ROOs

[p0lyg0d]

Yay time for me to butt in!!!

How bout you actually get to ride in a roo? Would be a tight squeeze

[TexasGtar]

cant believe i missed this thread.

uh the riding on them was suggested back on page 1, I think..lol

I want a roo too. Of course in texas you would be laughed out of the state if you owned one or had a roo farm or something. I saw one box once on tv and the roo did pretty good but i think it was like wrestling and the whole fight was fixed. I mean the guy didnt try very hard and just let the roo kick and box him to a pulp.

Roos dont need a weapon if they can box and kick. As long as they have a high health they would be pretty badazz.

All the roo ideas were pretty good. This roo thing could catch on and then you would be up to your ears in roo projects.

Roohoo!

[p0lyg0d]

I h8 it when I mis-read posts...

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by xanton

Wow, fast reply! Well... offline they look around, then they put their
heads down for browsing or something - looks very realistic. But when
I put them on my server they are rigid like statues. They only move
when they are hit or touched by players. And when I say they move,
I mean they only change their positions not their posture.

Thank you for the description, that tells me what's happening.
It sounds like (and please anyone else can jump in on this) the code is still actually working and the Roo is still waiting to be startled, changing location and rotating. It sounds like the animation commands aren't replicating properly. It sounds like that's all that needs fixin'.
I will take a quick look at this and post some report later today.

Originally Posted by xanton

You're very welcome to visit your Roos on my server:
217.160.176.42:25300

It's a duel mod server so you need other players to be in there for
voting a map. Watch out for DM-SBD-Cage-Beta1.

Thanks for your fast reply and greetings from Munich
Xanton

Great! ( Rocken Sie! )?
I will check out your server too.
Cheers, Xanton!

Originally Posted by TexasGtar

cant believe i missed this thread...
All the roo ideas were pretty good. This roo thing could catch on and then you would be up to your ears in roo projects.

Roohoo!

Ja. I like all the Roo ideas.
I also think it could catch on and be fun.
I will make some time for this in the coming year.
I will most likely want to pace myself...

[kragon]

Realy great roos mate, cant wait for the wombats. emus and dingos.
hmmmmmmmm a flying Kookaburra would be nice.
Or maybe some magpies that swoop down and try to peck ya.....

[SuperApe]

Testing Replication for proper online play.
dm-roorep_b1 *was* available.
Currently testing Animation.
Later, to test: Sound, Health/Death, Trigger, Touch, etc.
Thanks to VejOut for testing help.

[TexasGtar]

Originally Posted by SuperApe

Testing Replication for proper online play.
dm-roorep_b1 is available.
Currently testing Animation.
Later, to test: Sound, Health/Death, Trigger, Touch, etc.
Thanks to VejOut for testing help.

Do you need people to test this on single player????

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by TexasGtar

Do you need people to test this on single player????

Well, no. I can do that.
The Roos are going to be used on a DM map that needs Replication support, meaning online support.
As it is right now, Animation information isn't replicated (copied) from the Server to the Client. So, the Roos slide around, but don't graze or hop.
I need to test that, plus other online replication issues.
This is something I've been unable to do without someone to host the test maps holding the Roos in progress.
Thanks to VejOut who's mapping the DM map and who has access to a server, this can now be done. Woot!

[HERO Maxwell]

Originally Posted by SuperApe

Well, no. I can do that.
The Roos are going to be used on a DM map that needs Replication support, meaning online support.
As it is right now, Animation information isn't replicated (copied) from the Server to the Client. So, the Roos slide around, but don't graze or hop.
I need to test that, plus other online replication issues.
This is something I've been unable to do without someone to host the test maps holding the Roos in progress.
Thanks to VejOut who's mapping the DM map and who has access to a server, this can now be done. Woot!

You can start your own dedicated game, then load up 2k4 and join that server. Ive doen that to test if custom pickups show up online or not..so it hsould owrk.

[Lord_Simeon]

Yeah, i remember Blitz telling me something along those lines.
Doesn't matter if no one can join the server either, it mimics online conditions and will tell you if there's errors.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by HERO Maxwell

You can start your own dedicated game, then load up 2k4 and join that server. Ive doen that to test if custom pickups show up online or not..so it (should work).

