[MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

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daggerdude
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Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 2:22 pm

Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by daggerdude »

Hey, took another pass at shields. I think it's getting there, but i think i need to work on the materials of the kite shield and i need to work on the buckler a tad. the pose that they're in right now is "relaxed". It's easy enough to change the angles, or make transition sprites for things like pulling a shield to position.

Where the arm cuts off is where the sprite would sit as of now, but conceivably the arm can be extended down further if needed.
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DunnyOfPenwick
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by DunnyOfPenwick »

As a first-person game, I think you should see the arm little, if at all.

The later ES games (Skyrim, Oblivion) handled shields well, so they make a good starting point.

Ideally, the upper right corner of the shield should always be just visible in the lower left part of the screen if a shield is equipped. When blocking occurs, it can be temporarily shifted towards the center of the screen.

Also, if you don't show the arm/hand then you don't have to worry about what sort of armor (gloves) they are wearing. Sometimes less is more.

Personally, I think your efforts should be focused on just the rim of the shield, and getting the lighting correct. In a dark dungeon setting the interior portion of the shield should be very dark, if not completely black.

daggerdude
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Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 2:22 pm

Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by daggerdude »

DunnyOfPenwick wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:17 pm As a first-person game, I think you should see the arm little, if at all.

The later ES games (Skyrim, Oblivion) handled shields well, so they make a good starting point.

Ideally, the upper right corner of the shield should always be just visible in the lower left part of the screen if a shield is equipped. When blocking occurs, it can be temporarily shifted towards the center of the screen.

Also, if you don't show the arm/hand then you don't have to worry about what sort of armor (gloves) they are wearing. Sometimes less is more.

Personally, I think your efforts should be focused on just the rim of the shield, and getting the lighting correct. In a dark dungeon setting the interior portion of the shield should be very dark, if not completely black.
Personally i agree with just about everything you've said, except the almost black part. I do want to keep some texture and color; you can see how it's shaded currently in the game by equipping shields.

I was rather hoping the resting position would be added, and then active block would bring the shield up to an upright position, but i'm not going to go through all the trouble until a.) i get the shields 100% b.) if the creator really wants to add this stuff.

daggerdude
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Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 2:22 pm

Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by daggerdude »

Oh hey, i just noticed something: Physical Combat and Armor Overhaul changes the way shields work, and i do recall an autopatcher being used, but i wanted to be sure:
Ambidexterities shield blocking is overwritten or not functioning on the hold shield function (Buckler works fine) - attacks and damage are not blocked at all, but PCO does use it's formula to calculate damage. Is this intentional?

I did try isolating and swapping the load order with exactly 4 mods: realism, realism items, PCO, and AMBI, to putting PCO AFTER and not BEFORE Ambi and putting Ambi first things work as normal, but (as far as i know this is the only issue) the material override seems to no longer work for attacking creatures.

Note: using 1.42 of the PCO edited 8/4/2021, and your newest version of the mod. I did notice the shield module fix (1.30) seemed to patch things fine though. I don't know if any other features have been overwritten.

P.S, thanks for this mod, and merry christmas!

daggerdude
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by daggerdude »

Just wanted to bump this since it's been about 3 months since a response

l3lessed
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by l3lessed »

Still around, still plan on coming back to it.

My holidays were awful if I'm being honest. No family because my brother is going to trail for 6 years now for molesting family member and the family has abandoned me because I won't blindly support him through his endless delays and BS. In-laws sucked too, showed up and did nothing to help at all and required me to pay and take care of them. Then, wife was caught having yet another intimate something with others without giving me any heads up or discussion about it before hand, all in the middle of this, which feels even worse because it has happened before and all I asked last time was to be open and honest about it ahead of time so I didn't feel like shit if I randomly found something.

So, yeah, modding and games are not top of list right now. I am getting back into the swing of my life, despite having to work through some real heavy shit.

This week, I got back to working on the minimap mod. I'm really close to finishing optimization of the meshes and shaders for that mod. All meshes are combined down that came be, assigned a single texture, and assigned the same shader instance. This required also writing a custom shader to rotate the textures on the combined mesh itself because the combine object could not be rotated without screwing up the overlay position.

The optimizations have made noticeable performance increases, especially the larger the towns get. I just need to rewrite a number of functions for the new combined meshes, so as to allow all the previous features with them.

At that point, this mod is my focus again. I will take everything I have learned about proper texture and UI use, clean up this mod as it is not optimized well in this area, and finish the last few features.
My Daggerfall Mod Github: l3lessed DFU Mod Github

My Beth Mods: l3lessed Nexus Page

Daggerfall Unity mods: Combat Overhaul Mod

Enjoy the free work I'm doing? Consider lending your support.

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King of Worms
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by King of Worms »

Man, that RL stuff is hard. Also, switch your wife :evil:

daggerdude
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Joined: Sat May 23, 2015 2:22 pm

Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by daggerdude »

I'm so sorry to hear that man. I had to cut my family largely off because of toxic people and ruined christmases past, so i understand the burnout that can cause! I'm sorry about the struggles of marriage as well. I hope you find more peace and life balance in the future and work out some of the pains you're going through right now.

im sure it's safe to say we all appreciate everything you do here, thank you so much for working hard to bring life into an old game for nothing but a thank you. It can be really tough being a content creator. I'm more active on the doom forums, but i have made things and it's by no means easy, and it's hard to be able to devote your energy when you have so much going on.

Thanks for having the courage to share too, it makes it even more special that you're soldiering on and anyone who reads this should, and probably does, care. I know i do. might be a small consolation, but total strangers caring can certainly make one's day lighter thinking about it, even for a moment, I hope this does the same for you/

NefariousTortoise
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by NefariousTortoise »

Anyone else get a massive memory leak with this mod? I entered a dungeon and DFU memory usage shot up to 28 GB until it crashed. Removing this mod fixed it

Edit: seems the mod is incompatible with new version of DFU? I played with it before and don't recall having this problem. Did some more testing and any time I have a weapon drawn, memory usage increases by about 100mb per second until the game crashes. Only happens if I have a weapon drawn, the game functions normally otherwise.

l3lessed
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Re: [MOD]Ambidexterity Module (Shield Module Branch)

Post by l3lessed »

There probably is a memory leak.

The way I setup and load the shield textures and some other things are not well executed. I learned this after working on my minimap mod.

This will be worked on and updated in the near future.
My Daggerfall Mod Github: l3lessed DFU Mod Github

My Beth Mods: l3lessed Nexus Page

Daggerfall Unity mods: Combat Overhaul Mod

Enjoy the free work I'm doing? Consider lending your support.

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