Snapmap Has Issues

[jamaijamai]

I have been plugging away at a map for the last couple of days once I completed my first map.

I am amazed at the apparent limitations of Snapmap. I still can't be sure I am not missing something as I have seen little in the way of criticism anywhere but this may be down to the fact that many people are just trying to make straightforward classic doomstyle singleplayer maps. Here are a few things that have bugged me so far off the top of my head:

- An on-changed variable trigger, it seems all triggers must be tied to a limited pool of events such as 'on module entered', 'on area entered' or 'on spawned'. This is highly problematic to easily make many things I want to. I have had to simplify my map heavily because of this. Just being able to send a flag out that would trigger chains of logic to flow would be amazing.

- Some of the spawners don't seem to work when imbedded in code. I really don't know why this is.

- Pickup weapons do not have a 'don't show/spawn at start' property - why?

- Lighting is limited. Sure you can cover up the lights but that only does a bit to limit light (and it looks terrible). Many of the light sources still remain, at least on modules I have attempted this on.

- A true debug mode would be excellent. Error trapping is a pain in the ass. Yes you can display the value of variables on screen and send out messages to indicate a bit of logic has passed - but I wish I could just go through the logic or visually see where things went wrong.

All in all - ah... I hope at least a few of these things are fixed. As it stands with each passing day I am more and more irritated by the limitations of snapmap.

[MrSkeltal]

There's also the crates that are part of prefab rooms being climbable, yet the ones in the props menu aren't and this obviously makes things confusing when you start placing them in rooms.

[Obzen]

jamaijamai said:

- An on-changed variable trigger, it seems all triggers must be tied to a limited pool of events such as 'on module entered', 'on area entered' or 'on spawned'. This is highly problematic to easily make many things I want to. I have had to simplify my map heavily because of this. Just being able to send a flag out that would trigger chains of logic to flow would be amazing.

While a triggered output may only be set to certain things, you can tie those triggers to a Boolean value and have that value output on change. Wouldn't this effectively give you an "on change" trigger?

jamaijamai said:

- Some of the spawners don't seem to work when imbedded in code. I really don't know why this is.

I'd need some specifics here because any scripting I have tied to spawners works exactly as I intend it to.

jamaijamai said:

- Pickup weapons do not have a 'don't show/spawn at start' property - why?

You can have a weapon both destroyed and spawn on any given input. While it's slightly inconvenient, you can still tell it to be destroyed on player spawn, then have it spawn based on any trigger you want.

[Obzen]

MrSkeltal said:

There's also the crates that are part of prefab rooms being climbable, yet the ones in the props menu aren't and this obviously makes things confusing when you start placing them in rooms.

You can put an invisible player blocking volume on top of the box to make it climb-able. This is actually better because sometimes you want boxes to be an obstacle and having them all be climb-able would be a headache.

I'm almost certain this is how they do it in single player, actually. This method allows any object they want climb-able.

[jamaijamai]

Obzen said:

While a triggered output may only be set to certain things, you can tie those triggers to a Boolean value and have that value output on change. Wouldn't this effectively give you an "on change" trigger?

No I do not believe you can have a boolean change as a trigger, as that was exactly what I had tried.

To do it, I think you have to keep it all connected to the original trigger (such as on module entered). If you found a way to have a boolean value on-change as an independent trigger - you succeeded where I failed because I could not get it to work. It simply would not pick up the change unless it was connected - which I did not want as it greatly complicated things.

[Obzen]

jamaijamai said:

No I do not believe you can have a boolean change as a trigger, as that was exactly what I had tried.

To do it, I think you have to keep it all connected to the original trigger (such as on module entered). If you found a way to have a boolean value on-change as an independent trigger - you succeeded where I failed because I could not get it to work. It simply would not pick up the change unless it was connected - which I did not want as it greatly complicated things.

Why exactly would you want a variable as a parent trigger in the first place? To randomize a value or timing of something? Just set the parent trigger as on player spawn or something. What are you trying to do that scripting is limiting?

[jamaijamai]

Obzen said:

Why exactly would you want a variable as a parent trigger in the first place? To randomize a value or timing of something? Just set the parent trigger as on player spawn or something. What are you trying to do that scripting is limiting?

I wanted to use the same relay for many different modules. I would imagine the difference to look like this:

Enter Room
Run RNG
Use Number for X

vs.

Enter Room
Trap room number into a variable (on module enter, set variable to a fixed number)
Run RNG
Go through each possible number and upon finding a match send it to the appropriate room (does variable from before = 1? If so go here, if not - does it = 2? If so go here etc. etc.)
Use Number for X

Given the large number of rooms I didn't want to do this.. and more than anything I was irritated that I even had to do those extra things.

