Our ReVolt Pub

It's December 17th, 2011 here already. C'mon Huki, I know you have to sleep and all, but sleep can be done any night, and this is special!

It's only 7:55 PM here. So there.

But be patient, everyone. Before I break out the cat again. I'm not afraid to do it.

Your cat also wants the new Re-Volt 1.2 nao

@Dreedo- Huki lives in India.

Come on Huki, I specially woke up early to get this update that ain't here!

Huki @ Dec 16 2011, 12:55 AM wrote:Release will be on 16th, tomorrow (I still have to finish updating the change log, and it's probably too late today for most people anyway).

Look at when he posted that.

Dec 16 2011, 12:55 AM

It was probably the 15th in his timezone when he posted that. I'm assuming then it should be released today.

No Nero. India is with 3,5 hours in front of us. (You and me - GMT+2). This would mean that it was something like 04:25 AM when he posted that, on December 16th, 2011. You can also check Huki's profile and take a look at User's Local Time.

The thing is just that he lost the time notion. Poor Huki.

The current time and date in India is
3:51 PM
Saturday, December 17, 2011

I'm starting to think that Huki made a mistake when he named a definite date. Now he's in the same trap like Re-Volt developers were - rush-rush-rush it out and no matter the loose ends that may need to be tied up.

You, guys, are a source of frustration sometimes (you know who I mean).

Huki, we decided to start spamming this topic up with pictures and stuff if you don't release it in the next hour!

Citywalker @ Dec 17 2011, 07:56 AM wrote: I'm starting to think that Huki made a mistake when he named a definite date. Now he's in the same trap like Re-Volt developers were - rush-rush-rush it out and no matter the loose ends that may need to be tied up.

You, guys, are a source of frustration sometimes (you know who I mean).

+1

Phan:

This is what happens when people don't get their daily dose of RV...

ElvenAvenger @ Dec 17 2011, 03:01 PM wrote:This is what happens when people don't get their daily dose of RV... 

Actually, it's been Huki and Jig who made us hungry, now they also need to feed us!
BUT WHY YOU DON'T!?!!?!

OMG!
Here started a revolt with spam photos!

Somebody stop it!

Pranav wrote:You have been working at night time on the Re-volt update (your post says:- Dec 16 2011, 05:25 AM")

Jigebren and I keep quite late times. My day usually ends at 4~5 AM.

Yesterday we've been working with Urne on some last-minute design concepts. Not of the utmost importance, but it's going to be the first thing you'll notice and we want to get it out for this release...

Note: Dates are never definitive, unless you find re-volt on Steam.. no, wait..

Within a few hours.

3? 4? 5? So we can get the fireworks prepared.

Get 'em started anyway, miro. A few fireworks are better than no fireworks

We've been through this "OMG it comes tomaroow, come in the next housr!!1" and it was delayed for a week. SO NO FIREWORK UNTIL UPDATE!

Huki @ Dec 17 2011, 06:37 PM wrote:
Note: Dates are never definitive, unless you find us on Steam.. no, wait..

Within a few hours.

Steam? Add me nao http://steamcommunity.com/id/ohhnoo/

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YESSSSSSSSSSSS

wat no surprize track?

CARNIVAL cheat not working offline?

Here's some changes I've noticed

Trolley no longer crashes in botanical garden and also has a huge first person camera improvement.
Bird (from dev version) no longer has a crappy camera.

Anyways i gotta see if I can make rst's rooftops version work now and then update my stock compilation with it, if i manage to make it work.

gdfsgdfg @ Dec 17 2011, 05:06 PM wrote: Anyways i gotta see if I can make rst's rooftops version work now and then update my stock compilation with it, if i manage to make it work.

This version might be easier to work with than RST's rooftops.

ontopic: Loving the new installer.

I'm also slightly disappointed that the track editor isn't featured in the main menu...

Dave-o-rama @ Dec 17 2011, 10:24 PM wrote:

gdfsgdfg @ Dec 17 2011, 05:06 PM wrote: Anyways i gotta see if I can make rst's rooftops version work now and then update my stock compilation with it, if i manage to make it work.

This version might be easier to work with than RST's rooftops.

ontopic: Loving the new installer.

I'm also slightly disappointed that the track editor isn't featured in the main menu...

Okay I managed to make rsts version work 100% I'll make a comparison to see which is better then I'll upload my compilation

Why some of my stock tracks crash when I want to play them?

