Dirty Lens effect removed

[Shade667]

Itd be a very inconsistent speed game if it didnt.

[Holy Sock]

I think one has to side with the speedrunner in this instant. Despite how much I know it pains you all.

[Nepsotic]

The game's consistency is better than the original, but it's still not great. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head right now but I'll be sure to play through it again and let you know.

[Varrok]

Itd be a very inconsistent speed game if it didnt.

It is. I got a situation where I qui(c)ksaved the game while being chased the slogs from behind the fast-moving meat grinder. Each time I reloaded the outcome was different, one time a slog got past it and kill me, and other time didn't. Another time two got past it.

We're talking about a situation where slogs are already running, and I do nothing. It's so random.

Don't let me start about the mines. DON'T.

[Shade667]

If u start the level and do the exact same thing itll be the same. quisaving of course messes with that. Since A.I. isnt alwys the same. Ive also had outcomes that kept changing after quikloading. But from the loading screen going on, everything you do will be consistent with the exception of some A.I. patterns.
Since movement was the primary thing we were discussing. Ill agree 100% that A.I. in this game is so inconsistent its infuriating. Youll jump past a slig, hell shoot, miss, and then instantly turn and shoot u. But quikload and hell turn and go "Wat?".

Movement, with very few exceptions is consistent.

[Varrok]

There were no exceptions in the original. It always worked the same.

Also, the chance Slig hits something standing/running in his direction while shooting was 100% in the original. In NnT I'd say it's around 60%, often misses the first shot for no reason.

[Phylum]

There's definitely an intentional probability element introduced. Sometimes on quickloading I've found that AI characters can end up in slightly different positions, or just generally freak out if they're in mid-air.

[Holy Sock]

There were no exceptions in the original. It always worked the same.

Also, the chance Slig hits something standing/running in his direction while shooting was 100% in the original. In NnT I'd say it's around 60%, often misses the first shot for no reason.

Aye, but I doubt that's got much to do with the lack of a grid system - which was your original point. As Shade said it's probably AI's reaction to QuikSave. And I guess the original didn't have QuikSave....

[Shade667]

No, the original didnt have quiksaves.

@Phylum the mid-air freaking out probably has something to do with the lagg caused by quiksaving and quikloading.

[Phylum]

I think it's more likely that the AI states seem to get reset - I've seen slogs jump in midair (and kill me through the bottom of a platform) after a quickload which suggests that it defaulted to thinking that it was on the ground.

Wil pls confirm.

[Fincer]

It's nice to see a thread about this topic here.

Here's the tutorial part for those who don't want look for it on Youtube video descriptions.

-------------------------------------------

You need a hex editor to disable Lens Dirtiness plugin.

1) Open your folder NNT_Data folder. There is a file named as mainData
2) Create a backup of your original mainData file.
3) Open mainData with your hex editor

4) Find the following string:

Hidden/LensDirtiness

Hex form of this string is

48 69 64 64 65 6E 2F 4C 65 6E 73 44 69 72 74 69 6E 65 73 73

5) Fill that string with zeros so that it reads

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

6) Save the changes
7) Enjoy, Lens Dirtiness is disabled!

-------------------------------------------

Regards,
Fincer

[Xavier]

Hi Fincer,

Thanks for dropping by and share with us the text version of the tutorial.

Much appreciated.

[Fincer]

No probs. Xavier

I've still struggled with the following bloom effects:



You can see horizontally stretched bloom, and badly overexposured textures.

If someone figured out how to disable them, I'd appreciate it a lot.

I've already examined mainData file about 9 hours just for that: extracted all human-readable strings from the file and disabled many of them one by one from usage - and got nothing else but white sky texture and dead still laser scanners without alarm functionality. I've also read Unity manuals, and therefore I suspect the overexposured textures are possibly caused by some specular shaders but I'm not sure, anyway.

To be honest, I just don't get it. Are those bloom effects some deeply builtin-unity shaders/assets or what? Are there Unity engine experts around to help with this issue? Any help is appreciated.

Maybe finding out what level file is used for this Stockyard scene could also help a little.

[Varrok]

The textures are really lowq in the screenshot. Is that yours?

