Cool things that should be in Marathon
Justin M. Tremblay
effect on the environment, such as rockets blowing holes in doors, bullet
holes in walls, scorched walls from flame thrower...
Also, I want lasers and phasers and other cool energy weapons...the Zeus
fusion thing is OK, but a rifle version would be better. Also, how about
blades and thrown weapons?
Joakim Skog
: One cool thing I'd like to see would be to have your weapons have an
I would also like to see some improvments regarding the playback of recorded
movies. Why shouldn't you be able to stop, fastforward, rewind, step
frame-by-frame and so on, as you can with any VCR?
I would also be nice being able to watch the map during playback, while running
through a maze can get the most experienced player to get lost.
Matt Burch
>Justin M. Tremblay (Justin_...@voyager.umeres.maine.edu) wrote:
>: One cool thing I'd like to see would be to have your weapons have an
>: effect on the environment, such as rockets blowing holes in doors, bullet
>: holes in walls, scorched walls from flame thrower...
>: Also, I want lasers and phasers and other cool energy weapons...the Zeus
>: fusion thing is OK, but a rifle version would be better. Also, how about
>: blades and thrown weapons?
>I would also like to see some improvments regarding the playback of recorded
>movies. Why shouldn't you be able to stop, fastforward, rewind, step
>frame-by-frame and so on, as you can with any VCR?
I discovered today (at least I think it's a discovery - I don't remember it
being in the readme file) that you can use the bracket ( '[' and ']' )
keys to alter the playback speed. Left for slower, right for faster. You can
ever pause it this way, but you can't rewind. Bummer.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Burch | There are very few problems that can't be solved
mbu...@ksu.ksu.edu | with the suitable application of photon torpedoes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Bromwich
wrote:
During recording playback, use the [ and ] keys to slow and quicken the
pace, this works for me. Nothing beats watching the bullets penetrate
your foe in slow motion, or fast forwarding through the boring parts...
Kenny Kant
a modem. I mean this is the main reason why I was going to buy the
game in the first place.
Kenny
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*!Y E S!*
I Love My Commodore Computer!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Jared Bingham
> >movies. Why shouldn't you be able to stop, fastforward, rewind, step
> >frame-by-frame and so on, as you can with any VCR?
>
view other than that of any of the available players. While playing back a
film, one should be able to move around using the normal movement
controls, as an invisible, nonentity "observer." That way you could watch
you and your opponent kill each other from an exterior view, and see the
gut piles fly across the room from any angle you wanted.
Rewind would be nice, too: "Doh! I wanted to see that kill from the
victim's eyes! Oh well, play the whole film againŠ"
--
Jared Bingham
University of Utah School of Medicine
jared....@m.cc.utah.edu
Robert A. Decker
103t_e...@west.cscwc.pima.edu
> In article <jared.bingham-0512941925570001@mac64_55.med.utah.edu>,
> jared....@m.cc.utah.edu (Jared Bingham) wrote:
>
>> I've often wanted to watch a cool scene in a network film from a point of
>> view other than that of any of the available players. While playing back a
>> film, one should be able to move around using the normal movement
>> controls, as an invisible, nonentity "observer." That way you could watch
>> you and your opponent kill each other from an exterior view, and see the
>> gut piles fly across the room from any angle you wanted.
>
> perspective.
> Has anybody done any research on the savefilms yet? It can't be saving
> every frame.
I have no idea of the format of the film. Does it work without QT installed?
BTW, there are four resources of type 'film' in the Marathon Demo app. Anyone
tried creating a resource that is simply the contents of a recorded movie and
replacing the equivalent resource (128 = Level 1, I suspect)?
It might be amusing to have your own favorite film as the rolling demo...
Lawson
Paul Philion
: In article <jrr7-08129...@j302603012.resnet.cornell.edu>, jr...@cornell.edu (Jonathan Rynd) writes:
: > In article <jared.bingham-0512941925570001@mac64_55.med.utah.edu>,
: > jared....@m.cc.utah.edu (Jared Bingham) wrote:
: >
: > perspective.
