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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Engine Limitation Graphical Anomalies

The island models themselves weren't moved, just their positions on the World Map. I only made significant changes to Nevis and added the Cartagena model, so if anything, they are more likely to have problems than other islands.
 
morgan terror said:
(Seen in build 14 beta 3.4)

I'm not 100% sure if it's to blame on martinique, but it seems consistent so far. What i'm seeing is this:

View attachment 24410

It's a grid of lines that all seem to meet in a multitude of points around the island. They're not polygons. They seem more like routes between waypoints or something, placed over the sea. They're only visible when looking through a ship model (any model).
Click to expand...

You guys remember this one? Turns out, it's toggled by pressing o.
 
morgan terror said:
You guys remember this one? Turns out, it's toggled by pressing o.
Click to expand...
The letter "O", the Numpad Zero or the normal Zero?
Now that you mention it, I think it is "Numpad Zero" and I saw it occasionally while toggling Godmode.
Strange thing: I use that toggle quite often, but that behaviour did not seem to happen every time.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
The letter "O", the Numpad Zero or the normal Zero?
Now that you mention it, I think it is "Numpad Zero" and I saw it occasionally while toggling Godmode.
Strange thing: I use that toggle quite often, but that behaviour did not seem to happen every time.
Click to expand...

Nope, letter o, which i believe is meant to disable directsail updates. It's possible that someone confused the letter for a zero in code and accidentally bound the showing of that grid to the letter o.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
The regular ZERO toggles DirectSail. "KEY_O" is the "NPC Info Toggle" ashore and should do nothing at sea.
Click to expand...

I've immediately clarified the difference in the default key assignments file. But as for the letter o, that's what causes the graphical weirdness for me. :shrug
 
You can mark that in the file then as well.
It seems to just be a wire frame of the island.
 
noticed this in 3.1 (and will run 3.4 and 4 tests later, but i think they do the same), black tears in the sea, nearly always in the middle-distance section of the sea, very common. I then spent hours sailing around in Beta 1 Patch 7 and did not see any at all, the sea did look different in this older version too (less stuff going on in the currents?) - see attatched screenshot.

Also it is not just XP points that come very quick in direct sailing, but skill specific experience (on my direct sail to Jamaica (not there yet, i might be lost!) i'm now skill level 8 in sailing (game start was 1 or 2)).

Thoughts on the GA bug. Might it be related to the sailor animations for when they walk around the ship and rigging? I wondered this as i noticed the different colours you get might relate to the colours of the clothes/chars of these sailors. I got brown/white/black with one set of sailors that had that colour, and red/tan/black when i had just the blue shirt/red trouser ones.

Going to keep an eye on this just in case this may be the route of the issue. When did we add these animations to the external view of the ships? Did we always have them in PotC?
 

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Black Bart said:
Thoughts on the GA bug. Might it be related to the sailor animations for when they walk around the ship and rigging? I wondered this as i noticed the different colours you get might relate to the colours of the clothes/chars of these sailors. I got brown/white/black with one set of sailors that had that colour, and red/tan/black when i had just the blue shirt/red trouser ones.
Click to expand...
I've seen a few times where the GA was DEFINITELY flag-related, because there was a row of flags stretching to the horizon.
Other people reported seeing that occasionally as well. It also started pretty much around the time the Different Flags mod was added.

Black Bart said:
Going to keep an eye on this just in case this may be the route of the issue. When did we add these animations to the external view of the ships? Did we always have them in PotC?
Click to expand...
You mean "since when did we have crew on ship decks"? The unmodded game had them.
We do have different ones now though.
 
And they climbed the rigging in the third person camera mode? I also noticed you have two different versions of the GA bug, one that happens just to the player ship (with no other ships around - deep at sea away from land etc) and one that relates to when other ships are around and you get battle reports in the log (like 'The Medusa lost a mast' etc).

Just this time when i got the first instance of the GA bug, the very first time i noticed the sailors that were climbing the rigging were the type wearing black trousers, white sleeves and a brown waistcoat, and those were the exact colours of the GA bug that decided to do it's thing (draw stuff all over the screen coming from/going to the center mast of the ship about half way up, close to where the rigging joins the mast).

The second time i was looking for it after that first event, i noticed i had different colours to the GA event, red and tan with some black, and a quick check on my sailors on deck showed i had the ones with blue shirts, and red trousers (tan faces).

Neither GA event was triggered at the time any of them climbed the rigging, but none of the colours involved were close to my flag being used. Anyway just a hunch. Do we have a way to switch them off in the 3D view (while at sea in the third person camera perspective, as this is where the GA thing happens, don't think i've had it in first person mode on deck for example). Or a way to stick with just the default PotC models for these crew? A shot in the dark, but if there is a link here it might be worth chasing?

I've never had anything other than triangular shapes (starting in the centre mast outwards to the edges of the screen) with colours for the GA thing, nothing distinctive like a specific flag etc.
 
Black Bart said:
And they climbed the rigging in the third person camera mode?
Click to expand...
Yes, they did. The only difference between unmodded and modded game is that the crew was hidden in 1st person mode in the stock game.

