Fixing Decal Infestation Height.

Soul_Rider

<div class="IPBDescription">A simple mod..</div>The NS2 infestation decal does not deal with elevation changes changes in maps and breaks the immersion offered by the dynamic infestation. I have a very big map with a lot of elevation changes, and I end up with a lot of gaps in the infestation, which would not be there if the ground was flat. You often see in maps that the cyst radius far exceeds where the infestation appears as the elevation goes beyond the infestation height. There is also a discrepancy in the elevation difference that you can place a cyst on, and that which the decal writes over.

A great example of this is Atrium hive in Summit.

Atrium Summit as Alien Comm showing hive radius and amount of infested ground:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Soulrefuge/2012-04-28_00002.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

And as a skulk view:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Soulrefuge/2012-04-28_00003.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

I opened Infestation.lua and changed the value:

<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->Infestation.kDecalVerticalSize = 1<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

to

<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->Infestation.kDecalVerticalSize = 2<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

Now the same 2 views:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Soulrefuge/2012-04-28_00005.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Soulrefuge/2012-04-28_00004.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

This does now get closer to the effective height cysts can be placed at, but is still not quite accurate, however I do not want to increase the height anymore just yet, as a side effect of the change is that the infestation now looks like it did in earlier implementations, although not stretched just without the density it has now. I need to work out how to make the infestation look better at the new depth, before tweaking it to exactly match the elevation changes allowed for cysts.

Sewlek

you can't make it look better unless max works on decals again or, you use multiple decals. i tried to do something similar (decals with bigger height) to indicated powered areas for the marine commander.

Soul_Rider

Hmm, that's a shame :(

My plan was to also make the cyst elevation allowance higher too, as I find there are many maps, my own in development included, where the elevation changes were too much for the way the current cyst system works. This has the side effect of causing 8 cysts to be used that would only require 5 on a flat run.

Is it possible for me to modify the cyst elevation allowance in the game? If I can do that, i may just play with some values, then set the decal to the same height, and then work out how to make it look good enough for use in NS2 :)

paradoxum

I would have thought this would be something that would eventually be fixed in the main game, do you not plan to do that Sewlek?