GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[bmw]

Admittedly I need a break from working on the library mission. I'm close to being done with the walls and doors restructuring process, but believe me, even with the editor, that was very tedious work (though would have been nearly impossible without the editor - once again, many thanks to those who worked on the editor and especially to subdrag for implementing some of my suggestions).

What I want to work on now is to fix several of my multiplayer maps.

First the Bottling room - I don't know about the rest of you, but this is still my personal favorite for a multiplayer map - the layout of this room is absolutely brilliant for multiplayer play. The framerates are actually pretty good but can be a little sluggish at times. In terms of fixing framerates, there are a few minor fixes which I can apply to improve this.

The 2 rooms which seem to be causing the biggest slowdown are rooms on the peripheral which can view nearly all the other rooms - The lab room with the glass windows and at the opposite end the room on the upper level. As for the lab room with the glass window - a very simple fix - tint the glass. This blocks off view of nearly the entire level from anybody standing in this room. This also makes one less room visible for anybody standing in the far room in the upper level. I will also move the back wall (the crate) out a little bit and instead replace it with a double-facility door which will be locked. By moving it out just a few feet I can close off another "room" altogether. These fixes should give framerates just the boost they need.

I'm keeping the fuel barrel bottling tanks - I love explosions : )

I'll be raising the number of weapon sets from 4 to 6 as well as modifying a few of the current presets so that the ammo crates and weapons are more lined up (just a visual improvement). The other restructuring of the level will involve the large bottling room itself - there's a fairly large open area which I will populate with objects (still not sure exactly what) for cover.

Looking back at my old codeset, its obvious that I WAS almost clueless as to what I was doing when I wrote this level - I was doing nothing more than emulating wreck's facility backzone and trying to make use of the same codesets to accomplish my level. But now I actually know what I'm doing so this project should be fairly simple.

The control room will be a little more work. I was disappointed with the framerates on the console and from what I've been told they don't hold too well on 1964 either. My idea right now is to completely block off the entire 3rd floor (though sadly this will require 26 different connection kills PLUS an activator for many of them as some of them interfere with the opening sequence when you boot the game - I'm having GE Master test this for me). I will gain some of that available code back by not needing the 3 panes of glass which are on the upper floor (though I will end up using one of these panes to lay horizontally to block off the entrance to the upstairs).

I'd also like to replace the square drums blocking off the other rooms with actual locked doors - this will assure that the room connections between the rooms are actually killed without me having to manually do so.

Then due to code constraints, I will most likely end up releasing 2 versions - a console version and an emulator version. In the console version I might end up having to lose some or all of the monitor/bench combos.

I'm also thinking about expanding the level to include one more room (either the room beyond the side room with the stairs OR close off that area completely and open up the room on the opposite side which has the 2 levels with 2 stiarcases - my decision on this will ultimately be framerate dependent).

Oh yeah, the weapons will be re-worked as well and hopefully a 5th set added.

EDIT - BOTTLING ROOM UPDATE - Tinting the glass (actually, I just killed the room connection and left the glass untinted and unbreakable so the glass just looks black) boosted the framerates by a full 5 FPS in the worst spots. This should be enough to sufficiently boost the slightly lagging framerates.

Last edited by bmw on Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

[Wreck]

There can often be problems with objects in large areas, such as the bottling room. At a certain distance, they begin to disappear. If the object is transparent, the player will be able to see through it and into the next room. Killing the visual connections was the best route to take. With the glass in place, it'll probably seem as though it is simply tinted. Well, keep us updated with your progress.
_________________

YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK | VAULT | MOD DB | RHDN

[bmw]

Already ran into problems with that method - with the room connection gone, the glass is only visible from the side which its pointer points to (the other side contains a black abyss into which everything disappears). My solution to this ended up being using another pane of glass for each slot with the only difference being the room pointer (each slot contains 2 panes of glass, one pointing to each side). The solution worked.

I'm still a little skeptical though of what framerates will be like once I'm finished. I have measured on PJ64 as much as a 3-5 FPS gain with the lab room closed off. But this is only in certain areas. I'm not sure what this will translate to on the console.

Also interesting to note - framerates for 4 player mode actually hold slightly better at their lowest points than do those in 2 player mode. I suspect it has to do with how the room is shaped - that being the fact that in 2 player mode, horizontally speaking, more rooms are visible. So I suspect that 3-player mode might actually have optimal framerate for this particular map.

[bmw]

Pending some final testing, my Bottling Room rewrite is complete. I'll post the codes after testing, but for now if you're curious - here is the final map.