: > Has anybody done any research on the savefilms yet? It can't be saving
: > every frame.
: I have no idea of the format of the film. Does it work without QT installed?
Well, the movies are so small that I can only assume that thay contain
the vector information of the movments of the players and the aliens.
(The level is, of course, static.) It's time synched somehow, but I
assume that the same mechanism is used in the game to keep network play
synched.
I assume what happened is that a clever programmer at Bungie realized
he (she? it? let's all be politically correct) could just dump the event
timeline to a file and replay through the engine and, voila, a movie.
It was probably put together some Staturday night after a battle.
- Paul
------------------------------------------------------------------------
phi...@bnr.ca | I'll be right back | Paul Philion | tel:404.246.2888
| as soon as I crack | OPC GUI Guru | fax:404.246.2395
"I said what?" | the one that got away | BNR Atlanta | esn: 6.299.2888
Matthew E Centurion
should.. by 103t_e...@west.cscwc.
>
> BTW, there are four resources of type 'film' in the Marathon Demo app. Anyone
> tried creating a resource that is simply the contents of a recorded movie and
> replacing the equivalent resource (128 = Level 1, I suspect)?
>
>
> It might be amusing to have your own favorite film as the rolling demo...
>
I think the reason it is so small is because it ONLY captures vector
information about players.. They could have gone a step further and
recorded the random seed (that is the number from which all random
actions continue.. if you play a game that says it randomizes moves but
you start with the same random seed.. then the moves will always be the
same from game to game.. that is why programmers set the random seed at
the start of each game to the numer of 6oths of a second that elapsed
since the Mac has been turned on.. pretty big number and hard to get it
the same often) as part of the file.. so the aliens would all do the
same things.. this could explain why you couldn't skip to any point in
time, reverse, etc.. because then the actions of the aliens would be
messed up..
Anybody with real info?
Matt
d:)
+------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| Matthew E. Centurion (Mashoe) #
##########################################################################
| mc...@andrew.cmu.edu # | mas...@cmu.edu #
##########################---------------------------#####################
| Box 4854 (412) 862 - 2312 #
| 5115 Margaret Morrison #
| Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3827 #
###################################################
Chacon, Octavious A
humans when they make their first attack against the Marathon.
Just wandering in some of the screen shots I have seen it appears you travel
down to the planet, can anyone confirm this?
-OctAVious
D. Earl
jr...@cornell.edu (Jonathan Rynd) wrote:
> Has anybody done any research on the savefilms yet? It can't be saving
> every frame.
It saves your keystrokes, and where you were and what you did. It
basically records the instructions to reply a game exactly the same as the
one you played.
--
-D. Earl
de...@picosof.com
Jeff Medcalf
I have not decoded the film format, but I have some observations:
1) The files are quite small. Usually 32K (the minimum on my drive)
and never in my case more than 64K.
2) The film shows all head movements, alien/compiler actions and weapon
impacts. It does not seem to adjust lightness, etc. to current
preference settings. (I know that this point is trivial, but it should
be mentioned for completeness.)
Hypothesis:
The Marathon film file begins with the physics settings. It records
each *action* of the human player and of *visible* aliens. The playback
mechanism applies the physics model to determine where shots land, for
instance, and when aliens die (since the shots will always be fired from
the same orientation and weapon, and since the aliens will always be in
the same place, the results will always match). This is why the files
are so small in comparison to, say, Chuck Yeager's flight simulator,
which uses QuickTime.
Of course, I could be totally wrong :-)
--
--
je...@metronet.com Jeff Medcalf
"They can have my Mac when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
-Jan Bordeleau
Tian Fung Lim
by Jeff Med...@fohnix.metr
> each *action* of the human player and of *visible* aliens. The playback
> mechanism applies the physics model to determine where shots land, for
> instance, and when aliens die (since the shots will always be fired from
> the same orientation and weapon, and since the aliens will always be in
> the same place, the results will always match). This is why the files
> are so small in comparison to, say, Chuck Yeager's flight simulator,
> which uses QuickTime.
