Fallout 2 mod FO2 Engine Tweaks (Sfall)

Hello

I am positive that, after quite a few try, it happens 100% of the time using DX9 mode and 0% if not. Everything else in the config file is on default (640*480 and everything). I've restored the default file from archive to be 100% sure about that.

I'm also positive it can't be caused by nvidia garbage stealing the focus. First thing I did before restarting after installing the driver was to uncheck everything (including nvidia service) in msconfig.

edit:

You can fix it by setting the BackgroundKeyboard and BackgroundMouse settings to 1
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Doesn't change a thing.
 
Ulrask said:
Doesn't change a thing.
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Someone in killaps patch thread with the same problem reported that that fixed it. :(

The only thing that could stop fallout from creating a background input device would be if another application already had exclusive access, (Which would stop it working in mode 0 too,) or a vista bug. I don't get the problem on my vista installation, so I have no idea what else to suggest.

Wild_qwerty said:
Or an update on the engine you are coding would be interesting.
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I'll save the next update for when I get combat working. :P

At the moment you can run around and loot stuff, but that's just about it. Like I said I would, I got a bit bored already so I'm not spending much time on it. :(

Edit: Something that's got me a bit stumped: How do the walking/running animations work? Each one seems to span multiple hexes, (i.e. the critter moves 2 hexes for each loop of the walking animation, and 3 for the running animation,) so how does the game decide which hex a critter is in. Does every 4 frames of an animation = one hex, or is the animation length divided by 2 so that different critters can walk at different speeds, or what?
 
Yea the movement is a little bit weird in fallout.

The critters are moved by the FrameSoffset for the FRM, running critters have a higher frame rate set in the FRMs (check using frame animator). As best as I can figure the engine matches the frm position up somehow to a hex. The FIFE team guys should know better then me.

Since you are working on the combat, the actual timing of the attack should happen when the critters attack animation hits the "Action Frame" (As seen in frame animator), this frame is set within the FRM itself, sorry can remeber the hex address for it.
 
Wild_qwerty said:
Since you are working on the combat, the actual timing of the attack should happen when the critters attack animation hits the "Action Frame" (As seen in frame animator), this frame is set within the FRM itself, sorry can remeber the hex address for it.
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See: http://falloutmods.wikia.com/wiki/Frm_files#FRM_header_.26_data

I _might_ have some notes about the whole animation system lying around somewhere. If I find the time to look into it at the weekend I'll try to dig them up and post the stuff here.
 
Hello, Timeslip. I don't know if this was reported before, but about the fix you mentioned:
v1.29d
* Added a fix for the print to file crash caused by fallouts inability to handle long filenames
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The game still crashed when I was trying to print my status to file. I did a test to move "restoration project corrections.txt" and "unofficial patch corrections.txt" to other place (but keep "new content.txt" in FO2 main folder as a contrast), then the print function works without any problem. I guess it's because sfall can't handle file names that are too long? This would be a problem for Restoration Project players I think. :oops:
 
@ NovaRain,
The fix works just fine, at least for me. Open your ddraw.ini and look for this line:
Code: 
;Set to 1 to fix the crash when using print to file with the RP installed
PrintToFileFix=1
Make sure Print to File Fix is set to 1 and not 0.

Cheers
 
Thanks Wild_qwerty and mvBarracuda. The .frm description I was working from had the fps and action frame fields labelled as unknown, so I'd assumed everything animated at the same speed and actions occurred at the start or end of animations. :(

Not much of a problem to fix, but it does mess my ai system up a little.

mvBarracuda said:
I _might_ have some notes about the whole animation system lying around somewhere. If I find the time to look into it at the weekend I'll try to dig them up and post the stuff here.
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Please do. Any notes beyond raw descriptions of the file formats will be a great help. :)


Since it's a complete rewrite, I've obviously got a chance to make a few changes. I'm starting on combat at the moment, so one thing I thought might be a good idea would be an option to take control of party members. (i.e. along with the aggressive/defensive/etc options I add a 'manual' option that gives control of the npc to you each time it's their turn in combat.) Maybe as a perk, rather than something that's available from game start... Any comments?
 
Timeslip said:
Since it's a complete rewrite, I've obviously got a chance to make a few changes. I'm starting on combat at the moment, so one thing I thought might be a good idea would be an option to take control of party members. (i.e. along with the aggressive/defensive/etc options I add a 'manual' option that gives control of the npc to you each time it's their turn in combat.) Maybe as a perk, rather than something that's available from game start... Any comments?
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I don't like this idea. It's great to not have any control over the party members during combat. They can sometimes do a stupid things which is quite funny and is adding unknown factor to the combat/game.

