Map Requests

[Morpheus]

For the case of Sandra I prefer using a new trigger because otherwise Janey would potentially know that Sandra was safe before she got into the bar, it seems better to have her wait until Sandra is within sight.

Isn't there a custom show/hide actor trigger around somewhere (or something like this that could do what is needed)? need sleep so don't have time to check on here

I'll post my custom zoneinfo tomorrow, just have to test it....it only changes music when you enter a zone and changes start up text for that zone (can be set to come on each time you enter the zone or once only) would there be anything else the zoneinfo would need?

3 Every single mission script I see is specific to a given map. I'm looking at the mission script for the second mission, every single bit of code begins with something along the lines of: if (localURL == "02_NYC_HOTEL")

Based on the names, I'm guessing "localURL" means "Map Name" and that would be a problem. If there's a way to have multiple different localURLs within a map then all we'd need to would be to assign each submap with a localURL the same as it had when it was its own map. If there isn't, then the code needs to be overhauled. And it wouldn't be as simple sticking all of the scripts under 02_NYC_STREET (or some such). For an example of why, the way the game checks to see if you've killed anyone in the bar is to see if any carcasses are spawned. Either a completely different kill counting method would be needed, or a way to have the script only be running in the bar area.

Yeah local URL is the map name. If zones did work for each area, if it were possible, you could change the local URL to the name of the zone (using zones tag) and that could fix that problem I think, but I am not great with mission script though.

[DaveW]

I'll post my custom zoneinfo tomorrow, just have to test it....it only changes music when you enter a zone and changes start up text for that zone (can be set to come on each time you enter the zone or once only) would there be anything else the zoneinfo would need?

Does it suddenly switch the music or is there a way to have a gradual transition? Again, I don't really know the limitations of the Unreal engine.

I'll poke DDL to come take a look here (if he's not already) and see if he can shed some light on what missionscript stuff would need to be altered.

[Morpheus]

Does it suddenly switch the music or is there a way to have a gradual transition? Again, I don't really know the limitations of the Unreal engine.

I could make it fade out the last zone music and fade in the current zone music rather than automatically switch the music if that's better.

[DaveW]

Definitely no crossfade? Ah, well - you can't have everything Fade out and in sounds great too though.

[Morpheus]

Definitely no crossfade? Ah, well - you can't have everything Fade out and in sounds great too though.

Had a quick look, I can only fade the music in, don't know how to take the last music and fade it out, it will just stop the music in the last area and fade in the new music, have a look tonight

[DaveW]

That's still better than how it is now, I guess. Music is the least of our worries trying to get this to work, to be fair - but it would be cool to do proper transitions. Maybe if there's ways around the other stuff I could ask around Unreal mod forums to see if anyone knows any tricks we could pull.

[Morpheus]

First, I think we need a list of what needs to be done, then we can start figuring things out from there

[chris the cynic]

What needs to be done is to deal with the fact that we'd essentially be running multiple missions in tandem in a single map.

As far as I know the major problem is mission script. I was thinking that what you'd need to do was make it so that the appropriate script would run when you were in a given area, but I don't think that's right. The way that the bar mission tracks if people have died would catch if someone out on the street died while the given script was running (I think.) So my initial thought, even if it is possible, wouldn't work.

I think that the code would need to be overhauled to make things work properly when there was just one map. A mission script overhaul and getting the music to transition properly would, I think, basically cover the problems of combining maps.

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About your zone thing, some of the maps have multiple zones (the hotel, for example, has 16) would your thing cause the music to stop and fade in every time you went from one of those zones to another, or would there be a check to make sure you only do that if the new music and old music were different?

For that matter, would it be possible to just have the music switching be done by something placed at the entrances to an area (where the map transitions are in Deus Ex) that the player walks through? (I also know nothing about triggers, for what it's worth.) That would be a lot simpler to add to maps than going through each zone and replacing the zone info.

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Also, on the topic of feasibility, putting all of the New York maps into one should be possible as far as getting the game to run is concerned (based on me shoving them all into one map, rebuilding, and opening it up in the game without incident), but that is as is. If too much detail is added in the NV maps then that might stop being true. (I don't know exactly what point it is, but I've been told that there's a point where the engine just says, "Too many points, I'm not going to do it.") I'd guess that combining the maps, if it is to be done, should be saved for last.

