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Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 03:28
by illusionist
CA 8405 Stable
Often in
both SD and (EDIT: I can no longer reproduce this behavior consistently in SD) SL, making a cloaked unit or a radar jamming tower causes the unit to turn completely transparent; I can't see the unit(s) until I select them or zoom out and see its unit icon. Also, the glitch occurs from game start to end and hasn't ever fixed itself mid-game. I can't figure out how to consistently create this behavior, but it happens more often than not. Searches on the forums yields the following (in the XTA forum though):
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... le#p450598Deadnight Warrior wrote:Spring only makes a unit semitransparent when cloaked. The LUPS gadget makes the unit cloak in the team colour and it looks as if the model was made of coloured glass.
The downside of the gadget is that it can sometimes make the unit completly invisible when cloaking after being decloaked. That happens to mines often.
Anyone else experience this behavior or have any insight on how to resolve this? I've considered widgets, but since it appears to happen sporadically without any widgets failing, I can't pinpoint the source.
-illusionist
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 03:36
by aegis
what's your video card/driver version?
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 03:47
by illusionist
NVIDIA 8400M GS
I'm nearly 100% sure it's not hardware related as the glitch occurs at game start with little to no load on the system (100+ FPS).
Note: Just tested again, not working in SL, but working in SD.
-illusionist
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 16:17
by oksnoop2
I too am having this problem in CA.
ATI radion 3400 mobility series/ CCC uh i'll have to get back to you on the version number.
Problem not found in XTA for me.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 16:53
by Licho
Same problem here with some driver versions for ATI. Latest seem tow rok +- ok.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 01 Oct 2010, 16:54
by SirMaverick
Never had that problem with GeForce 9800 GT.
illusionist wrote:Note: Just tested again, not working in SL, but working in SD.
Please post your spring config (springsettings.cfg) and each script.txt so we can reproduce that.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 02 Oct 2010, 17:43
by illusionist
SirMaverick wrote:Please post your spring config (springsettings.cfg)
Shouldn't the same springsettings.cfg be used for SD and SL?
SirMaverick wrote:...each script.txt so we can reproduce that.
I assume you mean script.txt and _script.txt found in Spring installation folder?
What I think is that SD is turning on some widget that provides some functionality linked with cloaking.
-illusionist
Attached below are the files after briefly playing a bot in SL with CA (cloaking turning self invisible still occurs):
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 02 Oct 2010, 18:22
by Saktoth
The lups effect turns off the engine cloaking effect. If you lose the lups effect, the unit becomes invisible
IMO we should just reneable the engine cloaking effect as well as the lups effect. I remember it was reenabled by mistake some time ago and it looked better.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 02 Oct 2010, 21:52
by SirMaverick
illusionist wrote:SirMaverick wrote:Please post your spring config (springsettings.cfg)
Shouldn't the same springsettings.cfg be used for SD and SL?
Yes.
SirMaverick wrote:...each script.txt so we can reproduce that.
I assume you mean script.txt and _script.txt found in Spring installation folder?[/quote]
_script.txt is just a file created by the engine, ignore that.
I'm interested in script.txt after you started SL/SD.
Can't trigger the bug on GeForce 9800 GT with your files.
What I think is that SD is turning on some widget that provides some functionality linked with cloaking.
I'm not aware, that lobbies change widget settings.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 03 Oct 2010, 09:31
by illusionist
Saktoth wrote:The lups effect turns off the engine cloaking effect. If you lose the lups effect, the unit becomes invisible
IMO we should just reneable the engine cloaking effect as well as the lups effect. I remember it was reenabled by mistake some time ago and it looked better.
How can I view/control/edit the lups effect manually so I can make confirm it's on for a game in SL?
Along the way, I found something interesting:
1. Start
2. Cloak (turns com invisible)
3. Enable godmode
4. /spectator
5. Your cloaked com (and all cloaked units while spectating) are now visible (the normal cloaked colored glass effect)
Upon spectating, Spring automatically turns off the following widgets for me:
Blast Radius
Ghost Site
Defense Range
Selection Send
Unit News
Unit Marker
However, turning off these manually at game start did nothing for the cloaking...so, it's probably not related to these widgets...I think...(unless certain changes to widgets don't update immediately?)
-illusionist
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 03 Oct 2010, 14:38
by luckywaldo7
You could try playing around with the lups.cfg file in your spring folder, thats where you can control some lups settings.
Actually you can even disable unit cloaker right from it.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 08:56
by illusionist
luckywaldo7 wrote:Actually you can even disable unit cloaker right from it.
I've removed some comments from the lups.cfg to make it look like the following:
Code: Select all
//==Deactivate Specific Classes==
DisableFX= {
// ShockWave = true,
UnitCloaker = true,
// UnitJitter = true,
}
Result: On cloaking, the unit becomes translucent briefly before turning completely invisible. So something is still wrong.
Uncommenting out ==Deactivate Specific Classes== obviously crashed a bunch of things, but hey, cloaking works!...But it's not the pretty stuff in SD (colored glass effect); it's just translucent as mentioned. Also, on decloaking, the unit turns completely invisible for a second before becoming uncloaked.
I wonder if this is a major problem since it seems this is the first post about this issue... I did upgrade my drivers to the latest hoping to fix the issue as Licho mentioned above, but it did nothing for cloaking...leading me to think that either SD or SL is modifying something... I just can't find what it is and how to prevent it.
-illusionist
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 09:35
by Google_Frog
I suspect uncommenting ==Deactivate Specific Classes== causes the config to contain invalid syntax and crashing lups, which fixes your problem.
Can you see any other lups effects?
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 12:10
by illusionist
Google_Frog wrote:Can you see any other lups effects?
After searching around both forums and
http://trac.caspring.org/, I'm unable to find a clear definition of lups besides the fact that is some sort of widget based particle system. Because the definition is unclear, I'm not sure what effects it is responsible for.
I do know the following effects in CA are active for all games regardless of cloaking working or not:
- Laser particles splashing when lasering
- Yellow shockwave on large explosions
- Nuke like explosion for T2 fus etc
- Units blowing up into many little bits
- Fire/Flamethrower (though I think a Fire widget is responsible for that)
Not sure if the above effects are due to lups or the Spring engine itself.
-illusionist
<side note:> Speaking of particle effects, is snowfall or rain available in CA?
Also, I've revised my initial post to exclude SD in this issue, as I am no longer able to consistently reproduce the problem in SD </side note>
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 12:26
by Google_Frog
Do you see distortion effects from some explosions (for example outlaw weapon) and on aircraft exhausts?
Snowfall and rain is available in CA.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 12:31
by illusionist
Google_Frog wrote:Do you see distortion effects from some explosions (for example outlaw weapon) and on aircraft exhausts?
Yes, distortion effects are present.
Google_Frog wrote:Snowfall and rain is available in CA.
Are these map-specific or is there a setting/widget I need to turn on? Don't remember seeing snowfall on some snow map (Nuclear Winter? or something)
I remember reading somewhere that SD turns off some widgets; perhaps something is on in SL that should be off?
-illusionist
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 13:55
by Google_Frog
Snow and rain is automatic for some maps. So these effects are in CA in the sense that CA does not block them.
Also you can include external widgets which provide snow, rain or whatever in any map you play.
So for the cloaking bug if your fix seems to work keep it, though for future reference it would be nice to know how it works.
Re: Cloaking Turns Units Completely Transparent...Even to Self
Posted: 05 Oct 2010, 14:15
by illusionist
@Google_Frog: Do units cloak properly (glass colored effect) on your system in Spring Lobby? If so, perhaps I'll try a clean install.
-illusionist