Topics

46

Off Topic / streaming pokemon mod development

« on: January 18, 2015, 05:14:49 PM »

i'm making a pokemon mod for blockland and since i loved kingdaro's stream last night so much i'm blatantly copying him and doing the same

twitch.tv/ottosparks

i don't have a fantastic audio setup atm so bear with me but i've tried pretty hard to make sure the background noise isn't too terrible

also u cn c my dumb face and hear my dumb voice so that's cool right guys ha

47

Off Topic / "computer stupidities"

« on: January 16, 2015, 07:42:11 PM »

here lies the greatest collection of dingus the internet has ever known

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/

some gems:

Tech Support: "Hello, tech support, may I help you?"
Customer: (in a thick Russian accent) "Yes. Monitor is working fine but has sparks and smoke flying out back. Is ok?"
Tech Support: (blink)

Back when I was in high school, I was in my first programming class. I had downloaded a DOS program. It presents a fake C:\> prompt and prints mildly rude messages instead of executing commands. After showing it to a few classmates, I ran it on the teacher's computer when he wasn't looking. After a few messages, he figured it out. Someone said, "Heh-heh, he did it," and revealed the culprit to be me. Fine.

This particular program, after being rude for about a screen or so, starts getting apologetic, and finally ends with "Wait! Please don't turn me off! Noooooooooooo!" and gives you the real DOS prompt. Right when that message printed, the screen started wavering and dimming. Then smoke began to pour out of the back of the monitor. The screen went completely dead and smoke and big nasty flames were pouring out of the back of the monitor. The teacher had to hit it with the fire extinguisher.

Luckily, he was smart enough to realize that this would be a very hard thing to do in software. It turned out the monitor was so dusty that the power supply had caught on fire. But for a moment I was terrified that I would be held responsible. It was a pretty amazing coincidence of timing.

Customer: "I had an important document that was password protected, and I can't get in it. I don't know the password."
Tech Support: "Ok, we do have a program the get passwords from Word documents. Can you email me the document?"
Customer: "No, it is very sensitive. That's why it was password protected. I won't even keep the file on the server. I keep it secure on a floppy."
Tech Support: "It would be much safer if you kept it on the server. Floppies are easily corrupted. At least on the server it would be backed up each night."
Customer: "That is exactly what I don't want to happen. For legal reasons, I don't want any copies of this file. I want you to come down here and get the password for me."
Tech Support: "I'm not in the same office as you are, so I'll need to send someone there to your desk to help you out."
Customer: "Have them call ahead first so I can get security here when they are work with the file."
Tech Support: "Security? Sir, We sign a non-disclosure agreement, so that won't be necessary."
Customer: "Yes, it will be necessary! This is a very important and sensitive document, and we don't want anyone touching it without some security."
Tech Support: "Ok, that's fine. I'll let them know to bring the password software so they can get the password you forgot."
Customer: "I didn't forget it!"
Tech Support: "Excuse me?"
Customer: "I didn't have to remember it."
Tech Support: "What do you mean?"
Customer: "The password was written on a yellow post-it note attached to the disk and must had fallen off. It has be somewhere on my desk, but there are so many papers here I can't find it!"
I had to mute the phone so they wouldn't hear me laughing.

Customer: "About time too. Are you a real person?"
Tech Support: "Yes sir, how can I help you?"
Customer: "I moved some stuff I don't use to the trash and deleted the trash, and now I'm getting all sorts of %&*#ing errors. What are you going to do about it? You've got an accent, haven't you?"
Tech Support: "Yes sir, I'm in Ireland."
It became apparent that the customer, in his wisdom, had destroyed the Windows registry and deleted just about everything he needed to run Windows.

Tech Support: "Sir, I believe we will have to reload your system with its original operating system, as you are presently unable to get into your system due to the necessary files being deleted. Unfortunately you will lose anything added since you purchased the system. Shall I walk you through the reload sir?"
Customer: "You mean I paid $2,000 dollars, and I have to reload this myself?" (rants for fifteen minutes, makes death threats and references to being supported by a third world country) "*&@$ing reload! I'll give you a reload!"
Bang! Bang!

