AE:Bug-fix and feature requests

This is a page for brainstorming. Ideas posted here are not always good ones, but sometimes we just need to let our minds run rampant.

This is a place for reporting bugs in the AE and small fixes/improvements that the AE can make to original Oni. For general ideas for modding that don't fit within the current scope of the AE (think larger mods and mods that we probably want to leave as optional, not part of the Core AE), see this page. If you're unclear on where your idea belongs, hopefully reading each page will give you an idea of what that page's scope is. --Iritscen

Improvements on original Oni that AE can make

Distracting Striker cameo in background

When Konoko runs out the door at the end of CHAPTER 02 . ENGINES OF EVIL (and on to CHAPTER 03 . PUZZLE PIECES ), there is (at least sometimes) a Striker standing right there as the camera pans by! The scripting should be deleting all baddies before this cutscene. --Iritscen

What Striker? right where? sometimes when? Could it be "febtober_striker_1" (sorta Easter egg), or "flyway_striker_1"? I know ai2_shownames is broken in the Mac version, but who and ai2_report should work... And at the very least, you can identify the weapon he's holding, if any. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Moving enemies out of Konoko's path is sensible (more generally, the AI often look awkward when "passive" during a cutscene), but it would also make sense for "baddies" (either surviving Strikers or Ninja or BGI) to observe Konoko during that cutscene, from where Konoko can't see them, G-man style. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Widescreen fixes

Various widescreen fixes are needed. For example when playing in a 16:9 resolution at the start of level 2, the camera is positioned behind a wall, in the Dream Lab level the photos in the opening cutscene can be seen before the animation starts and when playing in a 16:10 or 16:9 resolution in the Compound level, Konoko can be seen on the ground before she lands O_o. --Rossy

I noticed while perusing Daodan-C's source code there was a "/* widescreen patch for talking heads */". Would that fix it? --Gumby

I believe that the "widescreen patch" is a specific workaround that fixes only the "cinematics". See HERE for a more general fix. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Evil TCTF, or Explain This Odd Behaviour

I don't know if this has already been fixed, but in my copy of Oni, there is a civilian in TCTF HQ that is set to the wrong team so good AIs attack her. --Rossy

Is it the woman on the first floor in the side room with those wide long pieces of machinery in the middle of it? --Iritscen 14:11, 20 September 2008 (CEST)

I think so, yeah. --rossy 03:32, 21 September 2008 (CEST)

I'm not too sure what to think about Iritscen's commitment to specificity... If it's a_v1 you're talking about, there's nothing long or wide about the computer in her room. And if you mean lobby_victim06, the floor she's on is not "first" in any way. Oh well... the point is, all those civilians, female or not, are in their typical Neutral team, and the TCTF AI won't attack them unless there is a glitch. The glitch is apparently due to some confusion in the awareness/knowledge/whatever system: apparently, if the TCTF see an enemy and a civilian "at the same time", they tend to label them both as hostilethreat. TCTF HQ is the only mission where TCTF can be seen around civilians after seeing them with hostiles and defeating the latter. The same glitch happens with TCTF VS SecurityGuard, and probably with Syndicate VS SyndicateAccessory. Custom scripts based on OTA could help investigate this bug more systematically. From a more practical point of view, the glitch can be fixed with timely calls to ai2_forget. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Glitches in the animation system

Furies

The Furies have a transition glitch from combat idle to sidestep left and right. (Vid shows non-combat idle at first.) --Dox

Looks like the other way round to me: the visible glitch is when she goes from sidestep to combat idle. Note that the sidesteps are KONCOMss_lt_1stepa/KONCOMss_lt_1stepb and KONCOMss_rt_1stepa/KONCOMss_rt_1stepb. They're supposed to be overridden by REDCOMss_lt_start/REDCOMss_lt_stop and REDCOMss_rt_start/REDCOMss_rt_stop, but somehow are not. The flaw can be either in TRACred_animations, or in the REDCOM TRAM. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Ninja

After creeping forward with a pistol, the Ninjas somehow interpolate to STRCOMcrouch_idle instead of NINPIScrouch_idle, then switch to NINPIScrouch_idle after STRCOMcrouch_idle has played once. The flaw can be either in TRACninja_animations, or in the NINPIS TRAM. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Aiming screens

The shoulder joints of males look awkward for rifle aiming, and more generally extreme aiming angles look funky. This could be fixed by editing or adding keyframes in the aiming screen TRAM; however, there is still no reasonable pipeline for that. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Another issue is that KONRIF side rolls use an aiming screen. On one hand, it allows her to keep shooting while in the middle of a roll, which is cool. On the other, the weapon stays upright when aiming and rotates 360° through Konoko's fist, which is uncool (of course, it only shows up in slowmo and/or side view). There is no solution apart from disabling the aiming screen on KONRIF side rolls. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

"Stop or I'll still shoot"

The security guard's lines in the State building are kind of silly. "Stop, or I'll shoot". He shoots no matter what you do...>_> --Gumby

Konoko is a "class B threat" wanted dead or alive, who stays defiant in response to the warning, so his "screw this" attitude is understandable... However, it is rather straightforward for a scripter to freeze the action until the player actually "moves a muscle". Another detail is the backup the guard called for; maybe he didn't alert the whole building, but some kind of backup ought to be on its way. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Cutscene Skipping

Cutscene skipping is easy, and now viable for the Mac.

In the main function, add a fork to this:

func void isjumping {
   chr_wait_animation 0 KONOKOjump
   if(cutscene eq 1) fastmode = 1;
   fork isjumping
}

At the beginning of every cutscene:

cutscene = 1;
start_cutscene2 #Replaces old start_cutscene. Does the same thing, except without locking jump.