[Morpheus]

About your zone thing, some of the maps have multiple zones (the hotel, for example, has 16) would your thing cause the music to stop and fade in every time you went from one of those zones to another, or would there be a check to make sure you only do that if the new music and old music were different?

With my zone, even if there is a zone inside a larger zone (the larger zone being a big cube around the imported map) the music only changes if you enter another zone with my custom zone info in it and different music set to play...have to test it, but I don't think going into another zone within a zone will do anything unless as I said, you have another of my custom zones. The other zoneinfos don't tell the music to stop playing so it won't unless told to stop and change. (or at least that's the theory until I test it)

If we can figure a way of getting from one area to another (teleporters seem to act the same way whether your loading another map or teleporting to an area in the same map) everything I think could work. You could easily attach UNATCO HQ to the MJ12 Labs by just attaching the HQ map onto the area where you exit the labs. This also makes things a little harder to play as if you ran away from MJ12 troops to the next map (UNATCO HQ) rather than killed them, you'd still be chased by them. Which would be a good addition.

For mission script thing... I was thinking, while we are splitting areas up into large zones instead of seperare maps, why not use my custom zone info to choose a mission script for that area and split up the mission scripts (the code under Local URLs such as the mission script for Underworld bar in Mission02 script) and make a new script and put it there...add deusexlevelinfo code into my custom zone and remove the deusexlevel info and get the game to recognise my custom zone as the deusexlevelinfo while in the zone only (I think getting the game to recognise them from the map load could make it act as if multiple deusexlevelinfos are in the map instead of treating each one separatly)?

That missions script idea on zones would only apply to areas that have split up zones and not areas such as the MJ12 Labs and UNATCO HQ maps that could directly join onto eachother or maps that don't need these zones and areas that could be joined without the need for seperate areas (Tongs lab being joined directly onto triad compound for example) you would have to edit the mission script and remove the Local URL for that and that would need a work around.

Also while I mention Tongs Lab, there is a bug that needs fixed here too if we are joining both market and tongs lab as one map. Two issues both to do with Tongs lab. When you return from getting the ROM encoding from Versalife (when the triads unite with Max and Gordon in the temple) when you go to Tong's Lab, Triads say that "your doctor friend is down in the infirmary" if you said to Jaime to come find you in Hong Kong. Also if Paul is alive they also say "Glad Paul made it" or something to that affect, but they don't appear until you return from Versalife the second time, that needs fixed.

[chris the cynic]

Random pieces of largely useless information:

I estimate that to fit the street adjacent levels into one map without resorting to teleporters and warp zones you would need a map about four times larger than the current NYC street map (twice as long, twice as wide). I got this estimate by starting that the corner by the bar's front entrance and then adding various other maps using near by points of reference. (For example the back of the bar is directly across from the part of the hotel that includes the fire escape and one of the entrances to the underground is in that alley, the subway entrance is by the other exit from the underground.)

If one were to create a map like that there would be more variation in ground height than there is currently.

As we've already discussed at length, the bar, hotel and free clinic are all larger on the inside. Smuggler's hideout is actually smaller than it should be to fit the street map, and the underground is somewhat more complicated than that. Specifically, the two exits are at different heights when, based on the street map, they should be at the same height. Whether this makes it bigger or smaller than it should be depends on which of them you consider correct and which you consider incorrect, further, even if they were at the right height, they still wouldn't line up, but again you can't say it's too big or too small this time because the fit is wrong in two different directions, in one direction the entrances are too close together, in the other they are too far apart.

Other things worthy of note are the orientations of the exits to various maps. In the bar both exits face in the same direction when the exterior map clearly shows they should be opposite. In the hotel the exits are opposite when the exterior clearly shows they should be at right angles, and finally the exits from Smuggler's are at right angles when the exterior shows they should be opposite. (The underground has both exits facing in the right direction, and is tantalizingly close to actually matching the street.)

As I said before, if one were to try to combine these things such that the outside and inside matched it would be a massive undertaking (far outside the scope of this project, which is why I prefaced this information by saying it was useless). I think that one of the hardest things might simply be keeping information accurate. For example, all else being equal it would probably be simplest to attach Smuggler's map to the back entrance, but when smuggler is described by various in game characters it's stated that he's near the subway, which means that the front entrance is the one that needs to remain unchanged. That complicates things more than somewhat. Just sorting through the dialog and text to find all of the information you have to avoid contradicting would be time consuming. (And some of it is useless, Sally says the bar is on the corner near Smuggler's, that it's on the corner is debatable, it definitely isn't near Smuggler's.)