Tech Support: "Sir, is everything all right?"
Customer: "Sure is. I just blew the $#%&ing thing to bits with my shotgun you *$@%ing &*%$er."
Tech Support: (taking a satisfying long breath) "Sir, I would like to advise you at this point that gunshot damage is not covered under the terms and conditions of your warranty. May I suggest a servicer in your locality to assist in the reassembly of your machine?"
Customer: "$%!# you."
I dissolved into fits of laughter.

Customer: "How many pins does a sixteen-pin cable have?"

I went to the post office to ship a package of software to a customer. Since the software was expensive, I decided to insure it. As the postal employee was filling out the insurance form, he asked me what I was shipping.

Me: "Software."
Him: "You mean, like, pajamas?"

this was posted here before ages ago but it deserves another topic here in 2015

48

Modification Help / getting image resolution [unsolved but unneeded]

« on: December 27, 2014, 11:18:46 PM »

Is there a method of retrieving the resolution of an image?

49

Off Topic / goofy batch image processing question

« on: December 27, 2014, 11:03:14 PM »

this is going to be a nightmare to do manually so i'd be amazed if there were an existing method of doing this thing en-masse

ok so imagine you have this picture of a bulbasaur


it looks pretty great right it's scaled up from 96x96 to 192x192 with nearest neighbour great no problem; here's the thing: all of these sprites have the pokemon in the centre of the image. this doesn't sound like an issue, but allow me to demonstrate the problem here:


now i don't want any floating bulbasaurs so what i want to do is go through all of these sprites and make it so they retain their resolutions, but their lowest non-transparent pixel is at the lowest Y position. if there's not an existing solution, i can do a few things to work around this, but obviously doing this for hundreds of images is a major time sink.

edit:
realised another viable solution is to trim the image to its lowest possible resolution so that there's no empty space, but no part of the image is cut off probably

50

Modification Help / Pokémon Trainer [FIRST PROTOTYPE FUNCTIONAL WO!!!]

« on: December 22, 2014, 01:15:22 PM »

People in the interest topic indicated interest in this sort of thing, so I'm moving forward with this.

This modification will provide the basic systems for a more genuine Pokémon experience in Blockland. That is, it will contain actual Pokémon battle mechanics and other systems which may be found in the actual games. The main basis for the technological aspects of these systems comes from Generation IV games, however development will start at Generation I Pokémon.

At this point, the plan is to have battle done via a client-sided modification so that proper GUI may be used. However, early prototypes may use bottomprint or similar functionality already available for testing purposes.

Please contact me if you have questions or would like to contribute one way or another, be it ideas, code, art, GUI, etc. All contributions are equally appreciated.

This mod is also meant to only contain the systems detailed. This means it is not a game mode on its own; it will not have a build or be packaged and distributed as a game mode. Interested parties would utilise this mod in their own game modes and servers to create their own games using it. This is in the interest of appealing more generally and promoting work towards a sturdy and functional basis rather than wondering how to properly gamify it in Blockland. If you want to use this on your server, please keep these things in mind.

This project will be available and kept up-to-date on GitHub, however, keep in mind that the versions found there are almost certainly unfinished or unstable. Please yell at me for not working or being bad at working.


(original OP)

I've had this idea because I saw the Minecraft mod Pixelmon. Pokémon RP has been common in Blockland for a while, however no complete mod has ever been made; only RP tool-like mods. I think a proper Pokémon fighting system would work well in this kind of environment if applied correctly, and have begun working on such a mod.

This mod would include a proper Pokémon battle system with Pokémon from the games. I would likely start at generation I for the earliest versions for simplicty in development, and afterwards expand to include as much of the later generations as possible.

At this point, I would likely have battle exclusively visualised on the client, as modelling each Pokémon individually would obviously be a very ambitious goal. This would mean a client mod would be necessary, however the necessity of a mod on the client-side means I would have more freedom to make a more proper HUD and other GUI for the intended purpose. I understand that some may be opposed to client modifications as a necessity for play, however, this would be the simplest and most effective way to create an experience similar in nature to Pokémon.

