The General BugFixing/Playtesting thread for FFED3D+mods

[AndyJ]

Quick update - I've completed the textures config updates, and you can turn off the skin textures for asteroidal bodies & planets that FFED3D had added and also specify textures for the various terrain elements instead. (hills, plains, water etc)
You can also tell it per terrain-type not to apply any colouration and then it'll just use the colour from the texture and not apply terrain/sun colours. Also there's the option to apply low level detail noise to the terrain or not. (my builds normally do this by default)
The variables in the colouration algorithm are also exposed to lighten/darken terrain/skin textures as required.
So smooth planet skin or generated terrain, the choice will be up to you!

On the custom music front, I've updated the BASS MP3-Free dll to the current build and as requested, have added the option for sequential play rather than random track selection. It'll remember the last track and play the next when the music has been interrupted.
Playlists should support the following media: MP3/MP2/MP1/OGG/WAV/AIFF.
If you have media buttons on your keyboard, Forward/Previous will navigate the playlist in sequential mode, or skip to a new track in random mode. Stop will turn off FFE's music, Play will enable it.

Hopefully closing in now on this very late, and somewhat huge next build!

 

[nanite2000]

Legend!

Thanks so much for not only implementing our suggestions, but also giving us the choice to turn them on/off.

What better way to keep everyone happy!?

 

[Steve]

Yep, can't wait for this one

 

[Zak Gordon]

Legend!

Thanks so much for not only implementing our suggestions, but also giving us the choice to turn them on/off.

What better way to keep everyone happy!?

Yep completely agree. This is the way to do it re configurations, thanks AndyJ

Edit: little update on that ED concept art as 'CABIN1.png' choice , it's a no go sadly, but sort of what i expected. I have others pending permissions that i need to chase up.

 

[AndyJ]

New v1.08 build is out at the usual places.

Spoiler

2014-03-04 - Version 1.08:
+ When within an atmosphere, distant suns, moons and planets are now depth-sorted and drawn to ensure that they
don't appear to be in front of the planet surface. They are drawn within the sky to make them visible but are
masked by clouds. Hiding the sun behind clouds might not be to everyone's taste, so by default suns are drawn late
as in previous builds. This can be controlled now by the setting "DrawSunsInSkyLate" and assigning the value of 0
will cause accurate rather than artistic rendering, and means that a sun in the sky can be eclipsed by planets.
+ Extended the textures configuration files to include the planets/asteroids that use a single skin texture.
Individual terrain textures can now be defined for these planets in the same way as for living planets.
The textures.cfg is now enabled by default in the ffed3daj.cfg file.
+ Exposed the colour calculation in the textures config file so that individual terrains/skins can be tweaked, as
well as a final 'lighten' value for the shader to apply. Option to use noise shader or not per terrain type.
+ Ship lights are now sized appropriately.
+ FFE Videos can now be replaced with a folder containing Image alternatives. PNG files will automatically use
their transparency as will DDS. TGA/BMP have no transparency.
+ FFE Bug fix: "Pay berthing charge by midnight or suffer the consequences." message will now display at the start
of a day when player has insufficient funds. Previously it incorrectly displayed the "Pay landing charge" message.
+ Correction to log file write; .X model load routine changes active directory so log has to be opened with full
path and filename each time.
+ Application will prevent multiple instances from running at the same time.
+ New patch in config file to force tidally-locked planets to rotate. It is disabled by default, set the value
ForcePlanetRotation=1 to enable it. Once enabled, it will apply to all habitable planets & larger gas giants, as
well as rocky planets and asterodial bodies that directly orbit a sun.
+ Corrected FFED3D's colouring of gas giants. The index into the colour table would exceed the number of colours
for the bottom half and all planets would render with a red/black striped lower half.
+ Corrected FFED3D's colouring of coastal terrain and water tiles where the land/sea would bleed into the adjacent
area. There are now clean borders between land and sea. Some terrain tiles next to the sea also shared the texture
used for highPlains. These will now be remapped to use the beach texture.
+ Original/Replacement cabin textures are now loaded on demand from FFE to reduce memory usage using drawCabin=2.
Users can still precache all images however with drawCabin=3.
+ All Thargoid ships will now use Cabin5.
+ Fixed saving of PNG full-screen shots where objects had alpha-levels in their textures.
+ Added options to configure path to save screen shots within, a scale % that can reduce their size as well as the
format to save them in: 0=BMP, 1=JPG, 2=TGA, 3=PNG. JPG is now the default format.
+ FPS info screen (F) includes the model number of current targets as this is helpful for texturing planets.
+ System planetary/trade/politics information views no longer display elements of the Sector grid view.
+ Upgraded BASS "MP3-Free" DLL used to play samples/music to its current version 2.4.10.