Okay, I read this and said, "No way", because I had tried many times before,
using as many different ways as I could think of at the time.
It took a couple tries and a "*doink*, oh yeah!" to get it.
The trick was using my machine's full name.

Let's be specific:
- Start a Dedicated Server so it's running in the background on your machine.
- Find your machine's Full Computer Name under System Properties -> Computer Name.
- Start UT2k4.
- Pull down the console and enter, "map <your machine's Full Computer Name>".

Woot!
Thanks a lot, HERO!
You have no idea how many times I've needed this and have been frustrated by it.


Now, I can work on the Replication issues for the Roo and my UAV with no delay!
(well, except for all the other work I have to do)

[VejOut]

You're still welcome to use my server to test them out SuperApe.

[SuperApe]

Thanks, Vej. I've been working on this myself.

Oh man, I wish I was aware of this before.
The Roos would've been so much better during online
games. (Sorry, Spargo.)

I've been working on all Replication issues. So far,
sounds works fine, Trigger and Touch seem okay.
The problems are blood/gib spawning and getting the
animation to play *through* AnimEnd. (despite my
code, the clients seem to ignore any further call
for PlayAnim until the animation sequence changes)

Anyway, I've got a couple more leads to follow. The
result will be glorious Roo action online, plus a new
function to handle Roo gibs so they actually *splat*.

When the code looks like it works on my end, I'll upload
the new test map and send it to VejOut for testing.

[SuperApe]

Okay, this is tough stuff, to be sure.

I have the Roos animating properly, although I cheated.
PlayAnim() functions aren't replicated, but LoopAnim()s
don't need to be, so the Roo loops all the time. That
doesn't make it look different, except to me because I
can see the tiny (1 frame) hiccup as it hops around.
I may have to re-import the animation from Maya if I
leave it like this.

The alternative is to actually figure out a good way to
signal a PlayAnim() function *with the same sequence*
to the clients. That's the part that farks up ATM. I
play the Hop animation each hop instead of looping so
that AnimEnd has a chance to decide if the Roo should
stop and graze. It seems like it would be good to know,
but if it works by looping every sequence then I may
leave it the way it is.

The really frustrating one now is the function I call to
spawn gibs and blood. These do not replicate by default.
Although, I have set this Splat() function to be a Reliable
replicated function, and it is a simulated function, it just
isn't happening.

On the upside, this Splat() function works great and looks
awesome offline. I also tweaked some of the collision
settings on this Mesh, so now when you aim for a Roo,
you kinda have to hit the head or body. Before it was a
HUGE collision cylinder that didn't make sense and didn't
care if you hit the Roo or five feet above the Roo, now
it's pretty accuarate.

Unfortunately, a new problem cropped up. I'm sure it won't
be hard to track down, but the Roos tend to make each
other bleed whenever they Touch. Funny.

I've poured through a lot of Replication docs on the wiki
and some of it even made sense. I've spent more
time on this today than I anticipated and I'll have to pick
this up again tomorrow.

[SuperApe]

Man, this stuff is really convuluted.
This from the wiki:

Originally Posted by Replicated Functions

Function calls can only be replicated to or from the client owning the actor
If the client doesn't own the actor your log will output Received Unwanted Function

This means the Owner of the actor containing the replicated function must be a PlayerPawn in UT or a PlayerController or Pawn owned by a PlayerController in UT2003.

This was both enlightening and frustrating. Evidentally, the engine does not expect anything to use replicated functions unless it has it's own controller.

I began to think of way to use replicated variables (like bSplat) to signal to a simulated Tick() function (moved from a server-side Grazing state) to go ahead and run Splat() client-side using other replicated properties as it's arguments.

And yet after another couple hours of working on it. I'm still no closer.
More later.

PS - At least I fixed the profusely bleeding Roos. It makes sense with the new Collision boxes I set up on the Roo Meshes that it would hurt more often than Collision Cylinders. Anyway, I just made it so they don't bleed unless they're hurt more than 5 points worth.