The_GTA

Thanks! I have designed some charts to further illustrate my plans. Take a look! http://s1320.beta.photobucket.com/user/bloxman/library/

GrandCarma is kind of cartoon-y, isn't it? Indeed, think about the possibilities! They are endless. Some would say that this is not GTA:SA anymore. I say that we should let the designers decide what they think GTA:SA is. It all starts with an empty Lua resource. You shape your own world! Thanks man. Can always count on you

Thanks! I assume you are speechless Would be great if you guys discussed the features I provided. I want to improve my vision using your feedback.

Thank you! RenderWare provides a RpLight extension which utilizes the fixed function pipeline lights using Gouraud shading. When the light is attached to a frame, the light will move with it. There is a global directional light, environment lighting, a point light and a spot light. In GTA:SA, this dynamic hardware lighting was disabled. (There also is Rockstar's own lighting interface based on collision meshes; I am not talking about that one.) Since I rewrote the model loading procedure, I calculated vertex normals for every model automatically, thus allowing point lights. Thank you! I have got the plan laid out how to patch the official MTA build. It depends on negotiations with the developers and the community of how they shall be applied. Will be working on a patch today, just came back from school. Happy to receive all the encouragement. Kudos to you!

Thank you for the positive response It is so cryptic because it is my style of writing; will be clarifying things up once I get more responses!

Hello everybody. I have decided to return to the MTA forums with good news. MTA:Eir is nearly ready for BETA testing! Well, wut? Is it time for MTA 1.4 already? You would guess, right? It is my personal project to improve the overall code quality of MTA:BLUE. That is what my team and I have been busy with for the past two years. I am now an official contributer to the MTA:BLUE codebase. This topic should be used to discuss my plans. You wanna know it all? - The TLDR; story. I am the first one to show off such a huge draw distance with no streaming limitations. Nobody has up to this point run a total conversion map on MTA without any collision, model assignment errors and crashes. I have taken on the impossible and won. ASM code cannot defeat my iron will. I want you to remember that. MTA:Eir is a whole new approach to GTA:SA feature exposition. Instead of hooking and reusing flawed R* code, whose intention was not to provide a mod-able game, I am completely rewriting said routines. Through that I accomplish that... every developer is included in the knowledge of GTA:SA internals. code quality rapidly improves. re-modification of said routines is easily possible. the current development team is challenged. MTA:Eir is open-source. Critical development processes are undergoing, so I will not give you the repository address yet. I want to know your opinion. What do you expect from my improvement of the MTA:BLUE modification? What do you think about the official code-base? To those wondering why I kinda abandoned Scene2Res: I am a perfectionist. I seeked for a way to fix model support and Scene2Res was not delivering it. Software which could never reach a perfect status is depressing me. Lua scripts could not fix what the GTA:SA engine has logic against. So MTA:Eir had grown in importance to me, and the day of salvation is about to come. If Scene2Res and Eir join forces, the result can be seen in the video above. This project has reached the point that I am ready to merge it's features with MTA:BLUE. The series of patches shall be called "eirify". My first contribution to MTA:BLUE are two bug fixes which I encountered while testing model support. Additionally, I bundled in the fileSystem and other utilities + implementation of said code. Let's make Multi Theft Auto:San Andreas the perfect San Andreas multiplayer addon. Together. A feature overview: RenderWare virtual API + Lua exportation MTA:Lua OOP extensions (improved coroutines, GC, C++ compatibility, ...) stable model support (collision, dff, txd, ...) dynamic hardware lighting vehicle interface specialization (CTrainSA, CBikeSA, CAutomobileSA, CBicycleSA, ...) IMG Limit Adjuster influence by fastman92 cleaned up global code-base (replacing classes with namespaces [CLuaFunctionDefs], assembly replaced by pure C++ code, usage of virtual methods at GTA:SA interfaces, ...) MTA:FileSystem, including Lua .zip support It is up to you which features will come into MTA:BLUE. Please discuss below what you want to have implemented. Ask me anything about the feature - I will answer you. Update Plans: http://s1320.beta.photobucket.com/user/bloxman/library/ I promise to watch over this thread. Be wary that I am a student who is close to his finals, so I may not be there every day.

Hello guys! I have been following the recent presidential runs of US GOP candidates. I yet do not understand how American democracy works. Well, the global old media is a master at social engineering: Mitt Romney is being announced as the strongest frontrunner for the upcoming election (even Germany takes it's credits in demoralizing RP!) What do you guys think? Who is your favourite in this year's presidential campaigns? I support Ron Paul. But money is stronger than all of "us" combined.

