I really need some way to get powers to actually animate

[MWRuger]

Couldn't you just use NO_CLIP in a mission map and move out the spawn door? Nothing there but blackness.

[Arachnion]

Couldn't you just use NO_CLIP in a mission map and move out the spawn door? Nothing there but blackness.

Err... did you post this in the wrong thread, perhaps..?

Since I don't see any mention of spawn doors in this one..

AFAIK, every time you go through a "spawn door" the game loads an entirely different map for your mission.

Definitely not like how you can find interiors of buildings in zone maps like Atlas Park.

Considering you don't get a loading screen, though... maybe when you're in generic mission maps, they're all floating in the abyss?

For instance, if you enter an office area elevator, that probably takes you from one floating abyss chunk of map to another..

Hmm..

[Aggelakis]

No, it's relevant. One part of Noyjitat's request was to get a black background.

[Arachnion]

Well I feel silly now.

[Takinalis]

I've been playing with the Dev version of Icon...

I've been able to use and animate custom weapons.

It's a bit of a pain... still have to build a ton of menus.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,8967.msg128042

I've had perfect luck so far with Titan Weapons...
/seqbits EMOTE PROFILE WEAPON COMBAT 2HLARGE ATTACK UPPERCUT QUICK ALTERNATE SPAWNSIDE

EDIT
Been playing with more weapons.... uh Titans are the only ones that seem to work. You can brandish any weapon if you play enough, but you can only attack with Titan.

[Arcana]

I've had perfect luck so far with Titan Weapons...
/seqbits EMOTE PROFILE WEAPON COMBAT 2HLARGE ATTACK UPPERCUT QUICK ALTERNATE SPAWNSIDE

EDIT
Been playing with more weapons.... uh Titans are the only ones that seem to work. You can brandish any weapon if you play enough, but you can only attack with Titan.

It works because Titan weapons attack animation attack bits happen to always contain its mode bits (the bits that order the engine to display the weapons).  As far as I was able to determine when I last looked at this, this is only true for Titan Weapons

[Takinalis]

OOPS! Forgot to click on page 2 and was replying to page 1!

 

Actually though, I can reply to the above!

The Titan weapons and Large Staves as well display because they have looping animations attached to the actual weapon skeleton. The Raluruu swords are similar, but the animation only loops once. Meaning you might get one attack in before they disappear!

[edit]
For those interested, I did post a list of melee weapon fx that can be applied directly to costume files. These weapons display and attack! I'll find the URL... give me a minute...

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9216.msg139127.html#msg139127

Also, to slick these easier (and to shamelessly self promote my [free, open source] software) some peeps may want to get familiar with CoXMacroDrive.

[Arcana]

The Titan weapons and Large Staves as well display because they have looping animations attached to the actual weapon skeleton. The Raluruu swords are similar, but the animation only loops once. Meaning you might get one attack in before they disappear!

Given the way you're attacking the problem, that might be true, but I think that's a symptom not the cause.  The problem is mode bits.

When the servers sent the command to execute an attack, there was a multi-step process they went through and one step was sending the sequence bits to execute the animation for the attack, which is what we do when we execute a MOV, or alternatively if you're using the dev version when we send sequence bits, like so: /seqbits COMBAT WEAPON DUAL ATTACK FIERCE (that's the Dual Blade tier 9).  But *before* that the server used to put us into combat mode, which players may remember used to also change our stance to the more aggressive standing emote - like if you were melee and tried to activate an attack but your target was in range.  Your weapons would draw (if you had weapons) and you'd enter that battle stance, but of course no actual attack animation would play.  That's the server putting you into combat mode prior to the attack (which can't happen because nothing's in range).  Those mode bits were different for different kinds of attacks, and for the weapon sets those bits also instruct the client to draw the weapons (visual draw them, not like weapon draw).