>
does the movements (and of course, gets nowhere because his surroundings
don't correspond to his movements), but still gets wiped out by monsters
who act like they shuold and come after him. what does this mean?
since the aliens come after the player, and not where the player "should
be" (at the saved game position), the alien movements are not recorded
in an obvious fashion, and may be "supplanted" with computer generated
ones - ? I say that since if they were recorded, either the nasties
would (a) go after where I went during the actual game and attack some
phantom player (b) move in a similar way (getting blocked by walls it
didn't expect there) and therefore get stuck someplace, attacking a
phantom player.
whatever...
-----------------------------------------------. .. .. __o
Tian Lim Math/CS . . ._ \<,
tl...@andrew.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon University. ... `,/'(*)
-----------------------------------------------. ...(*)
Quote #146 : I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -- Will Rogers
Israel Alvarez
<tl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
> what about saving a film from a saved game position? - then the player
> does the movements (and of course, gets nowhere because his surroundings
> don't correspond to his movements), but still gets wiped out by monsters
> who act like they shuold and come after him. what does this mean?
> since the aliens come after the player, and not where the player "should
> be" (at the saved game position), the alien movements are not recorded
> in an obvious fashion, and may be "supplanted" with computer generated
> ones - ? I say that since if they were recorded, either the nasties
> would (a) go after where I went during the actual game and attack some
> phantom player (b) move in a similar way (getting blocked by walls it
> didn't expect there) and therefore get stuck someplace, attacking a
> phantom player.
>
> whatever...
After messing around with an edited level (the network level) I let
Marathon go into it's "auto replay" mode. The film was originally recorded
on an unedited level. The film basically played back all the actions that
the film players made, but on the edited level. Obviously, this made a lot
of the actions go way out of sync. Even so, players only took damage when
they were actually hit, with no relationship to the damage they took in
the original game. The aliens, however, were not confused at all by the
new layout. They zeroed in on the film players and killed them if they
could.
--
On the net, noone can hear you scream.
Caleb Corey
as I can tell, it's simply a series of instructions for the game to use
as if they were being input from the keyboard and/or mouse. I'm pretty
certain that the actions of monsters are solely based on the actions of
the player. (I could be wrong, it's happened before :) )
The best evidence I have of this was a BinHex'd Marathon movie file I
was mailed. When converting it to a binary, I was informed that it had
a small error, which may or may not have been important.
When I downloaded and played the movie (which started on the first of
the demo levels), the player promptly looked at the roof and started to
riddle the roof like there was no tomorrow. He kep this up until a bug
came up and put him out of his misery.
-Caleb
--
Caleb Corey [ky...@netcom.com] Furry/Rocker/KeyboardJock/Elder@EotL]
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
-- Jonathon Swift
103t_e...@west.cscwc.pima.edu
[snipt]
> are so small in comparison to, say, Chuck Yeager's flight simulator,
> which uses QuickTime.
>
The file MAY be a QUickTIme movie where the only info in the tracks is what you
mentioned before.
Has anyone tried running the demo without QuickTIme installed to see if movies
still work?
Lawson
Tim Seufert
103t_e...@west.cscwc.pima.edu wrote:
> The file MAY be a QUickTIme movie where the only info in the tracks is
what you
> mentioned before.
The Marathon film format is not any form of QuickTime. Opening one with
ResEdit reveals that it has no resource fork, and as far as I know, all
QuickTime movies do.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| *UselessWastedSpace*(tm) Tim Seufert, bwa...@cats.ucsc.edu |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Do the environment a favor. Use goat-flavored floppy disks. |
| Think about it, won't you? Thank you. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Peter V. Gadjokov
(Tim Seufert) wrote:
> The Marathon film format is not any form of QuickTime. Opening one with
> ResEdit reveals that it has no resource fork, and as far as I know, all
> QuickTime movies do.
I don't think the Marathon film format is in any way related to quicktime
(the films are tiny, quicktime doesnt have to be loaded to record a film).
QuickTime movies do not need a resource fork, though. They can exist
perfectly well as single fork files, in which the movie resource atom is
moved to the data fork for cross-platform compatability.