I added some nice documentation in the MTA wiki https://wiki.multitheftauto.com/wiki/Resource:Resedit

Oh hey. I had a user join my server and test the resource with me and he had problems with render target creations. I am working on a better resource updating system. That will automatically detect resource and file changes. I think you have to restart resedit for it to refresh. Did you try that? I tested resedit at my MTA 1.4 Server and it ran without problems. Just tested it in my 1.3 Server and it works fine, too. How come you get this error? Does the shortcut ALT+X work for you? I added it so users can quickly close tabs. Also, there is CTRL+S to save scripts. EDIT2: If there is a problem with the rendering or anything, please post a picture. Cheers, The_GTA EDIT: By the way... I noticed that I forgot to close files at hashing if they have a size of 0. To fix this error, you gotta disable the creation of a clientside repository. Sorry for that, will be fixed in next release!

I have uploaded a new version of resedit today I worked really hard to give you guys an unique editing experience. Excuse me for double posting in my own thread; I have not been here for ages^^

I like how the OP colored his post

I like this idea of a Green theme Shows how evolving MTA can be. Not yet perfect but improvable. Nice work!

Thank you for your feedback, Infinate! The mountain will go invisible under these circumstances: The draw distance is set too low in the IDE file GTA:SA occludes away your object (failed .col) A unexpected streaming error happened You enabled LOD support, right? I will be posting a description on all parameters in the original post There are invalid models which were probably fixed in a hack for the United mod. I do not know which models are invalid, but there are quite some. I crash in the second town too btw I suggest you check my original post in a moment. Gonna update it now Why do you want the files to be not compiled? I do not want anyone to play around with the source code, since it is unstable enough.

I have now released the final version! It includes a tweak which the devs pointed out (engineLoadDFF, tested in 1.3). Should fix some texture garbage collection errors Happy converting!

I am about to redesign the shared class system of MTA:BLUE to prohibit future errors in conception. Then custom projectile support is gonna be implemented. After that I will fix up the entity classes. Finally, the model loader is gonna be finished.

Now RC2 includes LOD support, though it is unstable due to GTA:SA model mechanics and error detection limitations D: I have also added an option for automatic garbage collection. EDIT: WOW, I cannot believe that I had this error in! I will immediatly release a bugfix, because I have changed some schematics in the Release Candidates which broke the directory sheme EDIT2: Fixed

After alot of testing I have realized that the GTA:SA streamer uses garbage collection and unimportant flags itself to stream models. That means, that the engine tries to load the LOD if there are too many model instances given to balance the memory usage. Some of you might know that the GTA:SA world starts flashing if you are high up with a enormous draw distance; that is when the streamer has reached it's memory or instance limit! All that being said, if you engineLoad too many models, GTA:SA simply deactivates them D: That is why engineReplaceModel did not work! I noticed that some models never got replaced no matter how often I called the function; who could have thought that the model turned invalid by that time? o_o Or better yet, that the engine has reloaded the original one in the blink of an eye? I have no idea how to get a stable LOD system done like that

Oh, I did not know that. I am going to add LOD support and reduce the memory usage LOD support - WIP Reducing memory usage - done!

You mean the previous version of my converter which was used for the video? It used the "distance" streaming method! If you want to have the map yourself, download the GTA:United mod and do this: Download ImgTool 2.0 (http://grandtheftauto.filefront.com/file/IMG_Tool;44920) Download ColEditor II (http://www.steve-m.com/downloads/tools/colleditor2/) Extract all the contents from GTA3.img and LC2SA.img into a "res" folder on your desktop Start up ColEditorII and list the directory contents of your "res" folder by type Mark all .col files and drag&drop them into the tool Select all collision entries, right click on them and extract them as Single Collision Files into your converter "resources" folder Put the other files from the "res" folder in your "resources" folder too Do the remaining steps from my main post

I have invested alot of time into the model system of GTA:SA and added ways to minimize the errors surrounding it. Tested the converter recently and errors happened less frequently; the problem is not completely solved though and can only be done by fixing the model loader of MTA. If you find any tracable errors, feel free to post them here

