iv no idea what you guys are talking about but i installed FFED3DAJ.exe-application error. and as i read on it makes another error? is the game playable?
what steps should i take?
The FFED3D Thread
- Thread starter Steve O B Have
- Start date
iv no idea what you guys are talking about but i installed FFED3DAJ.exe-application error. and as i read on it makes another error? is the game playable?
what steps should i take?
i downloaded it from elite forever. it loaded from winrar into its own location.
after searching for encounters... i clicked it and it launched .but i get FFED3DAJ.exe-application error.
Hi Fludderlumpagoose.
That fault was from a while ago now and I corrected it in the v1.01 patch release. The current version is v1.03.
I understand that my original build has been included in the Elite Forever package but perhaps it has not been updated since.
I'd suggest registering with Space Sim Central (which IS free to join, people frequently misread the registration page) or the Elite-Games Russian forum where FFED3D originated - having Google Toolbar installed to provide translations may be helpful!
From there, find the original beta v1.12++ FFED3D full package (needs 7zip installed to unpack) or better, Ittiz's beta 3 package. Download and unpack either of them into your folder of choice. Then find the FFED3DAJ v1.03 patch & supporting core textures and optional multiple-skins: together at SCC downloads or, in this post and the v1.03 patch at the Elite-Games Russian forum.
Download these files and install over the top of your chosen install.
Please refer to the ffed3daj_readme.txt file that's in the patch zip, this contains information that should help configure the game (ffed3daj.cfg file now, not ffewin.cfg) as well as detailing any currently known issues/resolutions.
Also @lien_leposh & T.j. - regarding the Elite Forever download
Hope this helps
AndyJ
That fault was from a while ago now and I corrected it in the v1.01 patch release. The current version is v1.03.
I understand that my original build has been included in the Elite Forever package but perhaps it has not been updated since.
I'd suggest registering with Space Sim Central (which IS free to join, people frequently misread the registration page) or the Elite-Games Russian forum where FFED3D originated - having Google Toolbar installed to provide translations may be helpful!
From there, find the original beta v1.12++ FFED3D full package (needs 7zip installed to unpack) or better, Ittiz's beta 3 package. Download and unpack either of them into your folder of choice. Then find the FFED3DAJ v1.03 patch & supporting core textures and optional multiple-skins: together at SCC downloads or, in this post and the v1.03 patch at the Elite-Games Russian forum.
Download these files and install over the top of your chosen install.
Please refer to the ffed3daj_readme.txt file that's in the patch zip, this contains information that should help configure the game (ffed3daj.cfg file now, not ffewin.cfg) as well as detailing any currently known issues/resolutions.
Also @lien_leposh & T.j. - regarding the Elite Forever download
That information and the icon problem only relates to the original FFED3D patch, not to my builds. I don't know what the launcher configures or runs, but there is probably a JJFFE 2.8a7 build (FFED3DAJ.exe) or Anisotropic 0.9c mod build (FFED3DAJ_Anisotropic.exe) in the sub folders - the latter being buggy if it is a v1.00 build and it was rebuilt again from the original anisotropic sources in v1.02 to remove the problematic alterations that had been added into the original FFED3D r17+ sources that these patches are based off.
Hope this helps
AndyJ
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Sorry,
I'd have replied earlier that I have got full screen AND full sound, but I've been busy making my wife a computer widow again!!!
Thanks for your help everyone.
I'd have replied earlier that I have got full screen AND full sound, but I've been busy making my wife a computer widow again!!!
Thanks for your help everyone.
Zak Gordons Mods for FFED3D [MODS]
These mods work best when using AndyJ's mod for FFED3D
Please install his mod first. Details on that can be found in the following thread:
================================================
I've been modding for a long time now, since Call To Power II (early 2000). I've made and assisted in mods for Civ games, Total War series, Moo III, TES series, Mount & Blade, Crusader Kings, PotC (Build Mod) and probably a few others i've forgotten about.
Probably the first thing i look into now with a new game is what i can 'fix' or improve on via modding. Basically i'm a frustrated developer (my maths is bad enough to make programing 'high level' a tough call).
