Make me a billboard...

[Lizard]

BBB I think you are confusing mastery with proficiency , being proficient at something means you have a good handle of the basic concepts, being a master at something means you are not only proficient but can consistently do stuff nobody else has even thought about.


Not that I have any time for modding BZ2 these days but I'd say that the only aspect of BZ2 modding that I've really mastered is map making and even here there is room for improvement ( there always is) , I'm pretty good when it comes to all aspects of modelling and texturing but I'm no master .


most other aspects I'm proficient at but with things like scripting I rely on other people's examples a lot .


You haven't even come close to mastering DLL scripting unless you get to grips with C++ , there's so much more you can do with it as opposed to using the scriptor which is ok for making basic missions but it's quite limited really.


I'm not saying your work is bad or anything ( far from it) but I think you've still got a ways to go before you can claim mastery .

[Nielk1]

I am above proficient in 3D moddeling and ODF editing, and proficient in CFG editing and complicated weapon arrangement.

I can program in Java, Visual Basic, and C++. I am best in Java, 2nd best in Visual Basic, and only have a little experience with C++.
C++ is what BZ2 DLLs are written in BBB. The DLL scriptor converts your code into compiled DLLs, but the original DLLs are from C++ compilers. OM made a DLL that reads and automaticly compiles Python Codes and interprets it as mission script. That one is interesting in that it is always the special DLL, but it loads scrips via a cvar (or equivilent parameter). OM's python one isn't working right now.

If someone could give me a walkthough of the BZ2 DLLs, just once, I would be able to make my own. As I am now, I only know how to edit the existing ones, but not how to compile them into DLLs with a differnt name. I think renaming the files does not work either cause the DLLs themselves contain their filename. If someone could just help me there I could do a good job.

[bigbadbogie]

BBB I think you are confusing mastery with proficiency

i guess we'll find out soon enough

[GSH]

As I am now, I only know how to edit the existing ones, but not how to compile them into DLLs with a differnt name.

Do this in developer studio. Right click on the project, hit properties. Look under the output (linker) settings.

-- GSH

[Red Devil]

Set it for U:\RD-DLLs

[OvermindDL1]

C++ is what BZ2 DLLs are written in BBB. The DLL scriptor converts your code into compiled DLLs, but the original DLLs are from C++ compilers. OM made a DLL that reads and automaticly compiles Python Codes and interprets it as mission script. That one is interesting in that it is always the special DLL, but it loads scrips via a cvar (or equivilent parameter). OM's python one isn't working right now.

Like yo!  They are working perfect.  I even made it so it would support BZ2 all the way back to 1.0.  However, it requires a unique way of loading, which the latest 1.3's have, or I need to go machine code diving and change some things (not hard at all, just tedious, BZ2's layout is very obvious, I could describe its entire startup structure and code and what it does with how much of its machine code I've read), thus I would need to release a new BZ2 exe with my scriptor for the older BZ2's.  The latest version of my scriptor can even load scripts from information based on BZ2's own filesystem (hence, from the addon directory, a pak file, wherever, GSH made that stupidly easy to do with a change a few private versions back, again thanks).

I really should make a mission script sometime for people to learn off of.  Freakin school starting back up, why can they not actually teach something, feels like such a waste of time, whether it is or not it feels like it, and it should not, hence they are doing something wrong.  That, or I am addicted to programming, probably the latter, heck I dream code (I dreamed the answer to a programming annoyance I was having last night, I woke up, knew the answer, coded the new style up in about 20 minutes and it just worked beautifully, only got about 4 hours of sleep due to suddenly waking so quickly, but I got that programming part done).

[Nielk1]

The built in test map would not run for me. Even when I launched with to parameters for the new 'unique way of loading' in private 1.3

They just fail and do nothing when the map loads. I haven't tried in several versions, but last I tried, it had some sort of error message in the console. No, I do not remember the message.

