Untitled Hunting Mod

[Zeberpal]

Uhmm how's it going? It's not abandoned, right?

[one_Two]

He told me he wanted to continue it at some point when he's less busy, I'm still around to help out.

[bleson]

A bit of a dog act on my part, sorry to just leave the forums without announcement.

Yes, I'm currently occupied with school, and will resume this project when the next break comes. It's not abandoned, and I haven't forgotten. I just currently don't have time to lead the project.

The AI of the animals is still a real bugger. That's going to be first priority.

Recently I also thought of making a more appealing/suitable graphical style for this mod, less realistic. Pixel art, perhaps. As a graphics-oriented person myself I might take on that challenge.

Until then :)
And many thanks, one_Two.

[bleson]

Apologies for the double post.

This week I'm back and able to get this project rolling again, however all the current priorities revolve around the animal AI.

The standard 'buck' should be able to:
- Flee from the player upon sight and stop when the player is out of sight.
(this basic mechanism has been an absolute obstacle against progress because DECORATE isn't designed with this type of 'coward' monster personality in mind. So far we're still stuck here.)
- Cycle through idle activities during its general existence; ie:
walking around, stopping to feed, looking around
- Be able to spot, and interact with, foods such as plants and player-placed bait.

I recall some volunteers to help with DECORATE, so without expecting wizardry, if you're still willing to help out that would be magnificent.

Thanks, and sorry for the lack of real progress lately.

[W1D3A55]

The standard 'buck' should be able to:
- Flee from the player upon sight and stop when the player is out of sight.
(this basic mechanism has been an absolute obstacle against progress because DECORATE isn't designed with this type of 'coward' monster personality in mind. So far we're still stuck here.)
- Cycle through idle activities during its general existence; ie:
walking around, stopping to feed, looking around
- Be able to spot, and interact with, foods such as plants and player-placed bait.

1. The FRIGHTENED actor property alows said actor to run from the player. Actor properties can be changed with A_SetFlag ( I think). Probably put this in the Pain and See states, but not sure how to revert it.
2. It'll be a bitch to do in DECORATE, but is possible.
3. Not sure how it'll work really considerig there are so many possible states for it. Player placed bait may be able to work if its an inventory item (make it have a probability of the buck eating it and not always, because that'd be stupid.)

Looking forward to seeing the final product.

[CloudFlash]

Shit looks cashy for me, but you could really use more textures for grass... it's empty as it is now. Maybe add some grass as middle texture of some lines? Or maybe even tiny bushes with decorate, like playing sound of rustled leafs when player moves through them?
Edit: also, if you want monsters who calm down after player is nowhere near, maybe you could try not looping their see or whatever that state in which they moved was? It would look like " DEER ABABABABABABA 8 *next line* Goto CheckForHunters "
Quick Edit after a second of thought: And for random safety activities, like mentioned grass-munching and watching-for-humans, you can use A_Jump(255,"grass-munching","watching-for-humans","etc.etc") in their safe state.
The "oh I forgot about this too" Edit: You could make random bushes of food with looped A_Explode of small range, and then make a deers pain.food state.

[LeatherFace]

very cool idea, I am one of the very few people who use to play Redneck Rampage Deer Hunting. It was a very rare FPS and obscure game.

you may find these sprites useful for animals.

http://spriters-resource.com/pc_compute ... heet/43211

http://spriters-resource.com/pc_compute ... heet/43181

http://spriters-resource.com/pc_compute ... heet/43035

[Lollipop]

Is this thing still on?....
oh well, here are some things that I think should be improved:

§ 1.1. the terrain is a bit flat with some flat hills, this could be a litt ebtter.
§ 1.2.The slopes tend to have some edges at their ends, this can be fixed by using triangles instead of squares.
§ 1.3. please remove the zombies from the map, I dont remember seeing a hunting game with zombies.
§ 1.4. The water stream should be bumped a bit down, 4 map units? Also it looks like 8bit mud, can't you please change that?

§ 2.1 the bucks dissapear after they die, which is a bit of pain :(

§ 3.1. The weapon is a shotgun, is that really a standard hunting weapon?

