GiantsHook

General comments and topics relating to Giants.

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Zopharks
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GiantsHook

Post by Zopharks »

GRM IS DEAD.
With that said, we'd like to announce the upcoming release of something better.

GiantsHook is an ongoing project that utilizes the power of DLL hooks to allow us to change the core behavior of Giants on multiple levels. Utilizing this power, the following features have either been completed, or are in active development

• Dynamic shadows on just about every object in the game.
• Dynamic lighting cast by projectiles, explosions, and other similar things.
• Further enhanced water effects.
• More high resolution textures.
• A slew of assorted fixes for everything ranging from the game crashing when minimized in windowed mode, to making the game properly generate mipmaps.
• A new Giants.ini file allows you to pick and chose which individual features you want to use at any given time.
• Improved weather effects.

With that said, we're looking for people to help us test it. By test it, I mean actually test it. If you've been around for a while, and are known to be completely trustworthy feel free to drop us a line expressing that you'd like to take part - but please don't bother unless you have some interest in actually helping.

Want to make some suggestions as to something you'd like to see in it? Feel free, but keep them reasonable.
Last edited by Zopharks on Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Tasiin
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Post by Tasiin »

Demonstration of the dynamic lighting on projectiles in action: here.

Projectile lighting is mostly complete as of this moment.

Mipmapping comparison:
No mipmapping vs. mipmapping

Mipmapping improves the appearance of distant textures by using increasingly lower resolution textures the further the camera is away from the texture. This prevents the "shimmering" or "crawling" effect visible during motion on most high-contrast or high-resolution textures in Giants at a distance. The difference is more pronounced during actual gameplay, but it's still clearly visible in the above screenshots.

Shadows can now be forced on (most) of the objects in the game as well, as you can see on the base buildings here.

More to come later.
Casqad
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Post by Casqad »

Well I'm willing to test it for sure.
But I don't know if my PC can handle it...
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RichardMH
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Post by RichardMH »

What kind of help do you need? Programmer, map makers, audio dudes etc?
Tasiin
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Post by Tasiin »

We're not really looking for much help at the moment other than testing.

As far as testers go, we're mostly interested in people who are willing to spend time playing around with all of the options available in GiantsHook at the moment, play often, and have a fast enough computer to handle all of the options being on.
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Riku
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Post by Riku »

ill test it.
Glude
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Post by Glude »

Ok, here are the things I've thought of. I'm just throwing ideas, I don't really know what is possible to do...

- Maximum LOD whatever the distance is.
- Increased proxy and homing trails decals (not sure if they can be called decals).
- Something else than shockwaves for the shield. I've always wanted a spheric shield. maybe that would require animations though...
- "Change text color" option?
- Laser gun :P
- 0 smarties option : I know you will regard that as cheating, but you must admit they are annoying on TDM mode sometimes.[/i]
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Zopharks
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Post by Zopharks »

Actually, one of GHook's current features is the ability to automatically rename people with colored names as they connect to your game, as it is just a little bit obnoxious. :P

I believe Tasiin already implemented the option to host a game with zero smarties in his current WIP verison.
SSJBardock
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Post by SSJBardock »

Some ideas:

-You could have some kind of voting system that allows people on dedicated servers to vote what the next map will be (eg. by typing '/3way1' in the chat)
-Voting for kicking/banning people
-I don't know wether you are updating the version number (so people with 1.4 will be unable to join), but if you are, there should be ways to put anticheat code in the hook dll.
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Zopharks
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Post by Zopharks »

At this time there are no plans on breaking compatability with 1.4, though we are exploring the possibility of some server-side anticheat measures.

I think Tas and I discussed the possibility of adding some manner of voting, but I honestly don't recall what came of it. Would be a nice feature to have, though.
[NEO]Vortex
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Post by [NEO]Vortex »

he can make it end the game (go to the next rotation) but not allow you to choose which map.
Tasiin
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Post by Tasiin »

Glude wrote: - 0 smarties option : I know you will regard that as cheating, but you must admit they are annoying on TDM mode sometimes.[/i]
Already done.
SSJBardock wrote: -You could have some kind of voting system that allows people on dedicated servers to vote what the next map will be (eg. by typing '/3way1' in the chat)
-Voting for kicking/banning people
-I don't know wether you are updating the version number (so people with 1.4 will be unable to join), but if you are, there should be ways to put anticheat code in the hook dll.
I'm definitely planning on implementing some kind of voting system, though as Vort pointed out, allowing players to choose which map they want to go to might be a bit more difficult. Adding a very basic voting system for kicking players or ending the current rotation should definitely be doable, though.

Anti-cheat is being worked on, though naturally I'd rather not discuss the details of that in public.
DarkFalcoZ
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Post by DarkFalcoZ »

If your going to have a voting system to kick people, I'd suggest putting it as a ratio instead of a number, unless there's only 2 people which at that point it has to be done another way (or ignored). You could try 2 methods, 1 where you type the actual name of the intended person ('/kick=wuteva') or you type the corresponding slot the person is in ('/kick=slot1').

Sometimes the person may have some weird s*** character they start with or end with and it would take a while to find. You could also leave an option for a wildcard in case you feel the need to kick a whole clan. :lol:

I wouldn't recommend adding a voting system for banning people, at least not until the kicking code goes smoothly.
Z0PharX wrote:Actually, one of GHook's current features is the ability to automatically rename people with colored names as they connect to your game, as it is just a little bit obnoxious. :P
Heheh, will you be able to add an option so the host can specify the name?
[NEO]Vortex
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Post by [NEO]Vortex »

'Friendly Fairy' isn't cool enough? :(
Tasiin
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Post by Tasiin »

If I do decide to add kicking as a voting option, banning will definitely not be included.

Server operators will be able to specify the new name that players connecting with colored names will receive, yes.
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