Hello MTA community! IMPORTANT LEGAL ADVICE about using game content converted by scene2res Scene2Res was my passionate project back in 2010 when I worked on custom map support in MTA. Convert any GTAIII engine scene into a MTA resource! Gostown6 test (outdated): Source Code: http://scene2res.osdn.jp/ Download: https://osdn.net/projects/scene2res/releases/ Tutorial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHkSayeZZSE Fix DFF for GTA:SA: https://forum.multitheftauto.com/topic/32665-gtasa-scene2res-converter/?do=findComment&comment=850903 How to use this: Put all the IDE and IPL files into the "ipl" folder Extract the textures, models and collisions into the "resources" folder Configure the "config.ini" to fit your needs Run the converter and fix any possible errors output Cut out the contents from "output" into a .zip or a resource folder Start the resource! You will be able to see your map at the configured offset! If you experience model loading problems, you can try switching the streaming method. If all attempts at fixing fail please consider contacting the MTA dev team for help. And if you still have any problems beyond all help, expect them to turn from blue to green in a matter of time (ikr). Ingame commands for caching: - mcollect: Garbage collects the world, removing cached entries - mapmem: Displays the current streamMemory Configuration description: compilator: Sets the author name that will be put into the meta.xml file. compile: If set to true the map scripts will be compiled using luac.exe (only works if not zipped). applyWorldConfig Decides whether the templated compiler will generate logic that changes world settings (far clip, fog distance, etc). If set to false, it will not do that (valid for MTA:BLUE and Eir fork targets). debug: Outputs model streaming information for map debugging and error reporting. The list on the right displays every loaded model [modelname (refcount, loadstatus)]. mode: Sets the engine to compile for (either the original MTA:BLUE, the Eir client or the MTA:Eir fork) xOffset, yOffset, zOffset: Recenters the map to a position. namesCaseInsensitive: The names inside IPL and IDE files are usually treated case-insensitively inside of the GTA:SA engine. Set this to false to turn on case-sensitive checking. jetpackHeight: Sets the jetpack maximum height + zOffset method: Switches the streaming method. I recommend using stream, since distance is unstable. Should be self-explanatory what they do mappingType: Allows you to switch between .lua and .xml file output for map instances. The .xml type output is much more performant and tested. adjustFiltering: The map textures inside TXD files come with rendering pixel filtering settings. Scene2Res can make textures look smoother. Set this to true to set linear filtering for all textures. For more information visit engineLoadTXD. static: Unrolls the lua tables to possibly gain performance during execution. This feature is experimental; should be optimal for small maps. lodSupport: Enables LOD models to be compiled with the map. Setting this to true will apply the original draw distance instead of 500. forceLODInherit: Inherits the previous model's collisions. The less collision files get loaded, the less collision errors there are. cached: Enabling this will cause models to be loaded on the fly when they are required. Turning this off would theoretically ensure error-free models, but GTA:SA garbage collection picks them up anyway. Recommended. streamerMemory: If this value reaches maximum, the streamer tries to free big unused models until the new model request fits into memory. This size is theoretical, since model files scale much higher when loaded by GTA:SA. Recommended at 100. autoCollect: Once a model is not used anymore, it gets free'd from memory. runtimeCorrection: Due to not having onModelLoad, onModelUnload, onModelInvalidate events, you can set this value to unload models which are in an invalid streamer state after x frames. Experimental feature! zipOutput: When set to true, the compiler will create a .zip archive and output everything into it. This will create a ready-made map resource for you. Set the name of the .zip archive using the "zipName" parameter. zipName: Changes the name that should be used for the output .zip archive created by "zipOutput" setting. zipResources: If set to true, the compiler will look for a "resources.zip" file in its current directory. If found, resources will be loaded from that .zip archive instead of the "resources" directory. This way you can save hard disk space by having resources compressed instead of in many files. Look into "config.ini" for further documentation! Addendum 23.02.2017: I have updated this topic with the latest information. Grateful to everyone who enjoys this technology! Addendum 27.01.2018: Linux support! (once again, using Code::Blocks) Thank you for using this tool. - Martin

I hope you guys do not rush the release of 1.2

A tutorials sub forum seems like a great idea. People should find a place where there is information available for them. You cannot expect a newbie to know how to use metatables without even knowing that they exist. A collection of coding and design practices is a good reference for scripters who want to educate themselves! Tutorial topics can also be a resource for discussions. People will share common problems they faced using known techniques and I think that people may be shy to ask questions they find stupid to ask. Let us have a tutorials sub forum, shall we? BTW, +1 to Remi, because he is awesome! (Dead? No, stuff is taking alot of time.)

Interresting, a streamer rewrite got reverted? This tells me alot about the development style of BLUE... As I found out by talking to ccw, it was a update for the streaming of virtual MTA objects. I will be going a layer deeper.

Due to some errors in the community system and resedit not yet having an autoupdater, I post a hothotfix here: http://www.2shared.com/file/elbVNeMj/resedit.html Use this version of resedit to fix all known flaws.