At end of every cutscene:

cutscene = 0;
fast_mode = 0;

In the same line as all sound\dialog bits:

if (fastmode eq 0)

Also

func void start_cutscene2{
   lock_keys somethingsomething #I need to figure out how to configure it right!
   letterbox 1
   chr_forceholster 0 1
   #Am I missing anything?
}

Sorry if I made a BSL mistake, I'm a bit rusty. Another possibility is using draw_every_frame... Gumby 22:37, 16 November 2008 (CET)

Before the Dev Mode was rediscovered, I came up with THIS as part of Oni Menu: it didn't involve modding the cutscene scripts at all, and just skipped all cutscenes depending on the state of a global variable. Now we can use a hotkeyable variable like show_performance. Another solution is to insert fast_mode=0 after every major event (such as a block of dialog lines), and require the user to skip every block with the F hotkey. And yes, there are a few BSL mistakes, and no, it's not a good idea to allow the player to jump during cutscenes, at all. --geyser 23:31, 16 November 2008 (CET)

1. I forgot about show_performance, I like that idea better.
2. I forgot to put splitting up the cutscenes (I planned to >_<), thank you.
3. Jumping during cutscenes shouldn't matter, most\all of them are FILMs, but it is irrelevant.
4. This was a first draft, and could definitely be improved. However, the OniMenu idea probably isn't perfect either :P

Gumby 23:42, 16 November 2008 (CET)

3. FILM playback, input 0 and ai2_takecontrol 0 restrict the use of jump-toggling to a few moments for every cutscene, if any; hotkeyed variables for the win.
4. OniMenu sucks, you can say it. And THIS doesn't emulate begin_cutscene quite accurately: it was just a decent hack with the means I had at that time.

geyser 02:29, 17 November 2008 (CET)

Mutant Muro's missing taunt

Not sure what discussion has happened over this already, but I understand that Mutant Muro's quote, "Behold, the future!" is a taunt that was supposed to be linked to his taunt animation. Is this an easy thing to fix? --Iritscen

He has the taunt, and he says it already, just not with an actual Taunt animation. Gumby

Ah, this was already fixed (partly) in the AE, then? Sorry, I hadn't tested it. I believe that the taunt animation is the one where he raises his hand like he's showing off his claws. So what about linking those two things up, the anim and the sound? --iritscen 23:13, 17 November 2008 (CET)

Bugs to fix in next version of AE

Dashing AI

AI dashing hack applies to Konoko; she should be allowed to run again. --Iritscen

I've implemented this as a plugin for you to test, for the time being. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

The remaining dashing problem is with FILM sequences played back by AI in cutscenes: if they used to run, they now dash and end up off course. There is no simple fix to this. Ultimately, someone has to either rescript the cutscenes so that they use ai2_movetoflag instead of playback or chr_playback (new flags may need to be set up, but pathfinding will probably be OK as is) or reauthor the FILM sequences. Both are feasible ATM, neither is much fun. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Couldn't it also be fixed with special cutscene characters that have the old non-dashing TRACs? Gumby 06:09, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Domino knockdowns and fistsoflegend

fistsoflegend is still broken. geyser indicated that knockdowns might be optional in the final release, but the question is, "Will using knockdowns always break fistsoflegend?". --Iritscen

0) Didn't fistsoflegend suck anyway? 1) I can see there being no such thing as a "final release". 2) Knockdowns will be optional, that's not an option ^_^ The question is whether they will be fixed. If we can prevent spurious domino knockdowns (I believe we can, but maybe Loser knows better), then there is a chance that fistsoflegend will be redeemed. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

Feature requests for AE

Modular installation

In the final Edition installation process, we need to separate the harder combat mods from the overall improvement mods and make the harder combat mods optional. You probably already plan on doing this, but I felt I should just verbalize it so it's on record as something that's A Really Good Idea. --Iritscen

The problem is the lack of clarity on just what difference (and/or interplay) there is between "overall improvement mods" and "harder combat mods". It's not always easy to decompose the modded content into modules, all the less so as some resources are affected by unrelated mods. This interference is virtually impossible to resolve in the case of free-for-all modding, but with a centralized packaging it should be feasible (barely). --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)

AE:Glass

Are the breakable glass (i.e., kicks break glass), damaging glass, and the glass collision (body hitting glass breaks it) mods in the Edition yet? I have glass mods installed separately so I can't tell. I didn't think they were part of the Edition, but I see a PAR3 glass particle is in the Edition files, so I'm not clear on what's been changed. --Iritscen

I would love to see the RIF melee animations given glass-breaking status too. It only makes sense that if Konoko can kick glass out, hitting it with a big weapon in hand would also do the trick. Maybe a pistol would as well. --Iritscen

Damaging glass is in the Edition (hence the modded BINA3RAPglass_shard), but with a minor damage amount. There is no difference between what you call "glass collision" (or "improved physics") and "breakable glass". Glass particles are absolutely not involved here; it's all about explosive events (known as "glass charges") attached to body parts, either as standalone particles or as part of glows/contrails/whatever. Ultimately, such particles should be assigned to every body part that has enough momentum to break glass. This implies specifically modding particle tracks of every other TRAM in Oni, which is a lot of work. If custom particles are involved, this also implies setting up these particles and adding them to the ONCP of all the characters. I never attempted such an extensive mod: the glass-breaking combos I released to the public early on either used explosive dust (a dirty hack if there ever was one) or enabled glass-breaking for contrails, with no TRAM-specific or ONCP modding in either case. Loser apparently has tried to produce something more systematic, but "I" have yet to assess it and adapt it for a release of the Edition. --geyser 05:22, 22 September 2008 (CEST)