Ref: _Inside Mac: Quicktime_, _develop_ issue 17
Salutations,
PeterVG
p...@csua.berkeley.edu
http://wwwifa.phys.unm.edu/~pvg
Charlie Reiman
>In article <jared.bingham-0512941925570001@mac64_55.med.utah.edu>,
>jared....@m.cc.utah.edu (Jared Bingham) wrote:
>> I've often wanted to watch a cool scene in a network film from a point of
>> view other than that of any of the available players. While playing back a
>> film, one should be able to move around using the normal movement
>> controls, as an invisible, nonentity "observer." That way you could watch
>> you and your opponent kill each other from an exterior view, and see the
>> gut piles fly across the room from any angle you wanted.
>I don't think M allows for this, it records the scene from each player's
>perspective.
>Has anybody done any research on the savefilms yet? It can't be saving
>every frame.
Actually, it only records one 'movie' (it's not really a movie, its's
more of a compressed game record). When you play back, you can switch
from one player's view to another by pressing 'delete'. You can also
speed up and slow down a movie with '[' and ']'. players see the movie
as seen by the
--
"You can't cancel the project! We already made the T-shirts!"
Charlie Reiman
cre...@netcom.com
Justin Sherrill
>
>After messing around with an edited level (the network level) I let
>Marathon go into it's "auto replay" mode. The film was originally recorded
>on an unedited level. The film basically played back all the actions that
>the film players made, but on the edited level. Obviously, this made a lot
>of the actions go way out of sync. Even so, players only took damage when
>they were actually hit, with no relationship to the damage they took in
>the original game. The aliens, however, were not confused at all by the
>new layout. They zeroed in on the film players and killed them if they
>could.
Does this mean that the saved movies are just a recorded series of keypresses?
This may mean that it would be possible to hack to gether a autopilot that
would run your character around the place by inputting keypresses while the
game was going, yes? no?
Justin C. Sherrill jcs...@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Rochester Institute of Technology jcs...@ultb.isc.rit.edu
My Captain Beefheart page is down, but will rise again!
Aaron Countryman
game. I'm sure the Bob's have had enough of dying in the demo and are
going to strike back!
Also some female colonists would be cool. How realistic is it to
have a bunch of guys off in space trying to colonise without the ability
to have families?
How about force fields in the networking levels? It would be
cool to send one guy on your team to "the control room" and have him
totally trap the other team's members.
While I'm dreaming how about a duck move? I get sick of watching
a missle come screaming down the hallway straight at my face. It would
be cool to be able to drop to one knee and SPANK the other guy in the
kneecaps while his missle goes by overhead!
As scenery how about showing an alien ship docked with the
station when you look outside! That would be really cool! What do the
rest of ya think?
Aaron Countryman aco...@u.washington.edu
Michael Trent
: In article <jrr7-08129...@j302603012.resnet.cornell.edu>,
Theoretically, this is the same basic concept behind net-play; asside from
the transmission details and exception handling.
--
Mike Trent | Groovy Free Mac Software List | Beloit College
tre...@stu.beloit.edu | http://stu.beloit.edu/~trentmd/ | Beloit Wisconsin
Jon Wagner
> 1) The files are quite small. Usually 32K (the minimum on my drive)
> and never in my case more than 64K.
>
Why would you not partition your apparently large hard drive? Minimum
should be a lot smaller then.
--
Jon
Cpt. Kangarooski
p...@csua.berkeley.edu (Peter V. Gadjokov) wrote:
> In article <bwanga-1012...@tsb-45.ucsc.edu>, bwa...@cats.ucsc.edu
> (Tim Seufert) wrote:
>
> > The Marathon film format is not any form of QuickTime. Opening one with
> > ResEdit reveals that it has no resource fork, and as far as I know, all
> > QuickTime movies do.
>
> I don't think the Marathon film format is in any way related to quicktime
> (the films are tiny, quicktime doesnt have to be loaded to record a film).
> QuickTime movies do not need a resource fork, though. They can exist
> perfectly well as single fork files, in which the movie resource atom is
> moved to the data fork for cross-platform compatability.