Anyway since stumbling across FFED3D and really loving what AndyJ has been doing to this, i've started to do the same in terms of looking to see what i can do to help the process of improving the overall FFED3D experience. Most of this work so far has been in little graphical tweaks. I put up my ZGtextureMod in the FFED3D thread, but as i also have other stuff to share i thought a separate thread for all this going forward might be a good idea.
General Advice:
As most of my mods are simple, you simply need to copy/paste the contents into the relevant folder in your FFED3D installation, allowing the new files to over-write the old ones if prompted, and remembering to make backups of your original files before hand! You might HATE the changes and want to revert back to the previous files!
The system i suggest for installing mods is to download and unzip the files somewhere other than into the game directly (i have a separate 'Mods' folder on my PC where i put/arrange all mods prior to installation in game), then copy/paste the files from this place into the game.
Also as people have different installation paths for their games, i'm not a fan of the 'autoinstall' method of adding mods. So i prefer to give the user full control and responsibility for adding the mods, as it is not that hard.
Mods and download links:
1. ZGtextureMod 2.72MB - This mod is also part of the larger and more recent ZGTexture+ModelMod below, so you only need that larger file. I'll keep this up just in case people still want to use it over the bigger full texture rework, and just want the nicer HUD sights and planets/sun textures without all the additional model and texture resizing of the larger mod.
This contains 25 adjusted textures, mostly planets and suns for the 'system info' screen, but also some GUI changes to the direction cursor and weapon sight.
I always found the original 'weapon/direction sights' from FFE way too huge, and i felt the same for the versions of FFED3D we have, so this is a reduced sized version of the default FFED3D one. Full info in the included txt file. Simply Copy/Paste the texture files into the \Texture folder in your FFED3D installation.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/keou20iameiad34/ZGtexturesMod.zip
-------------------------------------------------
2. ZGNewCabinBackgrounds 4.45MB - New hi-res versions based of various artists work, and retouched to work perfectly in game. Cabin0.png to Cabin5.png.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/yrhp9fao5f968ix/ZGNewCabinBackgrounds.zip
-------------------------------------------------
3. ZGFFED3DMusicMod 59.7MB - This contains replacement tracks for 7 of the less 'nice' original music tracks for FFE. This is off course subjective, but the files changed are ones like 'Baba yaga', 'Rock' etc. They will make your musical experience of FFED3D much more relaxed and 'spacey'!
Don't forget to play each new file first (say in winamp or whatever media/music player you use) just in case one of the new ones is not to your liking, and you can also pick and choose which ones you want to replace etc.
The original 7 tracks have been replaced with 'ambient' style tracks that fit really well in space i find. All details are in the included txt file. Simply Copy/Paste the music tracks into the \Music folder in your FFED3D installation.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ym63hmjbdi4du9n/ZGFFED3DMusicMod.zip
-------------------------------------------------
4. HYPE_RAW - (63KB) This is just a simple sound replacement for the Hyperspace sound, to make it less 'harsh/dangerous/nasty' sounding. It is a new version of the 'HYPE.RAW' file found in the '\FX' folder. All info is in the enclosed readme file.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ah2ow2liljddhmi/HYPE_RAW.zip
-------------------------------------------------
5. ZGTexture+ModelMod 113MB - This is a large reworking of most of the textures in the 'Models' and 'Texture' folders. The main aim has been to reduce the memory footprint of the games exe and improve certain textures to appear better in game. Many of the textures used in game were higher resolution than was needed (they would even reduce graphical visibility in some cases!) and your will notice little if any loss of graphical quality with this mod.
Your game will run using about half the memory of previous versions. Typically in less than 1GB!
This includes the ZGtextureMod above so you will only need to download this file for those changes also.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/828xm3tfwxsgdk4/ZGTexture+ModelMod.zip
Some screenshots from the new ZGTexture+ModelMod, just so you can see that the graphics have not lost any noticeable quality in the game.
Journey start on Hope at Blackelk Starport:
Looking around for a new system to jump to:
Enroute via Soholia to refuel and check out some ships in the shipyard:
If only intersystem trade and transport made a profit it could be worth buying one of these!
Another captain, another ship, another place - Merlin:
To be continued.
