Serge's Adventures in exe land (List on first post)

[Sparkey98]

What does RA2Hooks do?

And whats the difference between soft and rigid body physics?

Soft body physics would be something along the lines of degradable meshes, stuff that bends and buckles when hit.  This is more advanced than the degrading meshes on the chassis, which change visually but the collision models of which don't change at all.

Translation: soft body physics are alot more realistic and awesome.

What does RA2Hooks do?

And whats the difference between soft and rigid body physics?

Soft has more definition in small hits, if I'm correct. It also can worp objects far beond Gabriel intercactive could imagine.

[Somebody]

Oh cool. Sounds great.

[Serge]

What does RA2Hooks do?

And whats the difference between soft and rigid body physics?

Soft body physics would be something along the lines of degradable meshes, stuff that bends and buckles when hit.  This is more advanced than the degrading meshes on the chassis, which change visually but the collision models of which don't change at all.

Translation: soft body physics are alot more realistic and awesome.

What does RA2Hooks do?

And whats the difference between soft and rigid body physics?

Soft has more definition in small hits, if I'm correct. It also can worp objects far beond Gabriel intercactive could imagine.

That's not the same thing, Sparkey. Stop boasting around.

RA2Hooks won't be useful to you if you're not a mod maker / python adventurer.

[Sparkey98]

I am a "python adventurer" but my aventures are fail XD.

[Noodle]

I'm curious, would it be possible to make it so you can import a GMF or other model file to serve as the chassis model for a robot?  If so, we'd be able to make alot cooler and complicated chassis.

[Clickbeetle]

That would require totally revamping the .bot file format.  As would soft body physics.  At that point you're probably better off attempting to make an RA3 from scratch.


This decompiler function sounds interesting though, if you could somehow access it.  I wonder if there is a compiler function too?

[Serge]

As would soft body physics.

Not necessarily. SB physics act much like RB physics in Havok, at least in 3dsmax, their shape distortions are reset on each simulation start. So effectively, we end up in the same properties: display mesh, collision mesh, transform matrix, friction, mass, etc.

This decompiler function sounds interesting though, if you could somehow access it.  I wonder if there is a compiler function too?

I don't think so, unfortunately. There aren't any more GMF-related strings (*MESH, etc.) than the ones I found, and they were only referenced by the compiling code.

As for interfacing to it, I just need to find a constructor for the GMF class, hopefully one that loads data from a binary string / file. When (and if) I do, all that is left to do is to wrap it in a nice .exe that uses code from that binary, for which I already have a framework.

The project is on a break since a week or so, tomorrow I'm flying back to Motherland Polska, give me a couple of days to fight (and drink) off the jet lag, and I'm back to work.

[Clickbeetle]

I thought there was a mod around that expands it to infinite

There is, but there is a second, invisible max sphere that's coded into the exe rather than using a gmf file.  Try building a bot like Pwn's Galactus or my Timber II and you will quickly discover this.

[freeziez]

More user teams? So am I not the only one whose game crashes when saving a bot in a 2nd or 3rd team? To solve that I just copy/paste Team0 and rename it, then make the team... And it works...

Am I wrong here?

Same here...

[daleksec7]

cool :D hows it going
Serge

[Serge]

Well, I'm back home, so once I sync over code from my laptop I'll probably get started.

(although I have a non-RA2 project going on currently that's a bit higher priority: http://imgur.com/ZQhys.png . I still have to etch the board, fix errors in the board and  program this thing)

[Jack Daniels]

You must frequent makezine.com often.  So, what does the board do.  Is it another one of those Arduino thingamagigs?

[Serge]

You must frequent makezine.com often.  So, what does the board do.  Is it another one of those Arduino thingamagigs?

Nope, but I read hackaday.com daily. It's based on an Arduino environment (mainly the serial interface), but will be running native code instead of Processing. It's basically a LED bank controller, 5 channels, up to 1 Amp (around 50 leds) each (hence the huge TIP102/100 Darling transistors, I hope they're up to the challenge), featuring a keypad, an RTC and HD44780 screen. Nothing special, apart from the fact that it's gonna be my second double-sided board, and I'll probably mess it up :P.

[G.K.]

I'm still confused about RA2hooks. I saw what you said to somebody earlier, but I do dabble about with all kinds of modding, and don't understand what it could be used for.

[JoeBlo]

well I am not mistaken that window for RA2hooks appeared via python coding.. so essentially its opening a hole in the .exe that allows some manipulation by python. just what I can make of it.. I could be wrong

[Badnik96]

You HAVE to send this stuff to Click for DSL 3.

[Thyrus]

I think Click already contacted him

[Serge]

RA2Hooks is just another way to access RA2 internals through its Python scripts. Remember those times when you were messing around with Xtra.xxx, but just couldn't find a function that did what you wanted? Well fear no more.

[G.K.]

Can you try to change the way battery consumption works so motors drain the number of amps they're supposed to?

[JoeBlo]

since power components are indestructible anyway it would be cool if you could make base parts breakable.. but I dont want to overload you.. just if you come across such coding