Z Clipping Almost Perfect

[Quasar]

After a bunch of work, and many not-really-painful hours of watching hoards of Aliens TC facehuggers step on each other and get stuck in midair, SoM believes we've worked out most of the bugs in the new object z clipping code. I also verified that it doesn't slow the game down much at all (we were a tiny bit worried because it increases the number of clipping checks quite a bit) ;)

So, once I'm done fooling around with odds and ends, we're gonna get Eternity v3.31 beta 2 out. This could be the last release for this year, because after next week, my school finals will be rapidly approaching, and after that, I have to start looking for a job. Yay. Just what I've been looking forward to for my entire life!

Anyways, given the recent (lack of) life in the forum, I've figured interest in Eternity to be at an all-time low :P Hopefully a new release will reawaken the community a bit. Stay tuned.

[DOOM Anomaly]

:D Sounds like a plan.

[mmnpsrsoskl]

Interest hasn't slowed down...it just means there are no bugs to report :D

So this release will have Small implemented?

[Quasar]

Yes, it'll have some Small functionality ready for use, but not 100% of it.

I just realized the other day that beta 2 cannot launch without more Small functionality, but to get it working at the level necessary, I must have the ExtraData framework in place as well. So I've been rushing the past few days to implement a buffered file format I wrote for a class at school into Eternity to serve as the internal ExtraData format. Its extensible and efficient, but its not editable by hand. However, due to the nature of ExtraData and the fact that it would be painfully arduous to edit possibly hundreds of ExtraData records by hand, I think this is a non-issue. Beta 2 will be released with a text utility for editing ExtraData. Hopefully, *SoM*eone will code a graphical editor for it soon :D

Once the prerequisite ExtraData features are in place, which should be very soon, I will implement at least enough new Small functionality to get the start map working like it used to under FS. Then I can release beta 2. The delay is ok anyways because SoM and I are still tracking down bugs both in 3D z clipping and in the rest of the engine. Seems Eternity has some issues with finding the next highest floor for a sector....