These mods work best when using AndyJ's mod for FFED3D
Please install his mod first. Details on that can be found in the following thread:
The FFED3DAJ Thread
Welcome Commander! So what is this FFED3DAJ thing then & how to install it? First of all, FFED3DAJ is not a stand-alone game that will run 'out of the box' - it's a continuation of the FFED3D project and aims to stabilize it, fix the outstanding issues and to add further enhancements. The aim...
forums.frontier.co.uk
================================================
I've been modding for a long time now, since Call To Power II (early 2000). I've made and assisted in mods for Civ games, Total War series, Moo III, TES series, Mount & Blade, Crusader Kings, PotC (Build Mod) and probably a few others i've forgotten about.
Probably the first thing i look into now with a new game is what i can 'fix' or improve on via modding. Basically i'm a frustrated developer (my maths is bad enough to make programing 'high level' a tough call).
Anyway since stumbling across FFED3D and really loving what AndyJ has been doing to this, i've started to do the same in terms of looking to see what i can do to help the process of improving the overall FFED3D experience. Most of this work so far has been in little graphical tweaks. I put up my ZGtextureMod in the FFED3D thread, but as i also have other stuff to share i thought a separate thread for all this going forward might be a good idea.
General Advice:
As most of my mods are simple, you simply need to copy/paste the contents into the relevant folder in your FFED3D installation, allowing the new files to over-write the old ones if prompted, and remembering to make backups of your original files before hand! You might HATE the changes and want to revert back to the previous files!
The system i suggest for installing mods is to download and unzip the files somewhere other than into the game directly (i have a separate 'Mods' folder on my PC where i put/arrange all mods prior to installation in game), then copy/paste the files from this place into the game.
Also as people have different installation paths for their games, i'm not a fan of the 'autoinstall' method of adding mods. So i prefer to give the user full control and responsibility for adding the mods, as it is not that hard.
Mods and download links:
1. ZGtextureMod 2.72MB - This mod is also part of the larger and more recent ZGTexture+ModelMod below, so you only need that larger file. I'll keep this up just in case people still want to use it over the bigger full texture rework, and just want the nicer HUD sights and planets/sun textures without all the additional model and texture resizing of the larger mod.
This contains 25 adjusted textures, mostly planets and suns for the 'system info' screen, but also some GUI changes to the direction cursor and weapon sight.
I always found the original 'weapon/direction sights' from FFE way too huge, and i felt the same for the versions of FFED3D we have, so this is a reduced sized version of the default FFED3D one. Full info in the included txt file. Simply Copy/Paste the texture files into the \Texture folder in your FFED3D installation.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/keou20iameiad34/ZGtexturesMod.zip
-------------------------------------------------
2. ZGNewCabinBackgrounds 4.45MB - New hi-res versions based of various artists work, and retouched to work perfectly in game. Cabin0.png to Cabin5.png.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/yrhp9fao5f968ix/ZGNewCabinBackgrounds.zip
-------------------------------------------------
3. ZGFFED3DMusicMod 59.7MB - This contains replacement tracks for 7 of the less 'nice' original music tracks for FFE. This is off course subjective, but the files changed are ones like 'Baba yaga', 'Rock' etc. They will make your musical experience of FFED3D much more relaxed and 'spacey'!
Don't forget to play each new file first (say in winamp or whatever media/music player you use) just in case one of the new ones is not to your liking, and you can also pick and choose which ones you want to replace etc.
The original 7 tracks have been replaced with 'ambient' style tracks that fit really well in space i find. All details are in the included txt file. Simply Copy/Paste the music tracks into the \Music folder in your FFED3D installation.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ym63hmjbdi4du9n/ZGFFED3DMusicMod.zip
-------------------------------------------------
4. HYPE_RAW - (63KB) This is just a simple sound replacement for the Hyperspace sound, to make it less 'harsh/dangerous/nasty' sounding. It is a new version of the 'HYPE.RAW' file found in the '\FX' folder. All info is in the enclosed readme file.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ah2ow2liljddhmi/HYPE_RAW.zip
-------------------------------------------------
5. ZGTexture+ModelMod 113MB - This is a large reworking of most of the textures in the 'Models' and 'Texture' folders. The main aim has been to reduce the memory footprint of the games exe and improve certain textures to appear better in game. Many of the textures used in game were higher resolution than was needed (they would even reduce graphical visibility in some cases!) and your will notice little if any loss of graphical quality with this mod.
