Ship Adjustments

[Pieter Boelen]

The main issue is to convince different ships to use a different rigging.ini file that has a different rope thickness.
That might be possible in a "Different Flags" mod kind of way, but is not simple to code at all.

On second thought, I did a slight test by setting the rope thickness to a ridiculous value and have discovered that the thickness has NO relation to the drawing distance.
So even if we COULD have the thickness depend on the ship size, it'll make no difference at a distance.

 

[Armada]

The main issue is to convince different ships to use a different rigging.ini file that has a different rope thickness.
That might be possible in a "Different Flags" mod kind of way, but is not simple to code at all.

So we can't just use the one rigging.ini and set the width to "if ship = small, width = x" and "if ship = big, width = y" etc?
If not... oh well.

EDIT: no difference?! Never mind then.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

WOW! You two have been busy! Now I don't know where to start.

Well, I got the British steamer because it is the fastest. It didn't have a crew tho. Is it supposed to be like that? Took a couple of screenies. The ropes don't appear at full zoom, but one quick click on the mouse makes them appear. Fps was ok until I sailed into port and then it dropped badly. The steamer is an excellent argument for implementing DX9 yesterday. I traded it in on a class 6 light pinnace and discovered that the ropes didn't appear on it until I zoomed in even farther than the steamer.

Rope thickness doesn't make a difference, so it's back to draw distance again. Now that IS adjustable. :will

PS: I like battleship3 but have never seen battleship4.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The English steamship wasn't intended to be crewless any more than the others, but it seems I missed out changing a bit of the code.
I did add the crew to "RN_SteamFrigate", which can be encountered at sea in the last two periods.
However, I forgot to do the same for "RN_SteamFrigate2" that is buyable from Vanderdecken. ops2

I can confirm that zooming in a little bit does draw the ropes on her.
However, I have no idea how to influence draw distance. Even setting my GFX card settings to maximum didn't change anything.
It must be something in the PotC programming itself, but it might be hardcoded in one of the DLL files,
which means there's little chance of us being able to do anything about it.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Bon Jovi I've got it! :mi :mi :mi It is right there in the rigging.ini.

FMaist is it. It is set to 5000, but set it to 20000 like I did and see what you can see. I also set the fwidth to .4. :j2

 

[Adamski62]

Hi,

The animation in this game runs at 15 FPS....at least that's what the character animation playback speed is.

damski.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Bon Jovi I've got it! :mi :mi :mi It is right there in the rigging.ini.
FMaist is it. It is set to 5000, but set it to 20000 like I did and see what you can see.

That's BRILLIANT! Thanks for finding that!
And indeed it works. At 20000, I can see the ropes of other ships up to a reasonable distance.
I wonder if the game/modern computers could handle us setting it to something ridiculous so that the ropes are ALWAYS drawn.

I also set the fwidth to .4. :j2

I think you might want to be careful with that one; could look weird on smaller ships.

 

[Armada]

Bon Jovi I've got it! :mi :mi :mi It is right there in the rigging.ini.
FMaist is it. It is set to 5000, but set it to 20000 like I did and see what you can see.

That's BRILLIANT! Thanks for finding that!
And indeed it works. At 20000, I can see the ropes of other ships up to a reasonable distance.
I wonder if the game/modern computers could handle us setting it to something ridiculous so that the ropes are ALWAYS drawn.

HALLELUJAH! Now my new changes will be even more visible, no matter how big the ship!
Indeed it would be interesting to try an even higher setting, but I gotta see this for meself, first!

 

[Armada]

I was just thinking: we need to do something similar to the climbable rigging ('vants'), since they're separate from the rest of the ropes.
Which line in rigging.ini controls the draw distance for that? It's not quite as clear.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe fDisapearValue = 5.0 has something to do with that?

 

[Armada]

I tried that, but it had no effect, even when set to 5000, for example.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Maybe you should set it lower instead?

 

[Armada]

Tried that too, but I only set it to 1.0. Maybe even lower might have an effect, but I'm doubtful.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

My test ship is the class 6 light pinnace. It seems to lose the ropes sooner than other ships for some reason. Anyway, at 20000, by sailing away from it and watching when the ropes disappear then grabbing me spyglass to get the range, it looks like the ropes disappear around 170-180 yards. They are pretty much invisible by then anyway. Maybe 50000? They are just ropes. Rain probably has a greater effect on fps.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It looks like the ropes disappear around 170-180 yards. They are pretty much invisible by then anyway. Maybe 50000? They are just ropes. Rain probably has a greater effect on fps.

The ropes are actual 3D models made of polygons and textures and everything while the rain is, I think, just a textured layer.
As such, I actually can imagine the ropes having a bigger effect on FPS than the rain.
Especially when you add together the ropes of a whole bunch of ships at same time.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to believe that somewhat recent computers should be able to handle it.
After all, the system resources required for our game aren't exactly very high by today's standards, are they?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

"After all, the system resources required for our game aren't exactly very high by today's standards, are they?"

Yes and no. I would love to have a constant 60fps, but am usually far from that and this computer has handled things that it is not supposed to be able to handle. Elsewhere it has been said that rendering water is very hard on the hardware and there is a lot of that here. Also, the game's draw distance is extremely long. You can see islands on the horizon! Then it is rendered in DX8 and not DX9. DX9 is much more efficient in its use of resources and would give an immediate jump in fps as well as image quality.

All of the images in PotC are low rez, from the islands to the ships to the people in an attempt to help the fps, so that part is no strain.

The three programs I have run that strained this puter the most are 1. a DX7 racing sim that also has very long draw distances 2.PotC (DX8) 2. the Fake Factory mod for Half Life 2 that while it is very hi-rez also has short draw distances.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Corvette 1_47 was discussed a few pages back in this thread so........ I just got this ship and the crew and everything is just fine. Except that it seems to have the reverse lighting bug. Missed out on a pretty cool screenie because of it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

And without the source files for that ship, we probably won't be able to fix the reverse lighting bug on her either.

 

[Armada]

Slight problem. Look what I just saw:


[attachment=5778:Lost_crew.jpg]

He's just walking on thin air nowhere near a ship. I'm pretty sure he's not meant to do that.
Looks as though he came from an FR_BattleFrigate which was chasing me. And he was flying up and down as that ship moved with the waves.
Something needs sorting with the Constitution-type ships' walk file. Otherwise there'll be some pretty tired crew out there.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Is that from a fallen mast? I don't think we can fix those.

I do know the Constitution-type ships have a bug with their walk files causing a sailor to walk in the air behind the ship though.
But it doesn't look like that one, since he's climbing. :?