I would also like to clarify that this mod would exist to provide the structure for Pokémon gamemodes. This means that it would not be an out-of-the-box RP or RPG, or indeed a game mode at all, unless packaged with the proper additional resources to be one. Although, I would likely attempt to undertake such a project alongside this one for testing purposes, though my ability to create an attractive build on a large scale alone may be limited.

Things I have not yet extensively considered:
*Wild Pokémon; likely event-driven or similar
*Breeding, day care, and friendship
*Battle HUD arrangement; e.g. overlay PlayGUI (In a window) or change screen content entirely (Change entire screen, as you do when switching from the menu to the loading screen, or from the loading screen into the game, etc.)
*Likely other things; will add as things come up.
For all of the above listed things, I would like to hear feedback from parties interested in creating servers using a mod like this. If you would like to somehow get involved in development of this sort of thing, feel free to contact me as well.

I don't want to come across as egotistical; under ordinary circumstances, I would pursue a project under my own interest, however this sort of thing is a bit different from the kind of mod I usually make, and would cater to a very specific group of people. I just want to know if the audience is even there, and, even better, if part of that audience would provide input or assistance in development.

Did a bit more work, got the backgrounds in.



Nonsense names were randomly generated using an old recycled function from my old wario ware gamemode. my favourite was 'cheetieng'

Trying a similar approach to what I was already doing, except now it's all in the same window. Gives a bit more space to work with in both directions.



also, dialogue box was put in

also also,

baby steps



idk why that dumb watermark is there it usually isn't w/e

tested pvp battle with this guy!!

THE FIRST PROTOTYPE IS NOW FUNCTIONAL WOW!!

51

General Discussion / Interest Poll: Legit Pokémon

« on: December 19, 2014, 11:53:32 PM »

I've had this idea because I saw the Minecraft mod Pixelmon. Pokémon RP has been common in Blockland for a while, however no complete mod has ever been made; only RP tool-like mods. I think a proper Pokémon fighting system would work well in this kind of environment if applied correctly, and have begun working on such a mod.

This mod would include a proper Pokémon battle system with Pokémon from the games. I would likely start at generation I for the earliest versions for simplicty in development, and afterwards expand to include as much of the later generations as possible.

At this point, I would likely have battle exclusively visualised on the client, as modelling each Pokémon individually would obviously be a very ambitious goal. This would mean a client mod would be necessary, however the necessity of a mod on the client-side means I would have more freedom to make a more proper HUD and other GUI for the intended purpose. I understand that some may be opposed to client modifications as a necessity for play, however, this would be the simplest and most effective way to create an experience similar in nature to Pokémon.

I would also like to clarify that this mod would exist to provide the structure for Pokémon gamemodes. This means that it would not be an out-of-the-box RP or RPG, or indeed a game mode at all, unless packaged with the proper additional resources to be one. Although, I would likely attempt to undertake such a project alongside this one for testing purposes, though my ability to create an attractive build on a large scale alone may be limited.

Things I have not yet extensively considered:
*Wild Pokémon; likely event-driven or similar
*Breeding, day care, and friendship
*Battle HUD arrangement; e.g. overlay PlayGUI (In a window) or change screen content entirely (Change entire screen, as you do when switching from the menu to the loading screen, or from the loading screen into the game, etc.)
*Likely other things; will add as things come up.
For all of the above listed things, I would like to hear feedback from parties interested in creating servers using a mod like this. If you would like to somehow get involved in development of this sort of thing, feel free to contact me as well.


I don't want to come across as egotistical; under ordinary circumstances, I would pursue a project under my own interest, however this sort of thing is a bit different from the kind of mod I usually make, and would cater to a very specific group of people. I just want to know if the audience is even there, and, even better, if part of that audience would provide input or assistance in development.

Further discussion about this mod's development should go in the modification discussion topic here. I'll keep this topic open for people to discuss the idea of pokemon in Blockland or other topics not specifically related to the mod in question here.

