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Lightsaber Forms Project
Jun 29 2005 03:12pm

NofrikinfuN
 - Retired
NofrikinfuN
Calling all hardcore modders!

http://forums.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=198950

Here is a little doozy I stumbled on over at JK3files. I had actually been drawing up designs for such a mod myself, before I even found this, but was only doing so as a hobby... Ya know, since I don't know the first thing about modding.

The basic idea is this: Rather than having the same 3 forms we've been using since the beginning of JK2, why not make 7 forms based on the EU descriptions? Here they are on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat

Now, I'm not talking about doing all of this at once. Saber stances already in the game, or variations based on the dual and staff saber (Having one of two blades turned off) could yield between 9 and 11 total stances, depending on whether JK3 still has Desann and Tavion's stance. These could be used as fillers for the big 7 until we could organize some serious animation modifications.

Now, beyond the physical forms themselves, I think it would be VITAL to include a system to limit which forms can be taken together. My proposal for this problem is a point system, not unlike the current system for selecting force powers. I've drawn up an outline to this idea here:

http://www.geocities.com/nofrikinfun/

Another thing I would be interested in including is an attribute system, as seen in MANY RPG's, with attributes to modify damage, defense, force points, special attack costs and force regeneration. (Maybe even HP or something.) I don't know if attributes are possible, but my guess is that they will be hella complicated. The reason I want an attribute system goes back to the chart I made up for the forms. Basically, I want each form to have latent and active modifiers for various attributes the form compliments. For example, Form III is a heavily defensive form, so it should have a small latent defense modifier, and a larger defense modifier when its in use.

Anywho, I'm rambling now. If you want to know more, check the various url's I posted. :D

This post was edited by NofrikinfuN on Jun 29 2005 03:15pm.

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Comments
May 26 2006 10:13pm

wil-ca ketra
 - Student
 wil-ca ketra

thats good to hear couse the only other thing like this is forcemod 3 but the stances arent right or balenced
_______________
Form V saberstance user

May 24 2006 01:21pm

JamesF1
 - Student
 JamesF1

I'll hopefully have found a cheap copy of JK3 to buy by the time you're done. And SORESU SHALL BE USED FOREVER :P :D
_______________
Website

May 23 2006 05:03am

tarpman
 - The Tarped Avenger
 tarpman

Quote:
I hope someone in the world's still got JKA installed by the time I'm done, lol!

Still here! :P
_______________
Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time.

May 22 2006 10:17pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

Quote:
is this stil being made couse it will rock:D


Yeah it is again now. I was off for a long time - I was sick for a long time then just distracted and couldn't get back on track but recently I went back to it & started coding again. It may take a while though. I hope someone in the world's still got JKA installed by the time I'm done, lol!

May 22 2006 01:15am

Maher
 - Jedi Knight
 Maher

This is just crazy...:cool:
Keep it that way:)
_______________
Still here | My Lightsaber

May 20 2006 11:43pm

wil-ca ketra
 - Student
 wil-ca ketra

is this stil being made couse it will rock:D
_______________
Form V saberstance user

Feb 19 2006 04:20am

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

Quote:
...and we all know what happened there.


Uh, what exactly happened there? I know people complained sometimes but people always complain :P so I have no knowledge of a real problem. Clue me in.

Anyway I'll go true base codemp then. It's no problem if you guys have makefiles for it. I'm linuxless atm & don't think I want to try coaxing my openbsd machine into compiling the JKA source so when and if the time comes I'll probably ask you to compile me a linux version. (And/or freebsd if freebsd doesn't just run it in linux compat mode.)


Feb 19 2006 03:20am

tarpman
 - The Tarped Avenger
 tarpman

Quote:
OK great. I didn't see you online when I was so I'm going to ask you here. Do you know of any caveats re the "universal source" for JKA? That's the source that's been patched and given a makefile to compile in Linux. Know anything about that? I'm going to use it unless there's some killer issue with it.

Caveats? Well, that patched source is the one that JAR was built from... and we all know what happened there.

cHoSeN-oNe and myself (and `Orion too, I suppose) both build our mods straight from the vanilla source, using Intel's icc compiler, which is compatible with MSVCC syntax (mostly). Talk to any of us for details and/or makefiles.
_______________
Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time.

Feb 18 2006 05:45am

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

OK great. I didn't see you online when I was so I'm going to ask you here. Do you know of any caveats re the "universal source" for JKA? That's the source that's been patched and given a makefile to compile in Linux. Know anything about that? I'm going to use it unless there's some killer issue with it.