[Obzen]

jamaijamai said:

I wanted to use the same relay for many different modules. I would imagine the difference to look like this:

Enter Room
Run RNG
Use Number for X

On Door Open > Random Integer > Reference specified integer in object's options menu (x on pc)

This does not work?

I'm on my work comp right now, but wouldn't Integers act like a Boolean or a Container where they need to actually be referenced outside of the scripting tree? Let's say it is outputting to a hud element, you would actually have to go into the HUD options menu to reference the integer in a drop-down menu, right?

[MrSkeltal]

Obzen said:

You can put an invisible player blocking volume on top of the box to make it climb-able. This is actually better because sometimes you want boxes to be an obstacle and having them all be climb-able would be a headache.

I'm almost certain this is how they do it in single player, actually. This method allows any object they want climb-able.

I considered doing this but dealing with trigger sizes and such is a pain in the ass with Snapmap's UI. I really wish that for boxes/crates they would've added a simple on/off climbable toggle in the object properties.

[Obzen]

MrSkeltal said:

I considered doing this but dealing with trigger sizes and such is a pain in the ass with Snapmap's UI. I really wish that for boxes/crates they would've added a simple on/off climbable toggle in the object properties.

Are you using SnapMap on PC? you can change the values quickly by pressing the x key to type them in manually. Just memorize the 3 values and it's a breeze.

[jamaijamai]

Well none of it matters anyhow - I hit the network limitations before I could finish the map. Sad too because I had it all ready to go and it all worked perfectly.

It is a bit upsetting as the map would have made it under the object/memory restrictions.

I did discover that all the network limitations seem to be tied to is the amount of code in the map - regardless of how much is actually used moment to moment. You could break it up in any way you wanted - 1/10 used at any given time... 1/100 - doesn't matter. In other words - the map could still run fine, but because of the simple way they check it - you won't be able to complete your map.

Oh well - Snapmap was fun and I sorta finished what I wanted to do I guess? I really wanted to show it off though. It would have been cool if they let you go above 100% and make the map offline only. That way it can be a complete laggy disaster - or not - and you would still have your map.

[mikeo007]

If you've hit the ceiling on code allowed, then there's undoubtedly some optimization you can do. Welcome to the life of a programmer.

[jamaijamai]

mikeo007 said:

If you've hit the ceiling on code allowed, then there's undoubtedly some optimization you can do. Welcome to the life of a programmer.

A life I have lived I assure you :)

No - it just simply is not a map meant to exist with snapmap. You could certainly make one like it but it would be really plain, bland and boring - an equal waste of time. I wasn't too bummed out about it because it was already going to be my last (2nd map) - Snapmap just isn't doing it for me and I will wait for some potential optimizations/patches before I consider revisiting it.

[Obzen]

jamaijamai said:

A life I have lived I assure you :)

No - it just simply is not a map meant to exist with snapmap. You could certainly make one like it but it would be really plain, bland and boring - an equal waste of time. I wasn't too bummed out about it because it was already going to be my last (2nd map) - Snapmap just isn't doing it for me and I will wait for some potential optimizations/patches before I consider revisiting it.

I don't mean to be rude, but you come here, complain about limitations and things not working within SnapMap without giving any examples or screencaps and without explicitly saying what you are trying to accomplish, then quit because you've somehow managed to hit network limitations despite not even figuring out how to hide a weapon on spawn or troubleshooting why your spawners aren't working and I'm supposed to believe you are a programmer?

[Reisal]

What fun is Snapmap if there is the bullshit loadout, level size limitations and other problems reported?

[jamaijamai]

Obzen said:

I don't mean to be rude, but you come here, complain about limitations and things not working within SnapMap without giving any examples or screencaps and without explicitly saying what you are trying to accomplish, then quit because you've somehow managed to hit network limitations despite not even figuring out how to hide a weapon on spawn or troubleshooting why your spawners aren't working and I'm supposed to believe you are a programmer?

Yeah I'd say you are being pretty rude.

No one asked - I never told. I would assume most people would not be interested in what I am doing, and if they are they would ask. It was a binding of isaac/roguelike game based on the movie 'The Cube'. I actually made everything, I just could not copy+paste enough modules to complete it meaningfully. I was far enough away that I didn't think it would be worth the effort (or even possible) to reduce. I could make 6 modules before hitting network. I wanted at least 12 but was hoping for 16.

And yes if you want to see it I can definitely publish it and send you the info.

As far as being a programmer goes - I was an actual paid programmer with a real job - albeit for less than 6 months. Still - I worked 60+ hour weeks, had to please the clients (and they were pretty ruthless in their expectations) and do almost all of it alone. I never finished computer science in school and was 90% self-taught - still I was told by multiple people that I was better than many graduates. Not that I felt I had to defend myself - that was 10 years ago, I have 3 kids now and the dream is dead - but sometimes I do go back to my old passion.

[jamaijamai]

name:

TestCube (incomplete)

id:

VRNYTWP5