Try this: /seqbits COMBAT WEAPON DUAL DUALHAND on a player character that has dual blades.  For an instant, the player starts going into the aggressive stance (COMBAT) and also draws the dual blades for one frame (WEAPON DUAL DUALHAND).  The problem is that I can set those bits with that command, but then they expire one frame later and with it their effects go away also.  The server used to take care of that by setting those bits on and keeping them on, but Icon doesn't have that capability.  Its not necessary for the animation bits because all you need to do is set them once and the animation sequencers take over and perform the sequence of animation steps to execute that command - the bits don't need to stay set.

If you do this: /seqbits COMBAT WEAPON DUAL ATTACK FIERCE and while the animation is playing you do this: /seqbits COMBAT WEAPON DUAL DUALHAND if you're quick enough you just might catch a flash of the blades being drawn for one frame.  But that's why the weapons don't work.  Its because Icon doesn't have a way to toggle those bits on and keep them on for the duration of the attack.

[Codewalker]

and one step was sending the sequence bits to execute the animation for the attack, which is what we do when we execute a MOV, or alternatively if you're using the dev version when we send sequence bits, like so: /seqbits COMBAT WEAPON DUAL ATTACK FIERCE (that's the Dual Blade tier
9).

The server sends a mov index, the equivalent of a MOV command in a demorecord or Icon.

What /seqbits does is closer to the processing that happens serverside in order to determine which MOV to send.

This is confusing somewhat in that the client has a sequencer of its own, and uses it for local movement prediction for the player. It doesn't normally process any bits other than that, however, but it's fully functional and capable of doing everything the sever sequencer can. /seqbits taps into that.

The power customization screen also takes advantage of the client-side sequencer, but in actual gameplay it just uses the MOV indices sent from the server. From what I understand of the power customization screen, it's a bastardized copy and paste of how powers animate, but stripped down and modified with all sorts of special case conditions to make them look okay without a real target..

With all rules there are exceptions, and there are a few rare and special sequencer bits that the server does have control over and get sent to the client. These show up as the extra number after MOV commands in demorecords, as the current state comes in the same network packet as MOVs. They control weapon state, shield state, and a few miscellaneous bits like HOVER that the client needs for accurate movement prediction. Out of the thousands of sequencer state bits, only 11 get this special treatment.

I could probably add a command to Icon to control those; though you might have to know the magic numbers to get it to work since there's no lookup table in the data files anywhere. Fairly basic binary OR though.

[Arcana]

The server sends a mov index, the equivalent of a MOV command in a demorecord or Icon.

What /seqbits does is closer to the processing that happens serverside in order to determine which MOV to send.

This is confusing somewhat in that the client has a sequencer of its own, and uses it for local movement prediction for the player. It doesn't normally process any bits other than that, however, but it's fully functional and capable of doing everything the sever sequencer can. /seqbits taps into that.

Ah.  I've honestly never fully untangled client-side prediction, or for that matter when the client or the server uses which engine to do what.  Its a peculiarity of the game design that the client and server share a large overlap in code, and the game hops back and forth between them in terms of what it decides to use under what circumstances.  I know what I've tested, and I know what I've been told, but I still interpolate what the code in between does most of the time, because there's only enough room in my brain for one goofy system implementation at a time, and Oracle ZFS is currently occupying that parking space.  As a result, I'm not good at telling the difference between what can be done, and what usually is done.

I sometimes heard the magic eleven state bits referred to as "code bits" because they were not purely data only, but implemented in special case code.  That's when I realized the animation engine programmer was a Cenobite.

[Takinalis]

To be honest I don't know if a free server will ever be possible, and that's not the purpose behind Icon or my software I've been producing lately, so we (well I at least) need to be frugal with our time here in automating the CoX client for what purposes and in which fashion.

My money for continued game play is on a Plan Z spiritual successor.

That's not to say your efforts are in vain Codewalker, I LOVE Icon!

Current valid [by valid I mean 'bang' for time] re purposing of the CoXClient seems to be posting static state files [demo records, custom map text files, custom map placement files, costume files] that the client can process in and of itself (or with a little push from automation software).

Me I look at the whole thing as a giant set of miniatures! Looking at it from this perspective gives me solid goals, but goals that don't line up with most hopefuls in the community. Also, my goal is obtainable, substantiated by the fact that it is obtained.