[Fincer]

Maybe it's just the reduced screenshot size which makes them look bad?

Anyway, quality of the textures is not the issue. They may be presented in low or high quality but that's another matter, I think. The bloom effect and getting rid of it is the hot potato.

[DrewCameron]

AMAZING the improvement removing this and silencing the slaves has made to the game overall. It's gone a long way towards improving the atmosphere; which benefited from a certain stillness and quietness. Less is more.

I'd love to see what other improvements might be possible with mods.

The animation of Abe and, indeed, all characters, is frankly terrible. Since so much currency is put in the characters movement in a 2D platformer, I find it inexcusable.

When Abe walks - even in Old School mode, his animation plainly does not sync with movement. Watch his feet. They slips and slide.

When Abe catches a ledge, and pulls himself up, his hands go through the ledge. Similar issue.

The character animation is really the elephant in the room overall now that the mudokon voices & pish on the screen have been removed. If that could be improved and the sound mixing could be made not catastrophically bad and faulty then this is basically the complete remake for me. Snap to grid OR weighted, solid character animations at all times. Either are fine. Right now its not acceptable. I would not accept the animations if I paid an animator to do them. Technically I think its more to do with the engine and the speed the Abe object is moved in relation to the "walk cycle" and so on, but either way it doesn't work right now.

THANK YOU for doing this.

[DrewCameron]

I'm far from the only person who has whined about the character animations like a nerd, but what I find puzzling is how people seem to put it far down their list of complaints. In my mind its an absolutely critical flaw.

If Abe felt GLUED to the floor and felt like he had real WEIGHT like he did in the old games (which did this really well with solid animation and the grid) then this would be an infinitely more pleasant gaming experience. Its not just aesthetic.

/Rant. Mod this and you are a GOD.

[Holy Sock]

Some of that stuff you mentioned isn't animation. The animation complaints are to do with certain animations being sped up. Abe's interaction with his environment is a separate issue.

Also, there are gonna be players who find the gameplay, characters, and environments engaging. Therefore such flaws are going to be trivial.

[DrewCameron]

Without splitting hairs, I would venture it all comes under the overall bracket of "animation" - the illusion of movement and realistic movement.

There are a variety of problems, drilling down from that, that gives an overall poor experience. The hands and the feet slipping around probably stem from the programmers work and integration of the cycles but never the less they are ultimately animation problems to the end user, who need not know WHY the problems exist.

Fix those, fix ALL of the sound, I think this game then has lived up to any and all hype.

In *my* mind. Your mileage my vary.

Still love you though JAW. Criticism is good though. Criticism is growth.

[Holy Sock]

I do think they're two very separate things. If one is complaining about specific aspects of game design it's probably best to make such distinctions. It's probably just better for discussion and feedback. In my experience, in video games, animations strictly refer to the animation cycles of certain models. I mean, it's not the same as all aspects of an animated film being referred to as the animation.

[Shade667]

For me, as long as it doesnt affect gameplay its not a problem. But i can understand if some people may be put off.

I dont have any quarrels with the animation personally.

[Manco]

At this point in time I doubt they can just send this out as a patch and everything’s peachy. However I do agree with you that the animations and the sound make up a pretty big part of the game experience, and I definitely think they need to revisit this in the AE remake.

Some of what you mentioned probably can’t be fixed everywhere (e.g. Abe’s hands clipping ledges is just a symptom of 3D games).

I don’t think that this is as big a deal breaker as you make it out to be (I certainly still enjoyed the game and the animations didn’t constantly stick in my mind) but it is definitely an area which needs improvement as it’s been pointed out by a lot of people.

As for sound mixing, I hope they can make a patch because in this case it really does noticeably distract from the game – not being able to hear any Gamespeak over the background music or the environment sound effects is ridiculous.


Anyway, ideas for modders to steal: replace Slog, Paramite and Scrab sounds with the original AO sounds, make Scrabs run faster.

[DrewCameron]

I'll have to just disagee one last time here.

The hands going through the ledge could absolutely, definitely and decisively be fixed because it's a 2D game world, with known, constant ledge heights and, at least on PC, walk speeds with a keyboard.

If they fixed the problem in the case of one ledge, it would be fixed across all ledges.