Re-Volt v1.2 has been updated.

Multiple Profiles Support
Added support for multiple user profiles. Each profile maintains its own progress, game settings and controller configuration. Profiles are saved to the Profiles folder inside the Re-Volt installation directory, so they can be easily ported across PCs.

Better User Tracks Support
It is now possible to create the following types of user tracks:
- Tracks in Reversed mode
- Battle Tracks
- Stunt Arenas

Sound effects can be used in user tracks (Previously they were limited to Default levels only). Furthermore, any sound effect belonging to, for example, the Toys in the Hood pack or the Ship pack, can be intermixed and used together (i.e. sounds are not level-specific anymore).

Custom Track support
Added support for advanced custom content in user tracks. This includes but not limited to:
- Animated objects
- Skymap, clouds, other graphics
- Sound effects
- Loadscreen image
- Custom HUD, menu and font

Track makers should refer to the change log for the complete documentation of Re-Volt v1.2 Custom Support.

As a demonstration, you can try a Sci-Fi themed custom track Nebula Girl by Hilaire9 by clicking on the image below.

This track contains:
- Custom animated sky
- Custom models, including planets
- Custom sounds
- Custom graphics
- MP3 music
- And much more.

Better User Cars Support
User cars now support the following special effects:
- Flying effect used in UFO
- Driving upside down as in Rotor
- Cloth effect as in Mystery Car
- Head turning / leaning as in Panga Bear

All these are utilized through newly added Parameter entries. The head turning / leaning effect can be further customized heavily. Refer to the change log for more info.

The camera will behave better for User cars with Low Center-of-Mass.

Improved AI
NOTE: These improvements are still Work-In-Progress and existing cars might not be fully compatible with the AI engine. Use at your own risk. We'll be discussing more about these features in the coming weeks.

- Adaptive look-ahead distance.
- Bezier smoothed racing line.
- Better correction and recovery.
- Bug and glitch fixes.

Optimized For Custom Content
- Searching for user cars and levels is significantly faster, especially with a large number of custom content installed. Re-Volt thus starts faster.
- When launching a multi-player lobby session, loading of custom content is delayed till the game is connected to the session.
- Only the needed car parameters (to display in the Car Selection screen) are loaded at app start. The full parameters file is loaded only when a car is actually used.
- Hangs caused by using large custom models or sounds are avoided.
- Car parameters are initialized to default safe values before loading, so that any missing entries or a missing default car do not cause the game to crash.
- Errors in car parameter files are logged instead of displaying a message box.

Other Features
- Support higher Z-Buffer depth.
- Updated Calc Car Stats mode for car designers.
- Added Polish translation.
- And much more (refer to the change log).

Bug Fixes
- Fixed the glitch with reflection not drawn on mirror surface when an object or an instance gets offscreen (mostly noticeable with the RC San carbox in frontend during car preview).
- Fixed a VisiMask issue that can occur when using custom planet models (causing the model to be randomly invisilbe).
- Fixed a bug in the collision engine, which could make very small steps insurmountable (as the step from the potatoes sack to the long freezer in market1.

- Fixed race position suffixes (st/nd/rd) in clockwork mode.
- Fixed crash when a car does not use any model for the body.
- Fixed crash in some level with Trolley selected as the player's car.
- Fixed crash when starting a track in Reverse mode if the "reversed" folder is missing.

- Fixed problem with MP3 playback speed (only 44.1k sample rate was supported).
- Fixed delay in loading the frontend tv screen texture (which shows the current selected track's image) during which a random texture was displayed.
- Fixed the loading progress bar not drawn properly in some slow PCs.
- Missing files (cars, levels, languages) are handled with error messages instead of causing a crash.
- Misc. multi-player fixes.


These are just the major features, so be sure to read the complete change log by clicking here.

Download the new Alpha release 11.1215 here.
Now in an installer format which,
- Checks for Administrator access.
- Detects your re-volt installation directory.
- Sets file permissions and registers for lobby support (this will ensure the game works perfectly for Limited Account users too).

Of course, there are new entries to be translated.

French/Spanish/Italian/German/Dutch/Swedish/Polish wrote:Select Language
Select Profile
Create Profile
Load Profile
Delete Profile
Profile Already Exists!