Things I really, really, REALLY like:

§ 1.1 The structures are really great, keep it up.
§ 1.2 the trees, they give me a feeling of... IDK, a hunter in a forest? Also the general placement seems quite real to me :)

§ 2.1 The bucks are really great, the way they run is just nice, love hunting them through the forest.
§ 2.2 the death frame for the buck is great.

§ 3.1. The weapon is nice, a balanced reload time and a nice punch to it.

My suggestions for this project:

§ 1.1. Obviously I ask for more maps, but I want to give map ideas:
§ 1.1.1 A lushy green forest, a standard idea.
§ 1.1.2 A swamp, quite a unique place, right?
§ 1.1.3 A mauntain, in case you want some mountain goat.
§ 1.1.4 A desert, just an idea with no real background :)
§ 1.1.5 Maybe a savannah?

§ 1.2 I think maybe a lot of different buildings?
§ 1.2.1 There should always be some kind of shack that is your house.
§ 1.2.2 There should always be a shop that sells weapons.
§ 1.2.2.1 I think maybe different shops at different locations that sell different stuff?
§ 1.2.3 I think there should be a contest house, that randomly hosts different contests.

List of new animals and changes I could imagine:
Have a "generic bird" and other birds like albatross.

Antelope
Armadillo (this is in fact a real animal, dunno if its a hunting animal tho)
Ape (IDK why, but they are there, so why not?)
Badger
Beaver
Bison/Buffalo/whatever
Bunny/Rabbit
Camel
Crab
Elephant (Get a big gun for this one :P)
Ferret
Fox
Gazelle
Giraffe
Goat
Horse (WHY NOT?)
Hyena
Kangaroo
Llama
Ostritch (it is a fact that these animals will retaliate if angered)
Penguin
Reindeer (Maybe a christmas map?)
Rhinos (also retaliating)
Turtle
Walrus
Zebra

Crocodile/Aligator
Cheetah
Leopard
Lion
Panther
Tiger
Wolf

I guess anything can go as long as it fits, but oh well:
Rifles, with and without scopes for long distance.
Pistols
Shotguns
Automatics

Of course all with aiming, would make the hunt more realistic :)

§ 4.1. Have some map spots randomly placed on the map, so when an animal die, they execute a script that sets a random time interval and then spawns a new random animal on a random spot like this:
Buck died -> script -> random time -> random buck -> random buck spot

§ 4.2. Have the contests be randomly happening and they should all be random, such as "heaviest bear" or "total buck weight".
I do not know how to do this, but I can think something if you want me to.

§ 4.3. You should maybe have a day/night system, would open some neat little possibillities :)

I would like to map for this if you want, I could also maybe help you on other things.

I only mean good with this post, just in case you wonder.

EDIT:
I tried and summoned the deer, was great fun seeing it shoot like a cannon.
I also found a bug where you run out of shells and switch to fist, and cant change back.

EDIT2: I will map for it now, got nothing else to do :\
Expect a map in a few weeks :)

EDIT3: The way you changed starting weapon is horrible, you should just make another playerclass instead -.-
Also, the footstep sound will also be easyer with a playerclass, as you can just put the sound in the actor state.

EDIT4: This just came to my mind: it is not a good idea to use painstates, they might work, but it isnt fun to see your bullets hit a rock hard deer instead of blood spewing out of it, also the pain can activate the painstate of other actors, such as the birds or the player.

EDIT5: Maybe have a chance of an animal to be an albino, just an idea, it could maybe have a bonus in contests or something :)

[bleson]

Wait, the bucks work?

EDIT:
The seeming impossibility to make their AI was the only thing stopping progress on this mod.

[Lollipop]

A start is always simple, the advanced features and technical things are always developed later, just look at many major projects, look in their past, they werrent just released as the giant ass hyperawesome utopiaworthy masterpieces they are.
Just start out simple, and then progress slowly towards greatness ;)

The bucks did work, partially, I had to shoot them for them to react, but how did you want the hearing actors to work? seriously? It dont work that way, pain firstly needs to damage it, which I dont really think is the big idea :\, and secondly, you need a way to spawn and move it accordingly to how the player moves and the terrain around him. My best advice is to stop developing on that approach and find another way.

Here is what I think of so far:
As a start, for people to get interested in working on the topic, you make the deer a simple actor, and you can use a_jumpifcloser to make it detect if the player is in range of it's hearing.
I will now work on an example for you bleson, and I will put it in this post for you to download and study, if I got the skill to make it work.

