Project Update: 5th April 2011

[CCHyper 3]

Update

 

Save Games in Skirmish

I recoded the game options menu to allow the Save, Load and Delete Mission buttons to show during a skirmish battle. All 3 sub dialogs work correctly and its possible to create a save game when in a skirmish session. The bad news of this is that the game has a few inbuilt logic's to make sure save games only save data needed for single player campaign, so when loading up a save game from the skirmish battle it will interpret the data as a campaign scenario and this of course causes a few problems.

 

So its halfway there, and hopefully totally possible!

 

 

Incorporating RA: Retaliation Missions

Simple, i'm working on another sub dialog that will be accessible from the main menu, this will allow you to play the RA: Retaliation missions found in "The Lost Files" pack released by Nyerguds.

 

 

Allowing Non Hardcoded Movies & MPEG Option

There is code in the works that will allow any movie filename to be used on mission transitions, currently the game only allows filenames that are defined in a internal list. The game also, from v3.03, has code to play MPEG format videos, but this requires a boolean to be true (it never is because of another logic they introduced). I will recode the whole video searching code to first search for the *FILENAME*.VQA, if this is not located, then it will search for *FILENAME*.MPG, and if neither is found, then no video is played.

 

 

Higher Resolution Modes

I'm starting from scratch with this feature, removed all previous code and will begin to recode this with a much more optimized fashion.

 

 

[pichorra 4]

Yay, CCHyper is Back! Finally we will get the crappy RA resolution expanded!

 

ue uante more CCHyper! more!

[AlexB 8]

The boolean to enable the MPG video feature belongs to the RA1 DVD edition. IIRC it is sufficient to add a DWORD value called "DVD" to the game's registry key with a value of 1 to enable it. The game will then try to play the movie by the name "MOVIES\FILENAME.MPG". If it's not available, an error dialog will show up and after that the VQP is played.

 

Nice to see you coding again

[CCHyper 3]

Aye, i was just making it simple for people to understand. Also, im going to enable this and disable the fact it needs the registry entry and hook it to work alongside the VQA func, Play_Movie(). I currently have all VQA movies in the MOVIES\ directory, as well as the TLF ones for code testing.

 

And cheers

[Nyerguds 100]

Eh Hyper, Retaliation are just the CS and AM missions. All the Lost Files pack does is giving them videos. The only reason TLF contains the mission files is because they needed to be replaced with versions which have the videos set as starting videos.

[CCHyper 3]

You already told me, no need to post it!

[Plok 323]

Will this fix graphic glitches, like the Tesla Tank not firing from the Coil, but from its threads, and some Ore Truck inconsistencies (the thing sometimes goes over or behind the Refinery to unload)

[Maggifixxx 0]

Really awesome news Hyper!

Great work on those video stuff, now I really will be able to make a nice campaign with some extra videos. And mpg is really nice too. Even though VQA Encoder works, the format itself costs much time to get videos into it and the filesize isnt that nice.

 

I also hope we'll see the highres in near future. But thanks to cncdraw this is not that urgent anymore as it was before. Good luck with that!

 

 

But I have some questions Hyper.

 

How hard would it be to add some hardcoded Unit/Building/Infantry Slots? It would be able to have a higher number of available units in Modding. Simply adding some A1, A2, A3, A4.... or something like that would be awesome for modding.

Also what about weapons? For my self I don't need more warheads or projectiles. But the possibility of having more Units and Weapons available would be really awesome.

I can imagine adding new Building Names to the exe could be more complicated because it would need a fixed foundations for every entry, right?

 

And what about some more Waypoint slots for Campaings? It's 0 to 99 atm... would you be able to increase the number of available waypoints?

 

 

I know stuff like that isnt that important as these are not any bugs. Of course what you do here is actually developing a patch. I still think Modding could benefit from that. I always played arround with Red Alert. Creating my own Campaign with selfmade videos units and music. I get so much in detail, with "animated" mission intros (blocking MANY waypoints with that actually xD ) and such. So if this kind of stuff isn't that hard to include, would you be able to integrate it into the next version of the RA Patch? As said only if this kind of stuff is easy to integrate.

 

 

But no matter what happens, I think I gonna love the whole Command & Patch Team anyway xD. Really nice work guys, all of you.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Maggifixxx

[CCHyper 3]

Will this fix graphic glitches, like the Tesla Tank not firing from the Coil, but from its threads, and some Ore Truck inconsistencies (the thing sometimes goes over or behind the Refinery to unload)

I shall look into these bugs.