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Yes, this is what I think about in my spare time.



What?

[Morpheus]

Your right, also I was thinking that adding areas from other maps into larger ones (such as what was planned for NYC Streets) would actually make the load time for that map longer (which is what we are trying to avoid), the NYC Bar, Free Clinic etc... don't take that long to load generally (even with new vision) but combined to NYC Streets maps, is it really worth it if they will make the NYC streets map take longer to load and have to modify it largely to get the areas to fit?.

I think instead of trying to combine areas, we just work on the cosmetic side of the maps (such as adding the bits that are needed but can't be done by higher resolution textures alone) and fix any bugs within the maps such as I said about Tongs lab and Paul, Jamie not showing up when they were meant to or backwards textures..also the "Loyalty, Respect, Trust, Obey" textures in Versalife, two of the words don't fit 100% (Loyalty and Respect) I think.

[DaveW]

Your right, also I was thinking that adding areas from other maps into larger ones (such as what was planned for NYC Streets) would actually make the load time for that map longer (which is what we are trying to avoid), the NYC Bar, Free Clinic etc... don't take that long to load generally (even with new vision) but combined to NYC Streets maps, is it really worth it if they will make the NYC streets map take longer to load and have to modify it largely to get the areas to fit?.

I think instead of trying to combine areas, we just work on the cosmetic side of the maps (such as adding the bits that are needed but can't be done by higher resolution textures alone) and fix any bugs within the maps such as I said about Tongs lab and Paul, Jamie not showing up when they were meant to or backwards textures..also the "Loyalty, Respect, Trust, Obey" textures in Versalife, two of the words don't fit 100% (Loyalty and Respect) I think.

It would definitely make load times initially longer, but my rationale for suggesting this was to avoid repeated load times as you visited various areas. Say each map (Street, Clinic, Bar, Hotel, Smugglers) takes 10 seconds to load.

Say you go to the hotel, street, bar, street, clinic, street, bar, street, smugglers, street, then you leave. That's 110 seconds of load time overall. Combining the maps would mean a total load time of 50 seconds for the map - and that's it. No more load times. Unless you go underground, of course - I wouldn't suggest combining that.

So typically I think the overall load time would actually be significantly less. Of course if this really is major, major work - I'd rather have the maps graphically updated than focus too much on this. I just think this would be a really, really cool thing to do.

[chris the cynic]

Your right, also I was thinking that adding areas from other maps into larger ones (such as what was planned for NYC Streets) would actually make the load time for that map longer (which is what we are trying to avoid), the NYC Bar, Free Clinic etc... don't take that long to load generally (even with new vision) but combined to NYC Streets maps, is it really worth it if they will make the NYC streets map take longer to load and have to modify it largely to get the areas to fit?

I think you misunderstood my post. It was not a cautionary tale. It was self indulgent lunacy. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great it someone did it, but it would not be necessary for this project. In spite of their problems, Warp Zones and teleporters are both less intrusive than a loading screen. If a way can be found to prevent people from losing objects they carry across them (which I would guess should be possible) then I've got absolutely no objections to using them, which means that you wouldn't have to modify the NYC Street map at all to make them fit.

Combining the maps is the easy part, I can do it no problem and I'm sure you can too. It is almost as simple as cut and paste. Modifications to the maps would be minimal.

Unless I'm missing something the hard parts would be dealing with level specific stuff like music, mission scripts, and possibly the text that comes up the first time you enter a mission.

I think instead of trying to combine areas, we just work on the cosmetic side of the maps (such as adding the bits that are needed but can't be done by higher resolution textures alone) and fix any bugs within the maps such as I said about Tongs lab and Paul, Jamie not showing up when they were meant to or backwards textures..also the "Loyalty, Respect, Trust, Obey" textures in Versalife, two of the words don't fit 100% (Loyalty and Respect) I think.

I don' think the two are mutually exclusive.

The problems with combining maps are things that require a coder rather than a mapper (as near as I can tell.) If a coder is willing to take a shot at it they could do that while the maps were being made, because combining them could be the very last thing done.

In fact, it probably should be the last thing done. It just makes more sense to get the individual maps how they are supposed to be before stitching them together.