>
> Ref: _Inside Mac: Quicktime_, _develop_ issue 17
if i were bungie and i wanted a film that was small, portable and accurate
to the same level as the regular game is id make the film a MIDI-style
recording.
The guy moved left two units, then forward 500 units. then he got his ass
beat by purple compilers, and hundreds of blue and purple bugs.
perhaps this is a simpler solution
-cpt kangarooski
st94...@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
<*>
Jonathan Rynd
jared....@m.cc.utah.edu (Jared Bingham) wrote:
> I've often wanted to watch a cool scene in a network film from a point of
> view other than that of any of the available players. While playing back a
> film, one should be able to move around using the normal movement
> controls, as an invisible, nonentity "observer." That way you could watch
> you and your opponent kill each other from an exterior view, and see the
> gut piles fly across the room from any angle you wanted.
I don't think M allows for this, it records the scene from each player's
perspective.
Charles Ozinga
convert a Marathon "recording" into a QT movie? The program would
probably have to incorporate elements of the game engine, since the
marathon film format doesn't have the specs for gravity, maps, etc. Just
a though...
--
Charles Ozinga @ Colorado School of Mines --
"It's not that your computer's slow:
It's just that your mind is so fast!"
Gerry Beggs
> : basically records the instructions to reply a game exactly the same as the
> : one you played.
>
> Theoretically, this is the same basic concept behind net-play; asside from
> the transmission details and exception handling.
Any idea why Marathon needs such a fast connection speed if this is all it
sends (besides the Microphone voices)?
The saved game files are usually <10K which should take about 5-6 seconds
at 14400 bps. but the films last a few minutes, so 14400 should be plenty
fast enough to handle it. but I heard Marathon likes at least a 3K/second
connection.
If what I heard was wrong and it doesn't need a 3k/second connection would
it be possible to make a patch so that Marathon would be able to be played
Modem to Modem? (without using the Microphone of course).
--
While on a conference a few weeks back, I spent an interesting evening with a grain of salt.
-Mark V. Shaney
umb...@cc.umanitoba.ca
FireWoman
serving computer while the game is going so that you could watch the game
from every players view. You wouldn't be able to play on the serving
computer but it would be cool to watch. And then you could save that as
a film. Whoa!
FireWoman
Woman of the Underworld.
David J. Mark
I think the films only hold information about what is done during the game.
I remember a friend and I were playing with the gamma when we could use the
cheat codes during play. When we played the movie back, nothing added to the
characters inventory. That ment, when WE had the rocket launcher and were
blowing the shit out of aliens, the playback movie was punching the alien.
That means that all the movie gets is key commands. In the case above, I
pressed the change weapone key when I wanted the rocket launcher. Since the
movie didn't have a rocket launcher in its inventory, it just went to the
fist.
I also noticed there were times where the character would be walking into a
wall when he should have been walking down a hall. That would mean it wasn't
in the right place when it turned the corner.
DJM:>
Michael M Eilers
here's one that i haven't seen mentioned yet (though i don't spend EVERY
minute watching these threads): transparent, smaller gauges for
shields, oxygen, and proximity detector to be used during full-screen.
the line-skipping algorythm is allready coded into the program--just make
"bars" and a small radar dial that hang in the top left and right corners
of the screen. Whenever I play network games at the local computer store
my friend (who works there) insists on playng full screen on the
8100--and I kick his ass every time, because i can sneak up behind him
with total impunity (the rocket launcher seems to be effective in these
situations.)
and while I'm fantasizising, how about a transparent "sight" for the
rocket launcher & assault rifle...
what was that about dumping marathon films to MPEG?? Quicktime is a
vastly superior format... try cuing sound on an MPEG and you'll get the
idea...
michael
Marathin Insider's Joke #1: "Why is my damn caps lock key always down
after my little brother does his homework on my mac??"
lost-in-cyberspace
(FireWoman) wrote:
I second that as something that would be way cool for Mara2.0...
<sigh>
that would be *sooo* cool.
and then dump it to an mpeg or something.