 

 

How hard would it be to add some hardcoded Unit/Building/Infantry Slots? It would be able to have a higher number of available units in Modding. Simply adding some A1, A2, A3, A4.... or something like that would be awesome for modding.

Also what about weapons? For my self I don't need more warheads or projectiles. But the possibility of having more Units and Weapons available would be really awesome.

I can imagine adding new Building Names to the exe could be more complicated because it would need a fixed foundations for every entry, right?

 

And what about some more Waypoint slots for Campaings? It's 0 to 99 atm... would you be able to increase the number of available waypoints?

I'm looking into the possibility adding more of every type, but the waypoints i can not say if its possible or not.

[MrFlibble 31]

Will this fix graphic glitches, like the Tesla Tank not firing from the Coil, but from its threads, and some Ore Truck inconsistencies (the thing sometimes goes over or behind the Refinery to unload)

I shall look into these bugs.

While you're at it, maybe you'll also fix the annoying displaced SAM site smoke too?

[CCHyper 3]

Is the same with the coords being wrong?

[Nyerguds 100]

You already told me, no need to post it!

I posted it here BEFORE I said it on MSN

[CCHyper 3]

Well yea, i knew that!

[Nyerguds 100]

btw, after revealing I made it possible to add new units into C&C1, someone asked if the same was possible in RA... might be worth looking into?

 

If C&C1 was any indication it's mainly just fixing the 100-units bug thing and linking all checks for the number of units to one central value.

 

Of course, to actually make it usable you probably want to store the units in a vector and use its Count value as that central value, and you'd also need to add an actual unit types list in rules.ini so new ones can be added.

[Bullet 0]

Hey Hyper i have two suggestions for your Patch.

 

If you are already implementing the Retaliation Videos then you probably could ADD the Retaliation Music which are the 5 new Songs from C&C Sole Survivor, but dont just exchange them with other songs.

 

And i have a problem with the Multiplayer Save Game Option.

I´m used to increase the [Maximums] Settings in rules.ini all by the factor 100 except the special ones which have to be "1" because already in a 2 Player Multiplayer Game you really fast reach the Limits for Units and Buildings

and then nobody can build anything more and the player who do not build enough has then less units then the other one and despite of that he can not get more units than the other one, so the one who builds faster will win...

And the problem is now if you have more things on the map than in the Standard Maximums Settings in rules.ini and you save the game, then you can not load it correctly, its not working with extended limits, what is really sad, because

the game runs fine with that change but not the Multiplayer Save Game Option

The same issue applies to the RAED Editor v1.26 it has probably the same limits

So maybe you could improve that Save Game Option

Edited April 16, 2011 by Bullet

[MrFlibble 31]

If you are already implementing the Retaliation Videos then you probably could ADD the Retaliation Music which are the 5 new Songs from C&C Sole Survivor, but dont just exchange them with other songs.

I second that.

[Nyerguds 100]

That shouldn't be hard

[CCHyper 3]

Aye, ill add them too. Perhaps some type of system to load them on the fly too so new tracks can be added with ease.

[Nyerguds 100]

Well, I think the system I built in C&C95 isn't bad in that aspect... kinda the TS system

[CCHyper 3]

Thats pretty much what i will be doing.

[Bullet 0]

I also hope we'll see the highres in near future. But thanks to cncdraw this is not that urgent anymore as it was before. Good luck with that!

 

 

Why do you think because of cncdraw the high resolution for RA1 is not that urgent anymore??? It just gives you a windowed mode and not a higher resolution.

 

 

And Hyper could you please fix another bug?

Everytime any Projectile leaves the map or a Unit or Building shoots out of the map the game crashes!

Please prevent the game from crashing then

 

Thanks

Edited April 22, 2011 by Bullet

[Nyerguds 100]

umm... cnc-ddraw has nothing to do with hi-res. The only thing it can do besides windowed mode is stretch the screen to a different higher resolution.

[hifi 0]

Trolololollololollololoo trolololoooo...

 

 

I was bored, sorry

 

Requires sum testin' but the game itself seems to work pretty well.

 

(And there are small drawing bugs still present as you can see in the shot)

Edited June 14, 2011 by Sonic

[pichorra 4]

... WhaaAAat? my eyes are tricking me or something like that?

[Sonarpulse 1]

HELL YEAH! is there any map is too small errors like TD?