-8 respawn points
-5 weapon sets (1xmost powerful, 2xsecond, 1xthird, 1xfourth)
-2 additional weapons (2x1 loose hand grenade)
-2 body armors
-1 New electronic door
-2 new swinger gray doors (locked, blocking off the area)
-10 explosive fuel drums
-4 4x4 metal crates

Total code ended up being like 244 so there is a tiny amount of spare space for other codes to be entered. Total entry code is roughly 194 lines (50 lines saved with repeaters on the fuel drums)

[Wreck]

That's pretty neat using two of the leftover weapons as hand grenades. How many do you receive when you pick one up? Is it in the image of an ammo crate, or an actual grenade? You should be able to blow them up when shot, unless you chose to use a crate rather than a weapon. Crates should move around, while weapons would explode. Of course, the indestructible flag would fix that.

I'm curious as to what the "X"s along the fence represent. I thought you were blocking off the lab, but it appears to be in use here. Are you cutting off visibility between the main tank room and the overlooking fenced area? In the film, there were a ton of canisters being stored there. Bond shot off the lock during his escape, releasing the canisters from their holding units. They came crashing down on the soldiers below. Rare should have made more use of that area. There's also a visualization error between the rooms. If you look out through the fence toward the bottling room, you can catch a blackout. The connection isn't set correctly. Perhaps it doesn't encompass enough area. Either way, though keeping the rooms linked may be neat for combat, killing those connections might help to boost performance.
_________________

YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK | VAULT | MOD DB | RHDN

[bmw]

I used 2 leftover guns. The image is actually that of a grenade. You get 1 when you pick it up. And yes, it blows up when you shoot it. (took me a little while how to modify the image, ended up going off of MultiplayerX's Frigate map, I had no idea that you had to change a value in the weapon's programming section, I never really messed with that part before).

I put in the X's just to represent the fact that it is a fence. I left the room open because closing it off didn't seem to really have any kind of significant impact on framerates.

The only connections I have truly closed off are the 2 connections between the 2 windows separating the lab from the bottling room and also added a brown electronic door at the south side of the fence room (when closed it does kill the connection between the fence room and the room south of it). And I forgot, I also closed off the connection on the back side of the double locked doors (minimal impact)

Oh yeah, forgot to mention one other thing I tried - I shrunk the amount of time which each door stays open. Now when you open a door and travel through it, it closes within just a few seconds. This again will improve average framerate.

I noticed the blackout part as well. It only affects a small area so I'm not too concerned about it - I figured out which exact room connection is causing it and I suppose with a little motivation I could fix it like I fixed the depot train, but I'm not that motivated to fix it.

I haven't uploaded this to console yet to test framerates - framerates vary greatly on PJ64 depending on which rooms the players are in. Sometimes rates are as good as anywhere else in the facility, sometimes they drop off quite a bit. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out on console because I remember playing my first version on console (4 player mind you) and it ran fairly smoothly if I remember correctly.

Screenshots


I'll put the codes up sometime tomorrow if I get around to it. Guess it really doesn't matter if I test them for framerate or not becuase there is really nothing else that can be done to make framerate any better so what I have so far is most likely final.

[Wreck]

I didn't even notice that extra electronic door on the map earlier. Always thought that there should be a door there, since it does appear to be a doorway. There are a couple of extra door presets in Dam and Train, which must have been used at some point in development. Wasn't one for that doorway in Facility, though. Good to see one there now.

Mind sending me the codes to check out on my PC? Can't try it out on console, since my codelist has things on it that I have to type out first, because the damned cheating device won't upload to a PC.

Edit: Those two weapons that you changed into hand grenades, neither one of them belong to a special weapon group, do they? If one does, it probably won't spawn in when playing with a group featuring mines, hand grenades, or throwing knives. The weapon isn't loaded in, but the ammo crates are. Might want to take a look at it, just to be safe. Don't want them to go missing from the map.
_________________

YOUTUBE | FACEBOOK | VAULT | MOD DB | RHDN

[SubDrag]

Level looks awesome.

[bmw]

Quote:

Edit: Those two weapons that you changed into hand grenades, neither one of them belong to a special weapon group, do they? If one does, it probably won't spawn in when playing with a group featuring mines, hand grenades, or throwing knives. The weapon isn't loaded in, but the ammo crates are. Might want to take a look at it, just to be safe. Don't want them to go missing from the map.

Never thought of that. I double-checked and I did indeed use a special weapon for one of the 2 grenades. HOWEVER, I tested it with mines and the grenade DOES load into the stage.