Feb 18 2006 02:31am

tarpman
 - The Tarped Avenger
 tarpman

Quote:
Now, the next thing is I wonder if anyone might want to help me? The project could really use some kind of manager/planner/slave driver to help me come up with a good to-do type list and then to stick to it as much as possible. Does anyone have the time and desire to do this? The right skills and personality would be a plus.

I would like to help - my free time is not a lot, and divided amongst several projects as it is, but this is a project I'd really enjoy seeing go somewhere. You know where to find me if you're interested. ;)
_______________
Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time.

Feb 18 2006 02:30am

tarpman
 - The Tarped Avenger
 tarpman

Quote:
My fraps avi that I made from my demo was over a gig big! Oops. Anyone wanna download it with a modem? :P

Codecs are your friends. Fraps records to raw AVI - it's in your best interest to encode it to something a bit smaller afterwards.
_______________
Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time.

Feb 17 2006 09:46am

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

*progress report feb 17*

The latest deal is this: I keep getting crashes here and there. Not as bad as it was, but it still happens. As much as I like OJP some of the trouble is from there I think. It's become so complex (more so lately) and such a quickly moving target that it's either unstable and/or tracking down the bugs is too hard. So... I think it might be wise to port the project back to the base source code. So far every time there's a bug fix in OJP I have to port it to the new OJP version anyway so I think this will be a short-term time loss taken to get a long-term time gain. Still like I said for the immediate future it's a setback.

Now, the next thing is I wonder if anyone might want to help me? The project could really use some kind of manager/planner/slave driver to help me come up with a good to-do type list and then to stick to it as much as possible. Does anyone have the time and desire to do this? The right skills and personality would be a plus.


Feb 12 2006 08:50pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

Progress Report feb 12

I spent last week trying to figure out or get around some bugs in the OJP code that're making the game crash when I duel bots. It might not even matter in the long run but until I get another computer online here I need the bots to test stuff. I know ppl volunteer for testing but sometimes the repetition and unpredictable unknown hours when I can test make bots a necessity.

Fortunately I should have Aiddat's comp running again soon, inshaAllah, so *he* can be my bot :cool:

In the meantime I've gone back to previous working version of the code that's fine. I just lost a few days' time. Oh well.

*Later that day...*

Those OJP bugs were squashed by Razorace so thank you Razorace. Work goes on again...


This comment was edited by Vruki Salet on Feb 13 2006 05:34am.

Feb 07 2006 03:16am

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

Thanks for the mention. I'll look up fraps. I wasn't going to distribute anything except to whoever's testing with me. Also I'd rather just have demos on video anyway since the videos are more like "real files" to me if you know what I mean - portable, don't rely on the game engine to run &tc.

*later on*

My fraps avi that I made from my demo was over a gig big! Oops. Anyone wanna download it with a modem? :P


This comment was edited by Vruki Salet on Feb 17 2006 09:48am.

Feb 07 2006 02:02am

tarpman
 - The Tarped Avenger
 tarpman

Quote:
Can you tell me how to record a demo or a movie from inside JKA?

Mmm, but people need the same files you have in order to correctly play back a demo. If you aren't going to distribute the mod with the demo, you'll need to record a movie with something like Fraps.

A demo isn't a proper movie - it's just a list of every command sent to and from the server. The code and files that were present at the time are still required to correctly render what happened.
_______________
Saving the world, one kilobyte at a time.

Feb 06 2006 11:54pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

Oh I get it. I thought of spectating as playing and thought that maybe you meant doing those demo-ing commands from the server console. I was wondering what kind of cam view you'd have then!

Feb 06 2006 11:05pm

R2D2
 - Staff
 R2D2

Quote:
How could you make a demo while not playing? :confused:


What do you mean? While in spectator mode? Those commands are ideal for spec.
_______________
"Do or do not, there is no try"
Jedi Master Yoda
Dual Saberist


Feb 06 2006 10:27pm

Pink_Mintaka
 - Student
 Pink_Mintaka

:eek:


/is speechless (in a very VERY good way0


:eek:

Feb 06 2006 07:55pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

How could you make a demo while not playing? :confused:

Feb 06 2006 05:04pm

R2D2
 - Staff
 R2D2

Here's the list of commands:
/g_synchronousclients 1
/record "name you want for the demo"
/g_synchronousclients 0
/stop

Note, if you are demoing while playing the game, you don't need to do the synchronous clients commands I believe.
_______________
"Do or do not, there is no try"
Jedi Master Yoda
Dual Saberist


Feb 06 2006 04:44pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

It's still too much in pieces with too much work left to put it together to make anything cool looking, or at least I think. Wait til I get the control working at least for the basic swings. I hope that'll be by this weekend.