[Morpheus]

I think you misunderstood my post. It was not a cautionary tale. It was self indulgent lunacy. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great it someone did it, but it would not be necessary for this project. In spite of their problems, Warp Zones and teleporters are both less intrusive than a loading screen. If a way can be found to prevent people from losing objects they carry across them (which I would guess should be possible) then I've got absolutely no objections to using them, which means that you wouldn't have to modify the NYC Street map at all to make them fit.

Yes I understood what you meant, I was just saying about maps taking longer to load this way, but didn't think of the loading would be lessened as you wouldn't be going from map to map but one or two maps instead of say 4-5 in the same mission.

Teleporters may not be so useful, they give you a loading screen reguardless of being internal or loading another map.

Yeah the best option would fix what needs to be fixed and done with individual maps first then we can try and combine them. If someone were to be able to (when the time comes) combine maps, I could do the coding side after that for music, missions script etc...

Wondering, for music changes, would a trigger work? You could have a music trigger, define the music to play, put it in a place that it would trigger when you enter, get it to replace the current playing music with the music you define in its properties, then have another with a UMX file defined to play.

An example of what I mean would be two triggers. Have one placed say outside the NYC bar front and back door and another two just inside the doors. One at the doors is set to play NYC Streets music in defaultproperties but since it would already be playing, no need to trigger it yet (its OFF), but when you trigger the bar music to play from the triggers just inside the door, this sets the NYC Streets music trigger to ON so it works when you frob it and music changes.

You'd need a way of connecting two triggers (I am not good with triggers) to let one know when the other is off and other is on so the right one plays the right music in the right place. Just a theory

[chris the cynic]

So now that everyone has been driven away by the topic of combining the maps, I'd like to say something that's closer to the original topic.

Exits.

Jordan Shea says that if the roads weren't closed you could walk to the warehouse district. When she says that it makes perfect sense, because there's a visibly closed road. She said that you can't get there because the road was closed by the riot cops, there's a road that's been closed by riot cops it seems like everything makes sense.

The problem comes two levels later when the road is opened. I'm not referring to the fact that the road which is opened doesn't resemble what the road that was closed. (I don't think many people hop up and down on the roadblock when the road is closed trying to get a glimpse so that they can be pissed off when the open road doesn't resemble what was behind the closed doors.) I am instead referring to the fact that the road doesn't go anywhere. The road goes from the New York City Street map, to the NSF HQ, and nowhere else. It just stops at a dead end in front of the NSF HQ. The road leading south that Jordan Shea told us about doesn't exist. There should be a road leading south (it should be closed, don't get me wrong, but it should exist.)

The warehouse district itself should also have at least one way out of it. Closed to the player, of course, but it should be there.

When JC finds the MJ12 tunnels underground Alex points out that those tunnels aren't on his New York City sewer maps. Meaning that the sewer JC is in when he finds the tunnel must be on one of those maps (otherwise Alex would have said it sooner) the trouble is, the sewer JC is in at the time doesn't go anywhere. It serves no function other than as an entrance to the tunnels that are not on Alex's maps. That isn't right. The sewer should extend beyond the part JC can access. (So perhaps it could branch off but have the branches barred so JC cannot go into said branches.)

When JC finally arrives at the facility where MJ12 is holding Ford, Alex immediately tells him it is an old water treatment plant. So that is on one of his maps. It makes no sense that the only entrance to something that is on Alex's maps should be a system of tunnels that is not. The water treatment plant should have another exit. Presumably this would involve adding a locked door, the only potential annoyance being that the type of doors used in that area are not the type of doors you use use the barred door texture on, which means you potentially have the problem of a player looking high and low for a way to open a door that cannot be opened.

I'm sure that there are a lot of places where things could be made more realistic simply by locked or blocked exits. TNM made use of air vents going straight up (with no way to climb them) then branching off as a way to avoid making it seem liking it seem like the only reason the vents existed was so that you could crawl through them.

With all of the Deus Ex players here, I'm sure that we could make a comprehensive list of every place where something made no sense because it lacked reasonable connection to the outside world, and (I'm pretty sure) in every case fixing it would involve adding things that are largely visual in nature (like a branch of sewer that you can see, but not enter, which wouldn't alter game play at all) and thus fixes would fall well within the bounds of this project.