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Better Albia 1.4 Released   
GimmeCat

GimmeCat
United Kingdom  


  4/8/2018  3

Better Albia 1.4 ReleasedGood news for Creatures 2 fans: The newest update to the Better Albia set of room fixes is live!

New to version 1.4 are over 20 edits of problematic rooms, aimed at smoothing out steep floors, further widening narrow elevator shafts and sanitizing room neighbours.

This update arrives with many thanks to Yme and Elegnaim, whose valuable feedback inspired another round of in-depth bug-hunting and fixing.

Additionally, BA 1.4 now comes with a brand new 'Extras' COB, containing a series of compatability patches that make BA play nicely with several popular Bridge packs, including JayD's Ocean Bridges v1.1 and Helen and NornGOD's Bridge & Barrier pack (both highly recommended!)

Better Albia requires installation of the Room Editor application. Check out the download page for more information.

 
Yme

Yme



  4/9/2018

Awesome! Can't wait to try it out <3

Just started a new semi-wolfling run (a Wold with fixes, but no other COBs, where the creatures only get a little reminder from time to time, that they need sleep etc), so this is perfect!

When you write it has better compatability with the bridges, does that mean you figured out why removing the blue bridge built a one way wall?

 
Yme

Yme



  4/9/2018

Everything seems to be working well, except the compatyability COB for the canopay bridge, and the frogs still get stuck at the same spot (the baby frogs, before they turn into adult frogs that can become frognorns). Here's the screenshot of where they want to exit the pond, but get blocked when the BA map is used.

http://i65.tinypic.com/15xodtx.png

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/9/2018  2

Grr, those darn frogs! They're never happy! :P

I'll have to go back and examine the original world to see how on earth it's supposed to work there. Won't push a new version number, but if I fix the problem, I'll just stealth-update the file and post a comment here. Thanks again for your testing as well as your patience, Yme.

Edit: Oh, and yes, I figured out the blue bridge problem. When that COB is injected, one of the rooms there loses its neighbour, and removing the bridge doesn't put it back. My fix simply gives it back. Room 129.

 
skerit

skerit


 visit skerit's website: Skerit
  4/9/2018  2

Woohoo! The older games are getting so much love these past few months, the frontpage is almost dominated by them :D

> further sanitizing room neighbours

Seriously, how many rooms were broken to begin with? Are these rooms that are as broken as the one at the bottom of the volcano?

> Additionally, BA 1.4 now comes with a brand new 'Extras' COB, containing a series of compatability patches that make BA play nicely with several popular Bridge packs

Awesome. Is it possible to add the Plato project, or are there just too many changes for that?

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/9/2018  2

Files updated. The frogs should really really really be able to jump out of the pond now. :P And the Canopy COB is fixed too. Nice catch!

@skerit
Many rooms weren't broken, per se, but there were little oddities here and there with regards to how they connected up. For example, most adjacent open-air rooms should have an openness of 255 with each other, but often would not. Now, this wouldn't necessarily cause any problems, but there might be edge cases or flying COBs that read the openness values of rooms as part of their programming/navigation. So while the benefit isn't immediately obvious, it just cuts down on the possibility of strange, untraceable bugs occuring.

I'll have to go look up what the Plato project is!

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/9/2018  2

I've pushed a new version of Extras with a patch for Plato. The update is included in both the main BA download and Extra's own link.

It's vital for anybody using both BA and Plato in their games, because these two don't play nicely together at all without it!

 
Yme

Yme



  4/10/2018

The frogs and Canopay bridge are working great now, but the cliff edge remover doesn't seem to be doing anything. Not in the places my Norns have bin, in the new world at least, which is the top of the tree house. Haven't checked any of the other places yet, though.
 
Yme

Yme



  4/10/2018

Oh... And my Norn just decided to walk from the tree house, using the canopay bridge, and uhm... She just fell through the bridge :P
Not sure if it's the bridge COB itself that isn't working, or if it's the BA fix that is doing it :O

 
NornBreeder
Brewer of Tales

NornBreeder



  4/10/2018

I can't wait to try it.
 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/10/2018  1

The cliff edge remover simply deletes the invisible object placed at cliff edges to scare norns and make them do that weird teetering/wobbling animation. You can use the C1/C2 Tricorder and hover near an edge to see whether the object still exists there or not.

Can you show me exactly where that norn fell through the bridge?

 
Yme

Yme



  4/11/2018

Yeah, they still fixate like that on the cliff edges, and the little arrows that pop up when pressing the edges, as well as that little box that pops up to show what the thing is called, and what the creature thinks the thing is called, is still there.

http://i66.tinypic.com/2cmlyrt.jpg


The Norns fall through the canopay bridge when walking from the treehouse platforms to the lift by the telescope and small garden thing with the frog pond

http://i64.tinypic.com/103dico.png


There seems to still be a problem in the volcano as well.
If the Norns pass the green line i drew here, they have problems navigating back, as if there was a world wraparound bug there. As soon as they pass that point, they will just continue walking right if they want to get to the lift or button.

http://i63.tinypic.com/ixa6o0.png

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/11/2018  1

Ah I see what I did wrong with the cliff edges. It was only removing a single type of cliff edge. I'll change that to 2 10 0 to capture all types.