Can you tell me how to record a demo or a movie from inside JKA?

Feb 06 2006 03:02pm

SaZ
 - Student
 SaZ

wow! :eek:
it would be cool if you could make some in-game-footage of how everything looks in game. yeah i know you are far from finishing it but i believe you could still show us some parts :P
in other words you got me excited lolz! :)
_______________
playing jk3 since 30th of january (2005), member since 1st of february. [Unofficial Master to Vision and Z�diac ] If you can make a fool of yourself infront of 300 people you can do anything - Jaiko D'kana

Feb 06 2006 04:23am

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet


Since last time there wasn't much I wrote that had to do directly with the saber forms themselves I thought I'd come back and tell some of the ideas I have to make them.

First remember the "duelling advantages" score I mentioned before. That's important because the tide of battle can turn on it. Having a higher duelling advantage then your opponent can increase your damage to him if you hit, increase the strength with which you can knock his saber away and/or the amount of control you take over his saber in a cross. It can also let you use any openings he makes in his defense to le t in a quick strike or stab. If you don't have enough DAs then you can't. (Perhaps you're too preoccupied with covering your own butt to think about it or something.)

The different forms vary from each other in the following ways:

______________________________

+Offensive or defensive bonuses

An offensive swing will be strongest in forms 4,5 and 7. Form 3 will be quit a bit stronger in defensive swings, especially when deliberately parrying. Form 5 will have a slight bonus in defense, more so when deliberately blocking.

Form 2 will do the most DDP "damage" in a successful duelling attack even if it's swings won't do the most actual health damage against a body. Form 3 will do the least amount of DDP damage in a duelling attack but the neat thing is that Form 3 is good at wearing away an *attackers* DDP when his attack swings are defended against even with a block. It might take a while but a Form 3 user can sometimes win just by defending until an attacker tires out.

______________________________

______________________________

+Different swing animations

Even before I or whoever helps makes any new animations there are many variations in the existing animations I can use.

Each stance of the five single saber stances includes a set of quick basic swings, then those can be made a bit longer, slower and "heavier" by adding on their starting sequences, then even more so by playing adding on starting transitions.

Some unique swings can be made from pieces of other animations like the the flurries and katas, and from the saber lock "win" animations. Then slight variations of these aren't super hard to make in Dragon or if anyone wants to bother XSI or

3ds Max. I have some animations, including a lot of blocks, that a guy named Keshire made and released but they need to be prepared first and that's a bit of work. If anyone wants to do it maybe I could teach him how.
______________________________

______________________________

+Swing speeds

Different forms will have different swing speeds in various modes. Form 2 will be a bit faster all around. Form 3 faster in blocks and better at speeding up parries to match attacks. Form 4 will be faster in attack swings and slower in defense being less capable at catching up to attacks. Form 5 is slightly slower all around. I'd like Form 7 to actually have a bit of randomness in the speed of attack swings but I don't know if people will like that so it's optional I guess.

In any case Form 7 will inhibit an opponent's ability to speed up parries to catch attacks since it's famous for its confusing timing and I want some feature to demonstrate that. Form 8 will have very fast critical attack swings.
______________________________

______________________________

+Different costs to do different moves

Some moves will cost Force Points, some will cause reductions in DDP and some will reduce Duelling Advantage points. Some moves will be off limits to certain Forms, while the Form is being used in combat.

Most swings will cost FP. How much these might be is broken down here to give an idea:

Form 1:

8 pts to block
4 pts to parry
4 pts to attack
20-60 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 2:

8 pts to block
4 pts to parry
4 pts to attack
20-40 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 3:

4 pts to block
2 pts to parry
6 pts to attack
20-60 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 4:

12 pts to block
6 pts to parry
3 pts to attack
20-60 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 5:

6 pts to block
5 pts to parry
4 pts to attack
20-60 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 7:

8 pts to block
4 pts to parry
4 pts to attack
20-50 pts to critical attack
------------------
Form 8:

10 pts to block
4 pts to parry
4 pts to attack
20-80 pts to critical attack

The amounts for "critical attack" aren't for sure at all. They might go down. They will vary according to the type if attack.

If you run you will have a penalty to your DA (or your opponent will get a bonus to his) in all Forms except 4 and 8.