Okay done http://www.box.com/s/47pfclpn7scuf6xxv4x1

Changes:

-Removed pc gamer HD since its not really official
-rooftops should now be 100% exactly like the dreamcast version (must use newest 1.2 alpha version of course)

12/18/11 changes

-loadedchique now renamed to iguana
-re-added alpha probe now its more stable
-added hummo
-added Bike
-added dev adeon
-rooftops now has its original soundtrack
-small fixes with some cars (ex. ign pc)

12/19/11 changes

-MORE FIXES
-Xbox Evil cars

Also dave sorry didn't use your rooftops version since its made for wolfr4 re-volt doesn't read custom.ini

Uffffffffff!
Rooftops crash like some of stock tracks.

What happen?
Every time when I installed a newer version I was needed to uninstall it because some of stock tracks crash.


Please help me!
I really wanna to enjoy at this version!

BossVolter @ Dec 17 2011, 11:03 PM wrote: Uffffffffff!
Rooftops crash like some of stock tracks.

What happen?
Every time when I installed a newer version I was needed to uninstall it because some of stock tracks crash.


Please help me!
I really wanna to enjoy at this version!

I can give you my whole revolt folder if ya want.

Oh Ok!
Thank you gdsfgdfg!

Hope this idea will work.

Guys watch your posts, some conversations are going too offtopic. We don't want to resort to moderation but that's where this is heading for.

Thanks for the initial reports.
- The cheat to unlock all cars doesn't work.
- Yes, reference to Track Editor was removed, being not supported anymore. But it is still accessible through Start menu -> All Programs, or just from the Re-Volt folder.

@BossVolter: Your crash could be due to corrupt custom cars (I'm not sure). Try removing all custom cars.

Globally, the new IA works correctly, but...

- sometimes, the new IA makes the bends too early, she thus heads for disaster(goes into the wall) sometimes, she thus darkens in wall (in world toy 2 for example)
- certain cars make zig zag ! (r6 Turbo, Humma and Sprinter XL for example)

Another bug, which very annoying: the collisions, indeed, even when I am enough far from a car it's as if I collided it difficult to explain in English, sorry, but I can make a video to explain

I am going to continue to test your new version, but I do not know if I am going to stay because of the bug of the collisions there

In brief. Great update, but some annoying bugs and a new IA who makes zig zag XD

Huki @ Dec 17 2011, 11:36 PM wrote:

@BossVolter: Your crash could be due to corrupt custom cars (I'm not sure). Try removing all custom cars.

All custom cars that I have (DC, Demo and Dev cars) work fine



Probably can be a problem with windows?

I use Windows 7 Home Premium x64 bites

EDIT: Mysteriously the game gave by gdfsgdfg work perfectly!
Only I can't make profile but I know how to fix it.

P.S.: Thank you Gdfsgdfg!

Strix @ Dec 17 2011, 11:36 PM wrote:Another bug, which very annoying: the collisions, indeed, even when I am enough far from a car it's as if I collided it difficult to explain in English, sorry, but I can make a video to explain

- Which mode (Simulation / Arcade / Etc.) are you using?
- Does it occur anywhere on any track? And with any car?
And if you can't give a better description, so that we would be able to reproduce it ourselves, then yep, a video can help...

@Miro
The CARNIVAL bug has been fixed. I don't know when the next release will be available though...

Okay Jigebren.

For tomorrow I make you a video of this bug with the way reproduce it, if it makes it with quite cars on whatever tracks (I still test the bug).

But I can say to you at the moment that the bug does not occur in mode

Well I did notice some cars going in zig zag i think it was on toytanic.

Well anyway i like this update.

There is something very wrong with the way this version handles the AI
of custom tracks. I don't know if it is the the track collision or the way
the AI cars react to each other, but something major is wrong.
Nebula Girl had great AI for the Humma, now the AI is very bad
and a track I am working on now suddenly has bad AI with this new version.
This is in Arcade mode.
Later I must look at the AI cars in edit mode to see what
exactly has happened.
If the AI cars (or human drivers)
react to each other in Arcade mode like they do in Simulation mode
this is bad.

Ok, I looked:



The above photo shows the AI line around a curve with a rock in it.
I added this line on my new track last week before the new update.
Now the cars follow the big red line right into the rock and flip in the air,
not following the AI line correctly anymore. Every car does this.
a few days ago before the update all cars could take this curve correctly.
And this is the first corner I looked at!
Whatever is causing this will screw the AI of every custom track.
At first look I seems maybe the update offsets the AI line a little.

