Banner

Repeat

End

Forums

HavenForts: Construct JetFists - The Chronicles of Wargasm (Episode 2, NeoForts)
  #1  
Old 12-18-2007
Zoc Zoc is offline
#include "title.h"

Fort Warrior
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Brazil, RJ
Posts: 1,490
Default Smoke Grenade

Hello there

Some may have noticed I started browsing the forums a lot a while ago, but I haven't made yet a real public post talking about myself.

I'm the new assistant programmer that joined the Sourceforts team. My previous work was with Unknown Worlds Entertainment, and worked, mainly, with website and database programming, some tweaks in their servers and in integration between the game and the website.
Please, don't ask anything about Natural Selection here. I don't have much to tell you about it, and everything I know about it is under NDA.

My task in Sourceforts Team is to aid in coding, both in bugfixing and adding new features. Today, we will take a look on how the the smoke grenade was developed and improved over time. Please note this is a Work in Progress, and many things are subject to change.



The first grenade was kinda odd... It had the same smoke trail like the rocket launcher. But the smoke area was too small for a real smoke grenade



Also, it didn't have any kind of detection from a darken to a light place... the difference was kinda minor.



Also, a bug identified a lot later, the grenade shell wasn't being removed after the smoke faded away...



... and worse, if you shot it, it would explode...

That was the very first smoke grenade for Scout class... It was pretty rough, but is was a quick prototype, and that was promising

I hope you have liked this first post... On the next post: Time to adjust it!
__________________
-Zoc



Never let the children compete with adults. When the child eventually loses, they will play pranks as much as he/she can against the adult.

Last edited by Zoc; 12-19-2007 at 03:52 AM. Reason: Minor update.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 12-18-2007
Project-Dragon's Avatar
Bunker Builder
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 172
Default

Welcome =)

Looks quite nice, but I'm looking forward to your next post to see how the adjusted version looks like.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 12-18-2007
013109's Avatar
100% dude
Veteran Fort God
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 4,519
Default

Exploding smoke grenades woulda been cool! LOL...

Great to see you posting now!
__________________
"I hope Draken and #'s will get picked up by communities that actually deserve them."
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 12-18-2007
Tobel^'s Avatar
FML

Fort Warrior
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 1,850
Default

i'm looking foward to your post "194 DL mirrors"

hello
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Draken View Post
I'm not the one who actually does fuck all in a mod PFFFFFFFFFF
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 12-18-2007
Master Craftsman
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 973
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ToBeL View Post
i'm looking foward to your post "194 DL mirrors"
__________________
Before you ask why he's banned. Simply, he requested to be. He personally found that he visited this site too much, for no reason. Lack of self control I guess, but there you go. Ask him if you want on his Steam. -Black™
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 12-18-2007
Sauce's Avatar
SourceForts Design Team
Flag Capper
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: ๏̯๏͡)
Posts: 3,635
Send a message via MSN to Sauce
Default

imo the grenades should remain explodable. it could be used as an extra tactical option for when you just want to flood an entire area with smoke, quickly.
__________________

sf_skiff
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 12-19-2007
Morbidity's Avatar
Trigger Happy Retard
Crawler
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Perth, WA
Posts: 19
Default

I think the smoke grenade is good in a way, but in other ways it can sorta ruin gameplay if the scout can sit at an ammo crate and (on some maps) spam smoke (tactical is safe for example). First it sorta ruins gameplay (in CS:S cs_office, anyone ever had terrorists camping and smoking the hostages?), second it can seriously lower fps for some of us.

Im not saying throw the idea of a smoke grenade out the window, but im saying (if at all possible) only give the scout one on spawning, and not able to retrieve one from an ammo crate.

Oh and BTW, Welcome Zoc!
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stieffers View Post
Walls are all around us. Walls provide privacy. They protect us while we're taking a crap.
lol, no shit?
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 12-19-2007
Sayyan's Avatar
Grandly Delusional
Veteran Fort God
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Plymouth, UK
Posts: 5,233
Send a message via MSN to Sayyan
Default

As has been said in the announcement thread, scouts currently only get one smoke grenade per life. You don't get new ones from an ammo crate.
__________________
God.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 12-19-2007
Zoc Zoc is offline
#include "title.h"

Fort Warrior
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Brazil, RJ
Posts: 1,490
Default

Smoke Grenade part 2 - Time to adjust it!



Looks a lot better, huh ?
Now it really covers a good area, looks thick enough to be useful, and was looking really great!

Sadly, I don't have all the steps I made. They were pretty funny, since you could see a big red/blue ball of small smoke... it sure looked more as some kind of vortex than smoke at all!

Here is a video I just made for this post:



You can see the "Smoke Grenade Beta 2" in action... Sadly, quality isn't very good... No idea why, but youtube just made my video look awful... =/

Anyway, let's explore some flaws of this new grenade (Which were noticed just at the test time... Everything was sooo perfect before it! )

Problem #1 - Smoke spawning


This is a screenshot from the very beginning of smoke generation. As you can see, the smoke doesn't spawn from the grenade itself, it randomly spawns from the area around it. This needs some improvement.

Problem #2 - No regular smoke spawns


In this one, I was inside the smoke spawning area, and exactly where I was (which happens pretty much), there was no smoke spawning. That's one of the problems of random spawning...This completely ruins the idea of grenade to the scout in battle. Also, if the smoke was spawning from the grenade (which were on my "feet", even not appearing on the screenshot), it would have at least a minimum of smoke covering that area.

Also, if you look carefully in the video, there's a moment where I looks directly to the grenade. There was no smoke spawning at that moment, also.

Problem #3 - No light differentiation.


As you can see, the appearance of the smoke looks the same on the spot that have lightning and in the one that doesn't have it. I don't want a self-illuminated smoke, even if it has red and blue colors... Don't look natural. That's something else that needs to be addressed.


This version of the smoke grenade was the one posted in the news page, tested on last weekend playtest.



Here are some more screenshots for your pleasure


Also, on the same playtest, some of these bugs were noticed (ex: Smoke wasn't spawning from the grenade itself), some were noticed after it (ex: Smoke didn't cover all the area), and some from the first post (ex: The smoke grenades weren't being removed, they would explode on shoot).

On the next post, we will see how each of these problems were addressed, the new smoke generation scheme, and some new bugs that appeared with the changes...
Also, some brand new screenshots, that even the beta team haven't seen yet!
__________________
-Zoc



Never let the children compete with adults. When the child eventually loses, they will play pranks as much as he/she can against the adult.

Last edited by Zoc; 12-19-2007 at 05:21 AM. Reason: typo
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 12-19-2007
013109's Avatar
100% dude
Veteran Fort God
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 4,519
Default

lol youtube video looked like you open the gates to hell...
__________________
"I hope Draken and #'s will get picked up by communities that actually deserve them."
Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 05:17 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0

Tab