Saturday, October 09, 2004

CoD:UO Compass Bug

One of the more annoying bugs in Call of Duty: United Offensive is with the range scale on the compass that shows where you are in relation to teammates or objectives. On some maps, it's set to a pretty high value (13000) which lets you see where things are pretty far away (otherwise they cluster at the edge of the compass). Older maps which are much smaller use a tiny value like 1024 so that you can see individual markers for people in the same room.

Well, I spent most of the past week trying to learn how to fix the bug in the game's script files. I think I know what's going on, but I'll have to muck with it next week to see if I can implement a fix. Looks like it's simply error of omission, where they forgot to set range values on certain maps and some of the gametypes don't properly initialize the player's compass on the client side.

Labels: CallOfDuty

posted by Wuphon's at 10:09 AM (0 comments)

Friday, October 08, 2004

CoD:UO Compass Settings

The default range for all maps in UO is still 1024 units (I think that's the same as old CoD). Tried changing the cvar (cg_hudCompassMaxRange) for the compass when connected to a UO server, but it is flagged as read-only.

Only a few maps use a different value in UO. Look in the GSC files for those two maps for:

game["compass_range"] = 13000;

Here's the maps that I've found that override whatever the default is:

mp_arnhem - 2816
mp_berlin - 2816
mp_foy - 6124
mp_italy - 13000
mp_kharkov - 6124
mp_kursk - 13000
mp_rhinevalley - 12500

Notice that Ponyri does not have a default value! Which means that Ponyri is using a compass range of 1024 units, even for BAS/CTF/DOM.

Anyone know what would have to be done server-side to override or add new values to the game's GSC files? Or is it better to do a server-side mod that puts an upper limit on the compass size?

Or maybe someone knows where to change the default compass size setting?

So the current rules for compass range are:

1. defaults to 1024
2. Unless the map is one of the above
3. Gets reset to 1024 if the game type is BEL, DM, HQ, RE, SD, or TDM

That means on a map like Italy, all of the new types (BAS, CTF, DOM) will use a compass range of 13000 units, while any of the old game types end up with a compass range of 1024 units.

Labels: CallOfDuty

posted by Wuphon's at 10:51 AM (0 comments)

Monday, October 04, 2004

Q3Map Errors

Well, my map is crashing during the VIS portion (using CoDBuilder).

Error signature:
AppName: q3map.exe
AppVer: 0.0.0.0
ModName: q3map.exe
ModVer: 0.0.0.0
Offset: 0002d27c

I suspect it has to do with either a model that's out of place, or a brush that's funky. Here's a sample from the compiler output (with verbose option turned on).

File Handles:
----------------------
30054 files in pk3 files
reading C:\Program Files\Call of Duty\Main\maps\mp\StorageBunkerD-006.bsp
reading C:\Program Files\Call of Duty\Main\maps\mp\StorageBunkerD-006.prt
27 portalclusters
36 numportals
150 numfaces
72 active portals
0 hint portals
visdatasize:224
0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... (0)
2 average number of passages per leaf
0 MB required passage memory
0...1...2...3...4...

At which point it crashes. Once I dismiss the WinXP "app crashed" dialog (where you can opt to send info to Microsoft), the compile window continues on to the next steps and I can actually load and play the map. Everything in the map looks normal and I can't seem to locate the error. Probably crashing during what other versions call the "CreatePassages" section, but it doesn't say.

So now I get to play the "delete stuff, try compiling" method of locating the error. Started with a bunch of detail brushes (crates), then deleted some more, and more. Finally, I deleted some models (chair, 2 trucks and a barrel) and then the map properly compiled.

posted by Wuphon's at 11:16 PM (0 comments)