Increase the number of facings for SHP units

[Bug Importer]

it would be good if the shp units dont have just 8 directions but 16, well it may need a little more space but it would be extremely realistic if that can be done

[Renegade (renegade)]

I will tell you right away that it's rather improbable we'll do this.

Of course the ASM Gods might chime in and correct me, but I'm pretty sure the 8-directions-compass is way, way, WAY too deep-seated inside the game to change it.

Besides, let's be honest here - what would that achieve?
SHP units firing could aim a little "straighter" at their targets, if and only if they have an extended SHP - and that's about it.

Sorry, but so far, I'm not seeing the gain from even considering this, even on no priority.

[DCoder DCoder (dcoder1337)]

A lot of things are just graphical improvements.

I don't see why this would require modifying the compass, though. At the most primitive level, this involves changing a "(facing >> 13) & 7" to "(facing >> 12) & 15" or even "(facing >> 11) & 31" to reduce the facing to the appropriate range, and then the existing facing-specific unit shp draw code would do its magic. On top of that there's FLH to adjust and that's probably all there is?

[Renegade (renegade)]

Path finding in direction x.5?
Non-center positioning/crossing for non-infantry SHP units?
Hit decisions about upper/lower parts of diagonal adjacent cells?
Facing decisions about upper/lower parts of diagonal adjacent cells?

Because, let's be honest - a graphical improvement only makes sense if it actually works.
If we fix it up so a GI can face specifically at the lower part of an adjacent diagonal cell, and then it awkwardly fires at an impossible angle at the center of the cell, or at soldiers at a 45° angle to him, there's not much of an improvement there - you'll just see even more how simplistic the system is.

Yes, some things are just graphical improvements - but what's the point of a graphical change that implies possibilities that aren't there?
If you allow units to face at direction 4.5, but they can't actually shoot or move or really do anything in that direction, then you're confusing the viewer and generating visual incompatibility with the existing effects.

[DCoder DCoder (dcoder1337)]

How is a shp unit facing "4.5" different from a grizzly turret facing "4.5"? Remember that facings are still represented at 65k internally, this is just quantization into more useful units. They always could and still can fire at odd angles.

I'm not talking about any changes beyond drawing the shp at a more precise angle. If anything, that makes it more likely for him to be facing his enemies face to face, not less. Why would additional facings complicate pathfinding, when the unit still takes up the exact same amount of space?

[Renegade (renegade)]

Look, if you wanna try your hand at this, fine.
I think it's a waste of time, and I'm fully expecting weird issues and crushed hopes/feature requests out of this.

The beginning will probably be "can you make the number of steps customizable?", closely followed by "please make it so Anim= can have over 9000 facings as well, to match the SHP!" and "my projectile paths are weird".

And it would complicate path finding because you would have to go from "oh, I'll just go one cell upwards and one cell diagonal" to "alright, I'll go through the lower right corner of the next cell up, then cross the upper left corner of the cell top right from me, and then enter the target cell through the lower left corner" - unless you don't want to take the additional facings into account, which would lead us straight back to what I said - it being a purposeless graphics change that implies additional precision that's not there.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Huh, this will make one single SHP unit up to a minimum of 3MB. Thats alot. I dont understand how a 3D artist likes this. Pointless IMO.
But everyone got diffrence opinions.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

32 faces for SHP unit is something i really whould like to have, just as it been done for old (PreTS) cnc games.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

All it ever did in TD/RA (for units only) as far as I can remember is it made the rotation to a facing a bit smoother. Infantry never had 32 facings that I recall since they could only go in 8 directions and didn't turn slow enough to warrant the facings. SHP projectiles can already have 32 facings. I agree with Renegade that this is a waste of effort for little practical utility.

[SovietWarrior (sovietwarrior)]

Annoy. You are not a coder, how you can jude is it waste of effort or not? You are not a modeller, so how you can jude practical utility? Renegade had considered that this issue could have math problems, but DCoder asured us there won't be any.

Smooth rotation and proper\accurate facing to enemy is something I(and not only I) whould like to have. I am sure, nice visual effect as much important as a good math is.

[DCoder DCoder (dcoder1337)]

How about we all stop and wait until this gets implemented... maybe I'm right and nothing will go wrong, maybe Ren is right and it'll look bad.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

well, sorry if it would be hard to implement, but im sure it will look really great if implemented, i took the idea from the game american conquest, it uses 2d images for units, but it is so realistic that i didnt realized that it wasnt 3d i noticed that it was because it used more than 8 facings i dont know how much though

[Renegade (renegade)]

Well, D says it's easy. *shrugs*
Your argumentation is kind of flawed, though. The existence of additional facings itself will not improve anything.

This will only improve the visual appearance of the mod if and only if someone designs SHPs with more facings.

There was never a time when we had enough SHP creators in this community, infantry SHP creators were always a rarity, and their numbers have most certainly declined.

How many mods do you expect to make use of this feature for substantial amounts of their graphics?

[SovietWarrior (sovietwarrior)]

Well, of course making infantry is hard for most of SHP designers. But for armor, navy (or hopefuly, eventually, aircafts) this is not a big deal. You will need a single model (yours or the one of millions of freeware). Rotating animation is simple. Multi frame rendering is automatic. Convertion takes a bunch of seconds in XCC. SHP Builder have a script for a quick remap fixing. Even beginners could handle it.

[MT1337 (mt1337)]

In 3d changing the rendering to output more facings is quite easy, from my experiences, and I believe I'll be one who would use such a feature if this and 0000328 is also done. That feature which seems to have strong support could give this one more of a use as well, if they are made compatible.

[CCHyper (cchyper)]

This is very easily done actualy, though i never completed my code for it in Tiberian Sun. You will find the snippet you need in UnitClass::Draw_It(). The DTA project for TS uses my early byte hack to 32 facings working and it is indeed just a graphical enhancement, but there are not any visual bugs or problems with path finding etc.

[EagleEye (eagleeye)]

I was just about to mention your hack before I saw your post, Hyper. Good seeing you.

[EagleEye (eagleeye)]

Speaking of which, someone mentioned on the DTA forums that medics were broken from it. Either there's some weird bug you're going to have to fix, you there's some weird bug you're going to have to not make. ;P
http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26182

[Renegade (renegade)]

I'm setting this to invalid as I've converted it into a blueprint, which is the proper procedure for feature requests now. The blueprint is linked in the sidebar.

[Terra_Master (vgterra)]

why don't just allow this feature work only with vehicle such tank , ship and balloon? i think infantry unit work fine with their 8 direction, only vehicles that need to make them didn't look ugly.

[Graion Dilach (graiondilach)]

Firstly this bug is invalid so your comment won't even get read by the bug public.

Secondly the original request as SHP units mean SHP vehicletypes, the interpretation was wrong tho.

[mevitar (mevitar)]

16 and 32 shp units work now.