Official forums for BZFlag.org

I did this map a while back, it uses no Version 2 elements, and never got around to releasing it. It took first place at the last map contest in the FFA category. Here's my description from back then (and a screenshot will be attached): This map was inspired by footage of the fighting in Fallujah - ...

I added one to the original message, and here are two more. They don't
really do it justice, because it's hard to see the contours as well as you do when in the map.

I'm attaching my first version two map, which I haven't yet named - let's say, "Ionian Paths". Main features: a Greek temple, highways that get you around quickly, Gaussian hills. It's generally intended to be simple, with an emphasis on interesting paths from place to place, rather than i...

Sometimes I seem to be able to get physics drivers to work readily, other times not at all. Below is a mapfile with one meshbox (that you gan drive through); I want it to fling me up and away. It doesn't - anyone have any idea why not? physics name jumpbox1 linear -10.0 0.0 20.0 end material name ju...

I can't seem to Roam in observer mode anymore, using the shift-, control-, or alt- arrow keys. Is this a known problem in the new version, or is my system screwed up in some locally bizarre manner? I also haven't been able to get Binoculars to work either, don't know if this is in any way a related ...

Background: for a map I'm close to posting I designed "highways", essentially two lanes with physics drivers that run in opposite directions. I have a little code snippet that lets me put these in between any two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) at a given height z; I compute the physics drive...

That's great - an enhancement that made it into the system before it was even mentioned!

It'd be great to have a semi-public repository (semi-public: everyone can read the objects, some checking on adding/changing objects), maybe browable via HTML/.jpeg snapshots. I'll volunteer to help set it up.

In the new map files, you can define a group of objects, and then place one or more instances of that group in various places. While I've had mixed success with this, it's a great idea. Now in looking over others' map files, I've noticed that some people use textures, and provide a URL where those t...

I expect I'll have the same problem building this binary as I did the original; does anyone have a Windows binary around? I did search this bboard, with no luck.

[PLEASE IGNORE THIS FOR THE MOMENT, I believe I've found it.]

When I run modeltool on the attached cat.obj, I get an output file, but all the faces are like: face vertices normals texcoords endface with no data. Is there a straightforward fix to this? (I did grab the source to modeltool, and tried to get it to build on my system, but the includes seemed to exp...

There is something of a wrinkle, though, in having this be the property of an object: the object can be quite big, and the teleport destination might be a function of where on the object you come in contact. Maybe it's a little redundant, but it seems that if touching an object can *kill* you, it ou...

It occurred to me when playing on a map today - how about a teleporter option for physics? When you touch an object, instead of dying or moving, you effectively end up somewhere else? Tdoesn't literally have to be a teleporter - perhaps you could just be relocated to another (x,y,z) position, with t...

'modeltool', at least the copy I've had for a bit, tells me "unknown file format" for my .3ds files.

I've grabbed 3ds2bzw.c, but it requires either GCC (which I'm trying to get installed now), or MS VC++ version 6. I stopped sending Microsoft money after VC++ version 5, so I can't use my normal native development environment; so my only alternative seems to be to install the GNU tools - not particu...

What is the rule as to what the order should be? I naively thought that the faces could be specified in any order; when I did these I did them in a counterclockwise direction. I just tried reversing the face order, and I got the same problem. Does the order of vertices in a face make a difference, a...

Just to make sure I understand things, I've constructed a small mesh by hand (included below); it's basically a pyramid, that is four vertices on the ground and one central one in the air. When I run bzfs on it and start driving around, it's there, but the face that I'm looking at is transparent - i...

That exception certainly makes sense - stealing the team flag can pretty much only be a good thing (unless it somehow becomes worth points to pick it up or return it to base). It seems a pretty clear-cut exception.

Every once and a while I'm on a server where teammates (often in rabbit hunt mode, so not close teammates) will use Thief to grab my flag. This seems antisocial in the extreme, and tempts me (so far not successfully) to blast their theiving butts with deliberate teamkilling shots - but so far I've t...

I'm currently struggling with them (meshes), but I don't think we need to change much with the game, server, or clients - perhaps make the learning curve less steep, but that's about it. If anything, I find the lack of even basic documentation to be a problem. For example, meshes have faces as subel...

I've tried to move back to the next most complex step, having the material available; it fails. Why? Here it is: Options -j -sa -st 3.5 -sw 1 -ms 10 -set _disableBots true -set _syncTime 1.0 -set _wingsJumpCount 10 end material name grass texture std_ground notexalpha end mesh inside 10 10 10 materi...

OK, I do feel like an idiot. I did have a definition of the grass material in
there, and excised it in a process of radical simplification for debugging.

I'm trying to write a little code fragment to write small meshes (which will be small hills). When bzfs sees the map file below, it tells me "unknown object parameter 'vertex' - skipping". I can't see why this is happening; I tried starting the (apparently implicit) vertex indexing in the ...

I agree, and I see no problem with putting playability ahead of realism, but I think that you're missing the point - this behavior is *new* with version 2.0, so even if you'd like to emphasize playability, you'd be doing so at the expense of everyone's expectations to date. I can see the vertical co...

I've noticed that if I intend to jump while driving off a roof, but actually hit the tab key while in the air, then let it go, what happens is this: after I've fallen for some distance and time, when I finally get to a horizontal surface, that jump happens. It's a deferred jump, and it's annoying - ...

I jumped the other day and fired a laser while jumping up, trying to nail a tank on a ledge. Much to my surprise, the laser beam angled up quite a bit, missing him. On the way down I fired again, and now the beam angled down into the ground. I can understand bullets taking on the vertical component ...