52

Games / streaming ttyd i guess except not any more

« on: December 19, 2014, 03:36:21 PM »

http://www.twitch.tv/ottosparks

tell me if the audio is stupid or if i'm stupid if you want don't worry i can take it i'm a big man with a big cough sry mom

53

Off Topic / "America declared Ebola free as final patient is released from hospital"

« on: November 11, 2014, 02:53:50 PM »

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/534071/Ebola-virus-America-disease-Craig-Spencer-recovers

realtime coverage

wow i cannot believe it i was very of course convinced it was apocolypsia

54

Off Topic / rip my tooth for now i guess

« on: November 01, 2014, 02:37:02 AM »

wow it's this time of the day isn't it

so basically today i went to the dentist to get a root cbrown town but the anaesthetic didn't work well enough even when they literally gave me as much as they were allowed to and put me under too much nitrous oxide at once
they obv wouldn't do the procedure if i felt them drilling into my infected nerve so they referred me to a more specialised doctor

problem is now i have an even bigger hole in my tooth and it's p unpleasant :(

also i have a rly bad taste in my mouth and it's gross :[
no sweets 4 me rite now...

55

General Discussion / On the current state of things: Our role here and the use of StaticShapes

« on: October 25, 2014, 07:04:46 PM »

   I would like to preface this thread by saying that this is not intended to be a rant. This thread is not intended to start arguments. This thread is not here to attack, blame, discredit, or generally deface the personality and/or reputation of anyone here. This thread exists to respectfully and intelligently discuss a topic which is relevant in our current community and to its future. The purpose of my thoughts being included in the original post is to provide a starting point for conversation and set the stage for future discussion. The following thoughts are my thoughts and mine alone and, while no one has any obligation to invest in them, I would encourage anyone reading to consider them.

This is going to be lengthy, but please stick around and take the time to read.


   I will first establish a few points I believe we can all agree on. Blockland is a video game in which players can create a wide variety of content. It is a sandbox in near purity. The base game alone allows for fantastic creativity through the eventing and building systems. Provided are basic systems which allow players to customise and manage their game experience. The modification capabilities of Blockland are also something to be mentioned. Content creators in this community have a fairly large amount of freedom through TorqueScript, once one gets a hold of its quirks and rough edges. This is the life blood of our community. I think it is safe to say that, without Blockland’s modification capabilities, the game would likely have never gotten to the point it is at now. And who has provided this content? The community.

   We are all responsible for the future of this game. Every successful server, every popular mod, and every significant member will leave a lasting impact on the game and set the stage for what will follow. If we have not yet realised this now, we will certainly realise it in the near future, as I believe we are at an important point in this game’s development. We are on Steam, one of the most powerful and respected PC gaming distribution platforms and communities. This gives us a great advantage in growth through exposure to a wide variety of possible new (and perhaps even old) players. What will their fond memories be? What will be the deciding factor in their purchase? I believe that we, as a community, must do our part to provide the answers to these questions, as we are ultimately the ones who will deliver meaningful and enjoyable content to players. And those that come will stay and do the same for us and those that are akin to them and to us. We are all here because we were inspired to stick around for one reason or another.

   The way forward is progress. Meaningful progress which will provide new ways to utilise our resources and create things that are truly grand. New ways to make what is tedious more usable. New ways to facilitate creativity and creation of such things. Through the tools we have now and the tools we craft, we will create progress. The resulting by-products will be clearly evident, and have been whenever this breed of progress has occurred. The addition of events to the base game, the release of RTB, the creation of VCE, Slayer, a standard update utility for content creators, and a whole myriad of other things have all given us great power to forge new and interesting gameplay. This naturally follows, and the fruits of labour are reaped by all.

   We must also make a clear distinction between what is progress of true breed and what is falsely so. The vast majority here will be aware that two base engine classes, Terrain and Interior, were removed from Blockland in August of 2012. The removal of these classes meant that large-scale buildings and terrain were much more difficult to create and utilise. This left many with cold feet, as alternatives were limited at the time. There has still been fairly trivial effort to effectively replace these classes in-game. We have modular terrain bricks, which play fairly nicely with vehicles and give decent ability to create large-scale creations without much performance impact. There have been several attempts at terrain generation using these, all worthy in their own right. The obvious question yet to be answered is what will be the most generally-effective replacement for Terrain and Interior objects. I believe this question is misplaced. Should we focus on how to rebuild what has been lost; should we view this as a problem to find a solution for? Is this the most constructive state of thought for the future of this community? The real question is not how to replace Terrains or Interiors. The real question is how we can enable the average user to effectively create, using our newer set of primary tools, creations on a large scale. We must evaluate the true advantages Terrains and Interiors provided so that we may properly have a meaningful effort to recreate them, not to recreate Terrains and Interiors.