Your game will run using about half the memory of previous versions. Typically in less than 1GB!
This includes the ZGtextureMod above so you will only need to download this file for those changes also.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/828xm3tfwxsgdk4/ZGTexture+ModelMod.zip
Some screenshots from the new ZGTexture+ModelMod, just so you can see that the graphics have not lost any noticeable quality in the game.
Journey start on Hope at Blackelk Starport:
Looking around for a new system to jump to:
Enroute via Soholia to refuel and check out some ships in the shipyard:
If only intersystem trade and transport made a profit it could be worth buying one of these!
Another captain, another ship, another place - Merlin:
To be continued.
Last edited:
Sure. My mods are based on running the AndyJ mod, but should be ok for default FFED3D also. Would it be possible to ask Steve to add a link to the post above (#1765) with the mod links in them?
Once a few more posts get made in this thread those mods will be 'lost' for any new visitors, so maybe having the relevant post linked in the OP would stop that happening? (kinda why i started a new thread, but i understand this is FFED3D related). Should i PM Steve or would you be able to arrange this?
I'm currently uploading my latest texture and model resizing mod (to reduce the overall memory footprint of the games exe without losing on visual quality), and will look to add that link also to my post above.
Cheers T.j
Good too see people are still making use of my build. With my computer blowing up and AndyJ working on the game I didn't see a need to continue working on it. Especially with how close Elite 4 is. If people do feel a need to use my version remember to have the last exe file I released, which may not be on SSC. It fixed that problem with crashing into planets while landing. Get it here.
I think many people use yours as the base download and put AndyJ's mod ontop of that
Re: the crashing into planets issue, i notice that your ship seems to do a 180 flip (but doing the classic 'roll' maneuver as if in free space) to face the complete opposite direction before coming in to land on a planet surface, just too late so you end up landing upside down etc!
Your autopilot will have you facing one direction then when you speed up time to land safe, you will find you are facing the opposite direction, in slow normal time you can see the ship start to roll to make this adjustment about 10-15m from the ground. I always take over manual control about 50m-100m from touchdown if not using the 'speed up time' controls.
I have some screenshots about that in the Bug fixing/testing AndyJ mod thread. So did you find that value that seems to flip you 180 around just prior to touchdown? Or did you come up with another fix?
Anyway good to see you back here and feel free to jump into the AndyJ mod testing thread to give some input (i mention doing such a thread for your build also if you get back into it at some point). Cheers for helping improve FFED3D
I think many people use yours as the base download and put AndyJ's mod ontop of that
Re: the crashing into planets issue, i notice that your ship seems to do a 180 flip (but doing the classic 'roll' maneuver as if in free space) to face the complete opposite direction before coming in to land on a planet surface, just too late so you end up landing upside down etc!
Your autopilot will have you facing one direction then when you speed up time to land safe, you will find you are facing the opposite direction, in slow normal time you can see the ship start to roll to make this adjustment about 10-15m from the ground. I always take over manual control about 50m-100m from touchdown if not using the 'speed up time' controls.
I have some screenshots about that in the Bug fixing/testing AndyJ mod thread. So did you find that value that seems to flip you 180 around just prior to touchdown? Or did you come up with another fix?
Anyway good to see you back here and feel free to jump into the AndyJ mod testing thread to give some input (i mention doing such a thread for your build also if you get back into it at some point). Cheers for helping improve FFED3D
Not sure what you mean by flipping a 180. I was more specifically mentioning your ship crashing into the planet before reaching the base for no good reason. As for getting back into it, I doubt it. I don't think there's a need for two competing versions and Andy wasn't that interested in collaborating.
