PR 1.0 Spawn menu modification

Insights into the development of Project Reality.
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BloodyDeed
Retired PR Developer
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PR 1.0 Spawn menu modification

Post by BloodyDeed »

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Since it?s been awhile I decided to write up a new Developer Blog. This blog will be an overview of one of many new features of PR:BF2 1.0, the Kit Selection Spawn Screen. Taking you from an idea to a full on feature of Project Reality. It?s going to be a hefty read and if you?re not interested in reading a wall of text then I advise you to watch the PR:BF2 Devcast #2.

The whole process from the first idea to finally being able to use it properly took about 6 months with days of constant coding and some weeks off.

It started with me getting bumped to R-DEV after I assisted the team in several tasks over the years beginning with server tutorials, tester, Tech Team Lead and finally being a Lead Developer with focus on the PR Testing Team.
I wanted to get deeper involved in modding in general and was looking for a coding project besides my other daily tasks.

So I stumbled upon this public thread http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr- ... right.html and decided to look for a similar solution for PR. Gladly Hjid from Alpha Project offered me his help and gave me some things to start with.
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As you can see the first try was actually pretty similar to what we have now but remember this was a single button for one of 16 factions in game.
Also nothing of the back end was done yet, sure you could click the button but nothing happened.

I started a discussion in the DEV forums and we all agreed it would be a useful feature that people already had in mind but never thought of implementing it due to the large amount of work to create and maintain such a system.
The Military Advisors also strongly supported the idea mainly due to the fact it would give us 2 additional kit slots on the spawn screen.
I presented the team my first video so we were able to see it in action:

It wasn't actually working but the team liking the idea kept me motivated.
The next video gave me the impression it works even though on this state it had a few of very annoying bugs, which later exposed to be quite hard to fix:

A few weeks later, after discussions about kit type and order and some graphical suggestions by AncientMan it looked like this:
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Because I couldn't imagine making this effort for every single faction I also started to program a small tool which should help me create the necessary files for each one:
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and another video, if you look closely you can still spot some errors:

On this point I saw the chance to include that into 1.0 and did some stresstesting with a few selected testers. I stumbled upon a few unforseen problems which kept me busy for another couple of weeks until I came up with a proper solution.
Also kept working on the tool, I'll let the pictures do the talking :P
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In the end it does everything pretty much automatically, reads out the correct weapons and creates the necessary files.
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Finally a more or less finished version of a presentation video which I thought about releasing before we came up with the idea of the devcasts.

Disclaimer: the videos are quite old and details might have changed in the meantime.

I hope you enjoyed this blog and I gave you a small insight how things are getting developed.

Cheers
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K4on
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Post by K4on »

first! 8-)
AfterDune
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Post by AfterDune »

Where's the like button? ;)
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hobbnob
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Post by hobbnob »

Woooo G3 selectable for germans, that should certainly mix things up a bit.
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Bakimaster91
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Post by Bakimaster91 »

Fantastic work, as usual :D I`ve noticed something.... If we`re gonna have BUIS system in 1.0, what is the standard (scoped) and alternative(red dot) version of G36 for ? I am talking about german rifleman kit for example :) No offence, just my thought :) Maybe I don`t know something....
ShockUnitBlack
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Post by ShockUnitBlack »

Awesome :)
"I Want To Spend The Rest Of My Life With You Tonight."
BloodyDeed
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Joined: 2008-05-07 17:43

Post by BloodyDeed »

Disclaimer: the videos are quite old and details might have changed in the meantime.
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Conman51
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Post by Conman51 »

In your tool what does "# soldier" mean? is it the number of players needed in a squad to get that kit?

lots of work put into this
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
-Mark Twain



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Bakimaster91
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Post by Bakimaster91 »

Rgr that :)
paul161616
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Post by paul161616 »

very nice read. great work devs keep it up!
BloodyDeed
Retired PR Developer
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Post by BloodyDeed »

#Soldier is a relic from the past. It's unneeded in the later versions of my tool.
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Doc.Pock
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Post by Doc.Pock »

Epic work BD :-P
Heavy Death
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Post by Heavy Death »

I like it how you made a tool to make your life easier. Thats what coding knowledge is for, great job!
Kothra
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Post by Kothra »

Bakimaster91;bt8006 wrote:Fantastic work, as usual :D I`ve noticed something.... If we`re gonna have BUIS system in 1.0, what is the standard (scoped) and alternative(red dot) version of G36 for ? I am talking about german rifleman kit for example :) No offence, just my thought :) Maybe I don`t know something....
It just means that the German rifleman will not have an actual weapon choice if the devs do not give the alternate kit a different weapon.
hobbnob;bt8005 wrote:Woooo G3 selectable for germans, that should certainly mix things up a bit.
G3 has always been selectable for certain kits.
hobbnob
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Post by hobbnob »

Yes kothra but the player hasn't been able to choose what rifle he wants in his kit. Will be interesting to see what people choose.
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spawncaptain
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Post by spawncaptain »

Together with the changes to the kit system (spawnable LAT and grenadier, medium machine gun kit) something I have always wanted to see in PR. Nice work.
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Gore
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Post by Gore »

Good job BD :)
Smiddey723
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Post by Smiddey723 »

Great attention to detail, well done
.:2p:.Smiddey
ExeTick
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Post by ExeTick »

on the officer kit for US on muttrah it says M16A4 but the picture of the ALT version is an M4A1 not an M16A4.
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