   We have seen, since version twenty-one, several attempts to revive Terrains and Interiors through use of StaticShape objects. Most notably are Wrapperup’s attempts at this. The idea behind this is simplistic; .DTS shapes are loaded using StaticShape objects. Wrapperup simplified this process to the end user, and created a system that allowed for Interior-like creations to return. There are a variety of technical issues with this. Firstly, StaticShapes have disadvantages as complex shapes. Collision meshes are limited, meaning that many parts must be split into multiple objects to properly function. StaticShapes have limits for colouring, texturing, and complexity in design. Interiors cannot be properly replicated without careful crafting with multiple StaticShape objects. Effort is not necessarily an issue to the dedicated creator, however significant hurdles to jump through are not insignificant strikes against the feasibility of this application for StaticShape objects.

   The fact that use of many of these objects is necessary for the purpose they are serving is also a flaw in this application. StaticShapes are simply not fit for use in large quantities. A fair amount likely are aware that, in Blockland v0002, StaticShapes were used for bricks. The performance implications of this were very evident. Retail Blockland’s most notable change from v0002 was the addition of the fxDTSBrick class for building. fxDTSBrick can support a maximum of 256,000 bricks at once (note: that is only due to a networking limitation). The reason for this is that fxDTSBrick has specific optimisations for usage in large quantities in any kind of structure, large or small. They exist to improve upon everything that StaticShapes lacked for building purposes. I did a brief test in v0002 and in v20 to compare the performance impact of StaticShapes when compared to fxDTSBricks. The test consisted of an 8x4x4 construction of 2x4x1 bricks in the classic bedroom map (note: I removed the miscellaneous objects lying about in the v0002 test). The base FPS in the v0002 test was 240. After construction, performance dropped significantly, hovering at around 145-175. This is around a 33% performance decrease with only 96 additional simple shapes. The v20 test had an FPS baseline of 950-1000. After construction, no change in FPS range was seen. (These tests were done using an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 w/ ~4GB total memory. The v0002 test was run at a resolution of 640x480 and the v20 test was run at 800x600. Please note that the v0002 was rendered at a smaller resolution and still suffered a more significant performance impact.)

   StaticShapes are not the answer. Terrains and Interiors provided unique advantages that we should seek to recover one way or another, but we must consider closely the value of each solution before adopting it. Inevitably, a flawed medium will fail. We cannot try to cope and scramble to regain what has been lost or cling onto whatever feels like progress. We need to think hard about our decisions as a community and think about what we really need. I would ask of anyone that has taken the honest time to read all this to think hard for yourself and come to a conclusion: What is really important to this game right now? What can we, as a community, create to improve the game in the long run? Do we continue to attempt to regain what has been intentionally abandoned, for better or for worse, or do we take steps to find new ways to create new things?

   I’ve provided my thoughts. Again, I would like to reiterate that this topic is not intended to create argument or attack anyone. I have specifically mentioned Wrapperup due to his significant contributions towards StaticShape Interior recreation, and need to make thoroughly clear that I have no interest in negative discussion. I am not attempting to be anything but respectful towards anyone else and apologise if I do or have failed in this attempt.


Please discuss respectfully.

