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Topic: Ur-Quan Masters HD Mod (Read 125049 times)
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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Some friendly advice and constructive criticism, to take or leave as you see fit:-
The Good:
* Graphics amazing, mustve taken a phenomenal amount of time and work.
* Some of the tweaks are very good
* Fonts for the most part are well-chosen and make a difference
* Everything looks a lot cleaner
* Rotating planets is a nice tweak
* Being able to see the type of planet from the solar system is a nice tweak
* Great improvements to galaxy map
The Bad:
* Unrefined (monolithic - the ~700MB one) installer - installs all source as well as additional unused dlls, some dlls not installed correctly (msvcr100, had to be renamed). About 100MB wasted space.
* Earthquakes virtually invisible now, particularly on grey planets.
* Lander text (what you see when a lander discovers something) difficult to read, almost indecipherable.
* Fullscreen mode doesn't actually change to the video mode selected, it fullscreens current screen mode (in my case 1024x600) and places the screen inside that (to the right on mine).
* Music remixes missing. You shouldn't be using the 3DO mixes, you should use the UQM remixes - they are higher quality, less abrasive than the originals and certainly HD by comparison.
* "currently selected" option on main menu difficult to see - not a lot of differential between selected and unselected option
* "selected" option in settings menu (from main screen menu) difficult to differentiate between selected and non-selected options.
* "+" and "-" buttons don't work on starmap, at least on my computer (maybe they work on the numpad?, my laptop doesn't have one of those).
I'm sure I'll find more stuff as time goes on. It's an amazing effort, though I wish it could've been integrated into the main distro as some 'quality control' stuff as above needs fixing. I guess the other thing I miss is that not having crappy lo-res graphics doesn't allow me to delude myself that this game is as good by comparison with other current games as I thought it was - bringing the graphical side of it into the 21st century makes me realise how many other aspects are lacking by comparison.
On the whole a great job.
Cool! Glad you like it. Thanks for the critique.
To go over some of the issues:
* The installer, well, that comes from lack of a Windows Programmer. I created the .exe installer. It was either that or a .ZIP file. I wasn't able to get the UQM installer to run  I never intended to be the guy to create the installer.
* Earthquakes: This is one of those things where it works just fine on my machine. Though I have really good contrast ratios and a high resolution. But others have complained, so it is an issue.
* Lander Text. God, it is awful isn't it?
* Missing Music. I have no idea why this is.I think there was a problem on my machine when downloading the code.
* The "currently selected" is the same selection as UQM. I'd like a change in the future too, but that required additional coding.
* + and - work fine for me. Anybody else having problems?
There's still a lot of work to make it work like a modern game but it requires quite a bit of extra programming.
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metamorphosis
Frungy champion
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Posts: 83
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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Cool! Glad you like it. Thanks for the critique. To go over some of the issues: * The installer, well, that comes from lack of a Windows Programmer. I created the .exe installer. It was either that or a .ZIP file. I wasn't able to get the UQM installer to run I never intended to be the guy to create the installer. * Earthquakes: This is one of those things where it works just fine on my machine. Though I have really good contrast ratios and a high resolution. But others have complained, so it is an issue. * Lander Text. God, it is awful isn't it? * Missing Music. I have no idea why this is.I think there was a problem on my machine when downloading the code. * The "currently selected" is the same selection as UQM. I'd like a change in the future too, but that required additional coding. * + and - work fine for me. Anybody else having problems? There's still a lot of work to make it work like a modern game but it requires quite a bit of extra programming.
I could help at some point, but not now unfortunately - got too much going on.
You're probably right about the 'currently selected' on the submenus in options, I think I noticed that with the non-HD too. That's pretty minor tho'
[UPDATE: Have tested on my main machine and can confirm "+" and "-" only work on numpad, not regular keyboard ie. beside numbers. Running XP on both main desktop machine and netbook. Also fullscreen doesn't work on main machine either - it doesn't actually go into fullscreen at all, stays in windowed mode. Never had problems with regular build.
Somewhat surprisingly, 1280x960 mode is larger than 1280 - my main machine's default res is 1280x1024, but the UQM screen in 1280x960 mode extends off both sides of the monitor.]
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« Last Edit: August 16, 2014, 05:35:25 am by metamorphosis »
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metamorphosis
Frungy champion
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Posts: 83
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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From memory only numpad + & - worked in regular non-HD urquan masters as well... but I'd have to load it up to double-check.
If that is the case, it is a bit of an oversight on the regular team's part.
I checked the planet landing thing - he's right, you do have to be unerringly precise - can't remember whether that was the case in the original or not.
Liked the 'leaving mineral globs behind when you can't pick it all up' thing - although in the original it became a bit of a 'meaningful choice' in the sense of gauging how much space you had left and how much you could fit in.
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« Last Edit: August 18, 2014, 08:58:46 am by metamorphosis »
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moguta
Zebranky food
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Posts: 4
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Wanna say thanks for all the beautiful work, too! It's awesome to play SC2 in a modern resolution, and I know oodles of effort had to go into this. 
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moguta
Zebranky food
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Posts: 4
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Was getting into planetary orbit a problem in the original game? I find with high engines & jets, I will easily fly right over a planet but I won't enter orbit because I didn't hit dead center. Haven't played non-HD UQM though.
Nope. In the original I never had a problem with that, more with the speed and low turning meaning that I aimed bad and was too slow in correcting... For zoom: Numpad +- were the only ones working in the original SC2.
Yeah, I have trouble with that too. Accursed Newtonian physics!
Anyone know what code files are involved with key bindings? Or with the star map? I doubt it'd be too much effort to allow non-numpad + and - keystrokes. Wouldn't be my first time programming. Laptops are a lot more popular now than ye old days of MS-DOS, so it makes sense to correct.
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Julie.chan
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 130
Sharing is good.
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There's no need to change the code. The key bindings are all stored in config files. Check your .uqm directory; I think the relevant one is called "keys.cfg", but I'm not sure.
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Schizoid
Zebranky food
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Gender: 
Posts: 35
aka SLY
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Link not working. Please upload somebody.
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dczanik
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 306
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MisterCat changed it. If you PM me your e-mail address I'll send you the file.
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metamorphosis
Frungy champion
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Posts: 83
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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Unfortunately most modern keyboards don't have numpad controls.
Found one small bug - possibly a hangover from non-HD UQM as well-
sometimes pressing enter on the starmap (when zoomed out) when directly over a solar system for some reason selects a nearby solar system instead. For example, try selecting Sol while zoomed out.
BTW, thought the double-circle in starmap for the 'how far you can travel while being able to travel back) was nice touch.
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CelticMinstrel
Enlightened
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Posts: 522
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Rather than "most modern keyboards", I'd say it's more like "most Apple keyboards and perhaps some non-Apple laptop keyboards". Though yes, smartphones and such also lack one.
Apple is even reverting to keyboards without a numpad on its desktop computers, though at least there it's a peripheral and can thus be substituted with an extended one (which Apple does still make).
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