0.8.8 Bugs

[Gig]

Interesting... I'll have to give it a try when I have some time.... Thanks Akom...
However, I'd like to know who asked for commit of those shader, to ask him more infos...

[fromhell]

For the sake of texture switching I would probably ditch the whole animmap thing and go for a two stage rgbGen blending cycle.

The shader as it is now is a workaround of Darkplaces' shader parser limitations.

[Gig]

In OA 0.8.8, map DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Maps/oa_shouse]oa_shouse[/url][/b] is listed for Domination and Double Domination modes, but it lacks the required entities. I see in the svn there is an .ent file for it, which also includes such entities. Maybe such .ent file has been done after 0.8.8 release, but more probably it has been done before and it has been forgotten at the time of compiling the final version of the map... perils of using DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Entities-only_editing]Entities-only editing.

[Gig]

Done some tests with sounds playback.

I noticed that search for map background music files (set in worldspawn) works in a different way than sound effects played by target_speaker entities. TEST with OA 0.8.8 engine and gamecode:

- If it's a sound effect from a target_speaker entity, specifying "sound/mymap/sound1" or "sound/mymap/sound1.wav", in both cases will search for "sound/mymap/sound1.wav" and "sound/mymap/sound1.ogg". Specifying "sound/mymap/sound1.ogg", instead, would search for "sound/mymap/sound1.ogg.wav" and "sound/mymap/sound1.ogg.ogg", and probably this is not what one wants... in theory it should search for "sound/mymap/sound1.ogg" and then for "sound/mymap/sound1.wav". I suppose this may be considered a bug.
Uhm... maybe some mapper may already have changed his filename to .ogg.ogg or to .ogg.wav for manually workaround (instead of just omitting the extension in the editor)? In case this algorythm is updated, maybe should it continue also checking for the double extensions, for compatibility, in case it doesn't find the "correct" ones?

- If it's a background music specified in worldspawn entity, specifying "music/music1" will search for "music/music1.wav" and "music/music1.ogg". Specifying "music/music1.wav" will search for "music/music1.wav" only and "music/music1.ogg" will search for "music/music1.ogg" only. So, in 0.8.8, in case one wants to make replacements for Q3A music files, he may have to make them as .wav for maximum compatibility with existing maps.... which is not optimal, maybe, due to file sizes. NEWS: See "UPDATE" section below.

NOTES:
- Unlike background music, sound effects do require the sound to be MONO, not stereo. Using a stereo sound in a target_speaker casuses the sound to be played at half speed and truncated. I can guess this is from Q3A, and probably it's okay this way: a sound effect is played on left or right speaker depending from its location relative to the player. Maybe the engine may just read one of the two channels, however probably one may just keep it as it is. UPDATE: this affect SDL and has been fixed in trst builds. But Stereo effects cause a different problem in OpenAl mode (always played at full volume).

- Playing a background music in a format different than 22Khz stereo causes an ugly yellow warning every time the music track re-starts. Probably a leftover message, with Q3A expecting 22Khz music. Can it be suppressed, e.g. shown with "/developer 1" only?

- I haven't tried with sounds played by entities different than target_speaker and worldspawn.

UPDATE: TESTED with currently available nightly builds of Windows binaries (v. 2016-07-09) and gamecode (v. 2016-07-25):
- The only thing which seems to have changed is that now, background music search has been fixed: now you can set worldspawn to "music/music1", "music/music1.wav" and "music/music1.ogg" and it will search for both .wav and .ogg. So that part can be considered FIXED. So in OA3, one should be able to create replacement for Q3A musics in .ogg format and they should be played in any map searching for them.
-- UPDATENEW: it looks like with the updated stuff, also the playing of stereo sounds in target_speaker has been partially fixed. It's ok in SDL mode, but stereo sounds are played at full volume (even if you are far from them) in OpenAL mode.

- Other issues of target_speaker problem with specifying .ogg extension and yellow warning about music format in sdl mode, are still there.

UPDATE2: It looks like that (al least with current nighly builds), if you have DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/OpenAL]OpenAL library installed (and its cvar enabled), behavior changes: yellow warning about music format is NOT shown and.... I NEED TO MAKE SOME MORE TESTS IN THE NEXT DAYS. This post is still valid for SDL sound.

[Continues in this post.]

[fromhell]

if i were you, i'd consider allocating less time to post concerns about long-solved engine bugs.

some of this concern time writing about an old bug, and huge paragraphs about it, could have been used to test current development code (like possession and leixperiment), or even creating things

[Gig]

if i were you, i'd consider allocating less time to post concerns about long-solved engine bugs.

some of this concern time writing about an old bug, and huge paragraphs about it, could have been used to test current development code (like possession and leixperiment), or even creating things

Excuse me, did you actually read my post?   I also tested with updated engine and gamecode (see "UPDATE" section of that post), to find out only a part of those bugs has been fixed (wider file extension search for background music).