I'm playing FOT now and is really boring to control everything...

But if you're going to make such possibility via perk only or you'll have an option to not control them - no problem...
 
@Timeslip
In your new game engine, will you be using the original games .pro files?

PM me if you want any help with the combat formula, damage expectations, etc.
 
@Timeslip
Since you're rewriting the engine... could you make some tweak with tiles? I mean is this possible to remove size limit for single tile (80x36), so I could use for example 9 tiles in one piece? This would be really great improvement for people who are making new scenery for Fallout.
 
Fixing the object layering order would be nice. Currently, floor scenery (such as rugs) cover dead/unconscious critters, and dead critters cover live ones. Kill a gecko or something, then knock down another one so it's lying in the same spot; you'll be unable to target it. Having items show on top of dead critters would be nice, especially for the flare/plant spike-throwing people.
 
@Darek
Ah, how stupid of me, I was using the old ddraw.ini from RP1.2.
No wonder why there's no such line. :oops:
Thanks for the help.
 
Kanhef said:
Fixing the object layering order would be nice. Currently, floor scenery (such as rugs) cover dead/unconscious critters, and dead critters cover live ones. Kill a gecko or something, then knock down another one so it's lying in the same spot; you'll be unable to target it. Having items show on top of dead critters would be nice, especially for the flare/plant spike-throwing people.
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Just curious, is there a way to fix this in the original engine through sfall?
 
Glovz said:
@Timeslip
In your new game engine, will you be using the original games .pro files?
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Kind of. I'm using a different file format, and the files are named rather than indexed numerically, but I'm taking the data from the original .pro's. I'm probably going to change the damage formula a bit though.

Continuum said:
@Timeslip
Since you're rewriting the engine... could you make some tweak with tiles? I mean is this possible to remove size limit for single tile (80x36), so I could use for example 9 tiles in one piece? This would be really great improvement for people who are making new scenery for Fallout.
Click to expand...
Already done. Also, tiles aren't on a separate isometric grid in my engine, but sit on the same hex grid as everything else so you can make smaller tiles if you really need to.

There is still a limit on tile size in that only a limited number of hexes off the edge of the screen are drawn, so if you make it too big it will vanish off the edge of the screen. I suppose I could just make that configurable as a map variable though...

Kanhef said:
Fixing the object layering order would be nice. Currently, floor scenery (such as rugs) cover dead/unconscious critters, and dead critters cover live ones. Kill a gecko or something, then knock down another one so it's lying in the same spot; you'll be unable to target it. Having items show on top of dead critters would be nice, especially for the flare/plant spike-throwing people.
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That's not something I've thought about yet, but I suppose I could add some render order flags to things.

Glovz said:
Just curious, is there a way to fix this in the original engine through sfall?
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Nope. I have no idea how fallout stores the map, item and sprite data internally. :(
 
Timeslip said:
Already done. Also, tiles aren't on a separate isometric grid in my engine, but sit on the same hex grid as everything else so you can make smaller tiles if you really need to.

There is still a limit on tile size in that only a limited number of hexes off the edge of the screen are drawn, so if you make it too big it will vanish off the edge of the screen. I suppose I could just make that configurable as a map variable though...
Click to expand...

That mean that you could remove the vanishing from the scenery files to via that map variable so spliting the sceneries wouldn't be needed anymore?
By the way can you tell me which is the limit for the size of the tiles now?
 
@moderator, could you please split the posts regarding timeslip's engine into a new thread?

Timeslip said:
Since it's a complete rewrite, I've obviously got a chance to make a few changes. I'm starting on combat at the moment, so one thing I thought might be a good idea would be an option to take control of party members. (i.e. along with the aggressive/defensive/etc options I add a 'manual' option that gives control of the npc to you each time it's their turn in combat.) Maybe as a perk, rather than something that's available from game start... Any comments?
Click to expand...

I like the sound of this, as long as it's an optional setting so people can decide to use it or not (or the modder can set it).

The perk could be called: "Mind Control" or something ;)

keep up the good work :)
 
Good news and bad news from my side. I tried to dig up some documentation that was stored on my desktop system but I had no luck yet. I had two hdd crashes over the last two years so it's entirely possible that I've lost the documents when my harddrives died. I'll keep looking nevertheless and see if the documents are just really well hidden.

Good news is: I remembered some other website that contains documentation that might be rather unique (at least I hope so). All credits go to the author of the fio engine who seems to have aquired at least parts of it via reverse engineering. You can find his notes about the Fallout file formats here:
http://fio.editthis.info/fio/Fio:FileFormat
 
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