monsters

[MadGypsy]

you would have never figured all of this out (not being condescending) this dragon is all over the pace in rogue.

Narrowing it down as we speak

[MadGypsy]

this is pissin me off. LOL!

so much unrelated crap is mixed together. I'm basically rebuilding rogue without monsters. Good news and bad news Bluntz.

first the bad news: this goes beyond just adding a few vars to defs and including the dragon code, so Imma pick this back up when it's not 1 hour before I intend to go to sleep.

the good news: I WILL do this for you and it WILL work. I want to approach this when I can sit down and go over every damn rogue QC and pick out all the code that is exclusively for the dragon. I know why rogue has the dragon mixed up with a bunch of other code, it's sharing the plasma weapon and a couple of other things.

sorry that my confidence was misguided for this to be a quicky. However, I have never met a QC that I can't dissect, so I just need some time. Time that I will spend tomorrow evening after work.

There is actually a hair more good news. I probably already have all the code that is needed, included in the compile list. The "problem" is I need to strip out code from that, that is NOT needed. From there, writing the .ent will be a joke.

[bluntz]

Sweet..
Funny how all these unrelated discussions converge sometimes to something we are all working on for completely different reasons.
Thanks MG!

[MadGypsy]

Anytime, bro. I dont give a fux about Quake, but I like to keep my QC sharp. Ripping apart QC is the best way to understand it (imo). I get what's going on with the dragon, I just don't feel like dealing with something that tedious tonight.

I'll strip out mult_wpn.qc and sphere.qc as well as new_items.qc to where all the extra bullshit is gone and we should basically be in business.

in contrast we could have just used custents and I wouldn't have had to do shit (i think), but then you end up with bloated code for just one new thing.

It's gonna happen, watch for it. I'm sorta determined to kick its ass.

[bluntz]

Ok so I guess I will build a skeleton for the dragon then make new animations following the old naming and you will show me how to compile the new fight sequences in qc?

[MadGypsy]

first: I have had a really rough 2 days at work. I haven't even worked on sitephyre. I come home and zone out, because it is all that I have the mental energy to do. I only say this because I was supposed to finish this yesterday. I couldn't even think about thinking about it. It will probably be like this til Tuesday.

second: sure man, I'll teach you anything you want to know about first quake modding.

[bluntz]

Ok I found an old mod that has A red dragon from Q1test called Triad.Perhaps this is a simpler approach than Rogue?Think theres a qc file for it.

[MadGypsy]

either way. I will be attacking this again at some point tomorrow.

[MadGypsy]

Done

click

includes:

1) Dragon and all related dragon media (gibs, fire, plasma, sounds)
2) custom .ent with monster_dragon and dragon_corner
3) .map example of how to use the dragon

In the .map the purple lines are the dragons path. Each point is a dragon_corner. The "magic" can be found in the target and targetname fields of the dragon_corner entity. Basically, this works exactly like func_train.

4) bsp compile of the .map just for fun




*I know my map sucks.

[MadGypsy]

You're killing me Bluntz! {mentally grabs you by the shirt and drags you to QuakeOne}

I just want to know if this is good enough, so I can officially mark it "promise honored".

*apparently my Professor X skills suck.

[bluntz]

Sorry MG I am in Concord NH and the cell service sucks.
I am not able to test it till I get home but am sure it will rock!
So now that I can get it into my map maybe you can give me an outline of the process we will need to do to change it's behavior?
A new thread on QC seems in order centering on this model for the base example.I am sure many people will benefit from it.
Thanks again!

[MadGypsy]

Or maybe my Professor X skills aren't half bad!

Changing the dragons behavior will be complicated and simple all in the same breath. It will be simple because it will be no different than changing the animation frame definitions for any other AI entity. It will be complicated because the dragon has a hell of a lot of frame definitions and they make a lot of decisions. I've never personally seen a monster with so much going on in the frame definitions.

I would actually like to make another change to the dragon (why do I do this to myself). Currently the dragon is bound to it's path. Even if it sees you, it throws out some fireballs or plasma and then continues on it's defined path. That's lame. It should be - if the dragon sees you, it changes "missions" and viciously attacks you til you die (or kill it).

I need to think about this one quite a bit and I may not even be good enough to implement that change in a clean and realistic way. No promises other than the fact that I will give it thought and a shot.

------

hmmmm, maybe 2 paths. 1st path is the basic flight path of a dragon getting some exercise but upon spotting the player the dragon's target changes to a ".storedTarget" that holds the targetname of the first alternate dragon_corner of the alternate path. (pssssh that was a mouthful).

Simply saying "ignore path and attack player" isn't going to work. This is a flying creature. It needs to act like a flying creature. Saying "ignore path and attack player" will leave you with a big flapping beast in your face doing all kinds of unrealistic stuff. It will also make it impossible for you to ever kill it.

Play my stupid little map. You'll (maybe) get a kick out of how hard it is to beat the dragon. I'll give you one hint. My shitty lil map is actually designed for you to be able to plot your attack. It's a bit of a waiting game. You can kick the dragons ass without him ever seeing you, but you have to do things in a certain order and I wouldn't recommend missing more than once or twice with those rockets or you are going to be trying to kill the dragon with your axe.

[bluntz]

kewl, have a look at some bot code and see how they manage to use waypoints and attack player, maybe you can just marry them.
http://icculus.org/gtkradiant/documentation/bot_manual/
Oh and BTW X why does the Mentat call leave me jonesing for tacos?

[bluntz]

errors v_plasma.mdl missing
rename plasma.mdl to v_plasma.mdl?

[MadGypsy]

done

.ent is personalized for you (cause it had other mods in it that you didn't have) and the model is no longer missing

file