Also, if no-one keeps updated the wiki pages which "recap" DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Bugs]Bugs and DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Wishlist]Wishlist, how can people know what has been fixed and what not? And performing double tests (0.8.8 binaries and gamecode + latest nightly binaries and gamecode) seems to me the most correct way to keep those pages updated and tell apart "open" bugs and "already fixed" ones, although that requires time. Following changes on Github is not very easy.


By the way, I would actually like to test leiexperiment stuff, but what about a list somewhere to know what has to be tested (and how to enable it)?
Sorry, I did not notice Sago has already made Possession stuff [Sago, if you read this, in this diff you made a typo, you wrote "fint" instead of "find"]... I expected him to write something in the Possession thread, like "Guys, I did it. Please grab the updated nighly build and provide feedback."... PS: It turned out that the gametype was not "finished" yet, some features were still missing.


PS: When I realized that, after spending that time for testing, I will have to spend MORE time because it looks like using OpenAL changes a lot the way sounds are managed, my spirits went to the ground. At least I hoped someone appreciated my efforts...  

[Neon_Knight]

We do appreciate your efforts, Gig, even if we don't show it.

The thing is that we're already focused on OA3. We would like feedback on OA3 material. OA 0.8.8 won't be fixed, as it's final.

[Gig]

We do appreciate your efforts, Gig, even if we don't show it.

The thing is that we're already focused on OA3. We would like feedback on OA3 material. OA 0.8.8 won't be fixed, as it's final.

But if 0.8.8 bugs are not yet fixed in nightly engine and gamecode builds, then they ARE OA3 bugs, too. So that post IS feedback on OA3 material, too.

[Gig]

This is a continuation from previous post (to sum up, what has been already "fixed" from 0.8.8 to current nighlty builds is that Stereo sound effects are not played half speed anymore in SDL mode and that now the game also searches for .ogg extension if you specified a .wav background music in the map, and vice versa).

Done further tests with current engine nightly (2016-07-09) and gamecode nightly (2016-07-26), too. So, they do apply to OA3 current development stage, too.

- Specifying "filename.ogg" in target_speaker still causes the game to search for "filename.ogg.wav" and "filename.ogg.ogg", but NOT for filename.ogg. Bug affects both SDL and OpenAL modes.
- Stereo sound files (which in theory should not be used, but it's possible somone used them anyway) are played at FULL VOLUME even if you go far from them (in SDL mode, they actually fade out as you go away, like mono sounds do in both modes). Bug affects OpenAL mode only, NOT SDL mode.

- 32bit PCM .wav files are not supported in either SDL or OpenAL mode (you just hear noise if used as target_speaker), even in current nightly builds. Probably they were never intended to be used in this game, so I don't know if this can be considered a bug or not. I'm okay with just saying "32 bit pcm wav files are not supported" in documentation.
UPDATE: If you use them as background music, in OpenAL mode you just hear noise... while in SDL mode you cannot even load the map (it stays on "awaiting snapshot..." forever).

- Other small difference I noticed between DSL and OpenAL (yellow warnings): in SDL mode, if it cannot find a sound file for targe_speaker, there are warnings in console at map loading AND everytime the sound should have played. In OpenAL mode, only the warning at map loading applies. Probably, it's due to the same reason in OpenAL mode there is no the "warning: music is not 22k stereo" warning which appears in SDL mode.



By they way, if this thread is not the right place anymore to point out bugs which are in 0.8.8 and their state is unknown or "not fixed yet" in OA3 test stuff, what's the right place for them?

[fromhell]

32bit PCM .wav files are not supported

Why would they? Depth higher than 16 is only ever useful for production work and is never ever practical for any use within a game. It is a waste.

[Gig]

32bit PCM .wav files are not supported

Why would they? Depth higher than 16 is only ever useful for production work and is never ever practical for any use within a game. It is a waste.

Up to a couple of days ago, I did not even know they did exist. To make the tests, I modified a couple of files with Audacity, and at the moment of exporting to a .wav file, I saw it allowed me choose between 16 bit and 32 bit (it also looks like they did cut out the 8 bit format).
Not knowing them, I have no idea how much 32 bit wav files are used in real world. I can imagine not very much. And I agree with you that bigger audio files are impractical for a game.
As I told, for me it's okay to just say in documentation that they are not supported, and this is how I modified the wiki yesterday.