FFE Videos fixes:
+ Independent systems erroneously included Alliance 'Welcome' videos g9 & g10.
+ Non-Alliance systems no longer have a chance of deciding to displaying a standard Alliance 'Welcome' video!
+ Religious Dictatorship and Martial Law systems now display their unique 'Welcome' messages (r1-4, m1-4).
+ Low tech Independent system welcome messages now include video fr1.avi which was in the wrong table.
+ Added distinct Alliance scenario for docking with damaged ship, hull condition <75% (g9 & g10).
+ Added distinct Alliance scenario that player is unwelcome as a criminal (g11).

Rewrite of FFED3D's support for custom music:
+ Custom music folder can be specified in ffed3daj.cfg
+ Settings to configure custom music can be specified within the custom_music.cfg found within that folder.
This enables music mod writers to configure and deploy their mod within a unique folder. The user then only
has to change the ffed3daj.cfg to point to appropriate folder.
+ Docking and Combat event musics are now played in both the canon JJFFE and Anistropic builds. (FFED3D bug)
+ Extended the set of folders to support promotion/medal events separately for Federation and Imperial navies.
+ Extended the set of folders to support separate station, landing pad, underground and Thargoid soundtracks.
+ Available song names are cached at start up, not each time a track begins.
+ Added support for playlists (.PLS) so that mp3/audio files can be located on other physical drives.
+ Option for station/space playlists to select random tracks or play sequentially.
+ Implemented media key support: Play/Stop will enable or disable FFE's music option and start/stop music playing.
Forward/Previous will navigate the active playlist when sequential play is enabled for it, otherwise another
song will be selected at random.

FFE Music track tweaks:
+ Disabling 'Blue Danube' in the song options will now only prevent it from being randomly selected during the
game. It will be played during docking according to whether the 'Docking Music' option is enabled or not.
If one or more mp3 tracks or a PLS are present in the custom music folder \docking then these tracks will be
randomly chosen from.
+ Disabling 'Ride of the Valkyries' in the song options will also only prevent that song from being randomly
selected during the game. It will be played during combat according to whether the 'Music during Combat' option
is enabled or not. If one or more mp3 tracks or a PLS are present in the custom music folder \combat these
tracks will be randomly chosen from.
+ Disabling 'Halls of the Mountain King' and 'The Great Gates of Kiev' will remove them from the random music
choices but they will still be played for promotions and medal awards if Music is enabled, and if no custom
music has been defined instead.
+ Disabling the Intro music will also remove it from the continuous music choice, but it will play for the intro
if music is enabled.
+ Docking music is triggered again by the 'Clearance already granted' message if it's not already playing.
+ Docking music will repeat during continuous music, whilst the player is still flying under autopilot to the
station/port that has granted docking clearance or when entering station bays/lifts. Docking music will also
restart after loading a saved game which meets these criteria.

Enjoy!

 

[nanite2000]

New v1.08 build is out at the usual places.
Enjoy!

Wow. That's a mother load of changes! Amazing work AndyJ.

I can't wait to give it a try.

 

[Steve]

Downloading now!

EDIT:

Setting usePlanetShaders=1 makes the planets disappear, which didn't happen in v1.07.

This is probably A Bad Thing

 

[AndyJ]

usePlanetShaders=1 is the default setting so this surprises me.
When you say 'no planets appear' - do mean completely absent, or are they there, but black? texture folder bad/missing perhaps? any error messages popping up during start up if you run windowed?

Just dropped the patch zip & core textures straight over a really old beta 1.12 from SCC on main PC and it seems to work ok without any .cfg changes. Seems ok too on my laptop, windowed or full screen. Main PC is running 9600GTx2 and laptop 9600M GT so both NVidia.

confused... :S

If anyone is running OK, could you also let us know, cheers!

 

[Steve]

Sorry Andy, that was a bit vague, even by my standards

Here's how a living planet looks on the system map...

... and the rocky planets don't show up at all.

I tried copying my old "textures" folder over from v1.07 but the probem persisted. Despite changing several options in the ffed3daj.cfg file, the only way to fix this was to turn planet shaders off.

No error messages appear when I run in windowed mode.

My PC runs ATI Radeon graphics but I don't have access to any Nvidia-equipped machines.

:S

 

[Zak Gordon]

Just getting the new version AndyJ, and will report back later today if i have any issues etc.

I take it this needs it's core texture pack as well as usual, but if we already have the ExampleSkins.zip from before we won't need it again?

 

[AndyJ]

Hi Steve

Could you try this:
Open up Models\planet.fx in notepad, scroll right down to the bottom.
Edit all of the lines that have vs_2_0 V_Land(); or ps_2_0 P_Land_Basic(); and change the 2 to a 3. The lines in pass P1 for water should be ok as they are.
Save that and see if it then works?

