[dev]A map full of particleeffects

This map were created for map developers who wants to visualize what particleeffects xonotic provides by using func_pointparticles. +/- 170 particle effects written out from effectinfo.txt


Screenshot taken by Cortez666.

http://ompldr.org/vZGZ5eg/effects.pk3

But one questino still remains, is it possible to write own particleeffects for a map?

I was able to write my own effect, but somehow when I pack effectinfo.txt into a pk3 file, my effect wont appear anymore. Why? I would like to define my own effects, every mapper would love to do so, to have more control by mapping.

For example, there is a sewage plant in one map, and I was thinking about using particleeffects to create some stinky fume comming out from the sewage water. Sadly no particle effect provides what I do imagine D:

You can't.

The server needs effectinfo.txt to send the right effect index to the client. But the server won't load the effectinfo from the map's pk3: it will load the only effectinfo it sees in its file hierarchy. Which means the official one, OR the one contained in a pk3 with a name that comes after "xonotic-data" alphabetically if there is one, OR the one that's placed uncompressed in the data directory.

Even if your server loads the effectinfo.txt you expect it to, clients will have to as well (and they will, if the file is in the map pk3), BUT it will stay loaded after the map ends. This is not a good thing. It will break the effects on other maps if it's a new effect that is inserted in the middle of the file, and it will keep any modified original effects.

No, this is not possible.

More detail: there is in theory a feature for this, but it does not work properly.

is it possible to make this possible?

Well that explains why I see white smoke all of the suddon on dcc, because of its index searching behaviour. Thanks Mr.Bougo and divVerent.

@hutty
I would say Xonotic Developers have fist to reach their milestones, but I'm not quite sure if Xonotic Developer is having such a milestone route at all heh ^^

the list of the amount of things I would add to the game is nearly endless ...
I understand that developers cant do everything everybody wants....

but ...

it doesn't hurt to ask (does it?)

oh ... btw thanks for the map ... it should be helpful (and the blood fountain is hilarious)

Great! thank you Soelen it's going to be verry useful for me.

Thanks buddies and de rien ^^

@Mr. Bougo
I got yet another question
I wanted to make a very own particle effect since I didnt found any water splahing particle effects. You know, when an amount of water is hitting a surface.
Somthing simple like this:



170 possible particle effect, but no one for water I fear D:

That's not a question! If you want to know how to do this, I frankly have no idea. I don't know how effect specification works.

Have a look at this: http://dpwiki.slipgateconstruct.com/inde..._Reference

There I read:

The Engine now appends mapname_effectinfo.txt to effectinfo.txt. In other words you can create additional effects for your map without changing effectinfo.txt.

Is that an answer to your original question?

Haha, fun. Maybe that's the non-solution div mentioned?

... it's working...

you have to paste this mapname_effectinfo.txt into the maps folder, so it's not like with the standard effectinfo.txt.

pinkrobot, you rock. : )

If you want to want to test or to see an example of it, here is a example pk3 file, you should see brown coloured particles.

http://ompldr.org/vZGlmeQ/test2.pk3

awesome ^^

Okay, here's the thing. Apparently if the global effectinfo is changed, the mapname_effectinfo is sure to bug the effects. I'm not sure why, I'm waiting for div's response on this.

Meanwhile, do not use mapname_effectinfo.

Update (sorry for doubleposting): it's definitely not a good solution.

If a new version (or git) adds a new effect in effectinfo.txt, it offsets the map's own effectinfo addition indexes by one, which totally breaks visuals for clients. Since the map is sure to use its own mapname_effectinfo.txt effects, an addition to the base effectinfo.txt in an update is sure to wreck the effects for clients that don't have the same base effectinfo.txt as the server.

And serving the server's base effectinfo.txt to the clients is a bad solution because it then breaks effects if the client then connects to another server.

Aw, shame.

;(