I'm rather disappointed that people are generally replacing my good planet graphics with poor ones. One of the big reasons I started to work on the game was because how bad it looked. I understand it was too intensive for most systems, but there was no easy fix for the memory issues. The issue is the game itself pretty much, trying to do anything to improve it is analogous to strapping rocket engines onto an oxcart. Sure it will "work better" but if you so much as hit a pebble and the whole thing blows to smithereens. I think that's why the Russian guys eventually abandoned the project.
By planet graphics do you mean in game 3D rendered planets or those used in the System Info screens etc? I think by and large the majority of people are using most of yours as a base, as these were the best looking, and just doing things like removing colour filters that were not in the engine originally? I know for sure your planet atmospheres look awesome when looking from space towards a planet in the game engine, BUT getting that perfect blue haze of the curvature stable (and not glitching) is the exception to the rule, unless your latest link has all that stuff fixed up?
But yeah rest assured most people use the Ittiz full download of FFED3D and then put AndyJ's on top, just because that fixes many more issue currently. So most of the planet graphics are still yours. I liked that you also fixed the issue i found in the default FFED3D game with Earth and Mars being reversed!
I personally use most of your planet textures, with some from VampiretteDuCosmos, and a few PS adjustments/additions of my own. Your Suns for use in the system info screen are some of the best, so yeah don't worry, most people will still be using your textures.
The main change i made recently was just to halve the size of the textures (from ship skins to building textures etc), and this has lead to my FFED3D game exe now running in about 920,000Kb, instead of the near 2GB it was previously. This will allow for more skin types for ships in the future etc, and as you can see from some of the screenshots posted around this thread and the AndyJ mod testing one, there is no real loss in graphical quality.
just a quick question on that game (FFE3D with andiJ's mod).
why stars like the sun dont shine from "far away", like when landed on earth, it looks like any other objects, not at all like a star, i have to get really close to the sun to be able to see it shine... is it only me or a bug that everyone has?
why stars like the sun dont shine from "far away", like when landed on earth, it looks like any other objects, not at all like a star, i have to get really close to the sun to be able to see it shine... is it only me or a bug that everyone has?
Hi nicomak. That's a known issue with the rendition in FFED3D.
Remember that the original FFE was low-resolution, 320x200 and so it had cut-off distances to save drawing objects and equipment/details when they became pixel sized. Distant planets and suns would also be drawn as simple star-shaped sprites until you got close enough to save drawing the detailed textures or from generating the 3D models, which was particularly CPU intensive for the machines of the day. (so even in the original, Sol isn't seen as a "sun" as such from Earth as you'd expect, but a generic star-shaped sprite)
FFED3D obviously increases the resolution and to some extent the detail level, but it's still being driven by FFE underneath. AFAIK the original cut-off distances remain the same. Also as it stands, FFED3D isn't dealing with these simple 'star' sprites correctly. I've been looking at this -it's the same issue that causes the planets to 'pop' into view- and while FFE seems to want to draw a sprite relating to an index, FFED3D is taking that value as a radius - which is likely wrong given the value is mostly 0. But that's essentially ignored anyway as it then does the drawing using Direct3D point-sprites which have their own scaling rules defined... so the result seems to be that Direct3D determines how large they'll appear. Although this means that planet bases & space-stations have a minimum size when at a distance, it also means that 'sprite' suns/planets are typically too small.
I'm currently looking to identify where FFE decides to draw them as a sprite vs object and hoping then I might be able to pass more info over to FFED3D, as there's no way to tell what the sprite represents at the moment, or ultimately see if it's possible to increase the draw distance cut off for the models. I also need to look at either removing the D3D point sprite scaling too or experiment with drawing them as textured billboards instead. "Work in progress!"
Remember that the original FFE was low-resolution, 320x200 and so it had cut-off distances to save drawing objects and equipment/details when they became pixel sized. Distant planets and suns would also be drawn as simple star-shaped sprites until you got close enough to save drawing the detailed textures or from generating the 3D models, which was particularly CPU intensive for the machines of the day. (so even in the original, Sol isn't seen as a "sun" as such from Earth as you'd expect, but a generic star-shaped sprite)
FFED3D obviously increases the resolution and to some extent the detail level, but it's still being driven by FFE underneath. AFAIK the original cut-off distances remain the same. Also as it stands, FFED3D isn't dealing with these simple 'star' sprites correctly. I've been looking at this -it's the same issue that causes the planets to 'pop' into view- and while FFE seems to want to draw a sprite relating to an index, FFED3D is taking that value as a radius - which is likely wrong given the value is mostly 0. But that's essentially ignored anyway as it then does the drawing using Direct3D point-sprites which have their own scaling rules defined... so the result seems to be that Direct3D determines how large they'll appear. Although this means that planet bases & space-stations have a minimum size when at a distance, it also means that 'sprite' suns/planets are typically too small.
