Tiberium Tutorial Lies

[Vinifera7]

I was perusing ModEnc when I came across a tutorial new link for creating the Tiberium damage effect in YR. I have tried doing this before and it didn't work properly, so I was surprised when I saw a tutorial for it. I thought "Maybe I just did something wrong," but after following the tutorial it yielded the same poor results. The twinkle animations only appear on a sparse few squares of ore, but the worst part is that even though the animation is not shown when the ore is removed, the particle that creates damage continues to spawn, damaging infantry despite the lack of ore in the cell.

My conclusion: This tutorial is a crock of shite.

[Nighthawk]

Well, what else do you suggest we do? There's no other way (that I know of) of generating Tiberium damage short of hacking the exe.

[DCoder]

The magic of Wiki is that anyone can edit stuff or discuss it. If it doesn't work for you (I personally haven't tested it, so I can't comment), feel free to add a note about it not working, or something like that.

By looking at it, it needs urgent cleanup.
I'm also adding {{NeedTesting}} to it, feel free to add that to other articles you feel need attention.

[Vinifera7]

Thanks for adding the Needs Testing banner. I just wanted to bring to attention that it really doesn't work properly.

[Renegade]

From what I gather from the description, there is 1 (one) problem you have with that tutorial - the damaging particle stays instead of being dissolved ('cause the appearence, rate, etc. of TWNK1 is totally independent from this tutorial). Labeling it "a crock of shite" because of this one issue is way over the top, imo.

In addition, you basically tell us it works just as it should, except for the not-dissolving part. So not only is the "Needs Testing" header not warranted because it works as coded, but you're actually reporting your experiences with this technique - so obviously you did test it. And if it was tested, it doesn't need testing anymore.

Since dissolving gas particles are most definately not impossible, I suppose this is merely a question of particle code, not general "wrongness" of the tutorial. It should be easy to fix. I'll remove the template and add a warning regarding the dissolving.

[Vinifera7]

No, that's not what I meant. I never said that the particle fails to dissolve, I said "...the particle that creates damage continues to spawn...". Even though the animation is invisible when there is no ore, the game still considers it to be there. Therefore, it continues to spawn particles even though it is invisible. The HideIfNoOre tag is really a cheap hack by WW, though it was never meant to be used in conjunction with particle spawning.

[Renegade]

despite the fact that I understood that tut to actually tell you to create invisible particles, would you be willing to share your code with us?

[DCoder]

As I understoof Vinifera's problem, he was saying that HideIfNoOre= only renders the anim invisible, but still plays it and consequently spawns those particles. I'm going to test it with a visible particle system to see if that is so.

Btw, it was my understanding that Needs Testing should be tested by more than one person, just in case.

[Vinifera7]

I agree. It should be tested my more than one person. My intention isn't to rain on everyone's parade but to inform them that this tutorial doesn't seem to hold water... and aparently I am feeling very metaphorical.

[DCoder]

Well, just tested with

Code:

[TWNK1]
LoopCount=-1
RandomLoopDelay=120,300
DetailLevel=2
HideIfNoOre=yes
Rate=450
SpawnsParticle=LargeGreySmoke
NumParticles=1

(only added the last two lines) and yes, the particles are still spawned repetitively even when the cell no longer contains ore/gems. Which does make the technique rather useless.

[Vinifera7]

Thanks for testing. I guess that page can be updated with these findings. If no else does it, I'll see if i can get around to it later.

[Renegade]

[...] the particles are still spawned repetitively even when the cell no longer contains ore/gems. Which does make the technique rather useless.

Then we'll modify the header to draw attention to the correct problem, but keep the tut (cleaned up). If that is the "only" problem, some people might still want to use it, and find a story-wise explanation for the staying damage.

In addition, if we delete that page, where would we warn users about the drawbacks?

Thanks for noticing, Vinifera.

[Vinifera7]

Right. It would be better to keep the page so that modders can become aware of these findings.

[Renegade]

The new page is located at http://www.modenc.renegadeprojects.com/R...7s_Revenge; please check whether I made any mistakes in transcribing and whether the Attention notice fits the problem. [[Tiberium]] will be used to talk about Tiberium in the future. (Why it ever ended up as the position of a TibDamage tutorial is beyond me.)

[Vinifera7]

Wonderful! Thanks! It looks pretty good to me. I'm glad you created it as a new page and put it in the tutorial section.