WCP Pascal Error

[Quarto]

I plan to leave the UE and Standoff ships well enough alone, you made them so beautiful I could never do them justice.

You don't need to worry about using UE ships, we don't mind that in the least (especially since so many of them originally came from other projects or were imported from existing WC games). And even with the Standoff ships, we don't mind just as long as you use a different texture.

I think that racks up everything but movies - and I have a feeling that can be done fairly easily (ALA Secret Ops) now that I understand how to write functioning code in Pascal.

Heh, well, that's one thing where the UE source code won't be too helpful - my movie scripting code was atrocious back then. It turned out to be a complete nightmare to work with, because of the way I controlled (or, well, failed to control) mission flow.

Thank you a thousand times over for the UE source code - I said it before and I'll say it again, that Code is taken me places I never though I could go with.

Hey, if you (or anyone else, for that matter) actually make a WC project thanks to the UE source code, I'll finally stop regretting the week or two that I spent cleaning the source code package in preparation for its release .

 

[Jason_Ryock]

Hey, if you (or anyone else, for that matter) actually make a WC project thanks to the UE source code, I'll finally stop regretting the week or two that I spent cleaning the source code package in preparation for its release .

You've said this before - I have every intention of releasing something, eventually. I'm working on a short mission pack set in the WC3 era (About 5 missions long) but I'm finally starting to understand just how much you guys go through putting out a mod like UE - let alone something the size of standoff.

The sheer amount of editing you have to do to make the game use your own files is pretty daunting, and it only gets worse when you realize you have to create every one of those files too...

 

[Jason_Ryock]

Just a quick question (Yes, I've looked at the source code!).

How do I force the game to load/play my intro scene when the game starts? We're not getting fancy enough to actually have an intro video. =)

I think I am going to have to edit the rooms files to make it work, and declare a global variable. Probably something related to the callsign - if the callsign is set, the global variable is set to 1 and therefore, the intro video does not load. If the callsign is not set, load the video immediatly followed by the get callsign screen, set the global variable to one, and load the next mission!

 

[Quarto]

It depends on the version of the game you're using, IIRC. If you're using the internet-distributed Secret Ops executable, the callsign screen will be the first thing you see every time. If you use the WCP Gold Secret Ops executable, then you can put the callsign-entry screen anywhere you like in the series file. Heck, usually when I compile a series file just to test a mission, I don't even bother having a callsign screen at all (when you send comms, you're identified by empty brackets).

In fact, if you look at the UE series file, you'll see that's exactly what happens - first we run the intro cutscene mission, and then we go to the callsign screen (so... did you really look at the source code? ). You don't need to do anything with global variables, and indeed you wouldn't be able to do anything like that anyway - how would you figure out if the player's callsign is set?

 

[Eder]

Information about what the actual video needs to be like for SO to play it, and how to go about conversion, can be found at HCl's site:

http://hcl.wcrevival.de/2001/video_doc/

 

[Jason_Ryock]

It depends on the version of the game you're using, IIRC. If you're using the internet-distributed Secret Ops executable, the callsign screen will be the first thing you see every time. If you use the WCP Gold Secret Ops executable, then you can put the callsign-entry screen anywhere you like in the series file. Heck, usually when I compile a series file just to test a mission, I don't even bother having a callsign screen at all (when you send comms, you're identified by empty brackets).

That's interesting, I'm using the internet downloaded version, and the first thing it does when the EXE loads is load the room (I'm still using the default Secret Ops room, I haven't changed any of the Room files yet). Then when I go to play the first mission, it loads the intro scene, and THEN it gives me the callsign screen (which is how my series file is set up - load the intro, then the callsign screen).

Once the intro is completed and the callsign is entered, it loads the room again with the first mission. So my question is, how do I skip that first step where it loads the room, and THEN my intro scene? I 'd like it to go straight from the EXE launch into my intro scene, like Secret Ops does.

 

[Eder]

Are you starting a new campaign / deleting savegames each time you change the series file?

 

[Jason_Ryock]

Yes, it doesn't matter if I start a new campaign or just delete the files, either way it loads the room first.

EDIT: I should clarify, you actually have to click on the door to make it load the intro (like you were loading a mission).

 

[Eder]

And you say you have your series file looking something like this?

function MCP;
begin
MCP_RunMission(MIS_Intro);
MCP_GetCallsign;
MCP_RunMission(MIS_M1);
MCP_EscapeMenu;
MCP_Exit;
end;

Is it a in-engine cutscene or a video?

If it's an in-engine scene, a bit of a clarification seems to be in order:

A room in itself is not a part of the series file, it is part of a mission file. It is used in the gameflow, which is then followed by the spaceflight - so when you say "You have to click on the door, like loading a mission"... the room you are seeing is already part of that mission, clicking the door merely jumps from the gameflow to the spaceflight part of the same file.

So for a room to show up there, it would mean either that your intro mission has a gameflow part when it should jump directly into the spaceflight instead, or that a previous mission (with a gameflow part) is being called from the series file before your intro mission.

If it's a video, replace the first run mission command in the function above with the appropriate sys play movie command.

 

[Quarto]

That's interesting, I'm using the internet downloaded version, and the first thing it does when the EXE loads is load the room (I'm still using the default Secret Ops room, I haven't changed any of the Room files yet). Then when I go to play the first mission, it loads the intro scene, and THEN it gives me the callsign screen (which is how my series file is set up - load the intro, then the callsign screen).

Eh, look... the whole point of releasing the source code is so that folks like you would be able to work out the basics before asking questions. But you just keep on forgetting to do your homework - which is frustrating, because I'd much rather be answering questions about how to do some complex mission than about how the game structure works.

Whether a mission loads the room or not depends on the mission itself - and this, again, is something you should have been able to work out just by looking at the UE source code. Inside every mission, there is the MAIN function, which controls how the mission behaves in terms of gameflow (all the stuff that happens before and after the spaceflight part of the mission). In the case of, say, the first UE midgame cutscene mission, the MAIN function looks like this:

function MAIN;
begin
  MS_RunGameflow(0);
  MS_RunSpaceflight(0);
  MS_SetPilotDead(PILOT_Huntress, 1);
  MS_SetPilotDead(PILOT_Thor, 1);
end;

In the case of the intro mission, the MAIN function looks like this:

function MAIN;
begin
  MS_RunSpaceflight(0);
end;

Now, one of these missions shows the player the room first, and only then leads him into space. The other just leads him into space right away. I think you can figure out which is which.

 

[Jason_Ryock]

Ah...yeah. My problem is that I was only looking at the code for the midgame scene, not the intro scene.