Running speed will be reduced in Forms 3 and 5, and walking speed also in Form 5. Walking speed will be increased in Form 7 and running speed will be increased in Form 8. A slow walk forward while attacking with Form 5 will increase your DA against an opponent unless he retreats or unless he uses Form 3 and doesn't try to move forward. If your DA is quite a bit higher than your opponent's and you use Forms 5 or 8 then you will *force* him to retreat unless you using Form 5 and he is countering it with Form 3 (or unless moving back would kill him like make him fall in lava or something).

Jumps, rolls and cartwheels will cost DDP unless you have Form 4 or 8. They will cost the most for Form 5 I think. The highest jumps will be for Form 4. Likewise only Form 4 will be allowed to do wall gripping, wall running and possibly flips in saber combat. Maybe Form 8 can do flips I don't know yet but anyway flips are just decorations anyway. I'd like to add in some more special moves like a quick dart based on the hop animations and a forward moving whirling dervish-like spin for Form 4 that covers a lot of ground fast.

Does anyone care to animate Sidious' flying corkscrew act he does in his office?
______________________________

______________________________

+Ability to block blaster bolts

Forms 1, 4, 8:

deflect to random direction: fair
reflect back at shooter: poor
deflect to crosshair point: no
can block while swinging: no
------------------
Form 2:

deflect to random direction: poor
reflect back at shooter: no
deflect to crosshair point: no
can block while swinging: no
------------------
Form 3:

deflect to random direction: excellent
reflect back at shooter: poor
deflect to crosshair point: no
can block while swinging: defensive swings
------------------
Form 5:

deflect to random direction: good
reflect back at shooter: good
deflect to crosshair point: fair
can block while swinging: yes
------------------
Form 7:

deflect to random direction: good
reflect back at shooter: fair
deflect to crosshair point: no
can block while swinging: yes
Form 7 Special:
Reflected bolts do more damage back at the shooter
than when they came out of the gun to begin with.

Think like so:

excellent = 9.99 out of 10 complete success
good = 9 out of 10 complete success
fair = 8 out of 10 "
poor = 7 out of 10 "

even poor is high since "complete failure" could mean death
______________________________

______________________________

+Saberthrow

Only Forms 4,5 and 8 will have saberthrow though I'm open to arguments for the other Forms. Tell me about who did it and I'll decide if it's a case for another Form to have it. I want Form 4 throw to be straight and fast like Yoda's in Episode III, and Form 5's to be the strongest.
______________________________

______________________________

+Critical attacks

The Forms will vary in the types of critical attacks they can do and when the can do them. All Forms will be able to do a variety of criticals easily against any opponent with no DDP. These can include simple yet deadly slashes and stabs, or

flurries or katas or what-have-you. I might want to have some in pre-scripted animations in the fashion of saber locks to make the "marks of contact" you read about in lightsaber combat articles, in cases where a death blow is practically guaranteed. But sometimes you might be able to make a special criitical attack even if your opponent still has DDP. All Forms will be able to "earn" criticals by making certain combinations of successful duelling attacks. An example might be 2 successful attacks to his right chest followed by a third to his head, or something like that. Remember that since he has DDP left these attacks won't actually wound him to be called "successful." They'll just lower his DDP like usual and they'll probably be auto-blocked in the animations but they're still "successful." Also I know this isn't realistic but it's mainly a gaming device to add more strategy into duels. Pretend it's a sequence of swings intended to distract your opponent's attention or something. Also of note is that Form 2 might be better at these if I allow them to count hits to
*adjacent* hit locations in the combos as well as the proper hit locations, in order to mimic it's "precision." Anyway in addition to these cases are some others:

Any dueler with enough DA points over his opponent can do a critical attack when his opponent is in a vulnerable position including: a big saber knockaway from a parry, a wide open transitional move like one of those spins you do sometimes, a
knockdown, maybe special moves like rollstabs and katas etc. You will lose DA or worse if your opponent blocks or parries you though.

A Form 2 user will often be able to bypass DDP and do small critical attacks right to his opponent's body, unless his opponent is very cautious in his moves or parries & blocks well. These are just well placed slices and jabs that can penetrate defenses.

Form 3 users will be poor in critical attacks. Boohoohoo. They'll have some though like good disarming techniques (with or without the opponents hand off too) and some simple cuts and stabs to kill with after a while.

I'm going to try to think of some cool kinds of special criticals for 7. Any ideas?

