Starsonata Wiki - User contributions [en]

Web Chat

2009-06-08T22:33:38Z

The smiley one: /* Player Suggestions */

== About ==

The web chat is a way to connect to the server and talk to your team mates and anyone else online without having to download anything, ideal for slow moments at school or work, or when you don't want to have to login to the real game. It can be found here: http://www.starsonata.com/webchat/

== Features ==

*Chat to all channels with a similar look to the game client
*Team List so you can see who's online (and with an easy double click to PM team mate).
*Easy to click links to PM anyone who chats
*Up/Down arrow chat input history for quickly putting out the same trade message or repeating a statement.

== Current Limitations ==

*Some / commands do not work as they are processed client side
*Cannot log off without having to refresh or close
*Cannot see what you're highlighting in the white font tabs

== Upcoming Work ==

*<strike>Make it so the highlight color is something other then black</strike>
*Logoff button
*Sound when receive PM in unfocused tab
*<strike>Make it so the input bar has focus if you press any key, making it so you don't have to click every time to chat after switching tabs or selecting text.</strike>
*Different text sizes for the chats.
*<strike>Time of last received message in each channel, to know if it's worth answering.</strike>

== Future Work ==

*Make all links click-able
*Make tabs have fixed width so they don't twitch when an unread message comes in or when you focus

== Player Suggestions ==

(Please only edit this part, and I will move them up into the other lists as I see fit)

* Admin blue text is not shown in the webchat

* Maybe make the player name a slightly different colour then the player message?

* The up button makes it very easy to spam.

== Player Spotted Bugs ==

*Commodities Decay

Web Chat

2009-06-08T22:24:48Z

The smiley one: /* Player Suggestions */

Web Chat

2009-06-08T22:23:06Z

The smiley one: /* Player Suggestions */

== About ==

The web chat is a way to connect to the server and talk to your team mates and anyone else online without having to download anything, ideal for slow moments at school or work, or when you don't want to have to login to the real game. It can be found here: http://www.starsonata.com/webchat/

== Features ==

*Chat to all channels with a similar look to the game client
*Team List so you can see who's online (and with an easy double click to PM team mate).
*Easy to click links to PM anyone who chats
*Up/Down arrow chat input history for quickly putting out the same trade message or repeating a statement.

== Current Limitations ==

*Some / commands do not work as they are processed client side
*Cannot log off without having to refresh or close
*Cannot see what you're highlighting in the white font tabs

== Upcoming Work ==

*<strike>Make it so the highlight color is something other then black</strike>
*Logoff button
*Sound when receive PM in unfocused tab
*Make it so the input bar has focus if you press any key, making it so you don't have to click every time to chat after switching tabs or selecting text.
*Different text sizes for the chats.
*Time of last received message in each channel, to know if it's worth answering.

== Future Work ==

*Make all links click-able
*Make tabs have fixed width so they don't twitch when an unread message comes in or when you focus

== Player Suggestions ==

(Please only edit this part, and I will move them up into the other lists as I see fit)
* You've made it so that new messages in a nonfocused chat will show up as a number, e.g. All(9), this sometimes makes the other chat tabs "bounce" as the all tab is enlarged to make room. Could you make it maintain the same size?

* Admin blue text is not shown in the webchat

* Maybe make the player name a slightly different colour then the player message?

== Player Spotted Bugs ==

*Commodities Decay

BlindSide Log

2009-05-13T07:19:21Z

The smiley one: /* May 12th */

= BlindSide's Star Sonata Development Journal =

== May 12th ==

I've been improving the background generation on/off. On my Phenom 9950 system (2.6 ghz, Only using one core):

- Low/Medium settings take 60 milliseconds to generate the background nebula.
- High+ settings take ~400 milliseconds to generate the background nebula.

I may consider moving this to the gpu for better performance, as high settings
systems will undoubtedly support this functionality (I would use the same code that creates the animated patterns on the suns, so it should be pretty damn fast). We'll see.

Currently the background is placed on a flat billboard but I am considering moving this to a hemisphere/quarter-sphere(?) to create a more 3 dimensional feeling.

[Smiley Comment] ''I assume the background will be the same each time you visit the same galaxy, correct? Its just generating the SAME nebula based on parameters set at universe creation, correct? I think the galaxies should keep their "look" from visit to visit.''

== May 13th ==

Finally it is lasers time! Lasers are certainly one of the more interesting graphics elements. Few methods/variations arise:

- Criss cross 2 billboards to create a beam effect, fairly simple.
No textures are needed here as we can just 2 more vertices and interpolate the vertex color from black at the edges to whatever the color is in the center.
- I could place one or two of those billboard volume light scene nodes on the beam to create a bit more variation,
I'm always meaning to use them somewhere but haven't found the place.
- A better idea would be to just use an elongated sphere and only render the bumps/animations on the lasers in the glow pass.
This should create a nice effect, I will probably try this method first.
- For wide area laser/tractory type things a cone with scrolling textures (Via texture matrices would be appropriate).
I will probably just use whatever texture is provided with C1 and scroll that along the 3 dimensional cone, should come out nice.

Well I am off to implement them and will hopefully have some screenshots in a few hours!

(Some time passes)

Ok, first of all, lets get acquainted with the Laser space objects. Process the start and endpoints and draw a simple line for debug output:

[[Image:LaserDev1.jpg]]

Oh dear that does not look right. Oh yes! The laser is using relative coordinates. Subtract that laser's position from the endpoint:

[[Image:LaserDev2.jpg]]

That's more like it!

Now let's make it look more like a laser. After a bit of magic (And a complete re-write of an already available laser scene node for Irrlicht), we get something like this:

[[Image:LaserDev3.jpg]]

Now that's starting to look more like a laser! Let's try some glow and see what we get:

[[Image:LaserDev4.jpg]]

OK, maybe that's a little too much glow! Let's reduce the laser's radius when applying glow:

[[Image:LaserDev5.jpg]]

It's getting better! Next time we'll try adding a green light to the front of the ship when it fires a laser (Other surprises are in store!). That's all for today, stay tuned.