No idea. But if you download the mod you should be able to decompile the .u files with UCC and then look at the .uc files to see how they did it, no?
I'm sure most of you know about the Remote Strike 2004 mod for UT2004. One of the weapons it comes with has an alt+fire grenade launcher that DEFORMS TERRAIN!!!! I've ALWAYS wanted that in a game, and here it is! I had no idea it was possible. So, my only complaint is that you have to use this mod and that gun and that fire mode to get the effect!
Do any of you know how I might be able to make my own mod, just of the standard weapon set to allow terrain deformation? Obviously the assault rifle would just make little piddle marks...but the Redeemer!
P2P does not stand for 'permission to pilfer,' Ashcroft said
No idea. But if you download the mod you should be able to decompile the .u files with UCC and then look at the .uc files to see how they did it, no?
I downloaded it and played it. Pretty cool I don't know how they did and throughout all the documentation on it they seem to have either downplayed or forgotten about the fact that the weapon could deform terrain.
As for the terrain deformation itself, its just that. It can only deform Terrains, not Static Meshes or actual brushes. Good for ONS maps, but not much else.
Fear my Tank Trap!
<img src="http://www.jeredhunter.com/images/tankTrap.jpg" alt="ahahaha stupid tanks" />
Per your reccomendation, I've decompiled it's .u and it spit out 155 .uc files. TerrainGrenade.uc seems to be the most likely candidate for what I'm looking for.
Being a c++ guy I pretty much get what its doing, but not being an unrealscript guy I'm a bit confused. I guess this would be the time to learn unrealscript then. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
Jer, are you kidding? This thing is awesome for VCTF (and I guess CTF but I never play that)! I dig a trench around my base (Any of you guys see the BloodGulch map?) and all of the enemies get stuck in it! While they're all struggling with themselves, I waltz in and grab the flag unharmed!
P2P does not stand for 'permission to pilfer,' Ashcroft said
Sounds like it could be a bit unbalancing.
Against bots anyways.
If when digging your trenches you leave a way for you to get out, then you've left a way for the enemy to get in. Surprisingly, bots are pretty good at finding that 'one way in'. Also it takes quite a bit of time to dig trenches deep and wide enough for them to be effective, so as long as the enemy team doesn't piddle around their own base, its not too unbalancing.
P2P does not stand for 'permission to pilfer,' Ashcroft said
but when they get deep the bots get stuck in the v. sharp bits. Their AI is stuck in falling mode, as is their animation. Since the edges are so sharp their meshes fall through the Terrain and they get really really stuck. They won't even shoot at you if they see you.
The only problem I'd see with this is that if you use it around your flag, the flag and all the static meshes will just hang there, and it would make it almost impossible to get to the flag. Imagine one of the CTF maps, and if you had 1 guy just spend the first 4-5 minutes excavating a hole, then it'd be almost impossible for the other team to get to the flag, thus unbalancing the game in a really shitty way.
It would seem to me that the best way to avoid this would be for map makers to include more meshes that replace the default ones when they've been shot at, so that if the grenade thing goes off around a base, the base would first replace itself with the broken down version, and then eventually just disapear and become a hole after enough shots. It would be much more work, and the game would become alot more ping unfriendly, but it would be bad-ass. Imagine Torlan if you could do this, the walls of the base would crumble, then after a large amount of punishment, either sections or sides could just be replaced with destruction. I mean, you'd have to balance it so that it would take a certain number of shots for it to happen, but the possibilities for some amazing gameplay would just be through the roof. Seige maps would be amazing, and would add a completely different feeling to this game.
"Passive indifference is as bad as active malice." - Obama
-| Black Ertai |-
I don't play on regular CTF, but I've never seen a map where the flag is surrounded by terrain. Static meshes tend to extend for awhile on all of the maps I've played. Even on bloodgulch, not only is the base a static, but anything with green grass is too.
As you all know I'm really new at this, and my first project would be to learn enough unrealscript to extend the deformation to the standard weaponset. So this is <i>not</i> a project for me, but do you think it would be possible to deform static meshes?
P2P does not stand for 'permission to pilfer,' Ashcroft said
Probably not. They're called "static" meshes for a reason.
Could probably be done with procedural meshes instead of static, but any match in such a map would likely end up with each frame printed out and mailed to you just to speed things up.
Besides, you wouldn't want most (if not all) static meshes to deform like that... Rubber buildings? Be a lot easier to set static meshes to chunked movers and have them damage-triggered to fly away at lightspeed while blowing off a mesh emitter for great rubble.
You're after this function in the TerrainInfo:
native final function PokeTerrain( vector WorldLocation, int Radius, int MaxDepth );
I know in UT2k3 there was no reset function, so you have to keep track of your pokes somewhere, to reset the terrain each round (or you could just reload the map).