Can you download this updated version and see if the canopy behaves better now? The fix was more complicated than I initially thought.

The code for it went from this:



to this:



:P I tried to break it in various ways and it looks like it's working well, but ymmv.

This is the reason it was so hard to fix. The original canopy bridge is created in a very cack-handed way. The floor running along the top of the room is the main reason issues occur.
To fix it, a new room had to be created, old ones resized, and all neighbour links updated. Also, the floor was removed from that room and given to the room above it, instead.

I could not spot any issues related to the volcano. That might just be the usual Norn derpiness?

 
Yme

Yme



  4/12/2018

I believe Helen made the bridge pack, and I think she was around my age... Which means she was about... err... 12-14 when she built those COBs? That might have something to do with why some of the stuff is a bit crack handed :D

The bridge works great now! I'll have a look at the other COBs, and fiddle around in the volcano a bit. It does seem like the Norns get the coordination confusion down there, but I'll test it some more, to make sure.

Allso, you have a COB that is supposed to make BA compatible with the "walk from horn to desert island" COB.
It seems your compatibility fix actually does that without needing the original COB :P I'll look at it a bit more, just to be sure :)

 
ElasticMuffin

ElasticMuffin


 visit ElasticMuffin's website: The Creature Repository
  4/12/2018  2

Wow, as a C2 die-hard back in the day this makes me really happy to see that someone's finally properly fixing it up in the year 2018. Fantastic work here.

ETA: May want to fix your Albian Updates 1.1 link in the extras.txt to point to the download here: http://www.creaturescaves.com/downloads.php?section=COBs&view=210


The Creature Repository / Eem Labs
My Creatures download archive (Bibbleworld, C12DS, and more)

 
C-Rex
Lollipop Lord

C-Rex


 visit C-Rex's website: The Norn Nebula
  4/12/2018  1

Nice to see you, ElasticMuffin!
 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/12/2018

@Yme: The original places a sprite over the area so that it looks like norns walk through a hole in the mountain; my patch places the floors etc, but doesn't place the sprite.

@ElasticMuffin: Thanks! How did I even manage to mess up that link, lol? I've known for a long time that SeeYou7 is down, yet somehow I linked to it... maybe I copied the wrong thing when I was viewing the site on Wayback. Will be fixed for 1.5. :)

On the subject of 1.5...

I've been thinking lately about how to solve the problem of objects landing/being thrown/dropped at room edges, where they're too close to the edge for norns to pick up anymore. This causes a lot of wallbonking and bad learning in norns trying to retrieve their toy or food object and receiving lots of pain instead.

My initial idea was to place little slopes at the corners of every dead-end, so that objects dropped or bounced into the corner will slide a few pixels back and be retrievable still.

In most instances, this appears to work wonderfully, but there are occasions when an object will be shoved so hard that it goes through this little sloped floor and gets stuck under it, on the edge of the room.

So now I'm wondering, should I go ahead with this idea anyway? So far I've only seen Dodgeballs get stuck, but I've no doubt it could happen to other high-velocity objects as well.


 
Yme

Yme



  4/13/2018

GimmeCat wrote:
@Yme: The original places a sprite over the area so that it looks like norns walk through a hole in the mountain; my patch places the floors etc, but doesn't place the sprite.



Oh, I never knew the COB was supposed to have a sprite to it. In my worlds, they've always just walked through the wall there. Maybe there is more than one COB? I don't know, but I'll make sure to get the one that makes a visual hole there.


The edges of rooms can be a real pain. Both wall bonking a cliff edges do nothing good for the Norns or the game itself, and the creatures arent equipped to learn anything about the two, so I believe the best way to solv this, is to do what C1 did... Just ignore walls and cliffs, and let Norns walk into the wall, unharmed, untill they want to do something else :P
I've seen this a lot, and even with BA and the fountain update, the Norns still smack right into the wall when trying to drink, if they decide they want to stand behind it. It really messes up their brains...

I'd say, make the slopes, and see if it's possible to remove the "slam into wall"-animation. The animation aborts their action. Had it not bin there, they would be able to get their object, even if they still experienced pain from crashing with the edge of the room.

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  4/13/2018

There's no visual difference in the sprite, it just places that chunk of rock on a new layer in front of everything else so that norns and other objects pass beneath it rather than clipping through it weirdly.

I believe wallbonking is a creature script event, which falls outside the scope of BA, but I could perhaps look into it as its own COB!

 


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