A Form 8 user will have a slightly tough time getting criticals in unless circumstances are just right and his opponent is in a certain kind of disadvantaged position but when he is watch out because Form 8's criticals are the most devastating. Don't try any fancy moves on slippery slopes in a fight with an Form 8-er or there won't be enough bacta in the galaxy to put you back together.

______________________________

______________________________

+Force powers

Some Forms will restrict the use of certain force powers while in a duel. I can't remember the details atm but I wrote them down somewhere. Also some Forms can aid in defense against offensive powers. I know I want Forms 3 and 7 to be able to defend against lightning for example. Forms 2, 4 and 5 can use push/throw as can 7 if we accept that Darth Maul used 7. 2 & 4 can certainly use lightning and 7 & 5 can use rage. I'm open to suggestions on this idea.

Eventually I'd like to make more, enhanced powers that go with different Forms in combat.
______________________________

______________________________

+Dealing with multiple opponents

Since my system mainly deals with duelling a single opponent I want to make special ways to quickly, efficiently deal with multiple opponents. Sometimes this will mean using special force powers (like 360-degree force wave) and sometimes
special Form-dependent attacks. This is another "eventually." Once my saber system is being used, at least by testers, I'd like suggestions on how to make it work in when fighting multiple opponents. Like how to make a kind of dueling view
mode like the one I've got but for 2 opponents.
______________________________

______________________________

+Whatever else I think of later or you suggest & I like & is possible.

Some of this might be confusing since maybe my saber system isn't really clearly explained. I'll try to answer questions if you have any.

So far my mod is for single saber only. After that's more-or-less done I will tackle duals and staves. I want to transform the way those are used, especially staves since control of a lightsaber staff is supposed to be nothing like controlling a regular lightsaber sword. Aiddat and I had the idea, that we think is cool and funny, that since using duals and staves is supposed to
be hard not only should it cost a lot of game points to "buy" such skills but if you mess up your controls you won't just do a wrong move, you'll introduce yourself to the blender. Yukyuk. And so it shall be insha'Allah. "Put that staff in
TRAINING mode Padawan!"


This comment was edited by Vruki Salet on Feb 06 2006 06:33am.

Feb 05 2006 09:34pm

Vruki Salet
 - Student
 Vruki Salet

OK I'll try. My mod is more than just forms and even just the saber part is ("going to be";) quite a new system altogether, so a good part of what I've done so far is for saber combat generally.

I've implemented a few ideas one at a time, using a fresh clean source code for each, to test the concepts. Lately I've begun sticking them all together. The source code I've used is from the OJP project although The feel of saber combat in my system will not be much like theirs. I've disabled their most obvious saber system features such as autododging, mishaps, fatigue (residue of their fatigue system might still be there atm but it will be removed or replaced with my own that isn't tied to force points), stuns etc. I'm using OJP mainly for their bug fixes, some improved saber hit detection code, and most of all the potential to script NPCs with Icarus like in SP maps. That's really cool and a big deal. (If only I knew how... I'll need mappers esp with knowledge of Icarus or seige maps!)

Things I have got working separately so far, in no particular order:

______________________________

+Less randomly-bouncy saber clashing

This makes for more cinematic fights by far. I had implemented this nicely in basejka code but the OJP code has a similar thing going already that's good too. I plan to make the control of your own and your opponent's saber in a parry a significant part of duelling like it is in real fencing. The end result ought to be a much more controlled look and feel when sabers hit then there is in basejka.
______________________________


______________________________

+New saber controls and new view mode for saber duelling

I'm having two systems for controlling your saber. When fighting against gunners the normal controls will be active. Your view will be free and mouse-controlled, and swings will be controlled by your movement directions as in basejka. But when you're in a duel with another sabrist you need more control so I've implemented a more sophisticated keyboard-based saber control system. At the same time your mouse hand is freed by a new view mode where your view is locked on to your opponent. Your hand can be off the mouse and the movement keys move you towards or away from or around him in relationship to your facing him. This mode is disabled and you go back to mouse control while you press the USE button or if your saber is off (i.e. so you quit the fight and run away haha). With these new things you can stand in front of your opponent and swing and counter-swing much more that you can in basejka where you know the style is mostly to run by someone swinging as you pass or jump back. You can concentrate better on your blades and hopefully have nice volleys.
______________________________


______________________________

+A way to break the existing saber swing animations down into 3 each: a light quick version, a medium version, and longer heavy version