56

Modification Help / rotate to face a definite point

« on: September 22, 2014, 10:52:18 PM »

i feel like there are a million instances and questions about this but i can't find anything worthwhile anywhere

google returns unity stuff but they all use fansy unity lookat functions and we don't have that luxury

tried a few different things and now i'm stuck help mom

the end application will deal with camera views but we can't use orbit functionality in this scenario; we're looking to deal with transform values. this would also make it more useful for future applications

57

General Discussion / [helper script] blockland file downloader

« on: September 20, 2014, 11:50:48 AM »

this is a python script i made so i could easily download and update blockland files on a remote VPS that wouldn't necessarily have a) a compatible os, or b) display drivers to run the launcher

i'm sure people have found other ways, since there certainly are others, but i think this is a nice, organised approach which doesn't require much involvement past running the script

note: unsure of compatibility past python 2.7, prints are likely broken sorry mom

https://github.com/ottosparks/blocklandLaunch

command line:
-p : blockland install directory
-i : don't ask to confirm updates
-c : don't update, just check

just plop the .py file wherever and run it

e.g.

Code: [Select]

python blocklandLaunch.py -p blockland_dingus

would create/update the blockland installation at ./blockland_dingus/

if no -p parameter is given, the script defaults to ./Blockland/

i hope this helps some people

i don't imagine this goes against any policies but please stop me if it does


super-important post-note i just realised:
this will get windows files. if you want to get mac files, you likely need to change line 45 to reflect that, although i'm not sure of the specifics
if this is very serious for a lot of people i'll make an update to account for this

58

Modification Help / approach to dedi console wrapper

« on: September 14, 2014, 06:30:53 PM »

idk where else this would go so i'm sticking it here

i'm working on a web panel-y thing for server management and i know a few people here have had experience wrapping the console

i would prefer a python-based approach but i can't quite figure out how to get subprocess and socket to place nice together.

i just need ideas based on the fact that the end application will be web output (and so ideas that include the best way to relay that would also be appreciated)

again idk about posting this here man sry

59

Modification Help / TCPObject listen server help :(

« on: September 13, 2014, 09:04:57 PM »

i'm trying to make a TCPObject listen and it seems to be behaving in a goofy manner

i've never tried this before and i can't tell what i'm doin wrong


if i make a TCPObject like so

Code: [Select]

new TCPObject(h);

and make it listen on port 5576

Code: [Select]

h.listen(5576); //also tried h.listen("localhost:5576"); in case dump told me a fibby

then define a simple onConnectRequest method like so

Code: [Select]

function h::onConnectRequest(%this, %addr, %id)
{
   %c = new TCPObject(g, %id);
   echo(%a TAB %i TAB %c);
   echo("ya");
}

here's what absolutely does happen:

-any client i try to connect will report a successful connection
if i try in python

Code: [Select]

import socket
a = socket.socket()
a.connect(('localhost',5576))

nothing appears to go wrong; i can get the peer name and it will try to send and receive if i tell it to

if i try in torquescript

Code: [Select]

new TCPObject(j);
function j::onConnectorwhatever(%this)
{
   echo("woo");
}
j.connect("localhost:5576");

it'll tell me "woo" and nothing appears to throw a fit if i try to communicate

-if i try to send anything to the server it will give the "Got bad connected receive event." error thing
from what i can tell, this is solved from it actually working and creating the client socket to respond, but..

here's what absolutely does not happen

-when the clients attempt to connect to the server (and supposedly successfully do so?), it does not appear to even call onConnectRequest
the debug echos do not fire off and g does not get created. i have tried other possible variations (onConnectionRequest, etc) and those also do not work

-any indication from the server that stuff is going on, other than when i attempt to send while connected


i have looked at other scripts and they appear to do very similar things, but clearly i'm messing up somewhere
i know i don't have the entire connection response handled but the function isn't even called at this point

doing a trace shows no activity when a connection begins or when data is buttsent

60

Modification Help / ottosparks's goofy mod dump

« on: September 05, 2014, 06:57:09 PM »

this is a collection of most things i've worked on over the years. i've left out things that were for other people or i'm not sure about putting public (or ones where i'm not sure if they were mine)

there are 79 individual mods in this 7z archive. some of these include old RPG projects, some misc. server scripts, a save system, one or two attempts at some goofy scripting language, blablabla if you're interested you'll probably be browsing anyway

most are unfinished and many are in a completely useless state

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11058668/Mods/modworks.7z

in addition, here's my github for more recent butt
https://github.com/ottosparks