Differences in colours can be explained by the GA using other nation's flags too, even if there aren't ships of that nation around.
I know for certain that happens, because all flags are inside the same texture file.

It should be possible to disable deck crew altogether somewhere. PROGRAM\SEA_AI\AICamera.c or something like that?
Writing from memory and I cannot remember the exact spot.
 
ok will put that to one side as it is really just a very remote possibility. BTW if you do get the GA event AND it is not due to other ships fighting in your area you CAN get rid of it by using the 'o' key (letter O not zero), press it twice (on/off). It's worked every time so far.

It is a bit hit and miss IF other ships are the main cause of GA, it can help, but it does come back.
 
Black Bart said:
ok will put that to one side as it is really just a very remote possibility.
Click to expand...
I think it is this code in PROGRAM\SEA_AI\AICameras.c that enables/disables the visible crew:
Code: 
  switch (SeaCameras.Camera)
   {
     case "SeaFreeCamera":
       SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera";
       Crosshair.OutsideCamera = true;
       PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 0;
       bSwitch = true;
     break;
     case "SeaShipCamera":
       if (!LAi_IsDead(&Characters[GetMainCharacterIndex()]))
       {
         SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaDeckCamera";
// KK -->
         if (GetCaracterShipCannonsType(GetMainCharacter()) != CANNON_TYPE_NONECANNON)
           Crosshair.OutsideCamera = false;
         else
           Crosshair.OutsideCamera = true;
// <-- KK
         PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 0; //Keemo
         bSwitch = true;
       }
     break;
     case "SeaDeckCamera":
       switch (GetTargetPlatform())
       {
         case "xbox": SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera"; break;
         case "pc":
           if(!FREE_CAMERA)   SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera";
           else         SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaFreeCamera";
         break;
       }
       Crosshair.OutsideCamera = true;
       PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 0;
       bSwitch = true;
     break;
   }

This is the same section from the unmodded game:
Code: 
  switch (SeaCameras.Camera)
   {
     case "SeaFreeCamera":
       SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera";
       Crosshair.OutsideCamera = true;
       PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 0;
       bSwitch = true;
     break;
     case "SeaShipCamera":
       if (!LAi_IsDead(&Characters[GetMainCharacterIndex()]))
       {
         SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaDeckCamera";
         Crosshair.OutsideCamera = false;
         PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 1;
         bSwitch = true;
       }
     break;
     case "SeaDeckCamera":
       switch (GetTargetPlatform())
       {
         case "xbox": SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera"; break;   //
         case "pc": SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaShipCamera"; break;     // Debug : SeaFreeCamera, release : SeaShipCamera
         //case "pc": SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaFreeCamera"; break;     // Debug : SeaFreeCamera, release : SeaShipCamera
       }
       //SeaCameras.Camera = "SeaFreeCamera"; // SeaShipCamera
       Crosshair.OutsideCamera = true;
       PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 0;
       bSwitch = true;
     break;
   }

It must be related to "PeopleOnShip.IsOnDeck = 1;"
 
Good spot, so 1 is an 'off' switch here. Ok i tested setting all the '0' values (three instances to be sure) to '1' and reloaded my at sea save, used F11 just in case and after a transition from 3rd person external ship view to deck all the 'crew' have gone. Swithcing back to the external ships view also showed all the crew gone. So i will sail around a bunch like this and report any GA i find :)
 
Just a quick update here (as i did the changes in both Beta 4 and Beta 3.1) but my attempt to see IF the long standing GA bug might be related to those animated crew figures in the 3D sailing mode (and ships deck mode) has finished, and as Pieter rightly said, it is not related. So yes it seems pretty certain the GA bug is related to our flags, as originally thought.
 
Black Bart said:
Just a quick update here (as i did the changes in both Beta 4 and Beta 3.1) but my attempt to see IF the long standing GA bug might be related to those animated crew figures in the 3D sailing mode (and ships deck mode) has finished, and as Pieter rightly said, it is not related. So yes it seems pretty certain the GA bug is related to our flags, as originally thought.
Click to expand...
Thanks for trying and confirming. At least now we know for sure. :doff
 
Nenketsu said:
I've played PotC: New Horizons on and off throughout the years on different PCs, but have always had one persistent issue. I'm sure it's been reported before, although I'm not certain of my abilities to find whether or not a fix has been supplied. I've ran a couple quick searches using the keywords graphic & glitch, but have turned up empty handed.

The Issue: Graphical issues when sailing in third and first person at sea. These glitches start and stop seemingly randomly and persist until I exit from the sailing mode. I'll post a screenshot or two and my log files to supplement my cause.

Relevant PC specs: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3500 MHz, x2 SLI Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 4GB, 8GB G.SKILL RAM @ 1800 MHz

As I said, this issue has happened on multiple PCs, even on laptops, as such I don't believe it is attributed to my SLI setup.

Thank you for your time.

View attachment 15920 View attachment 15926
Click to expand...

It's probably a bug in the engine and it forgets to set back the old state changes. For example, forgets to set the right alpha blending after a state change and then you would see the flags and masts on your ship "colliding" with one another, creating unbearable graphical glitches. This can't be easily solved btw without some serious debugging.
 
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