL Chinese fire department is run by Riddler and use rocket launchers for fires

« on: July 13, 2015, 07:50:55 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGmqIkhjEPE

17

Off Topic / Anyone here good at web design, willing to give advice?

« on: July 08, 2015, 10:32:51 AM »

I am fairly good at HTML, CSS, Javascript, and JQuery, and have a decent website that makes use of all of that. However, I am completely self-taught, and therefore don't have much knowledge on 1. Good practices 2. Keeping it looking good in all browser sizes 3. Making it look good in the first place. Does anyone here have advanced knowledge of Web Design that is willing to give me feedback and advice on my current web project?

18

Off Topic / Poll: Have you ever felt bad about killing in a video game?

« on: July 04, 2015, 04:19:45 AM »

/title

I was playing Besiege earlier, when I came across the strangest feeling: guilt in a video game. I had just wiped out an entire island without any remorse, and was moving to the next. But on the first level, instead of getting attacked, the knights came out, greeted me with horns, and offered me gold and a peace treaty. My job was then to go massacre every single one of the defenseless knights, who were doing nothing more but try to appease a monster and save their lives and kingdom.

For the first time, I actually felt guilty about killing someone in a video game. I of course knew that they were just pixels, designed to be killed. But knowing that my task in this game was mowing down defenseless people reduced to pleading actually made me feel bad. It was such a strange feeling that I'm wondering if something is wrong with me, or if its just an unusual situation. I feel like my cat dying fairly recently may have had something to do with it. But still, I'm curious what the general consensus is on this.

EDIT: Instead of massacring them all, I decided instead I'd just grab their offer of gold and let them live. I feel a lot better now.

19

Off Topic / Debate: Is it right to torture people for heinous crimes? (Added poll)

« on: June 21, 2015, 12:45:29 PM »

Title. I've seen this brought up a lot in topics about killing sprees and whatnot, so I think it would make for an interesting topic to debate on.

Blockland Forums, what do you think? Should Flash Mobers face torture?

20

Off Topic / My cat is dying

« on: June 20, 2015, 01:18:48 PM »

I've got nobody else to talk about it with, so I figured the closest thing would be to start a discussion here.
We discovered a tumor near his heart a few weeks ago. My mother is a vet, but we never noticed any symptoms until he started breathing hard. We tried surgery, but it just left him in pain and with a nasty stapled scar along his belly. Rather than let him suffer any more, my mother decided it was best we euthanize him. I've got an hour left with him.
So yeah. Blogland.

21

Off Topic / Nintendo unveils new "Metroid" game, cancelation petition starts immediately

« on: June 17, 2015, 06:59:16 PM »

This is the petition. This is the trailer.

The first thing I noticed when this was brought to my attention, was that 90% ratio of dislikes to likes. That is worse than Rebecca Black's "Friday," which was famous for being hated. While I watched it, I noticed a downgrade to almost Nintendo 64-level graphics. Versus games like Super Mario 3D Land and Star Fox 64 3D, it looks like trash. Not to mention that it has nothing to do with the Metroid series besides name and combat-style.

Watch the trailer and discuss.

22

Help / Annoying glitch which prevents me from typing

« on: June 12, 2015, 08:11:26 PM »

I've been running into a troublesome glitch recently. Every once in a while, Blockland stops recognizing keystrokes as letters, and rather as the keys if you weren't typing. Essentially, I bring up "Say:" with T, but when I try to type "w" instead I move forwards. I try to type "d" and I strafe right etc. I can do all other movements fine, but sometimes it just won't let me type.

23

General Discussion / Open source, official community-based updates?

« on: June 07, 2015, 03:44:19 AM »

I saw this exact phrase as a suggestion on a subreddit about Blockland. I am not knowledgable in the way of game development and don't fully understand it, so I figured I'd ask here instead of suggestions. Why don't we have updates the community makes? It sounds promising, although I also have the feeling there's a drawback somewhere. Could someone enlighten me?

24

Off Topic / Has anyone ever noticed the tiny face in "Latest Posts?"

« on: May 28, 2015, 04:30:37 AM »

I've never noticed it before because it's so small and was always there. But at a second glance, there appears to be a tiny face, watching over everyone's recent posts.

What is it? A man? A baby? A person with a sideways nose?

Or someone forever gawking at the nonsense you post?



The nose looks like it's been smashed sideways, and his eyes are blank. The more I look at it, the creepier it gets. It could also be that it's 2am, but... Well, has anyone ever noticed this?

25

Modification Help / Ensure a brick's color is changed to darkest color, despite color set?

« on: May 26, 2015, 01:17:04 PM »

With the dumping of a brick, I found out the possible value to make a brick black is a single integer. In the standard colorset's case, this integer is 16. But that number only has to do with placement. It has nothing to do value or darkness, just position.

So my question is, how do I make a brick the darkest color possible, regardless of any alternate colorset the add-on user might have? Is it even possible?