Now the question becomes what and which collectible tricks I can get working!

The OP of this post has the right ideal. I want to have collectible trick 'x'. Can it be done?

If I had to add one collectible trick to my wishlist it would be placing NPC's by XYZ and PYR without moving the player avatar (the map object mover cannot be automated with speed or accuracy, and the NPC placement has redundant memory locations for verification checks).

As far as adding a collectible 'trick' to set statebits, I would love to see it happen too! That would keep me busy for HOURS I'm sure ;p

Oh, and it's relevant to the OPs request. Full circle! I knew I'd get there sooner or later.

[Noyjitat]

hey, Don't suppose anyone has figured out how to make npcs use their abilities? I'm trying to get a warwalker to fire his cannons or a Bcu to use his plasma chain gun. Doesn't matter to me if it ends up going to point 0,0,0 like the costume trick does. Click them and type some sort of command?

I found the effects for a warworks plasma chaingun ENEMYFX/Praetorian/Warworks/PlasmaFullAuto_Attack.fx
and its mov CLOCKWORK_CHAINGUN_FULL_AUTO

[wyldhunt]

According to Codewalker, as of v1.5, Icon does support using the /mov command on NPCs (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,7288.0.html). I haven't tested /seqbits on NPCs with the latest "dev" version of Icon (don't have time just now), but I have a feeling it'll work too. Knowing all that, it's all back to the same issues we have with animations on all avatars. Also, you can target an NPC and use /load_costume, so an .fx used in the costume file will likely work just like for your own avatar - I know it does for the fx lines I used for The Amber Fist. You should test with the .fx you named and see whether that works.

[wyldhunt]

I spent a bit more time thinking on what you're trying to accomplish here, Noyjitat, and realized that none of what I'd suggested does exactly what you're after. Here is all the stuff we have close to what you want:

1. /loadcostume with an .fx line will play the fx, with any targeting done using coordinates 0,0,0 on the current map.
2. /spawn_npc (and /be_npc) which spawns an NPC (or loads the NPC's costume onto your own avatar).
3. /mov and /seqbits, which can be used on an NPC/self for animations (and in some exacting situation, object spawns associated with the animations).

However none of this allows us to trigger an .fx on an NPC. I don't see a /savecostume (and doubt such would save fx power information in any case), so we couldn't use a workaround of /benpc and /savecostume. Also, we don't have a command to directly trigger .fx lines at the moment (at least not that I know of). So, I'm at a loss on this one.

[Takinalis]

You can get NPC's to fire FX.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9705.msg139731.html#msg139731

[Noyjitat]

I spent a bit more time thinking on what you're trying to accomplish here, Noyjitat, and realized that none of what I'd suggested does exactly what you're after. Here is all the stuff we have close to what you want:

1. /loadcostume with an .fx line will play the fx, with any targeting done using coordinates 0,0,0 on the current map.
2. /spawn_npc (and /be_npc) which spawns an NPC (or loads the NPC's costume onto your own avatar).
3. /mov and /seqbits, which can be used on an NPC/self for animations (and in some exacting situation, object spawns associated with the animations).

However none of this allows us to trigger an .fx on an NPC. I don't see a /savecostume (and doubt such would save fx power information in any case), so we couldn't use a workaround of /benpc and /savecostume. Also, we don't have a command to directly trigger .fx lines at the moment (at least not that I know of). So, I'm at a loss on this one.

Yes thanks to your response long ago and other comments I have been using the costume thing for awhile but until I can figure out how to add costume parts not present in the costume creator that npcs like the BCU and Warwalker use such a trick won't work. Right now I have to put 2 invisible npcs with the fx on them near the war walkers guns for him to fire or one near the gun of the bcu for it to fire.

You can get NPC's to fire FX.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9705.msg139731.html#msg139731

I read that thread before brandon and I don't understand your instructions. Make it idiot proof for me or more clear if you don't mind.

[Takinalis]

OK

SO the fx gets saved into a file on the root of c:\ called tfx.txt

c:\tfx.txt
One line
================
my\power\precise.fx
================

/fxontarget 1
/fire1