If you are interested in more help, you can contact me anytime anywhere you find me.

EDIT:
http://www39.zippyshare.com/v/28375105/file.html

This works, I reprogrammed this little cutie, it got a map replacement for map01, just to make quick tests.
This is what I did:
I made the see state check if the player is closer than 800 mapunits.
I put +lookallaround to make it "hear" the player.
I changed A_turretlook to A_look because A_turretlook messed with me.
I removed +noblood.
I commented out the spawning of the hearing actors.
I gave it a normal pain state, that leads to the "RUN" state, this makes the deer run when harmed.
Possibly more I already forgot.

EDIT2: Change the DeadDeer's health to 0x7FFFFFFF, this will prove a temporary solution into moving it without destroying it utterly.

[one_Two]

Idk if you spoke to bleson but it would've been nice to discuss this with before you dived in.

[Lollipop]

To be honest I did not think of that, I am greatly sorry and I will change my behaviour. I will accept a warning if it is found worthy.
I do wish to tell you that I did only have good intentions with this and I am afraid to my most inner with seeing the activity here kind of dieing off :(
If you got somewhere I can go to contact you, then please inform me as I really wish to help all I can.
Again, I am really sorry to mess stuff up :(

[bleson]

No no, this is motivating. If anyone should apologize, I already feel bad for not living up to my role as the host of this mod.

As for my approach to the AI, I appreciate you pointing out what wouldn't work because with my total lack of programming experience I tend to both over and underestimate DECORATE.

I'll check out your AI test wad this weekend and we can continue this mod. I cannot thank you enough for your unexpected contribution!

---

"2.1 the bucks dissapear after they die, which is a bit of pain :("
Completely? Perhaps as a second resort the buck could drop a separate dead body entity to be able to be picked up. It might be much work because the body would have to correspond with the size/weight of the live deer.

Some of the animals you mentioned in that zoo of a post you made are possible (eg, horses, birds, fox, sheep), only because sprites of them already exist out there. Not sure if total realism is what you all would prefer to keep with this mod, but we could get creative and deviate from what existing (and better, non-doom-mod) hunting simulators already give us anyway. In fact I think that element of out-of-the-ordinary is essential to make this mod unique, so let's hope an idea comes to us.

"1.2.1 There should always be some kind of shack that is your house."
Yes, there is. The shack that spawns you in the beginning of the first map is your base for ammo and health. The supplies regenerate after some time. Maybe the shack could be made bigger than the toilet stall that it is, into a lobby to choose weapons and utilities from.

"1.3. please remove the zombies from the map, I dont remember seeing a hunting game with zombies."
I don't remember adding any zombies to the map. Do you mean the standard Doom zombiemen? Might be a strange error.

"1.4. The water stream should be bumped a bit down, 4 map units? Also it looks like 8bit mud, can't you please change that?"
Textures will be revised when the map construction is at its finishing stages. At the moment we're just using ones that are most approximate as fillers.

"3.1. The weapon is a shotgun, is that really a standard hunting weapon?"
Yes it is, but perhaps not the type of hulking bullet sprayer you're given in this mod. The standard weapon will be a scoped rifle of some sort.

"EDIT3: The way you changed starting weapon is horrible, you should just make another playerclass instead -.-
Also, the footstep sound will also be easyer with a playerclass, as you can just put the sound in the actor state.

EDIT4: This just came to my mind: it is not a good idea to use painstates, they might work, but it isnt fun to see your bullets hit a rock hard deer instead of blood spewing out of it, also the pain can activate the painstate of other actors, such as the birds or the player."
Thanks a lot for these tips, they will really solve some minor annoyances. I'm not familiar with playerclass, but I'd be happy to get to know how it works.

You really have given a complete list of feedback, that's more than I could have imagined to get. Now we have a checklist on what to improve on.

[one_Two]

Yeah I didn't really mean it was bad, I just thought before he went speeding off with acs or w.e it'd be nice to get a grasp on what he's doing/ trying to do so everyone can understand it.

[Lollipop]

I am very happy that I didn't mess stuff up, I will continue to think and improve my own skills so I can be of more service to you, I will though refrain from just turning this thread into a cluster though.
Future contributions will be given through PM, as I just realised what a terrible approach I chose :S