26

Modification Help / Torque is drunk

« on: May 23, 2015, 10:43:04 PM »

It doesn't seem to be obeying the laws any other programming language should, such as only doing commands in if statements if the statement is met. Let me give you an example:

Code: [Select]

function GameConnection::spawnPlayer(%Client)
{
echo("SpawnHit");
parent::spawnPlayer(%Client);
%basePlayerSpeed = %client.player.getDatablock().maxForwardSpeed;
%randNum = getRandom(0,1);
echo(%randNum);
echo("SpawnParentPassed");
if(%randNum == 1){
echo("if hit");
changeSpeed(%client, 30);
messageAll('BoostSoundEmitter','\c1%1 recieved boost', %client.name);
ServerPlay2D(boostSound);
}
}It will go through, hitting the echos properly. But sometimes, for some reason, it only does half the commands. For example, my echos tell me that the if was hit, and I get the chat message, but then I get no speed boost or sound. Then on another occasion my echos report that the if statement wasn't hit, but the sound plays anyway. Sometimes none of the if commands happen upon hit, sometimes all. I'll just clarify some things I've tried:
-This is properly packaged and activated. All the other function overwrites work just dandy as far as I've seen.
-changeSpeed, messageAll, and ServerPlay2D have all worked just fine in their current states, but often just seem to choose not to at random times for no reason

The first thing you'll probably think is that I'm making some sort of pathetic joke. But I'm not. I have tried over and over again and nothing is working. I've shown the code to Jetz and he confirmed that it should work fine. I just don't know what's going on. Is there some small thing I'm doing that I've been missing all this time? Or does Torque just hate me?

27

Modification Help / Killer location is impossible to acccess

« on: May 20, 2015, 03:28:45 PM »

Part of my current project involves doing something at the killer's location when he kills someone. I couldn't find a specific "onKill" function, so I took GameConnection::onDeath. Here is a small section of the script, which is inside a package in which other overwritten scripts work just fine:

Code: [Select]

function GameConnection::OnDeath(%this, %killerPlayer, %killer, %damageType, %damageLoc)
{
ServerPlay3D(killSound, %killerPlayer.getPosition());
Parent::OnDeath(%this, %killerPlayer, %killer, %damageType, %damageLoc);
}I have tried every imaginable combination of using %this, %killerplayer, and %killer to try and play a sound at the killer when a player dies. But it either throws errors or plays it at the victim instead. I gave this problem to some of my more experienced friends and we tried all sorts of combinations and it still didn't work.
What's going wrong? Am I missing something obvious?

28

Add-Ons / Combustion Bending, or blowing things up with your BRAIN

« on: May 16, 2015, 09:56:52 PM »

Combustion Bending
An add-on recreation from TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender

The first demonstration seen during the show:

Impressive, right? Well, I thought I'd be fun to recreate it.

Of course, just a screenshot of the tattoo itself won't demonstrate this well enough. This must be seen in practice. Therefore, the ever-kind and wise Visolator made a video testing it.

Like what you see?
Download it here

Notes: Most of this is obvious, but I think this info is good just in case. You must hold down long enough to breathe in fully, charging up for the shot. This also highly benefits from you keeping Particle quality settings at Best, as it makes heavy use of said particles. Also, in order to fit the Inventory gui label, it is named in-game "Spark Bend". This also temporarily removes any headgear while you equip it.

Credits
Model - Narkro555
Coding - Narkro555
Coding help - Pecon7, Jetz
Testing - Pecon7, PowerDag, Visolator
Promotion - Visolator

29

Modification Help / Audio datablock help needed

« on: May 15, 2015, 11:33:09 PM »

I have a fully-functional addon, with high-quality video-ripped sounds. All audio files are mono .wav files with no additional metadata. They work fine, until they retreat to a certain length.

My weapon has 3 sounds: charging, fire/projectileloop combination, and explosion. Due to the nature of a difficult, specific ripping, I cannot properly separate the firing noise and the projectile loop as they overlap. Here is the code:

Code: [Select]

datablock AudioDescription(AudioDefault3dLonger : AudioDefault3d)
{
maxDistance = 190;
referenceDistance = 120;
};

datablock AudioDescription(AudioDefaultLooping3dLonger : AudioDefaultLooping3d)
{
maxDistance = 190;
referenceDistance = 120;
};

datablock AudioProfile(inhaleSound)
{
filename    = "./inhale.wav";
description = AudioDefault3D;
preload = true;
};
datablock AudioProfile(combBendFireSound)
{
filename    = "./fire.wav";
description = AudioDefaultLooping3dLonger;
preload = true;
};
datablock AudioProfile(combBendExplosionSound)
{
filename    = "./explosion.wav";
description = AudioDefault3dLonger;
preload = true;
};As you can see, I've made new AudioDescription datablocks based off of existing ones in order to increase sound length. In the explosion's case, it works. However, for the looping projectile sound, it sounds very loud at first, then after a while at a certain distance, it goes almost silent. The projectile/fire combination sound doesn't neccesarily have to loop, but I made it a loop in order for it to stop playing the sound early when it explodes.

I must confess I don't have a good grasp on how each of the details work, but after checking the difference between AudioDefault3D and AudioClose3D, I can tell that maxDistance is as it seems, but referenceDistance is smaller but adjusts similar to maxDistance. I'm hoping there is someone more knowledgable about this, as Torque documentations lack any sort of in-depth information about AudioDescription.

30

Modification Help / What is the best way to go about quality testing?

« on: May 15, 2015, 12:53:41 AM »

Just a general question for modders. When you want to know if an add-on is high-quality, how do you go about finding out? Checking it against existing add-ons? Giving to friends? Just trusting yourself? I expect this to generate some interesting discussion, and possibly bring new ideas to other fledgling add-on makers such as myself.