[OvermindDL1]

I would love to test it myself, I was quite certain it worked fine, but anytime I try to start BZ2 it complains about "Can't start hardware accelerated Direct3D 8. Please see http://www.microsoft.com/directx/ to download DirectX 8.0 or better." although everything else works perfect.  Been having this issue for a bit now...

Code Select Expand

DIAG|Main            |            maininit:475  |23:49:15|9      |Version Information Section
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:486  |23:49:15|9      |Session started Mon Jan 14 23:49:15 2008
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:489  |23:49:15|19     |CPU: Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 165   /103MHz L1:128K T:0 F:15 M:3 S:2 (SSE,3DNow,MMX,TSC,FPU)
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:492  |23:49:15|20     |Executed by Cerebrate\Zagg on Windows NT v5.1 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
DIAG|Main            |            maininit:495  |23:49:15|20     |Compiled by Ikkoku\GSH on Win2000+SP2
DIAG|GLOBAL          |               setup:73   |23:49:15|110    |Drive type : Fixed
DIAG|GLOBAL          |               setup:143  |23:49:15|111    |Startup directory : G:\Program Files\Battlezone II - 1.3 Latest
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1026 |23:49:16|618    |
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1027 |23:49:16|618    |dd: Primary Display Driver
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1057 |23:49:16|731    |mem dx:
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3466 |23:49:16|731    |tex mem:   total 0, free 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:3483 |23:49:16|731    |frame mem: total 0, free 0
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1123 |23:49:16|731    |mem actual:
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1125 |23:49:16|731    |frame mem: total 5242880, free 5242880
DIAG|GLOBAL          |                 vid:1587 |23:49:16|733    |no hardware d3d devices

And are you sure you are using the parameter "/allowstackless", and have the files "boost_python-vc71-mt-1_34.dll", "BZ2Stackless.dll", and "python25.dll" in the same directory as the bzone.exe file?  Even if you had nothing else, that would still spit out a log file, so send me or post up that log file that I make (not battlezone.log, it is something else, like bz2stackless.log or something).

[anomaly]

I would love to test it myself, I was quite certain it worked fine, but anytime I try to start BZ2 it complains about "Can't start hardware accelerated Direct3D 8. Please see http://www.microsoft.com/directx/ to download DirectX 8.0 or better." although everything else works perfect. 

I used to have that problem.  Installing dx9 got rid of the message but then the way 1.2 displays textures got all messed up.  1.3 seems to work fine though.  But how are you still able to get bz2 to start up?

[OvermindDL1]

Everything else, as in all my other games, and everything is very well updated, only BZ2 has this issue, will try reinstalling it whenever I get a free moment again.

[Nielk1]

And are you sure you are using the parameter "/allowstackless", and have the files "boost_python-vc71-mt-1_34.dll", "BZ2Stackless.dll", and "python25.dll" in the same directory as the bzone.exe file?  Even if you had nothing else, that would still spit out a log file, so send me or post up that log file that I make (not battlezone.log, it is something else, like bz2stackless.log or something).

I haven't tried it in a while but the last version I used had this DLL:boost_python-vc71-mt-1_33_1.dll
Everything was right.

Code Select Expand

BZ2PythonScriptor-Stackless opened
>> network.session.svar16 = ''
>> options.instant.string16 = ''
>> BZ2Paths['scriptname_*'] = ''
>> network.session.svar0[:-4] = ''
>> Script: 'C:\Program Files\Battlezone II 1_3b\missions'
FATAL SCRIPT ERROR: Unable to import traceback module.
>> FATAL SCRIPT ERROR: Could not load mission for unknown reason, check scripts to make sure that CreateMission is defined in the proper module (C:\Program Files\Battlezone II 1_3b\missions) and that it returns a class that subclasses BZ2.DLLBase.
BZ2PythonScriptor-Stackless closed

[OvermindDL1]

Whatever version you were using appears to be a rather old one, I upgraded to 1_4 a while ago, and not to mention that I included the traceback module (and others) with the distribution later on as well.

I still have a newer one I should post up (supports loading scripts from pak file and so forth, anywhere in BZ2's filesystem).

[Nielk1]

As I said it was a while ago...