now i'm finding that certain quakec changes are causing the level to not load, giving errors like

"couldn't spawn server maps/info_player_start.bsp"
"couldn't spawn server maps/samelevel.bsp"

almost as if strings in the progs are getting all jumbled up. Is frikgui27 a bad version to be using? Maybe it's got some bugs or something? 

Anyway, i think i solved the issue; I guess i just needed to delay a bit before trying to play a sound. I guess sometimes if you try to play a sound too soon after starting a level or loading a save, the game just swallows it and you don't hear anything. I've noticed the same is true with printing messages to players in spawn functions.

As for the crazy errors in post 35, no idea what happened there but it's gone after making more changes. 

I've had that string bug happen to me before, usually it goes away if you restart frikgui. Must be some kind of bug - if it keeps recurring you might want to use fteqcc instead, or mention it to frikac. I'm pretty sure that nosave is a reliable feature, although it sounds like you've fixed it anyway. 

I put a flag in play_music set to true when music is playing and then read it in LoadGame. It works a treat.

Thanks. 

Hi!

I posted thsi thread last week on the Inside3d forums, but I didn't get any replies, so I wnated to try my luck here, with you nice folks ;).

I'm having some trouble loading a DPM model for Darkplaces.

This is the code I have, minus the comments (added to weapons.qc)

//model precache (added at the beginning of the //file
precache_model("models/weapons/ak/v_ak47.dpm");


//Set the weapon up in players viewport
if ((self.weapon == IT_SHOTGUN))
{
self.currentammo = self.ammo_shells;
self.weaponmodel = "models/weapons/ak/v_ak47.dpm";
self.weaponframe = FALSE;
self.items = (self.items | IT_SHELLS);
}


When I try this out, the model doesnt show up, and the console reports "cant find <tex name> for mesh <tex name>, using default grey_checkerboard" (or something along those lines)

I'm using the the test v_ak47.dpm model that came with the dpm model viewer utility.

The model directory is as follows:

mygame/models/weapons/ak/v_ak47.pm

Inside the ak directory I have the following files (including the textures that the engine reports it cant find, in TGA file format):

-v_ak47.pdm
-10 of the TGA textures corresponding to the model

I would really appreciate if someone could tell me how to load and display DPM models in darkplaces.

Thanx again in advance!

-Zylyx 

I don't really know much about dpm models, but I guess the first thing to check would be that the filenames are correct. Can you give a specific example of one of the paths? If they came ready named with the example file then it's unlikely to be the problem. Also, see if a shorter path helps, like putting the model in mygame/progs. Again it sounds unlikely but it's worth a shot.

Otherwise I'm gonna have to pass you on to another forum again. The best place to ask/check out would be the nexuis forums. Nexuis uses dpm for all it's models IIRC, so checking out their source code/mod to see how to do it might help. If even that fails you might post on their forums and hopefully a coder there can help. 

thnx!

My model directory code is as follows (in the "mygame" directory in the Quake directory, coz that where my progs.dat file get's called from for my mod):

precache_model("models/weapons/ak/v_ak47.dpm");

and for the viewport setup:

self.weaponmodel = "models/weapons/ak/v_ak47.dpm";


I'll have a go at the Nexuiz forums, and I'll hopefully be able to get some info there. 

i was wondering if someone could give me a hand with this...

basically, i wanted to create some kind of time system in a c++ game i'm working on. well, actually, i'm working on someone else's code, and currently, there's no sense of time at all, all timing is done by frames, which, to me anyway, seems like a Bad Thing.

ideally, i'd like to have a simple counter that starts at 0 and goes up in seconds like quake's 'time' float so that i can do things similar to self.nextthink = time + 5.2; (obviously, wouldn't be identical)

btw, i'm a c++ noob. ;) 

you basically have a global time variable, and have the code update the value at the beginning of each frame. Probably, you'd do it in the main loop that runs your game. And the time you can get by using the appropriate system call, for example windows has one, SDL has its own, etc. See Sys_FloatTime() in the quake source for an example of how it's done.

Once you have a time variable that is available to any piece of code, you can do simple tests like: if (this.nextthink <= time) this.think(); 

you hand the last frame time delta into all your updates 

and, upon reading metl's answer a bit more:

you'd also have the main game loop decide when to render a frame and when to update the gamestate (ie. seperate render() and update() methods). 

like megaman said, some functions (such as physics/movement) will want a "frametime" delta in addition or or instead of the global time. So you should have both be available. 

i found out that clock() returns what looks like a simple integer in msec starting at 0 when the game starts, so i'm using that.

but what is this frametime delta you are talking about? like the time between frames? cause i haven't a clue on how to calculate something like that.

i realise though, that i'll eventually need something like that. i changed the movement system to work with velocity vectors but i won't be able to accurately update positions without some way to tell how much time is taking place between frames. 

"frametime" i.e. time "delta" i.e. time between frames is easily calculated: just currenttime - previoustime. It is useful for things like physics, for example:

entity.position += entity.velocity * frametime;
entity.velocity += entity.gravity * frametime;

note that the second line above is responsibly for jump height being framerate-dependant! 

Basically there are a number of ways of getting the time and some of the timers that give you the data aren't that exact.

You should be able to find some good info in the http://www.gamedev.net forums and I think I remember seeing it discussed on the http://www.shmup-dev.com/ forums too in the past. 

i think i've got it working, or at least, it seems to be.

every frame:

time_currentFrame = clock();
time_previousFrame = time_currentFrame;
time_frameDelta = (time_currentFrame - time_previousFrame) / 1000;

this gives me the fraction of time per second, and i have one function that does:

nextPosition = currentPosition + (velocity * time_frameDelta)

for all movements.

for actual velocity calculations, i capped that at 10 frames per second (every 100ms) to keep cpu usage down for needlessly precise velocities. 

you have to reverse the order of the first two lines? 

:P 

how do you call a function outside of the class you're in atm? is it even possible?

i know you can do object->doThis() but that requires you to first find the pointer for that object, and then that function usually means you want to perform the function on that object...

i wanted to do the old style C thing where you just have a function you call from anywhere (like how T_Damage and T_RadiusDamage work in quakeC).

i'm kind of shit at this whole OO stuff, so am i going about this the totally wrong way? 

 

Or just place the function outside of any class definitions. Functions at the global level work the same as C functions. 

how exactly do i make it static? or how do i declare the function outside a class definition? do i make a new cpp file or something or..? 

is another modifier, kinda like private or public.

A static thing is something you can not make instances of, kinda.

So you have classes like Moose and you can make moose1, moose2 etc... But there can be a static method in the Moose class that is not particular to any moose1 or moose2 instance.

Like double Moose.mass_of_the_sun() which then returns a static constant that is always the same no matter what you do with the moose instances.

Kinda like that. Damn it's been too long since I've coded. 

necros

You're asking some pretty basic questions here in all honesty. Maybe reading a primer on C/C++ would be in order here. 

C++ is a painful and unforgiving language. If you dive right in, you're going to hit something hard and spiky.

I would go so far as suggesting a different language, if that's practical (pygame is pretty sweet). If it isn't, then you really need to read up on the basics.