This is kind of like saying that each of the five single saber stances has it's own blue, yellow and red sub-stances. Combined with control over other swing attributes such as speed makes for a lot of variation in swing animations needed to differentiate the Forms. I'd like to make custom animations too but more basic kinds of swings are already available than basejka gives access to. The process also makes a lot of other animations available for swings too like some used normally in saber locks. Some of those might look good, or not. The timing has to match or be tweaked or they don't work well. (There's a cool kick in there but I haven't got it to work right yet.)
______________________________


______________________________

+Defense points based on your saber instead of personal energy shields

I have this thing called Duelling Defense Points. A saberist gets them when his saber is on. They're lost little by little from your opponent's attacks and/or reflecting blaster bolts. As long as you have some left most saber attacks won't touch your body because you fend them off with your saber. When they are gone though you're done for because any successful attack by your opponent will make contact with your body and do the kind of damage you'd expect from a lightsaber. A few kinds of attacks can get through DDP and go right to the body: critical attacks you can earn in combat according to your form, and attacks to parts of your opponent's body that he has made vulnerable with a risky move or that you have made vulnerable by taking control of his saber in a cross (that is, in a saber-clash event).

DDP regenerate quickly or slowly according to what you're doing. Meditating is best, running around with your saber lit is worst.

I originally got rid of personal shields altogether because I don't like them and they're not starwarsy but I decided to keep them in the code for potential use by gunners.
______________________________


______________________________

+Character attributes read from a special RPG data file

This was necessary as a way to record what form you use and has grown into a limited RPG character record. The important thing for my mod is it makes RPG-style character development possible. (Not so relevant to just saber forms though.)
______________________________


There are a few other things I've done too, like part of a system that gives you a "duelling advantages" score that increases and decreases according to circumstances in the duel and environment combined with your saber form. Also some improvements of the OJP tab-bots when it comes to their saber duelling style was necessary to test stuff on them before it's ready for human testing but that's not relevant to the final game. Probably a few other things I'm forgetting or that won't make the final cut. Oh I'm using a combination of where in the swing your saber hits something combined with what part of the blade hits to increase or decrease damage. Most swings are strongest around their midpoint and reference to that is already in the code for red stance. Also in RL swings are strongest toward the tip of the blade while blocks are stronger closer to the hilt. I put in code to detect that. It can't be too precise though because even with the OJP trace fixes the game's hit detection is inaccurate. You'd be suprised at the variable numbers that result from standing in one spot whacking the same frozen NPC's stationary saber with the same swing animation over and over. I'd guess there's an average
15% variation with all factors equal so I can't do much better than determine which third of the blade has hit but that works out OK.

I have a couple things I want to try to help manual parries because they are hard. One is to give the HUD (which I'm minimizing btw) a kind of "early warning system" about which direction a swing is likely to come from. Another is a way to speed up a parrying counterswing according to how close your opponent's attack swing is to its mid-point or maybe it's 40% point or whatever turns out best. In practice I've found that even a quickly lauched counterswing passes between the duellists after the attack swing has already passed and a speed boost is needed to catch up to it. But it has to be the right speed boost because passing by too soon isn't any better than too late.

Other stuff irrelevant to saber fighting that I've done is get rid of glowing force effects and spheres like the spawning sphere and duelling glow because they're un-movie like and I hate them. I'll consider making them optional instead of losing them entirely but I lean towards ditching them. (I'll keep the way that when you're in a duel everyone but your duel opponent is in shadow because it helps you concentrate on your opponent. In fact I've increased it a bit.) Only some of them are removed in the source code I'm using atm but it's not a big deal to do. I made an all Aurebesh HUD which was funny but hard to work with especially when you wanted to change your controls or read the scoreboard. Anyone for Huttese? Really I mean to put in a nice new font, plus a little Aurabesh for most ppl or ancient Sith letters for sith characters for effect.

Lately I've been putting these things together into a package. Now I'm re-implementing my control system I hope even better than my test and at the same time implementing Forms swing animation differences.

You can go to http://www.taddia.com/vruki/mod/ for some more details but some of that stuff's out of date. Sorry! I'll try to get it in shape soon but I think I'm too tired today.

I'm pretty close to needing human testing but if I don't get some good progress done today I'll probably have to wait til next weekend to do it.








This comment was edited by Vruki Salet on Feb 05 2006 09:52pm.

Feb 05 2006 04:15pm

R2D2
 - Staff
 R2D2

Could you give us an update on your progress Vruki?
_______________
"Do or do not, there is no try"
Jedi Master Yoda
Dual Saberist


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