I'm currently looking to identify where FFE decides to draw them as a sprite vs object and hoping then I might be able to pass more info over to FFED3D, as there's no way to tell what the sprite represents at the moment, or ultimately see if it's possible to increase the draw distance cut off for the models. I also need to look at either removing the D3D point sprite scaling too or experiment with drawing them as textured billboards instead. "Work in progress!"
Nice info AndyJ. Would it make any difference if we adjusted the default size of the sprite/bitmap that FFE uses for the distant stars? If so what texture would i need to experiment with do you think?
well thanks, i thought i might have done something wrong or that there would be an easy way to get rid of this. but i understand anyway. good luck in your quest then.
i dont really know about the original FFE, i can only speak about FE2 which is the only one i really know. i dont know why but i never heard about FFE before a few years ago, when i finally got easy access to the internet, while i had known FE2 since the amiga 500 era, i just didnt know that there was any sequel... that's when i also started waiting for Elite IV.
i dont really know about the original FFE, i can only speak about FE2 which is the only one i really know. i dont know why but i never heard about FFE before a few years ago, when i finally got easy access to the internet, while i had known FE2 since the amiga 500 era, i just didnt know that there was any sequel... that's when i also started waiting for Elite IV.
nope, Texture size has no impact at all on how large it will appear in the game, only detail.
Think of a game sprite/image as a picture frame hanging on your wall. It has a set physical size and if you move about it, it appears to get larger/smaller in your 'view'. In the game, a sprite is defined with similar constraints on size relative to other objects (its frame) and a position within the 3d space.
If the picture frame has a blank canvas within it and you then divide it in half vertically & horizontally - you have 4 squares, essentially a 2x2 'pixel' image within it. Further divisions will increase the number of squares or pixels, but although you are increasing detail, you are also having to shrink the size of the pixels to make them fit within the frame.
Same goes for how images are used in the game; you can add more pixels and detail, but the size of the sprite/image's frame is fixed relative to other objects in the game - so the image is scaled smaller to fit in the frame.
In the case of the distant planet/sun sprites - their "frames" aren't being created large enough. Only a correction to this can effect their size relative to everything else.
Well blast then. Looks like your on your own Sherlock!
AndyJ,
You may have seen looking at the star sprites in my version that they actually worked. Though I never completely finished with them if I recall. I managed to separate them out in my code. The big issue is that much of the game code was reused multiple times to save space so when you changed one thing it affected another. Though I was able to separate them my methods are all pretty much hackish (the reason I was able to make so much progress to quickly) since I didn't see any reason to properly fix a game that was going to be obsolete by the time I was done fixing it. There is code in there you may find useful though like the complex equations I wrote to calculate whether the sun was up or down and how it all played into your altitude to insure you suddenly didn't just pop into space as your altitude increased. A big issue was dealing with hyperspacing directly in and out of the atmosphere.
yeah the re-use of the point sprites is a nuisance, that little star graphic gets everywhere in the original FFE!
But any way, the cause of the various scaling issues was simply because the max-size value for the point sprites had been set to very low values in FFED3D. That didn't just affect distant planets/suns or the system markers in the sector map, but also the scaling of lights too - which gave the appearance that they started to shrink as you got closer to them.
I'd not gotten around to looking into the cause of that until now, so I'm happy it was actually something fairly straight forward and not fundamentally broken as I'd feared it may be.
The good news is that lights are now scaling correctly
And I've finally gotten around to fixing the draw commands for the scaffold towers that have moving 2-coloured lights. They're used on space-stations and at bases.