Quick reply: I tried Humma AI in Nebula Girl in Single Race (8 cars, Arcade mode) and it's running fine (leading 2nd behind a very fast custom car). It's also precisely following the AI line. This is with the original stock Humma (the AI parameters were not updated to utilize v1.2 improvements).

About the bug shown in the picture, this looks like an unsupported case. The AI is free to drive anywhere inside the node path (between the green and red nodes). The line is only a guide. Do you think many custom tracks have nodes set up this way? Also, can you upload your track for us? We will test it and try to improve this condition..

We are aware that the info about AI changes in the change log is minimal. We will be providing more detailed info next week. For now, here are the updated Sprinter XL AI parameters. This can be used to test the AI (Sprinter XL can be found in cars\tc6 folder)

Actually, this post is valid. I found a bug while racing in pos nodes makeitgood editing mode, and as soon as the video i made for it uploads, I'll link to it.

Pos Nodes bug

At first I thought it was just because the track I discovered this bug on had no AI, but White Rose Chapel does indeed have AI.

For now, here are the new Sprinter XL AI parameters to prevent "zig-zagging".

Oh god. Do you realise how much more difficult and intimidating you just made it for the average carmaker to make a good car AI?
I’ll definitely keep doing the simplified AI, with just one (!) parameter to change. KDL agreed to implement it in Car:Load, too.

Regarding this, does the simplified Sprinter zig-zag on those tracks?
Insert this into the stock Sprinter and see it run:
UnderThresh 0
UnderRange 1
UnderFront 50000
UnderRear 50000
UnderMax 0.187500
OverThresh 50000

Ignore the rest.

about the bug shown in the picture, this is an unsupported case. The AI is free to drive anywhere inside the node path (between the green and red nodes). The line is only a guide. Do you think many custom tracks have nodes set up this way?

And this is only the first of the cases to come. In principle, you overplayed the car intelligence. You made cars able to choose the best route within the node path, but it’s different from the route they took before and that breaks backward compatibility for many customs tracks. Why? Because you can never know what tricks are used in _all_ custom tracks. The _only_ thing in common is the racing line: in _every_ track the racing line _leads_cars_around_obstacles_. AI cars _must_ follow the racing line. I told you, dynamic look-ahead and Bezier curves will change the cars’ paths too much. Don’t change the route-taking, just make the cars more intelligent at handling weapon impacts and crashes. (Btw, how exactly can I choose between old and new AI?)

There’s an example in Neighbourhood 1, too: the red car (second-last encountered). One racing line leads beside the car, and one leads under the car. Both lines lead AI racers safely past the large car tyres. It’s pure chance that the new AI didn’t start throwing AI racers right into the tyre as an “optimised” Bezier curve. What would you have done if it did?


Hilaire, does the simplified Sprinter avoid the rock in your track?

And another sad thing happened that I predicted: I cannot use the simplified AI procedure anymore to determine a good UnderMax value, because the new AI reaches the top speed on a straight road with any car AI values, however bad they are. This is also because of the dynamic (adaptive) look-ahead distance.
Again – how exactly can I switch between old and new AI?

The impression I get from the new AI is that it's an attempt to make it more similar to the "Human Driving Style".
I'm very glad to see the cars recovering a lot faster and correctly than they used to, but I'm quite dissappointed to see them turning.
It's like watching the AI cars using the famous "click-click method" that we humans use in curves to calculate. But instead of doing it very fast like we do, they do it slowly and end up shaking a lot in curves.
In opposite, the old AI used to turn very softly, fluent and smoothly. It was very hard to notice their wheels moving or their body shaking when turning.

Desolate 2 is a good track to analyze this. It is fun but odd to see Volken Turbo and Dr. Grudge crashing every single corner again and again (and then recovering very fastly fortunately). It seems that they try to cut the curves going very close to the corners like we do, but they keep crashing on walls and fences.
A similar thing happens in Toys In The Hood 1, when the cars try to cut the first double curve by jumping in the sidewalk at the left to get a Pickup. They crash the wall a bit and then recover to continue.

And as a Humma driver, I'm a bit shocked to see my car (which was the strongest AI Pro car), not being able to make a single turn proplerly in Toys In The Hood 1 because of these body shakings. Humma is excellent when turning softly, like in the old AI. Looking at it now is exactly like when watching a new player trying to drive Humma and failing in every curve basically because of using the wrong turning method: Frustrating.

