Dilation machine

Would anyone happen to know where this incredibly useful scaling tool is? There was a link on the old forums, but since all of that content was removed from the public eye, I can't access it.

[watusimoto]

Similar functionality will be included with Bitfighter 013, and will be available with the next beta release.

[bobdaduck]

http://www.jeroenmulder.com/development ... y.php?n=.5

Thanks! The new dilation machine in 013 is good, but it still has a few weak areas, so this old tool will work fine until all the rough spots have been smoothed out.

[watusimoto]

What are the weak areas?

haven't used it myself, but from what CBob described, the new one can't adjust by *any* decimal, only by halves.

If I remember right, you can only scale up an item 2x at a time, and after you apply the process a few times, it just peaks out, and you can't scale it up any more.

[watusimoto]

That's not the case at all. You can scale by any reasonable factor, not just multiples of 2.

To jar my memory, I loaded up the OS X 13 alpha and tested it. It does scale up by more than 2x at a time, contrary to my memory -- so I guess I'm wrong about that part. Nevertheless, it does seem to peak out at a certain point, above which it no longer scales items (no matter how much more you want to scale the item by).

As a test:
1) Make a ship-sized barrier object.
2) Scale it by 200.
3) Attempt to scale it by 1.5. Your attempt should fail.
4) Scale it by 1.20.
5) Try to scale it up. If it fails, scale it by 1.01 several more times, until it no longer scales.

This seems counterintuitive.

[watusimoto]

You are right -- I thought I had implemented it slightly differently.

There is a maximum "diagonal" size of 50 that the scale tool will let you create. This is really big -- keep in mind that one large square in the editor is 1.

Why this arbitrary limit? Basically, there is an internal database of objects that gets overwhelmed by really big items; 50 seems a good balancing point between big enough for any reasonable purpose, yet small enough that the database can still handle it. That's why you can make things big, then only a little bigger, but not a lot bigger.

In one of my early test cases, I created a rectangular wall that was 1000 (10,000?) or so units wide, and the game locked for 30 seconds trying to get a grip on what to do with this huge object before I had to kill it.

Try creating a huge item by placing a huge wall, or manipulating a level file. You will not be happy.

OK -- I just created an "L" shaped segment 800 tall by 600 wide in the editor, and it loaded OK, but when I went into commander's map, it was no good at all.

[karamazovapy]

I just created an "L" shaped segment 800 tall by 600 wide in the editor, and it loaded OK, but when I went into commander's map, it was no good at all.

We've known about this for a while. It was a bit of a joke on "open" levels where someone would run off with the flag or burst launch out to infinity and beyond and then tell everyone to PRESS 'C'!!!!111 The game would start to lag like crazy. There was even a contest level a while back where someone (accidentally?) placed testitems near enough to turrets on the exterior of the map so they started flying off into the distance from the moment the level loaded. After five or six minutes, it was almost unplayable.

Anyway, I like the scale and rotation tools. Thanks.

I am excited about all of these developments- is 013 stable enough for us to migrate over yet? If so, could you place it under the primary download spot?

[karamazovapy]

I am excited about all of these developments- is 013 stable enough for us to migrate over yet? If so, could you place it under the primary download spot?

There needs to be an OS X build (an ideally a linux build) before 013 can become the stable release.

[watusimoto]

013 is still in testing. I found a series of problems this morning with the one new feature that will be part of the next beta -- when you suspend a game, you get an active chat window so you can at least do something...

There hasn't been much testing of many of the new features, as far as I can tell. There's a myriad of new game control features and such, most of which use entirely new code, so it will be buggy. There's still some known bot bugs as well, though I don't know if they'll get fixed before the full release, or if they'll be part of 013a.

I will do one more Windows beta release tonight or tomorrow, then it will be at least two weeks before anything else. I'm hoping that we can get a full release before the end of July, but no promises.

[karamazovapy]

DID ANYONE KNOW THIS IS A CURRENT FEATURE IN 015?!?!

Ctrl-Shift-X. Amazing.

[bobdaduck]

IKR