idea; popot.org, mods and replays

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Norbert
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idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

Hi all, please give feedback to the following ideas.

What if all PoP1 mod packages at popot.org would be modified to use SDLPoP instead of PoP for DOS.
In essence, playing with SDLPoP should be no different from playing with PoP for DOS.
Using SDLPoP, however, would allow players to use SDLPoP features that would otherwise be unavailable.
For each mod currently at popot.org, SDLPoP could be modified to use the EXE modifications the DOS executable uses.
Any graphical changes will automatically work with SDLPoP.

One of the unique SDLPoP features is the ability to record playthroughs.
This recording is not to video files, but to a special file format.
These recordings are very small files that users can share with each other and then load with SDLPoP to see the replay in SDLPoP itself.
I could then modify the popot.org website to allow registered users to upload such record files.
Other users could then see who uploaded which recordings, download these and play them back using SDLPoP.
These recordings would be listed on the mods' pages.

If starwindz ever returns, the PoP1 Total Pack could also be modified to add a feature to download these replays.
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Norbert
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

This functionality has been added to popot.org.
See, for example, the mod page of 1 Level More.
The replays are on the right.

Important:
This functionality is currently in beta. This is the reason:
SDLPoP's replay file format will change in the near future.
When it changes, all old uploaded replays will be removed from popot.org.
In other words, currently this functionality (of both SDLPoP and of popot.org) should only be used for testing purposes.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by oitofelix »

Norbert wrote:This functionality has been added to popot.org.
Thanks for working on this! I'm late in replaying to this post, but I think it's a great idea.
Norbert wrote:The replays are on the right.
I see them on the left. (Still to the right of the vertical menu bar.)
Norbert wrote:SDLPoP's replay file format will change in the near future.
I would like to work with SDLPoP developers on a common specification, so we can devise a file format that works for MININIM as well. In principle, there is no point in having two competing standards.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

oitofelix wrote:
Norbert wrote:The replays are on the right.
I see them on the left. (Still to the right of the vertical menu bar.)
Hm... See the attached images. It doesn't look like that for you? If not, can you make a screenshot of what you see? Also, in case you have some web developer skills, maybe you could use Firebug or something similar to check why it's not displaying correctly. Or, maybe tell me your software, then I can try to replicate the problem. Thanks.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by oitofelix »

Norbert wrote:It doesn't look like that for you? If not, can you make a screenshot of what you see?
popot.png
Norbert wrote:Or, maybe tell me your software, then I can try to replicate the problem.
I'm using Firefox ESR 45.4.0 on Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 (Jessie).
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by David »

On my system it looks similar to what oitofelix posted.
I'm using Mozilla Firefox 50.1.0 on Windows XP.

However, if I zoom out so much that the inner (*) scrollbar disappears then it appears correctly...
Until I zoom in again and the scrollbar appears again.

(*) And there is an outer scrollbar on the right edge of the window, even in full screen, on every PoPOT page.
In full screen mode (resolution: 1280×800) it can scroll only 1 pixel, though...
window.innerHeight == 799 then. Because the top row has a one-pixel black stripe for the collapsed toolbar.


About the replays itself:
I tried to play this example replay in SDLPoP, by passing the filename in the command line.
But it crashes after the "Loading..."!
It might be the accented letter in the folder's name...
If I run it from another folder, then there is no crash, but the replay won't play either.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Falcury »

David wrote:About the replays itself:
I tried to play this example replay in SDLPoP, by passing the filename in the command line.
But it crashes after the "Loading..."!
It might be the accented letter in the folder's name...
If I run it from another folder, then there is no crash, but the replay won't play either.
I just tried it now and it crashes for me as well...
My fear is that maybe the replay format is unstable between commits where new options are added in this procedure:
https://github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP/blob/ma ... ions.c#L66
It should be OK if new stuff is appended at the end there, but I think I also added (dangerous) insertions in the middle, here:
https://github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP/blob/ma ... ons.c#L106
That would mess up everything below that point... If that's indeed the cause of the crashing, it's certainly my fault because I should have known better. :| Sorry about that.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by David »

I fixed the crash: https://github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP/commit/ ... 4320c60417
But then I get this error: Tried to load cutscene for level 16191, not in 0..15
(The "level number" in hex: 16191 = 0x3F3F = '??')
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

Norbert wrote:This functionality has been added to popot.org.
See, for example, the mod page of 1 Level More.
The replays are on the right.

Important:
This functionality is currently in beta. This is the reason:
SDLPoP's replay file format will change in the near future.
When it changes, all old uploaded replays will be removed from popot.org.
In other words, currently this functionality (of both SDLPoP and of popot.org) should only be used for testing purposes.
The functionality is now officially released.
It is no longer in beta.
All old replays that were on the website have been removed, to make a fresh start.
If you run into problems, let me know.
I will make frequent backups of uploaded files.

One known issue is that uploading a replay right after another does not work.
If you want to upload multiple replays, please reload the page before submitting again.
Of course this is something I will eventually look into.

Note that this will not work properly with SDLPoP version 1.16.
If you want to use SDLPoP, either wait for 1.17 or compile from GitHub.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by oitofelix »

Norbert wrote:The functionality is now officially released.
It is no longer in beta.
Congratulations! (and thank you)

MININIM's official replay chain for the standard legacy level set has been uploaded.

I really liked the 16x16 icon you made for MININIM. Quite distinctive! :) I hope you don't mind I use it officially. ;)
replay help page wrote:To start and stop recording, press Alt+F7 in-game.
To view replays, press F7.
Replays (.mrp files) are saved in the directory you specify.

To validate replays, use:
mininim --validate-replay-chain=NONE --time-frequency=0 --rendering=NONE <file(s)>
There are a few things I want to point out/suggest:
  • Option --validate-replay-chain is NONE (and always will be) by default. So you may want to omit it.
  • The sentence "To validate replays, use:" is somewhat confusing (specially in the presence of a value of NONE for the aforementioned option). The sentence "To check replays for validity, use:", or something else for that effect, is closer to the real meaning.
  • Maybe point out that one can stop replay playback pressing F7 as well.
  • Maybe point out that you can select multiple replays to playback at once.
Last edited by oitofelix on January 9th, 2017, 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

oitofelix wrote:I hope you don't mind I use it officially. ;)
Sure, fine.
oitofelix wrote:There are a few things I want to point out/suggest:
I've made the modifications you suggested.
If it still requires some additional fine-tuning, feel free to private message me.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

David wrote:And there is an outer scrollbar on the right edge of the window, even in full screen, on every PoPOT page.
This should now be fixed.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by David »

Norbert wrote:
David wrote:And there is an outer scrollbar on the right edge of the window, even in full screen, on every PoPOT page.
This should now be fixed.
Thanks!

However, the other bug is still there:
David wrote: On my system it looks similar to what oitofelix posted.
However, if I zoom out so much that the inner scrollbar disappears then it appears correctly...
Until I zoom in again and the scrollbar appears again.
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Re: idea; popot.org, mods and replays

Post by Norbert »

David wrote:However, the other bug is still there:
David wrote: On my system it looks similar to what oitofelix posted.
However, if I zoom out so much that the inner scrollbar disappears then it appears correctly...
Until I zoom in again and the scrollbar appears again.
Also fixed.
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