With the hands, it's not so much 'clipping', in the sense that clipping occurs (badly) every time you try to push against a wall. With the hoist animation - every single time - they go right through the platform, which is because their position is incorrectly maintained through the animation. This is akin to Abe being positioned so that his ankles touch the floor. It could have been avoided, 3D or not. This specific issue (one of many) is blatantly obvious in Rupture Farms when the camera is below Abe and when you add up 100 problems like this across the spectrum of animation, you get something decidedly second rate.

Since animation is what gives you feedback on what you're doing, animation IS gameplay. I promise that the gameplay would feel tighter if the animation did. You would feel that you have precise control over the character as you did in 2D.

If the gameplay feels passable now, it would have felt sublime with a razor sharp animation system.

And nobody can defend Abes feet not keeping contact with the ground. Its not defendable.

It is not my job - or any *customers* job as an end user to make the distinction of what is causing the problem - JAW need only be aware that the final animation experience is lacking.

Your mileage may vary as I said. That's fine. The issues persist.



I will never raise this complaint again but hope that it is remedied in Exoddus.


All other things about the game, sans sound, have exceeded my expectations. Thank you JAW. The reason I want this fixed is because the finish line for perfection was so close with this game to me.

[Shade667]

They had an external group do the sound mixing post launch I believe and its apparently better now than it was on launch.

[Holy Sock]

I've been walking back and forth as Abe and I can only sort of see some minimal slide if I really pay attention - I think. You made it out to be quite noticeable. Could you point it out in a video or something?

[DrewCameron]

You noticed it, its there? I guess at the very beginning of RF level 1 you can clearly see it when you walk forward. Slidy feet because the Bezier like movement of his position in 3D space (think: accelerating to walking speed once you start walking) doesn't sync with the animation playing.

The hands through platforms stand out best in the secret areas in Rupture Farms.


Heres another one. It only appears sometimes, though.

Sometimes, when you hoist up, at the very end of the hoist animation, Abe suddenly jumps down a few "pixels" because the final frame of his hoist animation isn't at the same vertical height as his standing animation.

I could go on, you get the idea. The issue is prevalent throughout the game.

[DrewCameron]

The absolute worst example, of course, being the way the "entering door" animations absolutely in no way matches Abes 3D position. This isn't just about him being sped up - Abe "slides" out in the Z plain and rotates without actually turning his body.

They've sped it up because it looks awful in any case and probably they hope to get it past people at increased speed. If you watched this happening in slow motion it would be ludicriously non-realistic. That's something I might make a video of.

[Holy Sock]

I mean I tried playing the opening again but my fps is whack - so maybe that affects things - but I couldn't really notice it there either. I mean maybe it's slightly off but it would be rather insignificant anyway. I tried hoisting up a bunch of times but I didn't see any issues. Hoisting down it looks like Abe moves through the ledge a bit but I never noticed it before trying it out for this thread.

I'm not saying it's not there but these issues aren't at all as stark as the sped up animations. Which is going to be why most players aren't going to notice them - or will ignore them once they become engaged with the game.

[DrewCameron]

That's all fair, I can't argue with your experience here. You've said that you've noticed the problems at a push and it therefore stands that others might notice them more and others might not notice at all.

To my mind, this, combined with the missing animations and the speeds kind of creates this overall defiency which I think almost anyone would agree with.

Thanks for your sober replies and no flaming even though there is some discrepancy here - I'm actually glad you don't take the issue I do with them, maybe I am over-reacting and hopefully most players will not be like me. The game deserves to do well and it IS a good game, no doubt.

Well done again JAW, I'm fucking ecstatic about everything else bar sound. It's amazing what you guys put together and a real treat to live the story in a new dimension.

[Shade667]

The absolute worst example, of course, being the way the "entering door" animations absolutely in no way matches Abes 3D position. This isn't just about him being sped up - Abe "slides" out in the Z plain and rotates without actually turning his body.

They've sped it up because it looks awful in any case and probably they hope to get it past people at increased speed. If you watched this happening in slow motion it would be ludicriously non-realistic. That's something I might make a video of.

I agree. It looks hella goofy when he runs through a wall in the temples cuz the doors slanted and hes running straight.