Ah, thanks for clarifying that. Now if only SM would get back here.

You should use IsThingVisible() there. What I would do is add about four ghosts to the precipitation cog. Then when the precipitation is started, the precip cog would check to make sure at least one of the ghosts was visible before creating the precipitation.



Not exactly. There are different limits. I believe there are seperate limits on symbols of each symbol type as well as for the total number of symbols. And I think there's also a limit on the number of symbols that you can pass from a JKL. None of this is certain, but I'll get around to researching it sometime.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

[This message has been edited by SaberMaster (edited August 26, 2002).]

sabermaster

First off, let me say Your cogs work great!

now i do have a couple of questions

1.when night falls the lighting has a red tint , i was just wondering is there a way to change the tint color?

2.also when night falls, all the lights are changed , witch is what i want for the outside, is there any way to set it so the lights inside buidings are not affected?

A red tint? The night lighting shouldn't have any tint. Could you describe that in more detail?



About how many inside sectors do you plan to have?

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

[This message has been edited by SaberMaster (edited August 27, 2002).]

sabermaster

the red tint looks like the night goggles but instead of green its red
and its only at night

well the level im working on is called jedihome , so naturally i have a house,up and down stairs rooms, 2 sectors if im not mistaken, i have a garage next to the house(thats a 3do) after i have finshed the home area ie the house,pond and general apperance of the area, witch im almost done, i am planning on recreating my old project jeditomb into this one as a sorta dungeon
i realy have no idea how many sectors that will be but im sure it will be alot

btw: is there anyway that instead of using a sprite as the sun , that i can use a 3do instead? ive made the sun.3do, but im not sure how to make a template that will work with your cog

also if you need screenshots or something to help with the red tint or sectors problem let me know ill post them on my site upon your request

He probably changed the RGB values dispropotionately towards Red.

I did it in MotS, and had no coloured lighting, and experienced no tint in the blinding.

Instead of posting a picture, could you zip your level and email it to me? Then I could make sure the cogs will work with your level.

As for the lighting, I'll change the weather system somewhat to allow for indoor and outdoor areas.

To use a 3do for the sun, open your sun template. Remove the sprite=sun.spr text from the template and add model3d=sun.3do. Then the template will accept your sun 3do. BTW, does your sun look the same from every direction?

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

well i though that might have be the problem at first although i had not messed with the RGB levels ,so i tried changing them , that didnt work , so i turn off the suns glare altogether, i have also check to make sure that none of the sectors have tint enabled, there all set to their default settings

ive also posted screenshots of my level on my website http://takeoff.to/aces i have 3 shots early morning,noontime, and the nighttime shot so if you want to see what my level looks like or just want to see the red night go check it out

you must have posted while i was typing sabermaster, sure ill zip the level and send it to you, i tried doing what you said with the template already, but ill try it again since i wanst sure the first time if that was the way to do it, as far as my sun.3do looking the same from all sides , it does in my 3d preview but i havent be able to get it to show up in game yet, i can just stick in in the game as a normal object to find out though

I'll have the updated cogs by tonight or early tomorrow. Would have had them done today, but I've been very busy.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

cool beans and rice

translation: I bow before your greatness oh great cog master
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sounds good sabermaster i do appreciate it

As for the level: you have too many copies of the rain cog and you're trying to make far too much rain. Only about half of it is being created because the thing limit is exceeded. You can do several things: remove some of the rain cogs, speed up the rain, increase the burst interval, lower the creation ghosts, and most importantly, raise the thing limit.

Your level also has a bad framerate because of the transparent trees and the size of the level - too many things are visible at once. If you divided the level up some - which would reduce the blockyness - then the framerate would improve. But this is more of an level problem than a cog problem.

I suspect that the red tint was caused by a lack of resources. Since red is the first color, it's probable that JK couldn't apply the blue and green colors to the color effect.


I have restructered the weather system and added some new features. Lighting is now controlled by a seperate cog; and instead of using a color effect, sector lighting is used instead. This has its downsides, but it's definitely more flexible.

The control cog now triggers the light, sun, and surface cogs to start. So there is no chance that the timing of the different cogs can get off sync.

On Grismath's suggestion, I've added a system to the precip cog so that elements won't be created unless the camera is in view of or in range of one of an array of viewGhosts. For levels like yours, JF, this will certainly be useful.

There are now two sun templates: 2dsun which uses a sun.spr, and 3dsun which uses a sun.3do. These templates should be copied into your master.tpl.

All of the cogs' headers have been updated with instructions on how to use the cogs and their settings.

For the sun cog, I would recommend that you use all ten frame positions. This will smooth out the movement of the sun, and it will make it easier for the cog to keep the right timing.

To download this update, copy & paste this link to your address bar.

If you have any questions, just ask. Good luck.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

[This message has been edited by SaberMaster (edited August 31, 2002).]

Remarkable. Just one question; WHERE'S TEH GOLF/TENNIS MOD?!?!!

Well, bad news in that area. My brother says the computer it's on is down.

As soon as I can get it back, though, I will email it to you and Pilot.

And BTW, it's "frisbee-golf." It's a game like golf, but instead of hitting a ball, you throw a frisbee at a goal.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

[This message has been edited by SaberMaster (edited September 01, 2002).]

sabermaster
thanks for the input on my level/and the cogs


i havent seen any bad frame rates or blockyness however i will remove some of the rain and replace the trees

now as far as dividing up the level,how would i do that since it mainly an open area?
any suggestions?

Depends mostly on your system. On my Pentium 866, 128MB RAM, Radeon 7k computer, the level lags quite noticeably because JK is trying to render too many transparent surfaces at once.

On a better computer, you won't even notice it, but most people who play JK don't have high-end computers.



Well, I would try to keep the level from being one large open space. You might break up the level into several smaller areas for the house, pond, and a field or something. Try to make it so that JK never has to render too many trees at once. You might see if you can get some more framerate-friendly trees.

But level editing isn't my specialty. You could post a pic in the Editing Forum for more advice.

Good luck.

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Author of the JK DataMaster, Parsec, Scribe, and the EditPlus Cog Files.

sabermaster

cool thanks , ill try the editing forum about the dividing issues
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well i woundnt say i have a high end machine
its AMD athlon 1ghz 512 ram with radeon ve (basicly the radeon 7k) but ill be getting a geforce4 4200 maybe even the 4600 card soon since star wars galaxies is comming out very soon