Stars in the sector map now will also scale to (almost) fill the screen as you zoom in... Which highlights a fundamental flaw with point-spites in that they won't be clipped and if allowed to, grow too large and will obliterate the console! I've set the max value just low enough to avoid this, but perhaps they do need to be switched to be drawn as billboards in the future.
So that leaves the distant objects in space or the planetary map. And that's where it gets messy!
The original FFE just used a single star shape for everything. It was perhaps less 'glaring' back in the day, but in FFED3D it's not so good having either a single 'sun' image expand and switch into a planet, or alternatively use a 'blob' that expands and fits planets ok, but not stars...
This is why I'm digging into the .asm to see if there's a point where an object is being processed and it decides to draw it as a sprite rather than the polygon-object. Planetoids really need smaller 'blobs' and when the blob transitions into a planet with rings, it isn't so great either. It'd also be nice perhaps to use the little '+' star shape instead for spaceship markers and ground-bases more like the original... and I've also been thinking that it'd be good eventually to be able to swap main star textures anyway depending upon its type - so the small & large stars match the system information screen...
So I'm looking at where the sprite draw is being called from and trying to back-track and make sense of it - the (perhaps wildly hopeful) aim being to know what as sprite is meant to represent. If that's not possible, then perhaps the RGB value to colour the sprite might be a plan B to decide what it is, if there's no clashes...
In other news, I've managed to track down where the 'C' key in the sector view takes effect, and have fixed the original FFE issue where it didn't reset the info screens/target planetary view back to the current system.
I'm sure a certain newly-installed moderator will be pleased to hear about that - and congratulations Steve!
But any way, the cause of the various scaling issues was simply because the max-size value for the point sprites had been set to very low values in FFED3D. That didn't just affect distant planets/suns or the system markers in the sector map, but also the scaling of lights too - which gave the appearance that they started to shrink as you got closer to them.
I'd not gotten around to looking into the cause of that until now, so I'm happy it was actually something fairly straight forward and not fundamentally broken as I'd feared it may be.
The good news is that lights are now scaling correctly
And I've finally gotten around to fixing the draw commands for the scaffold towers that have moving 2-coloured lights. They're used on space-stations and at bases.
Stars in the sector map now will also scale to (almost) fill the screen as you zoom in... Which highlights a fundamental flaw with point-spites in that they won't be clipped and if allowed to, grow too large and will obliterate the console! I've set the max value just low enough to avoid this, but perhaps they do need to be switched to be drawn as billboards in the future.
So that leaves the distant objects in space or the planetary map. And that's where it gets messy!
The original FFE just used a single star shape for everything. It was perhaps less 'glaring' back in the day, but in FFED3D it's not so good having either a single 'sun' image expand and switch into a planet, or alternatively use a 'blob' that expands and fits planets ok, but not stars...
This is why I'm digging into the .asm to see if there's a point where an object is being processed and it decides to draw it as a sprite rather than the polygon-object. Planetoids really need smaller 'blobs' and when the blob transitions into a planet with rings, it isn't so great either. It'd also be nice perhaps to use the little '+' star shape instead for spaceship markers and ground-bases more like the original... and I've also been thinking that it'd be good eventually to be able to swap main star textures anyway depending upon its type - so the small & large stars match the system information screen...
So I'm looking at where the sprite draw is being called from and trying to back-track and make sense of it - the (perhaps wildly hopeful) aim being to know what as sprite is meant to represent. If that's not possible, then perhaps the RGB value to colour the sprite might be a plan B to decide what it is, if there's no clashes...
In other news, I've managed to track down where the 'C' key in the sector view takes effect, and have fixed the original FFE issue where it didn't reset the info screens/target planetary view back to the current system.
I'm sure a certain newly-installed moderator will be pleased to hear about that - and congratulations Steve!
Thanks!In other news, I've managed to track down where the 'C' key in the sector view takes effect, and have fixed the original FFE issue where it didn't reset the info screens/target planetary view back to the current system.
I'm sure a certain newly-installed moderator will be pleased to hear about that - and congratulations Steve!
I'm always glad to hear you're still working away on FFED3D. Elite Dangerous is going to be massive from now on, since the alpha's been released, but I still love to take FFED3DAJ out for a spin