[edit]
If it does work, and you're feeling especially patient, could you also then try editing it again and change the two lines in pass P0 back so that they both say 2 again.
To test this basic texture shader, assuming you've still got the .cfg file loading & using textures.cfg, could you then open than and again scroll down to near the bottom and find the Red intro planet settings, [445]. If you can temporarily change addNoise=1 to addNoise=0, save (leave notepad open) and load the game up - see if the big planet at the start of the intro renders ok or if black? set it back to 1 when you're done.
I'm thinking it's an ATI thing...

Cheers, Andy

 

[Steve]

Out all day but definitely will try as soon as I get home

 

[AndyJ]

no worries, cheers Steve

 

[Zak Gordon]

Hmmm odd. Ok i've also had a little time over lunch to try out v1.08, and at first i thought all was good, i certainly didn't see something like Steve showed in his screenshot.

However it does seem the textures in the navigation screen for certain types of planets are not present? This is only when exploring in the navigation screens outside of the current system i am in -

Edit: nope it actually sometimes happens in the system i am in! I've checked ram usage of the FFED3DAJ.exe and it is always under 1GB, so i'm not sure why these textures do not always load in?

So far i've noticed 'Rocky Planet' and 'Small barren sphere of rock' types have some surface texture issue (they show up as an all black surface), but any kind of terraformed/world with indigenous life and oxygen atmosphere planet shows up as normal.

I'm not sure if this is related to Steve's issue or just a normal FFED3D issue? And i'm on an Nvidia card.

Oh and i LOVE the new atmosphere changes in this build. Staring of at Hope in the Gateway system as usual, what a sunset!! the stars are visible through the darkening skies, as well as the remnants of the days sky and clouds. Beautiful, just beautiful

Edit2:

Ok a quick check on another build using an older patch of yours (v1.05) and i get no issue with any of the planet skins showing in the navigation screens.

And just to clarify this is all when you use either the Galactic Map (F5), Orbital Map (F6) or Remote Orbital Map (R), and the Zoom in (F11) and Zoom out (F12) controls. The views of certain types of planets in those screens do seem to have a problem in this update?

 

[AndyJ]

v1.08 is using the textures.cfg file by default now, not hard-coded values for terrain textures/planet skins. I'm going to guess that you didn't download & install the updated v1.08 core texture pack too?

In particular there's a new texture tex751 for the small, highly volcanic planets (e.g. Io) and for anyone who had ittiz's beta textures before, tex711 is also additional. If you've not got them, the planet types that use them will be black.

Steve's issue is almost certainly shader related though and I expect just affecting ATi cards. have found other anecdotal evidence shouldn't mix vertex/pixel versions, just waiting for verification that I've a fix for him before uploading it in a v1.08a patch zip.

 

[Zak Gordon]

v1.08 is using the textures.cfg file by default now, not hard-coded values for terrain textures/planet skins. I'm going to guess that you didn't download & install the updated v1.08 core texture pack too?

I did, but i now go through that file and compare it to what i have already installed. For example all the skybox.tga files are exactly the same size and time stamped as the ones i had from the previous update, so i don't copy across files like that.

Also a few are very large textures (tex64.png for example[512x512 and 170kb]) compared to the reduced textures i run, my tex64.png is 128x128 and 18.3kb. So for files like that mine may be smaller (but based on the same file from Ittiz build). For important looking textures, like tex694_hi.png, i use the same default large file (5.23MB in this case).

some differences:

tex712.png (1.5MB) has some 'errors' on it's surface, i redid it for my texture pack to remove those (odd scratches and straight edges on the image etc) and my tex712.png is only 326Kb (same dimensions and file type/properties).

tex714.png (1.5MB) - mine is 301 Kb (but the image is the same)

same story for tex715.png through tex719.png.

tex712 (moon like) and tex714 (mars like) are the only ones that might be an issue from that section? My own (smaller kb, same resolution) files should still show though? So i am not sure this is the issue.

In particular there's a new texture tex751 for the small, highly volcanic planets (e.g. Io) and for anyone who had ittiz's beta textures before, tex711 is also additional. If you've not got them, the planet types that use them will be black.

Yeah i got those two ok.

Hmm i might look back through the 1.05 build and just see if i can locate these non-terraformed/non-earth like planet textures and see what has changed. Like i said above it appears these will sometimes not show in the navigation screens (not tested if they appear fine in actual space in front of me yet), but sometimes will. Almost like an issue with not enough memory, like we had sometimes with the whole FFED3D running close to maximum for a 32bit application?