CW wrote:Don’t change the route-taking, just make the cars more intelligent at handling weapon impacts and crashes.

It's exactly what I wanted to say, so I agree with you 100% sis.

I will keep using this new version. I don't play offline anymore, so this is not a reason for me to downgrade at all, but I understand those like Strix who feel the need to back to 0825 until this is optimized.

About the other features, I couldn't test much so far, but the Patch Installer is The-Wonderfull-Thing! This will save me so many headaches from now on. Now I don't need to explain to newbies step-by-step how to use WinRAR to install the patch or how to add administrative priviliges to Re-Volt. And it also detects which Re-Volt installation should be upgraded or not. The icon should be improved, but that is just a detail. Seriously, congratulations whoever did this. I'm very thankful.

About the Profile feature, ME LIKEZ THIS. It's something I've been waiting for many many years. But I think It can be and should be improved: when I suggested it, I actually thought about implementing a .SAV file or any single-file system to make it easier to port it to other PC and meet the nowadays standards.
Now I see a bunch of .levels files together with a .ini file which should be "zipped completely" I guess? I have only 122 tracks, but Dave has 425. That ain't good. Having so many files there makes this content vulnerable to be renamed / modified / deleted easily for an unexperienced user which could corrupt the game. Again, a single-file system would prevent this situation completely.
And a more simple fix is that it should allow the use of Multiple CAPS or no caps when creating the Profile. Currently it doesnt't let you write "MAX" or "max". It forces you to write "Max".

I will keep testing in the week.

The bug is clearly seen in sharp corners and will affect all tracks
made with similar corners. It ruins the AI of all of my tracks.
Here is a Flash video of the AI bug: Click here to see Video

Agree with Phantom regarding single-file profile data.
Also, make it _optional_ to have profiles. I'm the only user of my computer and I don't need to enter the profile name every time.
And Hil's video is very good example of what will happen in many-many custom tracks. Huki, where exactly did you test this?

hilaire9 @ Dec 18 2011, 11:33 AM wrote: The bug is clearly seen in sharp corners and will affect all tracks
made with similar corners. It ruins the AI of all of my tracks.
Here is a Flash video of the AI bug: Click here to see Video

That bug is ridiculous. XD

Yeah, but they're still working on it. I personally won't be making any AI nodes using this version. Though it's impressive!

After reading the Changelog, in the Bug Fixes section, what does "Misc. multiplayer fixes" mean?

So it seems the new AI did break tons of things.


Before installing, can I somehow use old AI without giving up the custom track support and other cool additions?

I like the new version very much
sure the AI changes are still very buggy but overall it got very much improved. the biggest problem are probably still the cars that tend to slide away when steering too much but I'm confident that this can and will also be fixed.
however I would prefer if you try to keep the AI changes away from the actual parameters file (like adding new parameters, etc) as there are already so much cars out there for ReVolt and these changes would make all of them moreless useless (except if the author decides to update his cars).

make it like Citywalker suggested: keep the changes to the AI behaviour like recovering faster when crashed or stuck or using the pickups with more care.
the change to let the AI choose the path (and not by nodes) is great but as you can see it doesnt work out very well (in most cases).

I also noticed on museum 2 that pretty much ever car tries to take the "shortcut" after the planetarium. its great that the AI takes now paths that were unused before but for me it looks like they are "forced" to take it now.
I would prefer if they either choose that by chance or depending on the situation (also as I said the "shortcut" there is not really one).

besides these facts I like the new AI and at least the races with the rookie cars on stock tracks are now for me much more interesting (I had already two very awesome races )


alright, to the next point: the profile system.
by reading some comments above me I assume that the profiles are not stored in a single file but rather scattered in the single folders? like best time in certain levels, etc.
I wonder why I mean wouldnt it be much better to have everything of a profile stored in a single file?
also I would like to see some changes in the name selection screen. why can you have small letters for your profile but not for your race name? also why are the profile names and the race names still two seperate things?


and last but not least I have some kind of problem that is not really related to the update:
for some reason I have no sound ingame. only when I insert my cd I can hear the game sounds (and the music). normally there should be sound even if the cd is not inserted, or? at least this counts for my netbook but apparently not for my pc...
anybody has a solution for this?