I noticed both textures.cfg and textures_ittiz.cfg got much larger compared to previous updates? (from 1.3-1.8kb in v1.07 to the current 10-13kb versions now in v1.08). Anything in there maybe?

I'll try a screenshot once i've dug around a bit more, but basically I have sometimes showing, sometimes not 'barren' planet type surface textures in v1.08 vs v1.07 in the Navigation screens (not sure about in 3D space). It may well be a setting in those new texture.cfg files?

I tried using either of the two texture.cfg files (default and Ittiz), being careful to comment out the one not being used and it didn't change anything.

That Sunset over Hope though - wow

 

[AndyJ]

please take a look at the ffed3daj_readme.txt file Zak. I've updated it to cover what textures are included in the core textures pack, which are new etc. Also it describes the textures config files which assign all planet/sun textures now & control their colouration. Because of this, and after the sector-map sprites issue last build, I've included my set of texture tiles (mainly from nanite2000's texture pack) to get everyone onto the same page.
the 'ittiz' version won't work unless you also have his additional terrain tiles in your textures folder, and it's just an example how they might be mapped to planets after nanite2000 asked if it could be done. (tex798-829)

which planets are missing? (sector co-ords, planet names)
if in your local system, set the nav target to it and pull up the FPS info data in the game view (F key). 3rd line down shows navtarget info, with Model:### displaying its model number. You can set the nav target in the local planets view with the 'T' key and then click on the planet. (zoom out a bit if need be)
once you have the model number, open the texture cfg file you're using and scroll down to find the section for that model number. it'll either have a texture=nnn value or individual terrain tiles defined. the numbers are the texnnn.png files.

 

[Steve]

Hi Steve

Could you try this:
Open up Models\planet.fx in notepad, scroll right down to the bottom.
Edit all of the lines that have vs_2_0 V_Land(); or ps_2_0 P_Land_Basic(); and change the 2 to a 3. The lines in pass P1 for water should be ok as they are.
Save that and see if it then works?

It does indeed work

If it does work, and you're feeling especially patient, could you also then try editing it again and change the two lines in pass P0 back so that they both say 2 again.
To test this basic texture shader, assuming you've still got the .cfg file loading & using textures.cfg, could you then open than and again scroll down to near the bottom and find the Red intro planet settings, [445]. If you can temporarily change addNoise=1 to addNoise=0, save (leave notepad open) and load the game up - see if the big planet at the start of the intro renders ok or if black? set it back to 1 when you're done.
I'm thinking it's an ATI thing...

Cheers, Andy

The planet renders in a colourful Jupiter type way, not black.

Am I right in thinking that planet.fx should remain with pass P0 on 2?

 

[AndyJ]

cool, thanks for that Steve at such a late hour!
Yeah, pass 0 is a very basic shader and can compile fine under the "v2 shader model", as can the water it seems. Changing it back with the associated texture file change to use it is proof that it worked on the red planet. It seems then that NVidia cards are ok with mixed versions of vertex/pixel shader compilations within a single pass, but ATi cards aren't. Oh well, sorry about that - I have said that I'm a bit of a shader newbie, haven't I!

 

[Zak Gordon]

A couple of screenshots to better show the issue i had been having:

The issues below were all due to MY not having the correct textures from Ittiz version in my texture folder (tex798-829). This was NOT AN ISSUE with v1.08 of the AndyJ mod. That all works perfectly, and LOOK at the sunset pic below!

All these 'Rocky Planet'(as in Gupta's Rock below), and 'Barren moon' type planets have the missing surface texture issue as below. As an aside in that system below you get some z-fighting when ever you maneuver Gupta's Rock to intersect visually with the planet Hope. It is slight so not an issue imho, but just thought i should let you know.



And you can see some missing detail on that Title Screen gas giant.



So i did a bunch of experimentation last night and think i have found the issue. It is not an issue with the textures i was using (i put all your latest v1.08_CoreTextures in my game and still had the issue) but the setting 'customTexturesFilename=textures_ittiz.cfg' that seems the issue.

Whenever that is set to be 'on' (no # comment out), in place of the other option, then i get the issues as shown in the screenshots above. I had been using the ittiz option as the greens were sometimes a little less bright due to his filters (or something).

So the solution is to always use the default 'customTextureFilename=textures.cfg' setting. Not sure why the ittiz version causes this but it is probably just a simple thing in the new 'textures_ittiz.cfg' file itself?

So problem solved, all my own reduced memory textures do work fine, but if you can't fix this issue with the ittiz.cfg setting maybe that choice should be removed from the main ffed3daj.cfg file, to avoid others having this issue?

And to finish on, the most sexy sunset in FFED3D yet. Look at those evening clouds, look at the stars coming through!



That is pure gorgeous AndyJ, thank you very much